Parting Shot: My first adventure in journalism

Probably tired of me asking for something to do, she suggested I create a classroom newspaper – “little stories about the boys and girls in fifth grade.” Game for anything, I set out on the journey and quizzed them like I was Edward R. Murrow.

Taking my hand-written stories and typing them onto a stencil, she served as my first publisher. After she mimeographed and stapled them, I handed them out to the class.

The kids first sniffed the pages (yup, that’s what we did back in the day), then dug into the stories.

“What do you think of your first newspaper?” she asked.

“It’s pretty good,” I said, smiling. “But it needs something more.”

“What would that be?” she asked.

“A critic,” I responded. “Every good newspaper has a critic.”

“But who are you going to get to do it?” she said.

“I guess it’ll just have to be me,” I said.

That week, teachers in my school were performing in “Picnic.” Why, I have no clue. (Is that what teachers did for fun?) But it was something that needed to be reviewed and I, as the fifth-grade newspaper critic, had to be there.

As the teachers emoted like Hollywood stars, I furiously took notes. Filling at least three pages of loose-leaf binder paper, I was convinced I had the stuff of which careers are made. At home, I carefully combed the adjectives I had written and tried to produce a review that would get the school to sit up and take notice. “This play is no picnic,” the oh-so-clever headline read.

In blunt terms, I said the teachers were awful. They weren’t entertaining. They didn’t know how to act. They needed to stick with teaching.

Rough, right? But the strangest thing happened. We printed the review, distributed it to the students and teachers – and no one got mad.

“Good review,” a friend told me.

“You really nailed ‘em,” a sneaky kid said, then laughed.

One of the actor/teachers even told me I made some good points. I made some good points?

This has got to be the greatest job in the world, I thought.

And, yes, I continued to write reviews while I was in grade school.

And high school.

And college.

When I realized it could lead to career, I made sure to take classes in criticism (yes, there are such things). That led to a life in a business that never stops changing, a window onto a world few get and access to people I never dreamed I would meet.

When I interviewed Fred Rogers – Mr. Rogers to those who remember him from children’s TV – he wouldn’t let me go without asking a few questions of his own.

“How did you get interested in journalism?” he asked in that slow, but deliberate way. He asked about my college years and my first job. He wanted to know what I wanted to do with my life.

“Will you do me a favor?” he asked. “Will you close your eyes and think about the person who had the greatest impact on your life and, in your own way, say thank you?”

I said yes, and didn’t have to think twice.

Without that teacher who just wanted to keep me quiet, I knew none of this would have been possible.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.