When I say that I read the newspaper, I mean the newspaper.
I started reading newspapers regularly when I was in elementary school, though I will freely admit that most of my browsing was confined to the sports section. There was some ebb and flow during my high school years, but I can say that for the last four-plus decades I have had a newspaper in my hands almost every day.
Sure, I read some publications online, but my preference is the actual, corporeal thing. I like feeling it in my hands, like being able to hold the paper out at full spread, or folded over to one page, or part of one page. I like interrupting myself in the middle of reading one story to take a quick look at another one – or at a photo – on that page or the next one and then returning to the original piece.
It's a fully ingrained habit by now, so I tend not to think about it very much. Until I do.
Earlier this month – back when the world was somewhat marginally less crazed and chaotic – I was sitting at the bus stop reading my morning paper, awaiting the middle portion of my daily trek to the office. Then the young man next to me inquired if he could ask me a question.
Of course, this scenario often inspires some anxiety: You wonder if it’s a prelude to a discussion about one’s spiritual/religious life, sociopolitical views, or whether you have a few bucks to spare.
But no. The guy, whose name was Steven and looked to be 30ish, asked if I read the newspaper every day.
Yes, I answered. In addition to the one I have delivered to my house every day (weekends included), there are a couple of newspapers at the office I often browse. And I glance at others online.
“Well,” Steven said, and fumbled a little for words, “how do you do it? I mean, do you read the whole thing, beginning to end?”
I explained that, no, I don’t read, or finish, absolutely every article, but usually I at least go through the paper from front to back page.
“Doesn’t it get kind of overwhelming, taking all of that in?”
Yes, it can, I agreed – but it depends on how you manage your relationship with news media, whether newspapers, magazines, TV, the Internet, etc. I try to make a point of stepping away from news media at some point(s) of the day, doing something else, like writing, listening to or playing music, reading something that isn’t The News, watching movies or comedy/drama shows.
Since I seldom have an infinite amount of time, I added, I have to make choices as to what I’m going to read in the paper. Maybe, instead of going with a US-centric story, I’ll read about (for example) the Bangladesh quota reform controversy, or the civil war in South Sudan. There is far more to the world than America, or the West.
Above all, I told Steven, even as I try to make the rounds of various newspapers and publications and different editorial viewpoints or perspectives, I have to accept I probably won’t get all the angles. Doesn’t mean I quit trying.
By that point of the conversation, Steven and I were riding the bus, and given that my stop was only about 10 minutes away, I felt I needed to find out something about him. He told me he had degrees in counseling and psychology, and currently is working with migrants at a shelter. He went on a little sidebar, about communication: His mother is a native Creole speaker, and although she can speak and understand English very well she prefers Creole; so when he really needs to get a point across to her, he said, he'll repeat in Creole what he'd said in English. This is a useful thing to keep in mind for his line of work, he said.
Steven said he had wondered of late about moving on to a different career, and asked me what I did for living. When I replied that I had worked as a journalist/writer/editor for more than 40 years, he seemed impressed, and mused about whether that might be a field he could try.
"If I were starting out, what kinds of things might I do?" he asked.
I said that my first job was as a general assignment reporter at a weekly newspaper in Worcester County, Mass., covering town government and schools, local sports and writing feature/human-interest stories. Lot of hours, low pay – of course – but I worked with some good people, and got to learn about real life in the larger world writ small. However, I noted, this was a long time ago, and there are far fewer newspapers around.
My stop was getting nearer, and I was thinking we should exchange emails or something, but then Steven had another question: "What do you need to make it in journalism?"
I told him that one of the most important rules of journalism is to make your editor's job easy: Be a good speller, have a decent grasp of punctuation and sentence structure, and other boring things. Be as annoyingly accurate as possible. Not earth-shattering revelations, but it's worked for me pretty well.
Most of all, though, I added, have ideas. As many as you possibly can. Obviously, the ideas have to have some relevance to your particular publication and its editorial purview: A story about the best Middle Eastern restaurants in New York City probably wouldn't have stirred the interest of my former readers in the towns of Douglas or Uxbridge. But just keep accumulating ideas, and you'll be OK.
We shook hands and said our farewells.
Hope I run into Steven again. As much as I enjoy reading the paper on my commute, a good conversation is far better – whether it's about newspapers or not.
(In case you might wonder, yes, that's me in the photo)
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