Most newsrooms also have reporters suffering from the same problem, but without any visible signs. They turn in deeply reported, well-organized stories on time, but they agonize needlessly. To mix my metaphors, the reporter then drowns in the deckfull. Some papers team the ace digger with a master writer, or with a patient rewriting editor.
Some newsrooms turn the problematic investigator into an editor, which causes worse problems.
Coaching the drowning The helpful editor can deal with these problems by coaching or teaching. A coaching editor helps the disorganized reporter by talking before the reporting briefing or between the reporting and the typing debriefing. Briefing involves brainstorming about the story and its potential before the actual reporting begins, or very early in the gathering stage. Reporters mostly think about sources at that point, but the coaching editor steers the conversation toward the outcome as well as the process. Organized people imagine the final product from the very beginning.