Last Updated: May 26, 1999
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Institute for Journalism Excellence
I wouldn’t trade this rush for anything
By Michael J. Berlin
It was reassuring that the Oregonian newsroom looked about the same
as the last one I’d worked in, back in ’88. There were still waist-high
partitions that loomed above the desks and served to bolster the unruly
piles of reference books, old newspapers, printouts and press releases.
Computer terminals (most still using the ancient and diabolical CSI system)
and telephones peeped out of the debris.
Still, I was worried about the changes. The team system broke the city
room into smaller units (some linked by subject, some geographical), each
with its own reporters and editors, each with its own turf to cover, fill
and defend. This was an editor’s paper, and I wondered whether I — previously
a lone wolf as a reporter — would fit in with the collective sensibility
that goes with this kind of system.
The other big difference I sensed was the shift away from spot news.
But when spot news broke (a Portland cop was killed on duty for the first
time in 18 years), it was covered collectively with superb skill and sensitivity.
Team boundaries were forgotten.
My job, for just over five weeks, was to be the only Portland-based
reporter attached to the world/nation "news group," which consisted of
six wire editors, a page designer and the two reporters based in Washington,
D.C.
All these editors were such consummate professionals that I sometimes
wondered if the copy desk was redundant. I know they caught my mistakes,
as well as trimming my excesses seamlessly and improving my readability.
The mood was one of businesslike camaraderie. The whole newsroom talked
my language and made me feel welcome.
It was my good fortune to be seated in the same cubicle as Kathy Nokes,
who puts together the daily "news focus" page. She was a bottomless source
of all necessary information about Portland and anything else, and ever
willing to offer help, even when on deadline. On my last day, Kathy sweated
me for a deadline sidebar localizing the "road rage" phenomenon. But she
also baked me a great apple pie.
Since the team was legless until I got there (its former reporter had
been detached to cover the suburbs, which is the Oregonian’s big push),
I was greeted by a mile-long list of local angles on international and
national stories, all crying for coverage.
There was a local angle on the capture of Pol Pot in Cambodia; on the
Hong Kong hand-over; on the North Korean famine, on the Liberian election
(locals went there to monitor the polls).
There were the visitors passing through town — the German ambassador
and a Russian historian who’d just published a book on the Cuban Missile
Crisis.
For July 4, there was a full page of stats and features on water safety.
And there was a story on Portland’s latest refugee influx, a group of 123
Kurds.
In all, I wrote 19 stories, plus stat and fact boxes. These included
the copy for three full "news focus" pages and one page-one exclusive
(picked up by AP).
It was great, exhilarating, exhausting. I wouldn’t have missed it for
the world. Eight to 10 hours a day, on the go or in the office doing one
phone interview after another. Juggling four unrelated developing stories
at a time. Hanging up the phone to find three messages from sources. Forty
minutes to deadline with a 16-inch story still to go. Adrenalin highs after
deadline every night.
I learned two essential lessons about myself:
First, reporting is like riding a bike; you don’t forget how after nine
years.
Second, doing it 48 weeks a year is real tough work, and at my age,
I’m thankful to be teaching.
And one more thing: Once the school year ends, I’m up for another taste
of the real thing.
Berlin is an associate professor at Boston University. He spent his
summer at The Oregonian in Portland.
