News-Record.com

The threat of snow is such a trip in the news business. TV metereologists talk about it days before it arrives, couching their predictions and letting us know that we should stay tuned for the latest. We take stock of our food and gauge whether a trip to the grocery store is necessary, as if we are going to be snowed in for days. We fret over losing power because we live in one of those neighborhoods that seem to be the first with lines down and the last to have power restored.

At the paper, we cede much of our weather coverage to our back page weather map and to television. We don't do a lot with predictions of harsh weather because it's tough to compete with TV when your product is six or seven hours behind the curve. (The Web site is, of course, up to date.)

On the actual day of the snow, the call comes well in advance. Can we go to press early? Tonight we are going an hour early so we can give carriers more time to deliver the paper tomorrow morning. It's as important as ever to get the paper to subscribers on time on days like this.

Funny how when you're a student a snow day is a wonderful thing. When you're a working adult, not so much.

Amid all the hecticness over 24/7 publishing deadlines, stretched-thin staff and the challenge of understanding a new business model, it is hard sometimes to remember to stop and take a deep breath.

This column in The New York Times reminded me. Unfortunately, you have to register to read it. But it's worth it.

It is about a geriatric doctor going about her rounds and how she falls into the trap of treating death as just another part of her busy day. The nut graf for me: I learned that day that I needed to slow myself down, to appreciate the gravity of the moment, the power of time and the depth and proximity of my work. It was a very big deal.

In this business, we don't deal in death, most days. But we do start the day at a run and end the day in a sprint, with a bunch of 50-yard dashes in between. And then the run starts all over again. It is, I know, not unlike many other businesses. This just happens to be the one I know and love.

It is worth remembering that we should stop every so often to reflect on what we have: the pleasure of going wherever we like and asking all sorts of impertinent, important questions of others; the opportunity to learn new skills as our craft evolves and expands; the joy of working alongside inquisitive, passionate and funny people; and the attention of tens of hundreds of thousands of people who look at our work, including many of whom who pay cash money for it.

That's worth appreciating.

Now, back to work.

I have not read the entire interview with Karen Crouse, a sportswriter with the New York Times. I am struck, though, by the blurb given it on Romenesko.

The headline reads: Why there aren't more women in sports journalism
The text reads: Perhaps it's because the pool of Superwomen isn't that deep, says New York Times NFL writer Karen Crouse. "Writing can be such a time-swallowing occupation if you let it. I know I struggle mightily to carve out nicely crafted stories and a life. If my husband had a dollar for every time we've had dinner plans and I've told him, 'I'm almost done, just a few more minutes,' only to emerge an hour later, he'd be Donald Trump."

I don't know about the Times. I know that what she describes is true of every reporter and editor I've ever known, regardless of gender and journalistic specialty.

One of the myths of journalism is the concept that everyone aspires to work for the Washington Post or the New York Times and cover the White House or go overseas. It's a glamorous dream, not unlike the idea that every high school baskeball player dreams of playing for the Tarheels and the Lakers.

Like most high school players, we journalists grow up, too. We realize that life outside the Beltway can be fulfilling. We learn that covering local government has a tremendous, immediate impact on the community. We learn that the fun and camaraderie in a smaller newsroom matches the fun and camaraderie in a huge newsroom. We learn the value of local journalism is as powerful as the value of "big-league" journalism.

I mention all that because Will Bunch's essay in the Nieman Reports is featured on Romenesko, which means that it perpetuates the myth that everyone is an ambitious reporter eager to get to the top....the top being the White House reporter for the Post or an international correspondent of the Times.

Not one of us wanted to be covering local news at our age (or, for that matter, at any age.) But we've been there, done that. To be brutally honest: For an ambitious journalist, the only way to get through a four-hour suburban school board meeting -- even at age 22 -- is to keep repeating the mantra "this, too, shall pass."

...For the past couple of years, a number of change-minded journalists, academics and engaged citizens have been discussing a lot of great ideas for saving the news business: Teaching reporters how to wield video cameras on assignment, to file breaking news for the Web, to use a blog to cover a local beat like mass transit, or work as moderators with engaged citizen journalists.

What's almost never mentioned in these discussions is the human factor. After all, one of the underlying tenets of saving newspapers is supposed to be rescuing the livelihood of working journalists. But do the rank-and-file of most metro newspapers in 2007, people in their 30's, 40's, and 50's, actually want to do these things -- cover local news for life, with no chance of parole?

I actually know a lot of journalists who don't see the world through the rose-colored glasses of a White House beat. My guess is that there are thousands of them at newspapers all over the country who haven't applied at the Times or the Post and who have no intention of doing so because, well, that's not what they got into the business to do. They got into the business to write and to make a difference, and that's just what they're doing.

That said, I agree with his conclusion -- that the incentives for local reporting need to be reconsidered -- but I don't think that it's adding another Pulitzer Prize. We have enough project journalism based on awards as it is. My incentives are more traditional: more money, more resources and making sure they can make a difference.

Yesterday our colleagues down I-85 at the Times-News in Burlington suffered a double dose of pain: two deaths in the family. Our prayers are with them and the families.

Last month, I wrote a post about why journalists are journalists. I referred to journalists who want to change the world. Those who look for targets to shoot at took aim at that statement for various reasons that, honestly, didn't make much sense to me. It was almost as if they were trying not to understand my point.

Here's another run at it from someone better than I. Rick Reilly explains in this week's Sports Illustrated. (Can't find it online.)

My favorite column, though, was not about one person but millions -- the impoverished Africans who benefited from Nothing But Nets, the antimalaria campaign you and I started with the help of the United Nations Foundation. Every week I hear about another kid donating his bar mitzvah money, a Brownie troop sending its lemonade profits, a family choosing nets over Christmas gifts. We're at $16 million, and much of that has come in twenties and fives and even rolls of quarters.

Changing the world.