Sunshine, Go Away Today

anonymous-was-a-woman:

Devan: “ughhhh I have to write about Ben Bradlee and I’m just like I JUST WANT TO WATCH ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN AND LOOK AT ROBERT REDFORD AND YELL YOU KNOW THE RESULTS OF THE LATEST GALLUP POLL”

Alex: “YOU HAVE TO WRITE ABOUT BEN BRADLEE. CORRECTION. YOU HAVE THE PRIVILEGE OF BEING ALLOWED TO WRITE OF THE GREAT BEN BRADLEE.”

Devan: “I know I know I know don’t you think I know this? I had to pick from a whole bunch of other chapters by other people and I was like BEN BRADLEE YES. If I was allowed to write it as I wished it would look like this:

‘Ben Motherfuckin’ Bradlee is the father of modern journalism. His middlename is actually Crowninshield, which is badass, but most people just refer to him as Ben Motherfuckin’ Bradlee because of how imposing it sounds. He fought in motherfucking WWII and was a total badass in the navy. He is the badass who is responsible for the Pentagon Papers, but then he was like, wait no, not done, and then he got Woodward and Bernstein off their asses and helped get motherfuckin’ Watergate off the ground, too. You know the results of the latest Gallup poll? It’s that Ben Bradlee is journalism. dismissed.’”

This actually happened about 20 seconds ago. BEN MOTHERFUCKIN’ BRADLEE. P.S. Go follow Alex because she’s smarter and funnier than I am.

This time last year, give or take a few weeks, I was prepping to go to Northwestern University for the journalism division of the NHSI, a 5-week program for journalists from around the country (and world). Nicknamed cherubs. It was… interesting. A little summer cleaning, however, and I just found my cherubs notes and letters. Dear god. Here are some excerpts.

• How long is a good lead? As long as it needs to be. 
• THANK YOU, CAPTAIN OBVIOUS.
• When girl behind us was talking about her keys, she was staring right at me so I started talking to her but she ignored me so then I realized she wasn’t.
• “You’re entitled to be young and stupid.”
• Re: public schools. “small little prisons.”
• Democracy’s alarm system: Things that happen all the time shouldn’t happen all the time. Ask stupid questions. Always knock on the door. Never let someone intimidate you. Stories don’t have to come from Washington; they come from normal people.
• Be ruthless with words.
• Use more periods.
• Know your parts of speech. Verbs are the best. No passive voice, linking verbs, etc.  Nouns are good, but they have to be concrete. Adjectives are okay but generally unnecessary. Moratorium on adverbs.
• She sounds like a smoker.
• Adverbs: Go in there like a terrier and get ‘em out!
• Words are symbols. 
• Avoid double verbs and double nouns. Say it once. Leave your SAT words behind. Kill editorializing and cliches. Nix dull quotes.
• Organize adjectives in increasing order of awesomeness. Ex: the blue, Italian, rocket-propelled, monkey-piloted dirtbike. -@fakeapstylebook
• “I am not responsible for what you’re thinking.” -JK
• “When people in authority stay stupid things, always quote them.” -JK
• “He’s just your regular, run-of-the-mill anti-Semite.” -JK
• “Something happened to you. Somebody did something really scary with a paragraph and scared the living hell out of you, and now you’re scared of the return key.” -JK
• SAID! ONLY SAID! NOTHING ELSE. 
• Life and love and death and apathy.
• That woman is such an evil person. Don’t get mad, get even. You must suffer. Never ever ever give up.  
• Do not make things up. It is marijuana. Next thing you know it’s cocaine and heroin and then you’re waking up in an opium den. 
• That girl was a one time teenage drama queen. A hopped op everyday wannabe. But she’ll have changed her destiny. Now she’s a somebody. (written in purple pen by Alex Tashman)
• “What is your swagger? Is your swagger different than my swagger?” -JK
• “Hey DJ, are you from Texas?” ”No, Connecticut.” ”Don’t be embarrassed if you’re from Texas. It’s not your fault.”
• “Every time I do a session like this my goal is to offend at least one person.” -JK
• “Did I just perpetuate a stereotype? It was fun.” -JK
• TOTO IS THE JOURNALIST.
• No first person, second person, or “one.”
• Avoid generalizing. Will the publication of this editorial be in the best interest of the community? Focus on issues, not people. Simple prose. Confidence.
• OUTLAST THE BASTARDS - JOHN KUPETZ
• Even the stupid deserve a voice.
• A collision is two moving objects. You don’t collide with a wall.
• “You go to an all-boys Catholic high school? I did the same thing, and it took me years to get over it. Oh god. It was a living hell… A bunch of sexist, racist homophobes. And that was the faculty.” - JK
• “I’m not lounging. I’m insulted you would say that.” - JK
• “Always use newsprint because it comes off on your fingers. It discourages people from picking their noses. It’s a public service, Devan.” - JK
• “At your age the world is one big orgasm… Everything is romance or whatever.” - JK
• “That’s why they give the freshmen Romeo and Juliet because they’re all sexed up. They’re so overdramatic. Next thing you know they’re going at it like weasels.” - JK
• “I am not responsible for what you’re thinking.” - JK
• NICOLAS CAGE.
• There’s this guy in STL who’s been profiled by several newspapers. He is as straight as an arrow but he always wears womens high heels. Gucci, Jimmy Choo…
• I really really really hate these chairs. They are so squeaky and uncomfortable and ugly. Ten till ten. I can hardly wait until I get my flip flops in the mail. These Crocs are ugly, almost as ugly as these chairs.
• I like this pen.
• Voice, Research, Impact, Challenge Authority, Gain Experience. You’re here to get justice for other people. Evoke emotion without hyperbole. 
• Your life is not interesting. Your personal experiences are tiring. But use personal testimony as evidence.
• The sky is not falling. Reporting fuels writing. Beware of sarcasm and take criticism. Your goal is this: the reader knows something he or she didn’t know before.
• Attack the ideas, not the people.
• Reporting will get you out of trouble. 
• “Can we please have all these valedictorians plug the oil leak?” - JK
• “Hey! I see you’re doing a story on taxidermy! My father’s a taxidermist! We should get together!” - JK
• Design holistically.
• Me: Is the cleavage that big of a deal? I mean the photo’s just ugly, but is the cleavage the biggest deal?
• Alex: Not really, but probably subconsciously draws readers. You forget, though, to people like US, that amount of cleavage is no big deal. To flat-chesters & Republicans it’s huge.
• Me: Literally.
• Devan Coggan is a journalist (crossed out by Alex Tashman and replaced with THEATER CHERUB. LIES. NOT TRUE.)
• “More people who are taxidermists are stuffing their aardvarks.” - JK
• “I’m both cheap and easy.” - JK
• Alex: Devan/Theater Cherub, unfortunately one and the same.
• DO NOT ASSUME.
• No amount of makeup can mask inner turmoil. Pay attention to your surroundings. Establish common ground. Do not be intimidated.
• Dear Taylor, Alex the Photographer already takes the best photos in the world. Stop trying to creep on my man.
• Ask questions you know the answer to. Establish credibility. Do not order soup, shakes, steak, burgers, seafood. Never ever ever ever lose your temper. Sweat the details. Use chronology. Listen aggressively. Get their life story even if you don’t need it. 
• We live in an information-rich environment and in our daily lives, we are constantly receiving messages delivered through design that is all around us.
• Design is about solving problems and answering needs with intelligent solutions.
• Crop tighter.
• “My man crush on Kupetz was really rocking’ out.” - BB
• Senior Year: Let them be morons. 
• All hope is not lost. 
• As always, why now?
• Employers don’t care about editing — They care about your reporting. 
• Internships: Be prepared for a soul-crushing amount of rejection. Volunteer for the crap jobs. And do them with a smile. Eventually some editor is going to say, “Why is that little shit always smiling?”
• The only way to get better at journalism is to do it.
• Your cover letter. Address it to a person. Spell check. You are not experienced. Don’t say, “I <3 Journalism.” No tattoos. 
• Play to your passion. Stay sane. Highest compliment? An idea machine. Read the publication that employs you. Over report. 
• NO EXCLAMATION POINTS.
• Don’t be a spaz. Don’t use emoticons. 
• Follow through on a pitch. Be prepared to be rewritten. Never get anything wrong.
• Be skeptical, not cynical. 
• Pedestrian indignities, be experience wealthy. For god’s sake, show, don’t tell. 
• “You’re covering a local government meeting, and you can’t help but think, Oh my god, these motorscooters are elected officials!” - JK
• The greatest textbook is nature. Read it. 

Not sure exactly why I’m posting this. I know this: I was on Eden’s website checking latenight dates and I clicked the link to read this speech for the thousandth time. Take a minute of your time to read it. 

——

By Bill Plaschke

Thank you very much. It’s great to be here. I am in awe of all you high school journalists out there. In fact, I aspire to be like all of you high school journalists out there.

Listen to one of my recent e-mails:

‘’Dear Bill, I have come to the following conclusion regarding your critical column about the Los Angeles Lakers. You write like a sixth grader.’’

Of course, when I get ripped like I always write back to the nasty reader.

“Dear Kobe…”

Folks, my job is just like yours. I’ve got a principal censoring me. He’s called an editor. I’ve got an adviser hassling me. That’s my mom. And yes, about once a week, I totally panic and lose my mind and slap a bunch of silly stuff down on the page just to get it off to the printer in time. It’s called a Dodger column.

The point is, we’re basically in the same business, one of the toughest businesses in the world, but one the coolest business in the world, a business that still makes millions of dollars and reaches zillion of people, no matter what Wall Street says.

We’re in the business of touch. We touch our world like nobody else can, right? You write a story and after it appears in your paper, you walk down the halls and this person you barely know, from the jock clique, walks up to you and says, “hey, you made me think.” And then this person from the skater clique comes up and says, “hey, you made me laugh.” And it happens again, and again, and soon you realize you’ve used your words to touch people, and is there anything neater?

We’re in the business of change. The bathrooms next to the gym never have toilet paper, never, and you check it out and talk to students and write about it and the story appears on the front page and – wham – suddenly there is toilet paper. The school has done it, but really, you’ve done it, your words have changed it, and is there anything cooler?

Finally, we’re in the business of miracles. You have a crazy idea, you talk to a few crazy people, you crazily type the thing into your laptop at 2 a.m. on a Wednesday night while eating Captain Crunch and clicking on YouTube, you push a button and send all this nuttiness to the school paper … and two days later, your classmates and teachers are holding it, really holding in their hands, in blackand white, reading it, laughing about it, talking about it, being moved by it, calling your “nuttiness” the voice of reason.

Everybody talks about the wonders of the Internet but, let’s face it, a newspaper is a daily miracle. You make those miracles. And you can be that miracle. I’m that miracle. I mean, I’m a freaking miracle.

Growing up in Louisville, Ky, I went from a tiny Catholic grade school to this giant public high school called Ballard. My parents weren’t rich, I didn’t know anybody, and I stuttered. My first three months, every day I would run home after school and sleep for two hours, I was so scared and depressed.

I was sure of only two things in the entire world. I loved to write, and I loved sports. But what good was that? I didn’t figure it out until one day at a basketball game, I noticed everyone in the stands chanting for the worst guy on the team to play. His name was Earl. ‘’We Want Earl!’’ Well, Earl was one of my first friends, one of the only people at school who would talk to me. I thought, this is fascinating, people cheering for the worst guy on the team, what was that like?

So I asked him. And then I wrote a story about it and turned it into the school newspaper.

And here came that miracle. Two days later, people were holding the paper and pointing at me as I walked the halls. Teachers were patting my back. Even the jocks were suddenly talking to me. And I realized, this was not because of my background or athletic skill or coolness. Hell, I couldn’t even talk without stuttering, remember? This was all because of my words. I thought, I can have this much effect on my world with just words? Wow.

My words brought me through another tough situation, at my college, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. It was, at the time, a small school with few facilities. I went there because we had just moved to Illinois and it was cheap. I lived in a church basement. I had no money, no connections, I had only my words.

We had no gym at school, no football team and a basketball team that played in a local high school. Besides soccer, we didn’t really have any big-time sports. So I didn’t write about games. I wrote about people. The school’s only competitive pool player, doing his homework in smoky taverns. The school’s long distance runner, trying to qualify for a marathon by running through cow pastures. I didn’t write stars, because we had no stars. I wrote humans. That’s how I learned of the simple power in their stories. That’s why I still do that today.

Being an unconventional writer from a school not known for sports, I had little shot at the sportswriter job market. After my junior year I applied for 50 summer internships. I got 49 consecutive rejection letters. Then came the miracle. I received a positive letter from a place in Muskegon Michigan called the Muskegon Chronicle. The editor called me. “After a couple of beers, this stuff reads pretty good,’’ he said. I was hired.

After another school year, I applied to 50 more summer internships. Again, I got 49 consecutive rejection letters. I was set to go work at my father’s printing plant when, coming home from class in the middle of winter, I spotted my two stoned roommates standing in their boxer shorts on a snowy balcony. “Bill, somebody, somebody called!” I’ll remember this moment forever. I yelled, “Who called?’’ They yelled back, “Oh, wow, um, we got no clue, dude.” But they had written it down. It was the St. Petersburg Times. Somebody wanted me. I was so excited, I drove down there early and missed my graduation ceremony. I was so excited, I didn’t put oil in the car and it sputtered around for the next two years.

Thus started a career that has resulted in four Columnist of the Year awards and a Pulitzer Prize nomination and man, that’s a miracle. I was a miracle. All because of my words. It was proof that words can take you place you will never imagine.

That can be you. Be that miracle. Your words can make you one. That’s why journalism is still the greatest equalizing business in the world. It doesn’t matter your color or your gender or your bank account or where you live or how you talk. If you can write, you can touch, and if you can touch, we will hire you, because that’s one thing newspapers still do better than anyone else, we can touch and be touched, the morning paper soggy from the milk and the tears.

Be the miracle.

And write the miracles.

As I said, that’s been my career, writing human miracles great and small, from the youth league umpire who worked a season while dying of cancer to the junior college basketball player who cared for his bedridden mother and a developmentally challenged brother. He had pager on the bench and would leave in middle of games when she was in distress.

That’s not Players of the Year. No All Stars. No Studs. Just humans. But that’s what we are, right? Humans. We like to read about ourselves. We like to read about what we can become. We can’t Be Like Mike, we can’t dunk, we can’t imagine it. But we can sure as heck imagine what it’s like to feel like you have to be in three places at one time, all while trying to follow your dream, like that basketball player.

I’m not the guy who likes to write about Super Bowls or Final Fours. I’m the guy who likes to write about the first Mexican American to play in a Super Bowl, I go to his border home and write about Sunday tamales with his family. And I’m the guy who writes about the former Final Four hero who is now selling cars in Las Vegas. He’s so far from his glory, he barely recognizes himself on the video.

Write the miracles. They’re rarely loud, and they’re rarely in lights, but they’re always there. I bet right now I can walk into your high school and find one and run it our paper and it would kick your butts.

I said this once to a class at USC. They all laughed. Then two days later, I wrote a story about a 5- foot-4 poor, disabled kid from East L.A. who took two busses for two hours every day to come to football practice to carry water for the football team. It turns out, the coaches fed him and the equipment guys clothed him and they all cheered for him, made him their unofficial mascot. I wrote this story about a great team reaching down to help one of society’s weaker members, and the USC writers came up to me later, all mad, and said, “Man, we just thought he was some weird kid who kept showing up.”

Every school has a “weird” kid. Find that kid. Write that kid. We can learn from that kid. Write the miracles. Look for the miracles. After a 16-year career, you know what story finally convinced the L.A. Times to make me a columnist?

A high school story that I wrote without assignment, on my own time.

I was researching a story about the NFL outlawing bandannas because they felt it glorified gangs. I called the coach of an L.A. school, Garfield High, that was located in gang territory. The coach said, “Bandannas are the least of my problems.”

I wrote down, and I hung up, but then I started thinking. If that’s the least of his problems, what else is going on there? So I needed to call him back. Now I know in today’s age of e-mail and text messaging, it’s hard for some of you to call people. Don’t lie. I bet a lot of you have set up stories through e-mail, and some of you maybe have even conducted interviews via e-mail or text?

Don’t. If you want to touch the reader, you have to transfer the touch of the subject. And you touch nobody on e-mail. They have to hear your voice. They have to see your face. So, anyway, I tried to e-mail this coach … no, seriously, I called him back and arranged to spend a week there after work every day. And the things I saw amazed me. Kids getting helmets stolen on the way to the games. Kids afraid to score touchdowns in one end zone during practice because gang members hung out there. It was a miracle they could play. I spent a week there, wrote a column about that week, it ran on the front page of the paper, generated over 1,000 e-mails, and they gave my column.

I didn’t get it writing about Tiger Woods or Barry Bonds. I got it writing about Garfield High.

This same thing happened a couple of years later, during the middle of the Laker playoffs, when I noticed that a Compton High School softball team was losing each game 40-0. I drove down there, discovered a field filled with dead rats and a team with no gloves or equipment, even though the boys team played on a beautiful field with all kinds of equipment. It was a miracle these girls didn’t quit.

I wrote the story, and my bosses didn’t want to run it. Bad timing, they said. Not during the Lakers playoffs, they said. It looks funny, they said.

Well, I complained so much they finally ran it…and turns out, it received as much response as all the Laker stories combined. Like I said, a miracle.

Lots of people are going to try to stop you from writing the miracle. Because nobody believes in them, right?

They’re going to want you to write about the star football quarterback … but you’re going to want to do a story on the green-haired kid who rides the unicycle every day during lunch. Turns out he’s training to join the circus… Fight for the miracle.

They’re going to want you to write about the principal of the year … but you’re going to want to write about the substitute teacher who is working only to support a son who was wounded in Iraq. Fight for the miracle.

People are going to criticize you, call you soft, rip you for not tackling bigger problems like school budget and teacher shortages.

Well, you can cover those. But do it by finding the miracles in those. Find the student mom whose one-year-old has to spend her days being watched by an 89-year-old great grandmother because the school cut daycare. Find the boozy local mechanic who is teaching shop classes in exchange for being allowed to pass out his business cards to the kids.

Be the miracle. Find the miracle. Tell the miracle.

TV can’t show it like we can show it. Radio can’t sing it like we can sing it. And the bloggers just can’t make it stick like we can make it stick.

If you wanted me to come here today and talk about your future as a blogger, you’ve got the wrong guy. Blogging is great, but blogging can be done by anyone with a computer and a couch. At the end of the day, readers still want perspective from someone who reports and interviews, readers still want a closer look from someone with access, reader still want to learn, and a newspaper will always do that best.

We’re not dying, we’re just reshaping. Much of our stuff is going on the web before it goes in the paper, and that’s fine, because the readers still know it’s us, someone they trust, someone they understand. Your future as newspaper people is still great. You can still go as far as your belief in miracles can take you.

My belief was tested one a couple of years ago when I began receiving this string of well-written e- mail critical of my Dodger columns.

It was from a woman who was obviously very smart about the team, yet when I asked her why she didn’t go to games or even be a sports writer, she gave me these weird answers.

Her name was Sarah Morris, she was 32 years old, and she said she was disabled. When I said they had wheelchair ramps in press boxes and stadiums, she said she had cerebral palsy so bad, she couldn’t move anything. When I asked how she typed these e-mail, she said she did it with her head.

When I asked WHY she wrote about the game, she said she watched every game and wrote a game story every night for a private website that only her mother could see. She said it was her only contact with the outside world.

It was all so weird. Then when I asked if I could talk to her over the phone for a possible story about this nutty fan, she said she couldn’t talk.

Right about now, I thought this was probably some 42-year-old male plumber from Hollywood just messing with me. If I was blogging, I would have written her off. If I didn’t believe in miracles, I would have stopped answering her e-mails.

But I asked her where she lived. She said she was in a small town in Texas. Then I asked her if I could visit her. She gave me directions.

So one day when I was in San Antonio with the Lakers, I threw caution to the wind and drove three hours through winding country roads to where she said she lived.

I pulled up to this rusty gate, which led to this dirt road, which ended up at this garage-like shack with broken windows. At that point, once again, I doubted the miracle. Then my eyes were briefly blinded by this shining. It was from a stack of old wheelchairs.

Then an old woman came to the screen door, asked if I was Bill Plaschke, and invited me inside. There, in this dark, garbage-packed room with rats everywhere, sat a bobbing-headed girl in front of a flickering TV and an old computer, a girl wearing a head pointer.

‘’Mr. Plaschke, this is Sarah Morris,’’ said the mother, and I started to cry.

How could I have doubted the human spirit. How could I have doubted people’s capacity to amaze. How could I have even briefly not believed in the miracle?

I wrote the story. We received several thousand e-mail and the story appeared on everything from ESPN to Good Morning America. But, more important, people started reading her stories, and MLB was so enamored by it, they hired her, and today everyone Sarah Morris today on dodgers.com.

Only in journalism can our words mean so much. Only in journalism can we use those words to change the world.

Write the miracle. Be the miracle.

The #partylikeajournalist hashtag on Twitter might be the greatest thing to ever happen to me. Samples:

Copy editor, explaining just how terrible a restaurant was: “Let me put it this way: The menu font was Comic Sans.”

I tried to edit my 37 inch story down to 25 inches. It’s now 40 inches.

Goat tried to eat finger. 4-H’er tried to steal my food. Only taking shots I know will work, so no pics. #partylikeajournalist at the fair.

What’s the point of being a designer if I can’t sneak pictures of kittens into hard news stories?

Starting the month with a fresh notebook.

You know journalists are on deadline when they haven’t been on Facebook or Twitter for more than 4 hours.

One interview down, one to go, and I’m not even in the office today.

Crank the “gangsta” rap, I’m ready to cut some stories.

Can I sleep under my desk between stories?

It’s 2:30 am and I am working on the next site release.

Already missed deadline. Thinking about giving up on my work for the night and shopping for new ringtones instead.

Do photogs take a secret oath to ignore AP style, grammar and spelling? I think they do. I’m on to them.

Waking up in a cold sweat thinking you forgot to change the date on the masthead.

Leaving the alarm set for Saturday so I can see if the competition scooped me or not.

Late at night, nothing to do but watch Good Night and Good Luck and bask in the awesomeness that was Edward R. Murrow.

Judging a letter from a loved one based solely on the font used. Won’t even read it if it’s in Comic Sans.

Vetting potential boyfriends and girlfriends by making them take an AP style test.

Waiting to go to the bathroom ‘til this guy calls me back.

Apparently “Call me back for your interview” means “I’m going to ignore you more.”

Checking the highway patrol emails and listening to the police scanner on a Saturday is how I #partylikeajournalist.

Just sat through a five-hour long school board meeting…

One time an editor edited in a rhetorical question lede to one of my stories. So embarrassing.

Protect stylebook at all costs. Use table as coaster.

Deadlines do not care about stomach pains, ulcers or internal bleeding. Writing from home with a bottle of Pepto.

I mistakenly corrected my editor in telling him monsoon season was repetitive. He told me having a janitor and me on staff is repetitive.

Me: “Newsroom.”

Caller: “Can you tell me the answer to the Jumble?”

When you spend all day trying to find the password to your work’s WiFi so you can play Words With Friends.

Something I wrote today was picked up by the AP. Score.

When the first thing you do after you roll out of bed is check your work email and see how many readers you’ve pissed off.

Getting excited about free cookies at the county board meeting.

Stopping at the store after a marathon shift and becoming convinced a topiary will make you spend more time at home.

On the scanner: Report of a man lying on his roof in his underwear. I’m ready to go as soon as they say the address.

#partylikeajournalist