Today I was talking to someone about airports and that person asked: “Why do you know so much technical stuff about them?”
This is the beauty of my sports journalism background at bigtime dailies. I can watch something in realtime, read it, or experience it, and describe the salient points pretty damn fast.
But Boeing helped with that, too. Being around a bunch of engineers and asking questions, built on top of that.
They the architects…don’t get me started…I asked questions and absorbed.
And then people ask how I learned so much automobile history, so well, in such a short time.
So I thought I would lay out the rules I would teach anyone that are based on quotes from various editors over the years dealing in the newspaper world, in no particular order:
“Never watch a game cold; know the players”
A meeting or a sporting event, this is a good one. Think through what is going on before it all starts. Who are these people? It’s as simple as a mentor with a yappy mouth, a phone call or two, or just observing a lot of dumb meetings. This one came from an editor who was mad I didn’t go to a council meeting before I went to report.
“You didn’t know, or you didn’t ask?”
Ask, ask, ask, ask, ask, oh, and ask. If a guy on the rim has a question, “I don’t know” is not a good answer. They are not trying to screw you, but it is generally stuff they want to keep notes of for legal reasons.
“FYI: Be careful.”
Connected to a sports story I wrote and I screwed up a narrative in it to 100,000+ people and 20 of them wrote letters complaining. This was the note from the editor attached to the bundle.
“You’d be surprised how many people read the fishing report.”
This was something for two years I got to play with and have fun with twice a week. Now that it has evolved from agate to the outdoor beat guy writing it…I have to admit something. It was only later that I realized that editor wasn’t pulling my leg. I’d sometimes get a little carried away and be too cute, but I was caught almost everytime…but in a make-everybody-laugh kind of way.
“Don’t stare.”
This actually came from a beat writer when I was looking at the body of a football play we all knew was on performance-enhancing drugs back in the late 80s, but no one would say it. I didn’t mean to stare, but I got nudged by the guy and snapped out of my thinking about it standing in a lockerroom.
“Not bad for an American.”
Still cracks me up that a Dutch editor said that. Like the Dutch have cornered the market. And he was very serious. *chuckle*
Finally, for now…
“Don’t think too much. Shove the right parts together and it will all work out when they talk.”
I may have to do this again, but I think this is one of my favorite quotes. I could write a book or teach a lesson about all of the above, and for this run, this is still my favorite.
I was standing in a telephone booth with a trash-80 and a coupler trying to get a major upset in college sports to an editor at a large daily. Pouring rain and trying to do code to get the damn thing to work and feeding batteries into it like it was a slot machine.
Now, if you don’t remember couplers and trash-80s (which were replaced by trash-100s)…it meant that you had to write the story, enter code, and use these rubber thingies to cover both parts of the phone long enough to send a 1200-baud signal to the right que at the office for someone to find and edit. God, I sound old.
The problem was that the guys on the other end on deadline really didn’t understand how it worked, either. So I am standing there, in a phone booth, calling a number, and trying to figure it all out on my own. And it’s wet and dark.
I called the rim (the defense against the black arts in the newspaper world), and I was about ready to just cry. I was two hours away, the story was written, and I couldn’t get the damn things to talk. I was in dictate mode.
Don’t think too much meant calm down and do not panic.
Shove the right parts together meant more don’t panic, but also that I had to double check my connections.
They’ll talk kind of meant let them go slow, which was more about not having a panic attack.
Nahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…it was just a super funny line by an editor to get me to smile while I panicked. That’s why it’s my favorite quote of this round. It’s why I loved the newsroom. And I still stay in touch with most of those guys/gals from all the dailies. They are funnier than hell and smarter than me.
I dictated. And some kid that was older than me took it all down on the other end. At least I had that little piece of dignity.
p.s. All those editors, well, they taught me more about English and writing and life than I ever learned in college, before college. That’s why I wasn’t a journalism major; I could not see how there could be anything better than those people. I don’t know if they will ever really know how much I owe to them. I have loved the golf and games, too.
And the nickname.