November 12, 2011
wearejournalists: I lived hard. I died young. I brought you the news. I didn’t worry about narrative. I didn’t know how to spell protagonist much less think about putting it in my story. I talked to people. I wrote it down. I told you what they said. I put the important details at the top of my stories because my editor used a pen like Zorro and hemmed my copy like a tailor cuffing trousers. Not once did I ever consider putting myself in the story. I arrived at work at 2 a.m. and woke people out of bed because the paper had to be laying on doorsteps by dinnertime. I didn’t have the Internet, Facebook, Starbucks, matching 401(k)s and smartypants phones with auto-correct. I drank 10-cent coffee and used a telephone with a rotary dial and a typewriter that clacked like a machine gun. I collected divorces and heart attacks like trophies. I sat at a desk decorated with cigarette ash in a room that smelled like fear. If someone at one of the three other papers in town printed a story I didn’t have, I could expect to be invited to grab my hat and coat and find the door. A good day was when my boss only yelled at me twice. Compared to the guy who shot at me during the war, it seemed like a vacation in Florida. I woke up in a sweaty panic thinking about who might have found the guy I couldn’t find. I went to bed at night with a whiskey-flavored smile on my face when I interviewed the guy no one knew existed. My scoops were plump and sexy like Marilyn Monroe and lasted hours, not seconds. I was a newspaper reporter.

wearejournalists:

I lived hard. I died young. I brought you the news. I didn’t worry about narrative. I didn’t know how to spell protagonist much less think about putting it in my story. I talked to people. I wrote it down. I told you what they said. I put the important details at the top of my stories because my editor used a pen like Zorro and hemmed my copy like a tailor cuffing trousers. Not once did I ever consider putting myself in the story. I arrived at work at 2 a.m. and woke people out of bed because the paper had to be laying on doorsteps by dinnertime. I didn’t have the Internet, Facebook, Starbucks, matching 401(k)s and smartypants phones with auto-correct. I drank 10-cent coffee and used a telephone with a rotary dial and a typewriter that clacked like a machine gun. I collected divorces and heart attacks like trophies. I sat at a desk decorated with cigarette ash in a room that smelled like fear. If someone at one of the three other papers in town printed a story I didn’t have, I could expect to be invited to grab my hat and coat and find the door. A good day was when my boss only yelled at me twice. Compared to the guy who shot at me during the war, it seemed like a vacation in Florida. I woke up in a sweaty panic thinking about who might have found the guy I couldn’t find. I went to bed at night with a whiskey-flavored smile on my face when I interviewed the guy no one knew existed. My scoops were plump and sexy like Marilyn Monroe and lasted hours, not seconds.

I was a newspaper reporter.

4:58pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZHF_UyBrJx9o
(View comments) 
(Notes: 26)
  
  1. thelostgeneration reblogged this from technicoloring
  2. artntyouglad reblogged this from technicoloring
  3. athousandlittlewords reblogged this from technicoloring
  4. technicoloring reblogged this from wearejournalists
  5. katherinelanpher reblogged this from wearejournalists
  6. shananaomi reblogged this from wearejournalists and added:
    still back-reading but i really hope there’s...woman’s version
  7. enigmawithflowers reblogged this from wearejournalists
  8. notfunnyfunny reblogged this from contentisqueen
  9. contentisqueen reblogged this from wearejournalists
  10. katherinelanpher submitted this to wearejournalists
Blog comments powered by Disqus