I just finished reading "Black & White and Dead All Over" by John Darnton. Super novel about murder in the newsroom. Funny and suspenseful at the same time. Wanna know how journalists think? This is the book for it.
Many of the scenes were dead-on pitch perfect about life at a newspaper. I selected some that sounded so right. Unfortunately, these are generally serious. The funniest -- and there were more funny ones than serious -- were too long to include here.
A newsroom:
Butterby loved it like this, deserted and peaceful, a battlefield after the slaughter. Page proofs and notes and photos cluttered the editors’ desk like spent bandages and cartridge belts. The reporters' cubicles were darkened, burned-out pillboxes. Their desks were stacked with debris -- yellowing newspapers, thick bound reports, legal pads, loose notes, books, food containers, coffee cups.
The old days:
In the morning, you picked up the newspaper and there it was, neatly laid out with headlines whose size and placement told you what was important. The prizes and revenue poured in. It was like standing on the bridge of an aircraft carrier and believe that you, not the ocean, were actually keeping the damn thing afloat. But now, with the Internet, the blogs, MSNBC, fifteen-minutes news cycles, giveaway papers in the subway -- Christ, you turn around for a moment and the whole damn world is different.
Coming to grips with the disappearance of the old days:
And the old-time reporters and editors -- "the dinosaur brigade," he called them -- were whining. He knew they denigrated him, just because he tried to liven up the paper with imaginative features and soft news. You'd think they'd wake up and see that meteor spinning through space right at them. You'd think they'd want to avoid extinction.
Reporting techniques:
Judy had taught him some tricks of the trade, including what he called the "helpless orphan" approach -- that is, in certain situations, to come on as clueless and ask rudimentary questions that were apt to elicit colorful quotes.
Editing techniques:
Writing the story was agony. He had banged out the lede fast enough, but no sooner had he filed it and begun work on the next page than queries began pouring in from both the backfield and the copy desk. ("Are we sure she's inside that thing?" "Could she breathe in there? Maybe she's still alive." "What's the actual composition of the metal?") Everyone wanted something placed higher up in the article.
"How about I put it all before the first paragraph," Jude finally shouted, slamming down the phone.
The thrill and fear of the scoop:
For the first time in what seemed like ages, walking down the street, Jude felt the reporter's rush -- that wonderful excitement that children experience in coming to the finale of a treasure hunt. But as always, it was soon followed by anxiety. What if someone else found the same information? What if -- especially now that there was no paper -- a competitor beat him to the punch?
The corporate feel:
It's dross. The editors praise you to the skies. You get scoops. You work like a dog. I used to think that all added up. It was like putting money in the bank -- all those canceled holidays, those late nights, those planes you jump on to fly to the latest disaster, those kids' birthdays you miss. Then the editors who praised you move on. New ones come up. They don't know what you've done. You turn around one day and the slate's clean. The bank account's vanished. You get older. People don't return your calls so much. When you get right down to it, nobody remembers any of the good stuff -- nobody but you yourself.
Work-life balance:
The problem was that she resented his work. She worked in an art gallery in Chelsea. She had a leisurely lunch and left at 6 p.m. She couldn't imagine a job with irregular hours that you gave so much of yourself to because that was the only way you could do it. Recently, her resentments had made her shrewish. He could look ahead and envision a long line of missed dinners, forgotten appointments, apologetic calls -- her resentment expanding like a hot-air balloon. The trouble with people whose work was just work was that they couldn't understand people whose work was a calling.
Explanation of a plagiarist:
"I did it," she said softly, "because I was tired." She paused. "Just tired. It's so difficult, this thing we do. Talking to people who don't want to talk to us. Interviewing people who've lost their families. Listening to officials lying. Jumping on airplanes to go to famines or earthquakes. Running off to places other people are trying to escape from. It's exhausting. Especially as you get older. I guess I just wanted to take a few shortcuts."
The present and future:
"You know," said O'Donnell. "Writing those stories was painless. No editors, no second-guessing, no rewrites. I'm beginning to think this thing called the Internet has something to recommend it.”