1) My Vietnam Vet story struck a few nerves. I got a lot of emails and phone calls thanking me. The bitch-slap Marine even got interviewed on the radio. The Marine called and thanked me. "That's the first time I've ever been accurately quoted in a newspaper." I think that's a compliment. Right?
2) I attended a school board meeting this week (and by week I mean Tuesday to Tuesday). I was the hated person in the room. We printed a story this week that the school board didn't want me to print. I'll say it again. My job is not to act as a PR machine for the schools. I'm a reporter, not a lap dog. Good or bad, I report the news.
3) One of my fellow LJ's got reamed by a source. "That's not what I wanted you to print!" the woman screamed. "How could you do this to me!" This particular LJ is young, but she's smart and talented. Bigger newspapers are looking her way; she's got a bright future, but this conversation really upset her. The whole newsroom read over her story and we all agreed that she did nothing wrong. She wrote a balanced and unbiased story. She did a good job and we reassured her of that.
4) I might be covering a teenager who spotted unusual lights in the sky by Wal-Mart. He took video. His librarian told me about it. Hmmmm. Never thought I'd be doing an Alien story.
TARB
Lesser Journalists are a hard-working bunch, but we don't have the perks that some other journalists have. The "E" sticks on our keyboards; when we walk into a room of complete strangers, everyone knows our names because they see our faces in the paper when it comes out every week; "middle class" is relative. The community loves us, the community hates us. We love our jobs. We hate out jobs. We love our jobs, again.
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