Messenger’s strength: All employees, all the time

Editors of M.D. Anderson Cancer Center’s Messenger fill pages with articles and photos about workers doing their jobs

Carol Bryce, editor of Messenger, the employee publication for The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center knows what makes an employee publication interesting and readable. Employees want to read about themselves. This is a legitimate desire, but it’s amazing how many editors think employees are boring. I find it sensible and absolutely right that there’s not one picture of a hospital patient anywhere in this issue of Messenger. (Download the PDF.)

I find it even more sensible that almost every picture shows employees doing their jobs. There are no grip-and-grins, no employees pointing at mystery objects outside the photo’s boundaries, no awards being given, no huge checks being acknowledged with grins, no bigwigs breaking ground with shovels, no tapes being cut, and only one static posed shot of employees smiling.