Nows and Forevers

“What makes a good newspaperman? The answer is easy. He knows everything … He can go for nights on end without sleep. He dresses well and talks with charm. Men admire him, women adore him; tycoons and statesmen are willing to share their secrets with him. He hates lies and meanness and sham, but he keeps his temper. He is loyal to his paper and what he looks upon as a profession; whether it is a profession, or merely a craft, he resents attempts to debase it. When he dies, a lot of people are sorry, and some of them remember him for several days.” — Stanley Walker, New York Herald Tribune – 1920s

I’ve had this quote hanging up at my desk in the past, but it’s been a while. I was thinking of it then, and now, as ironic.

And way out of the times. Even then, there were newspaperwomen. Great ones, too.

But putting that aside — and the stuff about men admiring a journalist and women adoring, which I haven’t found to be true (though maybe I’m just doing it wrong) — some of it rings true. I am loyal to my paper and the profession or craft or whatever you want to call it. I’ve been a journalist most every year after my 20th birthday, and that was a long, long time ago. Plus I’m a third-generation journalist, and both my parents were reporters and editors, too.

I do resent attempts to debase journalism. It’s been a lot of fun.

I’d hate to think that when it’s my time to go, whether they carry me out of the newsroom or not, that it wasn’t worth doing, even if every day there was a new challenge and you’re only as good as your last story.