I had an interview this week for the Media Scrum, a podcast created by Don Porter and Mark Saul, whom I worked with at the Standard-Examiner newspaper in Ogden, Utah, for almost 20 years, I call them old journalist coots although they’re a good bit younger than me.
They stayed on at the paper for a while after I retired in 2004 but both are now working in other fields, mostly I suspect because of all the cuts, downsizing and other diminishing factors the majority of newspapers have experienced in recent years.
Two large newspapers, the Pulitzer-winning Dallas Times Herald that I grew up with, and the Houston Post that I was a stringer for back in 1970, no longer exist. And when I first went to work for the Standard-Examiner, it had a circulation of over 65,000 subscribers. Today, it’s circulation is below 30,000.
It’s been a sad quarter of a century for journalists. And Don and Mark’s podcast project make me think they still have a bit of ink left in their blood. I know I do.
The interview with them left me thinking about my first four years as a green-behind-the-ears reporter. No one ever had time to tell me how to do things right until I made a mistake. Then everyone told me how it should be done.
I learned fast because I made a lot of mistakes, but never the same one twice.
After sneaking in the backdoor of the Brazosport Facts, a small local newspaper on the Texas Gulf Coast, I started getting sent out to chase down insignificant, sometimes crazy, assignments but I always managed to come back with a story.
Four months after I was hired in March of 1967 — for $1.25 an hour — I was promoted to reporter and given a 35-cent an hour raise. I didn’t learn until four years later that this was a fraction of what male reporters made at the paper.
But those four years I spent at the Facts, prepared me for what would become a 37-year career as a journalist. Those years, I sincerely believe, were equivalent to a master’s degree in journalism, certainly more valuable than the community college journalism classes I immediately started squeezing into my busy schedule.
I went from a naïve mom of five, who retreated to the darkroom to cry when she was yelled at by then city editor Roberta Dansby, to a confident reporter who finally stood up and yelled back.
Thinking back on those days, I recall a major power outage from a storm when everyone scrambled to put the paper’s pages together by candlelight. They were then rushed 50 miles away to a printer with operating power.
No one missed their newspaper the next day…nor any other day at any one of the six newspapers for which I worked. These include, besides the Facts and the Standard-Examiner, The Herald Journal in Logan, Utah; The Fort Worth Star-Telegram in Texas, The Sun in Las Vegas, and The Times News in Twin Falls, Idaho
If you’re interested in Don and Mark’s podcast, here’s the link. https://www.buzzsprout.com/1215551/8771914-pat-bean Just remember, I’m a better writer than a talker. In fact, colleagues used to say: “It’s a good thing Bean writes better than she talks.
But the interview was fun, and the three of us laughed a lot. Laughing is important at any age, but even more so when you’re my age.
Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, enthusiastic birder, Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, Story Circle Network board member, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.
I miss the rich, news-heavy newspapers I grew up with, that my parents turned to first thing each morning. No one talked at breakfast because our faces were deep in the newspaper – who won last night’s Yankee game? what happened at the city council meeting? what is our Congressman up to now? My father read each paper from cover to cover. He and my mother often disagreed about the op-eds but the conversations were enlightening to me as a child. Now with 24-hour cable news, almost all of it slanted left or right, my regional paper is thin, filled with ads and empty of conversational sparks in my house now. It is a loss.
The advocacy journalism of today was a no-no at all the papers I worked for. I think it’s a result of news reporters interjecting themselves in the story and not presenting both sides of issues. . I hate it what’s happening, especially on TV and the Internet. My newspaper of choice these days is the NY Times.. Thanks for commenting Lucy.