My Journey Into Journalism

Standing in line at Wharton County Junior College in 1964, a bespectacled professor was quizzing each incoming freshman about the choice of a major.  My only goal at the time was to spend as little time as possible in class.  Now I was supposed to select a career?  And before the first class?

My best friend stood ahead of me in the queue.  When he approached the professor, he uttered those now famous words, "I want to major in journalism."  Listening, I thought to myself.  Writing.  Hmmm. How hard could that be?  I had watched a chimpanzee bang on a typewriter in a movie.

That is how I wound up in journalism.  What began as a fanciful notion, soon turned into a passion for reporting on the news  My initial foray into my freshly minted major was as a writer for the college newspaper.  I soon received my first lesson about ethics and journalism.

After some investigation, I wrote a story about our dear college president, who was secretly assisting a local manufacturing plant break a strike by hiring students.  It was hush-hush but I uncovered a couple of students who volunteered to be whistle blowers.  Now they call them unnamed sources.

The day the story appeared in the college paper my journalism professor was hastily summoned to the office of the president.  The president ordered my dismissal.  This brave journalism professor balked.  He promised to have a stern talk with me about my obvious disregard for authority.

Somehow I survived the dust-up.  Soon after, opportunity knocked.  The publisher of the local Wharton newspaper had seen my writing and wished to meet.  I figured he wanted me to do obituaries because I had almost buried a college president with a single article.

To my surprise, he showed up for the meeting with a crude radio transmitter.  The publisher also owned the local radio station.  His play-by-play sports announcer had just quit.  And the junior college had a basketball game that evening.  Would I be interested?  Well, I was a journalism major.

After a 15-minute lecture on radio transmitting and on air broadcasting, I was ready for my first radio gig.  I ended up broadcasting basketball and baseball games.  That's when I learned not everything in life is preparation.  A lot of what happens is just sheer luck no one can foresee.

Two years later I was working in the Sports Information Department at East Texas State University, my next stop on my college career path.  I needed money to pay for college and I liked sports.  Perfect match.  Then I wound up being offered the job of editor of the college newspaper.

Trouble followed.  I turned one entire edition of the paper into a buzz saw against the student government.  I skewered the student body president, tagging him a pawn of the administration. The burly guy accosted me one day on campus and threatened to dismember my body, organ by organ.

Before long, I had a call from the Greenville Herald Banner, a daily newspaper located not far from Commerce.  Their sports editor had gotten drunk and fled town.  Would I consider being sports editor for the summer?  It seemed like fate kept nudging me on the shoulder.

One day the editor raced to my desk and told me to hotfoot it to a small town a few miles outside of Greenville where a horse had broken from its rider and was racing through downtown causing general havoc.  It sounded like a yawn to me, now a big time sports editor.

When I arrived, the police were trying to corral the horse.  The boy who owned the animal was trailing behind shouting, "Whoa, Dammit!" Turns out that was the horse's name. Dammit.  It was a reporter's dream.  The headline on the front page howled: "Boy Tells Horse: 'Whoa, Dammit."

The article won an Associated Press award for feature writing.  My career in journalism was galloping along.  After I graduated college, I landed a job with United Press International, a wire service news organization with far flung offices.  I was offered Little Rock, a global hotspot.

Newly wed, I drove into Arkansas in the summer of 1968.  Within weeks, race riots erupted in the city.  I was dispatched to the epicenter of the action.  I was phoning in my report from a pay booth when an angry mob of folks surrounded the cubicle.  My life of 21 years flashed before me.

I bolted from the pay phone booth and sprinted like Jesse Owens.  I never looked back as I darted for the National Guard contingent manning barricades nearby.  I practically collapsed into the arms of a guardsman.  When I glanced back, all I saw was darkness.  Journalism was a risky business.

A few years later, the Dallas Times Herald offered me a job on the city desk.  The Times Herald was locked in a circulation battle with The Dallas Morning News.  Competition was fierce and the Herald wanted some more firepower.  That would be me.  Mr. Firepower.

One day I decided to sneak into the newsroom early to write a story for the paper's afternoon edition.  The newsroom was empty, eerily silent except for the clattering of news wire machines.  I was absentmindedly checking a few headlines when suddenly my heart went thud, thud, thud.

The Associated Press carried a story about the shooting of four sheriff's deputies in Dallas County.  The incident had happened at 2 a.m. after The Morning News had already printed its final edition.  I glanced at my watch.  It was 4 a.m.  I raced for a telephone and called the news editor at home.

The editor began summoning a crew of reporters and photographers while I sped to the Sheriff's Office.  By noon, we had wrapped up the biggest story in Dallas in years.  The Times Herald published an expanded edition that arrived at homes that afternoon.  It was a stunning scoop.

For my Herculean efforts, I was awarded a $10 a week raise.  That was the beginning of the end of my journalism career.  We wanted to start a family and the key to journalism would never unlock financial security. I decided to switch careers, despite my love of writing and reporting.

I admit goosebumps rise on my arms every time I hear breaking news.  I want to be smack in the middle of the action.  But the news business turned out to be cheap, cruel and often ethically challenging. I discovered journalism was a business, not pure as the driven snow.

I am glad I divorced journalism when I did.  It depresses me now to watch a once proud profession wallow in mediocrity and disgrace.  But I survived journalism's alluring embrace with some great memories.  I will cling to those in my golden years like a warm blanket.   

Pessimism Influences Our Viewpoint

Studies dating back several decades reveal a phenomenon unique to prosperous nations.  People tend to be pessimistic about their country and their world but optimistic about their own lives.  This dichotomy may appear at first glance to be a conundrum but experts have an explanation.

Many point to a 2013 groundbreaking study conducted by a Swedish statistician and public health expert Hans Rosling.  He surveyed 1,005 Americans on the issue of world poverty.  He was astonished to find only five percent of Americans correctly estimated the level of poverty.

In his research, Americans were asked if world poverty had almost doubled, almost halved or stayed about the same in the last 20 years.  The correct answer is extreme poverty has been reduced by one-half.  Most Americans estimated it was much higher, influenced by what they had read or heard.

The statistician's conclusion, supported by many other studies, is that people's pessimistic views often are unsupported by facts.  This is especially true in developed countries, where people generally have higher levels of income, increased security and  benefit from healthier living conditions.

Consider recent data from the University of Michigan, Haver Analytics and Deutsche Bank Global Research. For the first time millennials are less optimistic than those aged 55+ about the future.  Just 37 percent of people believe today's children will be better off financially than their parents.

Researchers concede there are depressing issues confronting the world: terrorism, conflicts, failing economies, drugs, student debt and many others.  However, these problems are often the subject of news reporting that inflates the risks and danger to attract viewers, readers and listeners.

Psychologists point to the media's infatuation with bad news.  Murders, accidents, bombings, natural disasters and scandals dominate the news.  The emphasis is on tragedy, despair and disturbing behavior. Is it any wonder Americans believe the world is crumbling beneath their feet?

Meanwhile, good news is usually ignored because the media is convinced people aren't interested.  Unfortunately, there is evidence to suggest the news cabal is correct.  Studies show Americans prefer gore and scandal to news about a good Samaritan, unless the individual is famous.

In 2014, McGill University conducted studies using eye-tracking equipment to discover what news stories their subjects preferred to read.  The results were eye-opening, pardon the pun.  The subjects preferred to scan bad news, although they professed to be more interested in good news.

To illustrate how news coverage impacts our view, think about airline crashes.  When a plane goes down, it generates a torrent of news coverage.  The result is that a sizable percentage of Americans believe air travel is risky (include me in that number.)  But the facts argue otherwise.

The National Transportation Safety Board estimates the odds of dying in a plane crash at one in 29.4 million.  By comparison, you have a one in 144 chance of being involved in a fatal car wreck. Air disaster news reports focus on fatalities without adding perspective on the relative safety of flight.

There are other influences beyond the media.  Many public advocacy groups have a vested interest in convincing Americans there are looming catastrophic consequences from pollution, climate change, social inequality, etc. etc. etc.  Frankly, their job is to scare daylights out of you to trigger a reaction.

Even well-meaning, non-profit organizations are guilty of overstating problems.  If you want to raise money, the issue to be solved must rise to a critical level to motivate people to part with their money. A tug on the emotional strings, alarming statistics and unsettling images are the grist of non-profits.

People might be reluctant to donate money to help poverty-stricken children.  But tell them millions of kids go without food every day and show videos of babies with swollen bellies and people are more sympathetic.  Often perspective is missing in the message.  People are being manipulated.

A better example may be economists and stock market analysts.  They are unrivaled pessimists.  Even with the economy improving, they now worry about wage hikes.  Shouldn't that be good news for workers?  Not in their view.  More pay means higher prices and inflation, they grouse.

No wonder Americans and people around the globe are pessimistic about their world.  They are being bombarded with distressing news, gloomy predictions, worst case scenarios and an endless list of problems.  We all need to gain more perspective and obtain factual evidence to better assess reality.

One solution is to stop watching, reading and listening to the news around-the-clock.  Being informed is healthy, but being saturated with woe and torment is a prescription for depression.  We should all strive to be rational optimists, adopting a view that no problem cannot be solved over time.

The alternative is to wallow in our agony as we are reminded daily that our planet is in a mess.  This world and nation of ours are far from perfect.  But our planet has survived devastating wars, famines, natural disasters, genocides and epic diseases.  That should give us hope for a bright future.