Editor cut her teeth in gritty big-city bureau

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The now-defunct Chicago News Bureau was a training ground for some of the best journalists in the craft. The pay was low; the top editor was cranky and sometimes erupted; it was shift work, where eventually all reporters had to cover cops, including daily trips to the medical examiner.

It was the worst of times that gave aspiring journalists the best of skills.

Salt Lake Tribune staff member Elizabeth Neff hoed that ground for more than two years.

She got mugged once and came to work the next day.

That job taught her to be both tough and compassionate - two important skills for a newspaper person.

Other important newspaper skills, including a love of research, an ability to talk to people and a sense of how to talk to individuals, came naturally to Neff. "You have to be nosy, but half of the fun is learning how to deal with all kinds of personalities," she says.

A graduate of DePauw University in communications, Neff started her professional career working for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel at the Waukesha bureau. Her first assignment was to cover a bad accident in which a semitrailer drifted off the road and flattened two surveyors. "It was very disturbing," Neff recalls. She had to interview the surveyors' widows.

But that job had a lighter side, too: One time she did a story on a farmer who planted heads of lettuce in interesting patterns - including the names of friends and neighbors.

That job taught her to find a story anywhere.

After the news bureau, Neff did some time at the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin where she covered courts. Then she worked for a year in a now-eliminated residency program at The Chicago Tribune, where the newspaper worked young journalists for a year. The tyros had to pump out two or three stories a day, including one obituary.

That job taught her speed.

In 2001, Neff came to Utah and started covering civil court action for The Tribune.

She was intrigued by management after she filled in for editors on The Tribune Communities desk for two months. She'd had a taste of this at the Chicago News Bureau, when she served as the weekend assignment editor. But now she was ready for a bite into editing.

She got the opportunity when she was named assistant business editor. "This called for a little different skill set than I was comfortable with - a lot different than a writer/reporter - but I learned."

Neff also has learned the women's craft of juggling a career, a marriage and motherhood. "It's a good thing I have a husband who works 9 to 5 and is willing to pitch in when I work late." In her spare time - when she can find it - Neff likes to knit, read and ski. "When I chose to have a child, I had a good idea the amount of juggling it would take; I knew it would be a lot of work."

But hard work doesn't put her off. For the past four months, she has used her professional and personal skills in her new position as weekend editor and assistant business editor. Not only does she work several days on the Business desk, but she also plans and executes the weekend coverage.

"I like to see all the pieces come together into a package," Neff says. "I like to work with reporters and help them." But getting independent-minded reporters to do what she wants them to do is not always an easy task. Cajoling and some sneaky psychological tricks sometimes work.

Neff came to editing with a sense of trepidation. "I knew I wanted to go into management and try editing, but I feared I would go into editing and find out it clearly wasn't my calling."

Apparently her calling was a true one.

She has been on weekend duty for a news-heavy summer including the slaying of a corrections officer and huge wildfires. These big breaking stories meant making changes in coverage and calling in personnel after consulting with senior managers. "Now I get to figure stories out and figure people out."

But she had learned toughness and compassion, she knew how to find a story anywhere and the speed did not baffle her.

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