A newspaper landed on my driveway, which is how I landed in news
I recently spent 10 hours in the car with a coworker traveling back and forth to a conference. I figured we’d talk for a while until we ran out of things to say. Then we’d put on my lone Spotify playlist called “Good,” which has a bunch of songs I like, thus subjecting said coworker to a healthy dose of 90s hip-hop, yacht rock, singer/songwriters from the 1970s, Wilco and – for reasons I can’t explain and would rather not think about – Post Malone. But that’s not what happened. We talked the whole time, and as journalists, we both got into why we became journalists. It wasn’t something I’d thought about a lot, which is odd because journalism is what I do with most of my time, and as Socrates once said, “The unexamined journalism career is not worth having.” Or something. He said it a long time ago.
I’m writing this for me, but, hey, maybe you’ll see some small piece of your own path reflected here or just enjoy the nostalgia. I became a journalist because of the morning newspaper. I loved it from an early age. My family subscribed to the Cleveland Press, and, after it folded, we took the Plain Dealer. I looked forward to reading the PD every single day. I wish I could say that, as a 7-year-old, it was because I had a deep and abiding interest in the machinations of local governance, but no. I was obsessed with sports. The sports section was mine. I read it at the breakfast table – the columnists, the articles about Cavs, Browns and (then) Indians games, players and coaches, the stats, the standings, even the This Day in Sports on the agate page. I read every word and every number, every day. I was obsessed. When the Browns had their Marty Schottenheimer/Bernie Kosar run of glory, and the Mark Price/Brad Daugherty/Larry Nance Cavs kept making the playoffs around the same time, it only heightened my obsession.
When I was done with the sports section, if the bus hadn’t come to our house yet, I read the comics, mainly for The Far Side, as well as Calvin. I only read Peanuts dutifully, and Cathy, in bewilderment.
TV news was big, too. I knew that every night at about 6:22 I could watch highlights and get sports news on WEWS from Nev Chandler. Before ESPN, sports highlights were appointment TV on your local affiliate, or on Monday Night Football, This Week in Baseball, or the George Michael Sports Machine. You could also – and it’s weird to think I was alive when this was common – buy VHS tapes of sports highlights and bloopers. It was a dark time for America.
I also listened to the Browns, Cavaliers and Indians on the radio, and I listened to the pre-and-post-game shows and call-in shows, either from the garage while shooting hoops, or at night on a radio next to my bed.
Sports were a gateway drug. The sports section of the PD led me to other parts of the paper, like the Metro column and the opinion pages. I became a regular reader of Mike Royko, Dave Barry and Dick Feagler. I loved their style and wit. They wrote about the news, but they did it in a way that was interesting and accessible. If there’s been any semblance of coherence to my career, it’s been my attempt to make journalism interesting and accessible so that the greatest number of people may find themselves informed and we can keep this 200-year-old party called democracy going for future generations. At least, that’s the story I tell myself on Monday mornings. I think it’s mostly true.
Anyway, magazines came next when, like all good Catholic grade schools in the 1980s, ours raised funds by tapping into free child labor by incentivizing walking door-to-door to the homes of strangers to sell magazines with the promise of rewards, those rewards being furry, googly-eyed stickers. You didn’t want to be the one kid who didn’t get one of those magnificent prizes. The weight of the FOMO was crushing. Like all good Catholic school parents, my folks subscribed to 19 different magazines to support the cause, and so I read Sports Illustrated, as well as Newsweek, Time and U.S. News and World Report on the regular. Yep, the ladies loved young Joe walking around with his U.S. News and World Report tucked under his arm while having strong opinions about Cold War politics.
By the time I was a teenager, the die was cast. I started working for the high school newspaper my first week as a freshman, rising from sports reporter to sports editor. I also volunteered to write for everything you could write for – the Creative Writing magazine, Power of the Pen, the yearbook. I even did morning announcements – my lone foray as broadcast talent. Then, as if there was any doubt, the first Gulf War broke out on live TV in my living room while I was supposed to be studying for a final. I watched for hours. Those hours turned into days. Days into weeks and months. I asked my counselors which Ohio colleges had a good journalism program, and they all said Ohio University. I applied and got in.
At OU, back in the 1990s, all the student organizations set up informational tables at the student center the first week to recruit incoming freshmen. I made a beeline for The Post. A day or two later, I got a call from the sports editor. They had an opening on the sports staff covering men’s cross country. She asked if I knew what cross country was. I lied and said yes. Then I went to the library to learn everything I could about cross country. I had my first byline within a week – and I was paid $6 a week as a staffer. I was now a working journalist! The Post was the first time I was in a large, daily newsroom, and I knew I’d found my people (passionate, funny, meticulous, strange), and those people further cemented my purpose. The Post led me to an internship in Washington DC, which truly launched my professional career.
I’ll spare you the tedium of the rest of my resume and get to the point. I wish I could say I had a plan, and I followed it. Because then I could usefully add, and you can, too! Here’s how! But there was no plan. There was just a feeling of, “I love this, and I want to keep doing this,” and I just kept pushing in that direction as hard as I could. I guess if there is wisdom to be offered, it’s to expose your kids to things, and when they show a passionate interest, lend support and get the heck out of the way.
I’m confident my 6-year-old daughter will write a similar essay 30 years from now about why she became a YouTuber.
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