Hi and welcome ...
to my somewhat skewed look at journalism. I collected much of this stuff when I was teaching a newswriting class at the University of South Carolina in the late 1980s -- a once-a-week class taught by working journalists, intended to scare away fainthearted sophomores.
An introduction
First, a few words from Hunter S. Thompson:
"I have spent half my life trying to get away from journalism, but I am still mired in it -- a low trade and a habit worse than heroin, a strange seedy world full of misfits and drunkards and failures. A group photo of the top ten journalists in America on any given day would be a monument to human ugliness. It is not a trade that attracts a lot of slick people; none of the Calvin Klein crowd or international jet-set types. The sun will set in a blazing red sky to the east of Casablanca before a journalist appears on the cover of People magazine.
"It is always bad business to try to explain yourself on paper -- at least not all at once -- but when you work as a journalist and sign your name in black ink on white paper above everything you write, that is the business you're in, good or bad. Buy the ticket, take the ride. I have said that before and I have found, to my horror, that it's true. It is one of those half-bright axioms that can haunt you for the rest of your life -- like the famous line Joe Louis uttered on the eve of his fight with Billy Conn: "He can run, but he can't hide." That is the thing you want to remember if you work in either journalism or politics -- or both, like I do -- and there is no way to duck it. You will be flogged for being right and flogged for being wrong, and it hurts both ways. But it doesn't hurt as much when you're right."
Stick It In Your Ear Dept.
Recently, while working on a project in the microfilm stacks at the San Francisco Public Library, I chanced upon the preceding letter to the editor of the New York Sun, published March 29, 1916. The editor's reply was neatly contained in the headline above it, and it struck me as a bold bit of writing: smart-alecky and defiant, but fun and still friendly, too. Something you don't see very often in today's newspapers. Sigh.
Light bulb joke
1. Reporter points out that bulb needs to be changed.
2. Editor asks wattage, manufacturer, price, how long it was in, how long it's been dysfunctional, what's the impact and what is expected in the future.
3. Editorial writer opines that it should have been changed before it went out.
4. Sportswriter compares light bulb to local pitching staff.
5. Lifestyle section does trend piece on dimly lit workplaces.
6. Copy editor corrects "light bulb" to "fluorescent tube."
7. Maintenance worker changes bulb.
8. Managing editor sends out memo on the fine job the editorial department did under trying circumstances.
-- Carlos Alcala, San Mateo (Calif.) Times
Stamp of approval
Fame in the United States is rewarded with a bronze statue in a public park or a picture on a postage stamp. According to the U.S. Postal Service, only a few journalists have passed muster to win a spot on the nation's mail in recent years, and one of them has been dead for more than a half-century. The other earned her fame in the funny pages. Hmmm.
To error is human
There are sins of commission and sins of omission. An example of the former is the incredible 100-word lead sentence The New York Times foisted on its readers on Oct. 27, 1991, that, in part, summed up the economic climate in the collapsing Soviet Union as "half Dostoevskian gloom and half Kafkaesque absurdity." (I'll spare you the remaining 93 words, but click here if you want to read it.)
An example of the latter (at right) appeared in the Los Angeles Times earlier this year. Every desker who saw this in print must have shuddered, because deep down inside, even though we'll swear we would never let such a thing happen, we know that it very well could have been us. (Clipping courtesy of Mariann Barsolo!)
Relics of dead newspapers
I spent my first seven years in journalism on afternoon newspapers, and I loved it. The demands of a 10 a.m. deadline produce great hustle, great energy and often great stories. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer people are willing to buy their news at the end of the day, and afternoon dailies have been decimated in recent decades. (Much more than decimated, actually; look it up in a dictionary.)
I have worked at two newspapers that no longer exist. In the spring of 1981 I was an intern at The Cleveland Press, a 103-year-old afternoon newspaper that had once been the flagship of the Scripps Howard newspaper chain (another dinosaur of print journalism). It was a gritty old newspaper in a gritty old city, and I worked the night police beat -- a memorable experience that I wouldn't trade for the world. At the end of my three-month internship the editor-in-chief, Herb Kamm, promised me a job at the Press -- two years down the road. Kamm told me to get a job at a smaller newspaper and work my butt off, then come back and he'd find a place for me, and I did as I was told.
One year later, almost to the day, the paper folded.
I was a city hall reporter for The Marietta (Ohio) Times when the Press bit the dust. From there, in 1985, I went to The Columbia (S.C.) Record, where I worked the police beat for almost three years. Again, great times and great people, but on April 1, 1988 (April Fool's Day and Good Friday), the Record went out of business and our staff was merged with the morning paper, The State. Appropriately, The New York Times put the story of the Record's demise on its obituary page. (I designed the button above, and my city editor, Bunny Richardson, passed them out to the staff on the last day.)
Addendum: So years later I leave the newspaper business for work on a couple of Macintosh computer magazines and I think my future is safe. And then the bottom falls out of the Mac market. Above is my name badge at MacWEEK, which published its last edition in July 1998. I was lucky, though, because a few months earlier I had taken a new job on MacWEEK's online news operation, which continues today as MacWEEK.com -- but with a news staff of three instead of the nearly thirty journalists (and friends) who worked on the weekly book.
So you want to be a reporter?
A quiz for readers, by Sherril Bover Sannella, columnist for the Derry (N.H.) News:
I know there are a lot of you out there who think it's all trench coats and exotic places. You think it's press conferences with the big pols and free lunches.
Well, it really isn't, but don't take my word for it. My colleagues and I have devised a little quiz to test your understanding of the job. It's called, "So you want to be a reporter?" Good luck.
My favorite food is:
A. Steak and potatoes
B. Shrimp scampi
C. Lasagna and garlic bread
D. Stale Twinkies and soggy potato chips.I most like to spend my evenings:
A. Curled up with a good book
B. Watching a first-run movie
C. Visiting friends
D. Going to city council meetingsMy greatest recent accomplishment was:
A. Climbing Mt. Washington
B. Winning five racquetball games in a row
C. Reading "War and Peace"
D. Figuring out the school budgetOn sunny fall weekends I most like to:
A. Enjoy a football game
B. View the foliage
C. Go to county fairs
D. Avoid being arrested while covering demonstrationsLate at night I enjoy:
A. A glass of wine
B. A Humphrey Bogart movie
C. A warm bed
D. A two-alarm fireI would most like to write:
A. Romantic poetry
B. Gothic novels
C. A screenplay
D. An analysis of the town's sewer capacityTo maintain my present level of health, I:
A. Jog daily
B. Eat health food
C. Work out at the spa
D. Smoke cigarettes and drink cold, black coffeeAt my present level of salary, my next vacation will be to:
A. The Bahamas
B. Acapulco
C. Hawaii
D. The traffic islandsFor Christmas this year I would most like to have:
A. An angora sweater
B. A Ferrari
C. Sporting equipment
D. The day offAny and all A, B or C answers indicate wild-eyed dreamers. The Ds have it.
(Editor's note: When I first read this column I roared with laughter. I was just a few years into the business, and I had experienced every scenario mentioned -- the "D" answers, of course. My situation improved significantly as the years progressed, thank God, but I suspect it's just as bad today for journalists fresh out of J-school. Don't say you weren't warned.)
