Editorial
A cigarette bobs like a conductor's baton with the rhythmical clattering of the keys as the reporter stabs out the letters of mumbled words. It sets the tempo for the distant jazz music wafting in on cayenne flavored air through a half-raised, half-stuck window that serves to compensate for an A/C unit that gave up years ago.
The clock flashes 2:37 a.m. He didn’t know what was going to do it first, the smokes, the booze, or the deadlines.
Period. Enter. Another rundown ready for press. One more to go.
He pads his pockets for a light, but no luck. No doubt it’s buried beneath the piles of financial records, interview notes, and court documents, each adding to the stories of the people he covers.
He sticks the cigarette behind his ear and reaches for the remaining finger of whisky in a tumbler pulling double duty as a paperweight. It was a fact he remembers too late, as the oscillating desk fan sends papers flying as the burn hits his throat. Figures.
On the bright side, the fan uncovers his lighter, and as he pours another drink, he considers emptying the rest of the bottle on the pile, lighting it up, and moving to Cobo. Leave it just like he found it, on fire amidst the chaos with everyone watching and no one knowing why?
And he knows why. That’s the job, to find out why... or who, what, when, blah, blah. And get it done by deadline. Deadlines.
He touches the cigarette to the tip of the flame, takes a pull from the glass before the fan makes another pass, and goes back to work. At least the hours aren’t as bad as the pay.
*** I wrote the preceding pros for three reasons. First, to assure people who have wondered whether I can still write creatively that I can. Second, I thought Ed Patton would appreciate it. Three, to illustrate a point of how easy it is to despair when thinking about the news, even for those of us who publish it.
Look at the state of affairs out there. Politicians — in truth, the government at practically all levels — the police, corporations, the oil and gas industry, big tech, unions, union busters, everyone telling different versions of the same story. And along the way, the press that was supposed to be free found its sticker price.
The debate between editorial responsibility and stakeholder accountability has been argued since publishing the first advertisement. In fact, my wife — publisher of this paper — and I attended the movie The Post, starring Glenn Close and Tom Hanks, as they portrayed the publisher and editor of the Washington newspaper. We thought it would be interesting to watch professionals act out the same arguments we have within our own newsroom... and living room, and kitchen, and porch. They did a pretty good job.
What was more interesting was that while Hanks and Close were debating whether to publish highly controversial information about the Vietnam War, Close — who played the newspaper’s publisher — was simultaneously working on a merger that would help strengthen and fortify the publication.
Even then, newspapers were going broke. It is an insanely expensive industry to operate no matter the scale. One of the main differences between then and now, however, is that at some point, the media industry learned opinions captured more eyeballs than news, and advertisers were paying for eyeballs not objectivity.
Of course, once you start tipping the boat too far to the left or the right, it makes it that much harder to tip back. If you do, you risk losing advertisers because advertising strictly to Democrats is different than advertising strictly to Republicans. It’s the difference between ammunition and tofu.
Besides, everyone is choosing sides nowadays, or at least, it’s easy to think so. The truth is there are publications just like ours, scattered between growing news deserts across the state, each working hard to keep you as informed as possible.
It was the news coverage from a weekly newspaper in Eldorado Texas that led to the eventual manhunt and arrest of Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints president Warren Jeffs. An editor of a newspaper in Palestine won a Pulitzer Prize for his series of investigative editorials about inmate deaths in Texas jails.
This was serious work, and since not all stories lead to national coverage or win esteemed awards, the work goes on. Another meeting, another article, another paper. But just for a second, imagine if it didn’t. What would you be missing?