Category: Newspapering

My Teacher

 

I am indebted to Perry Morgan, my teacher. 

PERRY MORGAN, former publisher The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star
Perry Morgan.  Photo courtesy of The Virginian-Pilot where, later on, Morgan was  publisher.

Perry was editor of The Charlotte News when I went to work there full time in 1966.  He must have loved me like a son because he chastised me at what seemed like every opportunity.   When he thought I had colored outside the lines on a story, he would call me into his office and tell me to close the door.  And then he would teach me something I had not known about our craft, something I had not learned at the UNC School of Journalism and might never have learned had it not been for him. 

Here are the two wisest things he taught me.

One

If you cut someone in a story that is accurate and fair –and you gave them a chance to have their say– they will get over it.  Eventually, Morgan said, they will become a source and will help you cut someone else.

He was right:  I saw that happen again and again.

Why is that?

Clean wounds heal; dirty wounds do not.  And inaccurate, unfair stories leave dirty wounds.

Two

It doesn’t matter what you think is off the record. What counts is, what does your source think is off the record?

Morgan wasn’t talking about letting someone take back a statement they had made on the record or, in any way, giving them control of my work.

He was talking about avoiding misunderstandings.

Here’s the truth of the matter:

If you don’t have a clear understanding with your source about what was on the record and what was not, and you report something the source thinks was off the record, he or she will never forgive you. They will think you have double-crossed them, and from that day on they will harm you at every opportunity.

Morgan had a colorful way of expressing himself. One afternoon after he had spiked* a story I had written that he considered half-baked he called me into his office, sat me down, and told me:

“I’m not going to let you strangle on people in my newspaper. You can cut their heads off, but I’m not going to let you strangle on them.”

* In the old days editors had spikes on their desks and when they held up publication of a story for any reason they would stick it on the spike — they “spiked” the story.

Coming Monday: The Life-Saving Vision

 

“Something Like?”

Richard M. Nixon came to Charlotte campaigning for president in 1968, when I was a reporter at The Charlotte News.   When Nixon made a stop at the local television station, WBTV, I was there.  I was assigned by my newspaper to the death watch, to be nearby in case someone shot him. Or shot at him.

This photo was made on that same trip with the national reporters did have an opportunity to question Nixon.
The Big Boys gather around Nixon at an impromptu press conference on that same trip.

Thank goodness that didn’t happen, but that assignment gave me my first closeup look at national reporters who follow presidential candidates around the country, some of the Big Boys of my old craft.  Back then almost all of them were males.

The speech Nixon gave was embargoed, which meant it couldn’t be reported until it aired.  So some of the national reporters left to get something to eat and left a friend to cover for them.

I was there when the Big Boys began returning, meeting their colleagues in the lobby of the station, asking what Nixon had said.

I heard this exchange:

Big Boy #1: “What’d he say?”

Big Boy #2: “He said, a, a, wait a minute,” and he turn the page of his notebook. “He said, ah, can’t read it.” He turned another page. “He said something like…”

It was pivotal moment in my career:   Something like?  Something like!  “Something like” isn’t good enough.  Word for word, what did the man say?

From that day on, for almost 40 years, I taped recorded almost every face-to-face interview I conducted. 

Postscript: I was only accused once of a misquote and that involved a telephone interview — I never recorded phone conversations.  I don’t criticize reporters who do tape phone calls, didn’t then and don’t now. They have their way of doing business, I had mine.  Here’s the problem. If you record phone conversations pretty soon you get to be known for that.  That kind of reputation would have made some sources reluctant to talk with me on the phone for fear I might be taping them.  I didn’t want that.

Coming Friday: Handling Bad News