Newsroom can be a good training ground

Every year in late August, I have the honor of serving on the Iowa Newspaper Association committee that selects the next recipients of the Distinguished Service Award presented at the annual convention in February.

I’m always blown away by the long-term dedication and heavy community involvement of the nominees. Nearly every community in the state has someone who has worked tirelessly to keep the citizens informed and entertained for decades. In the smaller towns, they’re often serving as news writer and sports reporter while also helping in advertising sales.

The following day, we were on our way to a visit at my sister’s lake house at Spirit Lake. On the way, we passed Rockwell City High School. I mentioned to Deb that the school’s athletic field was the site of my very first assignment covering an event for a newspaper.

The Fort Dodge Messenger sent me out to cover a track meet hosted by Rockwell City, after I had proven myself by taking calls from coaches and writing up short reports on area games during the winter. I was an 18-year-old freshman at Iowa Central Community College.

I still remember the excitement of being there and shyly walking up to winners and coaches to get comments for the story. It was both exhilarating and scary to sit down at the manual typewriter later that night to write the story, because I really didn’t know what I was doing.

Now, I’m growing increasingly concerned about the ability of each community having that watchdog function from local journalists. The pool of candidates is shrinking, with evidence from a recent survey of students at my alma mater, the University of Iowa School of Journalism. With the onset of public relations work, videography on digital websites, social media director jobs, just under 10 % of J-School students indicated an interest in a newspaper or news-related career.

Since I enrolled in that program in the aftermath of Watergate and the glory that went to Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, the school was flooded with would-be reporters in the late 1970s. Competition for jobs was enormous.

Some of us former journalists noted during the INA awards meeting that beginning-level journalism jobs often offer an array of skill development in areas such as writing, photography, social media posts and video clips. That skill set can help them find the exact career path they desire, if they’d give it a chance. We have some young people gaining that versatility on our current staff.

Newsroom work is great training for anything because you have to adjust to breaking news and be able to multitask. In sportswriting, I would often write two or three stories per day.

You learn that best in the business are relentless. The constant quest for more information through persistence on the phones and in emails is the only way to get ahead. You’re always trying to find WHY something happened. WHEN did it happen? WHO was present? Was there evidence that supports WHAT actually happened? Where are those records?

We all know people who talk more than they listen. They wouldn’t make good journalists. You never know during an interview when someone might say something that opens a window to a path you hadn’t anticipated.

“Wait, tell me more about that,” I’ve found myself asking sources, rather than going to the next question on my list.

If you keep an open mind and stay on the trail of details, the facts will lead you to the best story.

In the end, it’s worth it. You often pinch yourself in realizing that you are trusted to report on something that many people care about. You’re experiencing history in the making from a front row seat. The documentation of that event will appear as you present it.

That track meet at Rockwell City can lead to a lifetime of treasured memories.

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Contact the writer:

Email: malachy.lp@gmail.com

X: @larrypeterson