Yesterday was pretty slow at work. I spent much of my time compiling a presentation I'm giving to the 6th Grade on Friday about journalism. One of the teachers asked me to talk about my career, so I scanned some of my clips (like the ones about Ray Bradbury and Vincent Price, as well as some featuring Al Gore, George H. W. Bush and the Queen).
I'm also going to talk a little about writing a news story -- the "lede," the headline, the reverse pyramid, that kind of thing.
It's so weird to look back at my time as a reporter. It seems so long ago. When I began writing for newspapers in 1986 there was no Internet. We had to look everything up in books! It seems positively Stone Age. We used to have these gigantic cross-directories -- bigger than conventional phone books -- that listed people by name, by address and by phone number, so we could call people on a certain street, for example, or find out who had a certain number. We had a "morgue" full of old, yellowed clippings filed in little envelopes, to help us look back on previously published stories. And of course maps were all on paper and tasks that now take a few seconds took hours.
I can draw on my more recent newspaper experience, from the late '90s onward, to weave technology into the presentation, but yeah, I suddenly feel like I've been alive forever. I tried to choose clips about people who the kids might know, but I'm sure more than a few of them will have no clue who Vincent Price is.
Oh well -- that's why they go to school, right?
Just for fun, here's my story about Queen Elizabeth's visit to Tampa way back in 1992. She knighted Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who had presided over the first Iraq war, and gave him a medallion. Like I said, it seems like a million years ago. It's the only time I've ever seen the Queen in person, even though I now -- ironically and unexpectedly -- live in her country. I never got very close to her -- she was a speck on the Tampa waterfront when our photographer took the photo above with a big zoom lens, and later she passed me in a limo with shaded windows. I could just barely make out her waving glove.
Speaking of gloves, I took two foxgloves to my boss and another to one of my co-workers, thereby reducing my stock a bit. I still have several that haven't been planted. I may wind up leaving them in pots.
(Photo: In the spirit of victory for Ukraine, here's a photo of Victory News in Broadstairs.)
45 comments:
Well, Her Maj's dress suited the tropics.
In spite of Price's promotion, 3D did not catch on.
It is funny that your journalistic writing is so similar to the way you write for your blog.
I thought I named Yorkshire Pudding as YP but I note you used it in 2020. I would have thought I would have been reading your blog then, but I didn't comment on the Bradbury post. Maybe I was on holidays.
I can't imagine what it was like even after you sat and just explained some of it to me. Now I can fire up the computer, type in search terms and be reading a pertinent article written in the early 1800's in a matter of minutes.
I read all of your articles and enjoyed them all. Some journalists publish them in books but I'm guessing the audience for them are pretty limited as the subject matter is quickly dated.
Astonishing to remember the big changes in reporting and feature writing. I was a freelance speculative writer back in the seventies, typing, mailing out, drafts written, then pages reshuffled for final version, pretty clunky! But then there were so many print publications to sell to. Different world, as you note.
I imagine when you talk of morgues and maps and phones books those kids will think you're several hundred years old!!
Oh, how times have changed,
Why were you known as "The Lodger" in 1992? Should we start addressing you as The Lodger when we comment here?
You got to talk to Ray Bradbury, wow. I loved his books. When I was younger is was a sci fi fiend and that's pretty much all I would read.
I was just thinking the other day about maps. I never drove without maps in my car and now we just google it.
I was wondering if an American was ever knighted if they would be "Sir". Now I know! A very nice article indeed. I read the Price one, too. Oh, I would have loved to meet him!
I adore the queen. I know she is probably far from perfect, but look at all she has seen in time. Her lifespan amazes me, all that she has seen, and then being so young coming to the throne. I hope she makes it to her Jubilee.
Steve, you have had some adventures! Do you miss being a journalist?
I love that you saw the queen in the US but haven't seen her in London. Looking back like that does tend to make us feel old.
I love hearing about your past as a journalist. Your life has been so interesting! I think the students will enjoy hearing about it! Good luck with the presentation!
I love the old days of journalism and actual newspapers that we held in our hands (and then later lined our bird cages with them). How cool that you saw the Queen in Florida. I don't know why, but I wouldn't have ever guessed that the Queen went to Florida. Seeing the words "old yellow clippings" reminded me of the time I did an internship with Allen Ginsberg. I went to his house in Boulder, Co and filed away papers for him. He had a file cabinet with the first drawer labeled "Faded Yellow Newspaper Clippings."
And again I wrote a brilliant comment and it’s nowhere to be found. This one is NOT brilliant. I’m looking for page 7A.
What a fun post! Thanks for linking back to the earlier ones about Price and Bradbury. In fact, I hope you don't mind if I link to your Bradbury post whenever I get around to reading and reviewing The Martian Chronicles for my CC challenge.
Ditto what Mitchell said. I was looking for page 7A!
I loved the Martian Chronicles. I had to give away all my books before we left the US, but I am certain my paperback copy was on the original timeline. Fun to see your journalistic work!
That's very ironic that you wrote that article and now live in England. Cue Twilight Zone music! The 1980s don't sound that long ago to me but SO much has changed. There have been a multitude of scientific and technological advances.
Nice article.
I miss newspapers. Our local is a recap of yesterday's Yahoo articles, Wednesday is food coupons. The internet is great, but with the death of local reporting, one does not know what the city council is doing.
I felt woefully ignorant when I read your second paragraph and realized I had heard but never seen the word "lede" and assumed that it was lead. Ah well, I learned something today which is always a good thing.
I was a field producer when the Queen visited Southern California back in 1983. A couple of years later I watched the changing of the guard outside Buckingham Palace but QEII didn't show herself that time.
I did a small unit with the kids on newspapers. We did a tour of a paper from writing to printing. I liked the unit and so did he kids.
I enjoyed your lede in the royal visit story!
Fun times and you are right, it all seems so long ago...
I've called him YP for many years, almost as long as I've been reading his blog, I think. I've seen other people use that abbreviation too. I guess it's not all THAT unusual!
Yeah, 3-D cameras never really happened, did they?
It IS astonishing what's available online nowadays. When I worked at the Times company we had all our smaller newspapers' archives put online by Google, but a lot of them have since been taken down. The papers were sold and I think the new owners want to monetize all that content rather than giving it away for free -- but it's a shame.
I can't imagine having to write articles on a typewriter -- not to mention mess around with query letters and whatnot. I have been blessed enough to always work on a computer, though some of them were pretty rudimentary!
Yeah, they'll have no idea what I'm talking about. LOL
That's my nickname. Steve the Lodger.
Bradbury was one of my writing idols, so talking to him on the phone was HUGE for me. Interesting fact -- none of the kids I spoke to in these 6th Grade classes had any idea who he was. I told them, "You'll be reading Ray Bradbury soon enough, believe me."
The thing I remember most about Price was how hard it was to get him to say anything. To be fair he was busy and very old and not being paid to do press.
I think most Britons, regardless of how they feel about monarchy as an institution, agree that The Queen has handled her duties admirably and done an amazing job.
See my post two days hence! :)
It all seems so recent in some ways, and yet so distant. It's strange.
Thanks, Ellen! I had a lot of fun being a reporter for so long.
Leave it to Ginsburg to tell it like it is! He was sort of laughing at the human tendency to save such things, I guess.
I'm sorry your comment disappeared! What's up with that, I wonder?!
Oh, gosh, you are certainly welcome to link back to that post! I love that these articles are getting some new life by being posted to my blog!
I brought a handful of books with me when I moved to England, and "The Martian Chronicles" is one of them!
I know -- it IS funny to think about how astonished I would have been if you'd told me in 1991 that 20-30 years later I'd be living in London!
Thank you!
Local newspapers just don't have much money these days. It's pretty amazing how thoroughly the industry has been transformed -- and yes, the downside is that people have less sense of what's going on in their communities.
I probably forgot to hit Publish.
Apparently newspaper writers began spelling it "lede" as a way to differentiate it from type made from lead (the metal), which is how papers were printed back in the old days.
She often stays hidden away, keeping her own counsel!
It's great for them to be able to see the production process from beginning to end. I remember touring a newspaper as an elementary school student and seeing those gigantic presses.
Ha! It wasn't all that, to be honest. I've done better!
It does, doesn't it?!
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