Last Updated: May 26, 1999
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Institute for Journalism Excellence
Being scared reminded me why I love news
By Jane Harrigan
An intern and I try to look unobtrusive as we stand on a deserted
street at high noon on a stifling July day in St. Petersburg, Fla. Our
assignment: Write a portrait of Tierra Verde, the neighborhood where the
Rev. Henry Lyons, president of the National Baptist Convention, owns a
home with a woman who works for him. His wife, with whom Lyons owns a home
elsewhere in the city, has been charged with setting fire to this posh
waterfront house, and it seems the entire newsroom of the St. Petersburg
Times has joined the push to find out what’s going on.
Julie and I choose a neighboring house and start toward the door,
the air so heavy that we seem to be swimming through mashed potatoes. A
thought pops into my head, clear as the chiming doorbell: "This is the
kind of story that drove me out of reporting in the first place."
Sounds like the lead on an essay titled "Why I Hated My Summer Vacation,"
doesn’t it? Don’t be fooled. I loved being an ASNE Fellow for the summer,
though the word "vacation" rarely sprang to mind. Doing things that scared
me was the reason I went to St. Pete. I only wish I’d done more of them.
When the University of New Hampshire shocked me out of the newsroom
by making me a professor, I thought it would be fun to try teaching for
a year or two. The next thing I knew, 12 years had passed. I’d been a journalism
professor for longer than I was a journalist, and I was starting to feel
like a fraud.
I have plenty of writing and editing experience, and I’m constantly
involved with newsrooms through consulting and coordinating internships.
Still, the long drive to Florida gave me ample time to obsess. Would my
rusty skills rise to the occasion? Was I good enough to work at a paper
as respected as the St. Petersburg Times? Would I be able to figure out
the computer system?
The last worry turned out to be legit. The Times’ system, called Coyote,
makes as few concessions to common sense as the Roadrunner cartoon character
that shares its name. During my weeks on the copy desk, I constantly pushed
the wrong buttons and sent stories to the wrong "basket." Sometimes I heard
other copy editors mumbling about a professor who had bumbled his way through
the newsroom several summers before. I kept waiting for someone to add,
"But this one really knows what she’s doing." No one did.
The copy desk experience would have been worthwhile simply as a window
on the logistics of putting out 11 editions a night. The Times has made
a major commitment to pursuing the "local-local," something we ASNE Fellows
heard a lot about during our API seminar, and the smoothness of the complex
newsroom operations was a pleasant surprise. No matter how many stories
I edited or headlines I wrote, the stacks of unfamiliar editions arranged
across a newsroom table the next morning never ceased to amaze me.
I went to St. Petersburg expecting something life-changing. Instead
I found calm reinforcement. Working on the copy desk showed me that what
I always tell my students is true: Even the best papers are perennially
desperate for copy editors. The experience also reminded me how isolating
and frustrating the job can be, and how much support copy editors get from
one another.
My next assignment, as an assistant editor for a twice-weekly local
section called Neighborhood Times, provided the best surprise of all: few
surprises. The writers, from interns to the highly experienced, welcomed
my suggestions as if I’d worked with them for years, and I soon felt as
if I had.
Though reporters in some newsrooms view neighborhood sections as detention
camps, Neighborhood Times staffers are so enthusiastic about their mission
that they’re a crew of happy campers. This was much the same job I’d done
as a regional editor of a small daily, and it felt great to slip back into
it as if I were 28 again.
Neighborhood Times let me re-experience the satisfaction of helping
writers make good stories better. It showed me that my university is on
the right track by stressing journalistic writing and editing, even as
other schools move toward theory and generic "media writing." It provided
a welcome reminder that, despite the many embittered journalists I know,
lots of wonderful reporters still care about every word they write.
I wish I’d been able to talk to more people in St. Petersburg about
teaching. I wish I’d been able to dispel the bad impression some journalists
seem to hold about journalism professors.
I wish I’d had a chance to write more stories. The one about Tierra
Verde came remarkably easily after the sweaty reporting, but a later feature
proved torture out of all proportion to its subject. That, too, was a good
reminder for someone who teaches budding writers and editors.
The day after the Tierra Verde story, the city editor asked me to cover
a news conference. As I grabbed a notebook, my supervisor on Neighborhood
Times strode up. "You can’t take her," he told the city editor. "We need
her." It was the nicest thing that happened to me all summer.
Harrigan, journalism director at the University of New Hampshire,
spent her summer at the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times.
