Soon after they emigrated to the U.S., in 1954, my
parents bought a fancy hi-fi radio-record player. A couple of decades
later, when I was in high school, they got a new stereo and gave me the
hi-fi. The belts on the Grundig Majestic’s turntable were worn, but
the vacuum tubes still glowed, the shortwave still worked, and with a long
copper wire as an antenna I could get the world to crackle and pop through
the old speakers.
Tuning in big international stations — Deutsche
Welle, Radio Nederland, and the BBC — was a cinch; reaching through
the static to grab faint signals from Albania or Egypt wasn’t.
I’d listen to the broadcasts, write down what I
heard, and mail off reception reports. Weeks later, I’d get free
stuff: Primers on Afrikaans from South Africa. Copies of Soviet Life from Radio Moscow.
Proceedings of the Chinese People’s Congress from Radio Peking.
Mom joked that the mail carrier gave her the evil eye
whenever he delivered packages from a People’s Republic of This or of
That.
But it wasn’t about the freebies. I was
fascinated by the programming, what people on the other side of the globe
thought was important. Sure, most of it was propaganda — but in those
years, when the Vietnam War was winding down, propaganda was about all we
were getting from our own government — and I was a skeptical and
curious kid.
I’ve always believed that other people are like
me — intensely interested in what’s happening at home but also
hungry to know about the bigger world around them.
I had good reason to think that way. Back then,
before cable, cell phones, and the Internet, we had vigorous, independent
newspapers.
As an example, take my old hometown paper.
The family-owned Louisville Courier-Journal — my
family moved from Chicago to Kentucky in 1968 — was, at the time, one
of the nation’s best newspapers. It had its flaws, but it was
progressive, devoted to public service, and would expand its news pages to
run special reports, such as transcripts of the Watergate hearings.
Louisville was a sleepy, conservative Ohio River town, but it had a
newspaper that made it seem enlightened and worldly — seemingly, its
entire business function was about producing a quality editorial product.
It was more, much more, than just a “local
information and connection utility.”
If you count the Mustang
Courier, a mimeographed
“newspaper” I launched and edited in grade school, back in
1971-1972, I’ve been involved in journalism for most of the past 37
years. I’ve worked as a reporter and editor for dailies, weeklies,
and monthlies. A few of the publications I’ve worked for are defunct;
others have changed dramatically. That’s the nature of this
profession: There are no guarantees.
I earned my first regular paycheck as a reporter back
in 1981, during the first Reagan recession, but I was laid off after three
months. I wasn’t the only one feeling the pinch then. Within two
years, owners pulled the plug on well-known dailies such as the Washington Star, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, and
the Cleveland Press. Tough times always bring casualties, and usually the newspaper
that dies in a competitive market is the one that produces a weaker
editorial product.
My experience here makes the point. Illinois Times is
generally a better newspaper when we have three staff writers, as we do
now, than when we have one or two. This isn’t rocket science: More is
more, less is less — and readers notice.
Soon there’ll be less of me here. In a couple
of weeks I’ll be stepping down as editor of this newspaper.
Before I go, indulge me as I take the opportunity to
share a few of the things I’ve learned by working at more than
half-a-dozen media companies:
Be skeptical when readers say they love what
you’re doing — you may be hearing only from people who think
like you. Remember, journalism isn’t selling burgers or putting on a
show; sometimes it’s like administering medicine.
Readers may appreciate big stories, but they remember
the screw-ups — misspelled names, wrong dates, misleading headlines,
and grammatical errors. Details matter.
Newspapers try to accurately report what people say,
but what people say isn’t always the truth — and, more often
than not, newspapers don’t ask enough people.
You’re more likely to succeed if you give
yourself modest goals, but if your ambitions are small and your vision is
narrow you should learn to be satisfied with mediocrity.
Finally, what I believed as a kid, when I was
noodling around on the dial of an old radio, is still true today: People
are intensely interested in what’s happening at home, but
they’re hungry to know about the bigger world around them.
Journalism that feeds that need will never die.
Contact Roland Klose at editor@illinoistimes.com
This article appears in Jul 24-30, 2008.
