July 2010

The older we get, the more tricks we seem to need for triggering our memories. Proust, of course, wrote a lot -- a whole lot, in fact -- about scents and the memories they inspire. I know that works for me. One whiff of salt air, and I'm at the beach. The aroma of lilacs puts me at my beach house.

However, it was a book I recently read that took me back to the time when I was first starting my journalism career. A colleague from my years at The Miami News mentioned that he'd just read a book about the long-gone Columbus, Ohio newspaper for which I'd once worked. He noted that I was mentioned in it. Off I went to hunt it down.

Late Edition was written by Chicago journalist Bob Greene (not to be confused with Oprah's Bob Greene), who, like me, began his career at the Columbus Citizen-Journal back in the '60s. Bob was a very young summer intern then. I was just out of journalism school at Ohio State and working as a general assignment reporter. Though our experiences in that newsroom were different, the people he writes about were the same.

For some 300 pages, read over the course of a few days, I was back in that mezzanine level newsroom with people who greatly influenced my life. Greene captured not only the essense of their wonderfully quirky personalities, but the joy of working for newspapers when newspapers really meant something in a community. There were the cynical, but always kind photographers Dick Garrett and Hank Reichard. A sports department filled with more unique souls who treated the young summer intern Greene with kindness and respect. Each name mentioned brought back a hundred memories. He even nailed with absolute perfection the tough-as-nails, but wonderful waitress at our favorite dinner spot. I suspect more than one of the characters I've put into the diners in my books have been loosely inspired by Thelma.

I am so grateful to Bob for giving me this chance to indulge in nostalgia for that time in my life. I'm sharing the book with others who were there back then, and it's triggering even more memories for all of us as we compare notes on those days.

For many of you a book about a long-dead newspaper in a town you might never have visited, much less lived in, may not matter much, but I recommend Late Edition for you for entirely different reasons. With newspapers around the country faltering and journalism changing, this book is a reminder to all of us of what it meant to be a reporter way back when. Back then, journalists grew up understanding how important it was to get the facts right, knowing that the people we wrote about in the most tragic circumstances deserved respect, and believing that our readers counted on us for the information to start their day.

Much of that has changed, I fear, as has the perception of the media in  general, and not for the better. This book may be an important reminder, not just to you, but to the industry at large, that to be respected, the old rules about objectivity should never be cavalierly tossed aside in favor of sensationalism or bias. Maybe we can get some balance back in reporting before the bloggers of the world take over with opinions, rather than facts. I'd like to think so, anyway.

Seems like a good thing to remember on the Fourth of July, that there are responsibilities that go along with freedom of the press. Happy birthday, America!! And thank you, Bob Greene, for reminding me of all this.