Teresa Schmedding of the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago is a national board member for ACES. (Doris Truong/Washington Post)

Even without an outside training budget, you can have staff training and development.

Newspapers are facing challenges in a way that we couldn’t imagine a decade ago. A soft economy, corporate imperatives to maintain profits and boost shareholder value, declining circulation, layoffs and restructuring of news staffs, introduction of new products to serve young readers and immigrant communities, technological change including the impact of Blogs and the competition for revenue and reader time from the Internet start-ups, and the need for newsrooms to respond competitively to these challenges.

In spite of these challenges, the new developments and the uncertainties about the collective futures of our newspapers, the role of the copy desk remains grounded in its historical role. Technology has given the copy desk new tasks, new responsibilities and new specialties, such as packaging and page design. As the organization has become complex, the demands of effective leadership and management have become more demanding.

Beyond leading their employees to reach higher goals, managers must lead their companies to reach new heights. Today’s managers cannot be passive, technocrats who simply maintain the goals of the organization; they must be visionaries dedicated to change. Part of that includes change from within. Too often newspapers promote good journalists into management positions and, as such, they tend to focus on the technical aspects of the job rather than coaching, communication and strategic planning. It’s more comfortable for us to rewrite the headline or redesign the page ourselves, but to do so stunts the growth of employees, which in turn, limits the ability of your newspaper to grow and successfully face increasing competition.

Teresa Schmedding is senior news editor at the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago, overseeing the copy desks and working to develop key page 1 packages and projects. She is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism and a member of the ACES Executive Committee.