2024 Fellow and Managing Editor Emma Patti Harris, began her MTC Journey in January with the challenge of transforming her fledgling, city-centric startup to a more performance-oriented newsroom serving all of Maryland.

In the fourth update on her participation in the yearlong program, Emma shares how the program has helped her evolve and progress her performance challenge.

“I discovered the crux of my challenge, using DVP. We looked at all the things that we’re grappling with right now. Like everyone else, traffic took a dip this summer and subscription growth slowed. That’s the D, right?

“So we want to lean in. Part of that is expanding audience to the regions, increasing production on audience-first content, and inspiring the newsroom to be more urgent and think more broadly about our coverage.”

“I had a big realization: We need to update our mission statement to reflect our future path.

“Right now it’s ‘Be an indispensable resource that strengthens, unites and inspires our Baltimore community.’

“But until we, as an organization, evolve past that Baltimore-centric mission to a statement that serves all audiences in Maryland, can we truly say that we are being earnest in our expansion efforts? We will always be dedicated to Baltimore, but we need more audience and subscribers to be sustainable.

“Informally, we have already started articulating our mission statement in a different way in presentations, where it’s about ‘being an essential and compelling source of news in Maryland.’

“Having the time, the coaching, and the ability to assess things from a higher, broader viewpoint helped crystallize this for me. Without that balcony time, I don’t think I would have accomplished this forward momentum. This program forced me to make balcony time, making my overall strategy more comprehensive and data-informed.

“Having Danyelle [White] as a coach has been incredibly beneficial; we’re in similar roles in similar organizations facing similar challenges. She has lots of great advice and is a great person to brainstorm — and commiserate — with. It helps not feeling like you’re the only person in the world grappling with these questions.

“One of my biggest takeaways from the program is that you can’t be an effective leader if you’re on the dance floor. There’s so much value in stepping back and seeing things from a high-level strategy perspective. It can make you even more valuable to the organization.

“Before January of last year, I had a hard time with delegation. This year, I have felt more freedom to delegate and empower my team to step up and do things that I normally would have done.

“One of the most valuable takeaways from the MTC program is being connected with all these brilliant, pioneering journalists with amazing ideas, and being inspired by them. That, to me, is priceless.”