Michael Kruse & Bill Duryea: Lessons from a 16-year reporter-editor partnership

From the early days, [it was] the assiduousness of his reporting — if this is a word, his Hoover-like ability to gather information and his willingness just to keep reporting. What struck me then were the things that have struck me ever since. That doggedness, the willingness to make another call, and another call, and another call.

Michael and I probably both subscribe to the theory that 90 percent of life, and reporting, is just showing up. If you're there, the chances are that something good is going to happen. Nothing particularly good happens by not going, right?  My trust is such in Michael, after all these years, that I just know that … if he goes, he's going to see something that maybe other people won't see. And it's just going to be worth it. Yes, there's trust, but I also think over time we developed a kind of simultaneity of excitement. 

There is often, in stories where you can't quite see what it's going to be, you just have a sense, you have an inkling. But I think even very early on in our relationship, there was a level of agency that I took from Bill. In some ways: If I go over to Cape Canaveral and it's nothing, like, well, “Bill told me to,” right?

There's a green light, [so] go for it. You'll probably find something, right? And that is both empowering, but it also ups the ante. There's a certain amount of pressure. I want to not come back with nothing, right? With that opportunity, with that green light, my drive to find something worthy goes up in some concurrent way. 

I've worked with so many [freelancers] over the years when I was at Politico, and I developed continuing relationships doing stories together. I think that it's safe to say that if there was a continuing relationship, it was because there were things that I was able to do with that writer to create the approximation of the relationship that I had with Michael.

They were open to the constant conversation. They wanted it, needed it. They liked me talking to them about the outline or structure of a piece before they sat down to write. Some writers don't look for it; I kind of insist on it. And the writers that really enjoyed that part of the process were probably writers that I worked with more frequently.

But everything I do with a writer is an approximation of what Michael and I have been doing over many years: iterative conversations, from idea, to framing, to outlining, to editing.

I suppose my counsel to reporters would be: Try to see editors as partners more than bosses. Part of the job of doing the work is to foster those relationships. It feels like a team effort rather than almost adversarial. There is sort of that feel sometimes [that] “this editor is making me do this and, like, messing with my copy,” but it also is on you, too. I don't want to just file a story and then have it come back with corrections on it. That's not what this is about. This is a team effort to make the best possible stories and to do reporting the best possible way.

I'm saying this at a time when [it's] sort of more in vogue, or even available, to strike out on your own and be independent operators … you are your own entity and your own company on Substack. ... It has worked for some people, and will continue to work for some people, but for whatever reason, it's not how I'm wired. It's not how I'd like to work, ever. And so, to the extent that you're in a position to foster those sorts of relationships with an editor or editors, do it. It'll make your work better.