The newsroom that prays together?

Our company insisted that the newspaper where we are working put in a conference room during their recent newsroom reconstruction. A big problem here is that journalists don’t meet with their editors. There are no story discussions, no planning, no brainstorming about story ideas. The conference room was supposed to help encourage that major change in newsroom culture.

But building a conference room and actually using it are very different. We round that in the three months or so since the last consultant visited the room still had not been carpeted and wallpaper was peeling from one section of wall. I’ve seen the room used as intended only when we call a meeting. Sometimes people go in to watch a little of the big flat-screen TV or to eat lunch. Or to pray. The far corner just beyond the head of the big wooden table is the perfect place to spread out a prayer matt and kneel toward Mecca. We keep interrupting men at prayer.

I had to laugh when our boss, visiting the newsroom briefly, tried to emphasize again to top editors about the need to use the conference room. In his zeal, he told one: "This is a religious place.''