Category: Newspapering

Good Eye

When I worked at The Charlotte News in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s only two reporters were assigned to work on Saturdays and, for a while, I was one of them.

It was a hectic day, rewriting obituaries that had appeared that morning in The Big Zero — that’s what we called The Charlotte Observer —rewriting their news stories, too, and handling any breaking news.  The News was a Monday to Saturday afternoon paper so while Saturdays were busy, they were short, 7 a.m. ’till shortly after noon.

[I know how strange that must sound, rewriting stuff published in a “competing” paper even when we couldn’t add a single new development, but both papers were owned by Knight Newspapers Inc. and both papers did it to save money, I guess.  There was competition, however, lots of it.  You wanted to make The Observer reporter who covered your beat rewrite your stories instead of having to rewrite his.]

One Saturday my sidekick didn’t show up for work and I was so busy doing my job and his I didn’t have time to pee.  It was 10 a.m before he called and asked to speak to the city editor, Tom Sieg.

Tom Sieg
Tom Sieg, city editor

Sieg was steamed.

“Where are you?” he shouted into the phone.

The missing reporter, who had a reputation for drinking too much  too often, said he was in South Carolina.

“Where in South Carolina?” Sieg asked.

The reporter said he didn’t know.

“Then how do you know you’re in South Carolina?” Sieg asked.

“Because all the cars have South Carolina tags,” the reporter said.

NOTE:  I posted The Final Edition’s first story on Nov. 25, 2016, a little over 18 months ago,  and since then I’ve posted more than 150 stories.   Listed below are 10 most read stories.

I always figured that newspapering [5], hiking [2] and river stories [1] would have broader appeal, and they do.  The other two Top Ten stories are about my eccentric father.

Eight of the Top Ten were published last year.  Older stories have more hits, in part, because, well, they’re older. OK, here they are:

  1. PIZZA! PIZZA! PIZZA! Paddling The Roanoke, the winner by a wide margin.  Maybe a lot of people want to paddle the Roanoke River and this story would surely help them.  Posted June 23, 2017.
  2. Hiding In A Privy, a hiking story you can read or watch.  Posted Aug. 21, 2017.
  3. This Was Not A Real Job, my first day at work at The Charlotte News.  Posted Sept. 4, 2017.
  4. Those Mean Old Newspapermen.  I know and like newspaper people — I was one for a long time.  But some of them have a little bit of a mean streak.  Posted March 20, 2017.
  5.  Oh, Copyboy? Another newspaper story, about behavior modification, I guess you could say.  Posted Jan. 30, 2017.
  6. Here, Take My Blackjack.  The blackjack belonged to my father.  I’ve posted 15 stories about him with more to come.  If you like this one, scroll down until you see a selection box call “Categories”  and pick  “My Dad Was A Pistol.”  Posted May 26, 2017.
  7. The Good Fairy, Part 1 of 2.  The odd thing is that Part 2, posted the next day, is better than Part 1 but hasn’t received as many hits.  Posted Feb. 23, 2018.
  8. Lost on Blood Mountain, Part 1 of 2.  My Appalachian Trail thru-hike could have ended in Georgia, on the second day of my hike. Posted Feb. 16, 2017.
  9. It’s A Good Life.   This one, I think, helps us understand how we get to be the way we are.  Posted Sept. 25, 2017.
  10. Pretty Woman.  Was the high sheriff serious or was he pulling my leg?  Posted Jan. 19, 2018.

To see these stories go to the calendar at the bottom of the list of the 100 most recently posted stories and click on the date.

Coming Monday: A Minor Miracle

This Is Why I Don’t Like You

Early in my newspaper career, when I was fresh out of college, I worked side by side with a reporter in his mid-30’s who just plain old didn’t like me. He covered Charlotte city government; I had the county government beat. Our tiny office, which we shared with the cop shop reporter, was in the basement of City Hall in Charlotte.

I liked him OK, but he wouldn’t have anything to do with me.  So I stopped speaking, too.  Our desks weren’t more than six feet apart but sometimes we’d go all day without saying a word to each other.

Finally, after deadline one afternoon, I asked him why he disliked me.  And he told me.

“It’s just your whole attitude,” he said. “You remind me of the way I used to be when I was your age. You think you’re going to be somebody in this business, you think you’re going to be publisher of The New York Times.”

He said he had finally realized that he was never going anywhere, that he would always be what he was, a beat reporter.

“You’re not going anywhere either, but you don’t know that yet,” he said. “And it irritates me.”

Postscript: A year or two later he was promoted to city editor of The Charlotte News.  After that he wrote a political column published in small newspapers across the state. And then he left the newspaper business, at age 48, to become an antique dealer.

Coming Friday: Did We Talk Funny?