I'll never forgetten the first day I walked into the office of The Enterprise in Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania. I was a Staff Writer for a weekly newspaper. It was a great day. My first article was a preview of the upcoming high school basketball season.
At 16 years of age in my first writing job, I rarely was given a story assignment. It was the perfect opportunity for a new reporter. The paper was expanding it's coverage area and I had the territory all to myself.
I wanted to cover the monthly school board and town council meetings. I got the go-ahead. I wrote news, sports and features. I learned quickly how to talk to people, how to create a network to develop leads. It takes more than that, though. To be a truly successful newspaper reporter, more importantly to be a successful writer, you must have instinct.
There was a television show called Lou Grant. The character was not the same as the one who appeared on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. This Lou Grant was a serious newspaper man.
The other main characters, as I recall, were an enthusiastic, young female reporter and a photographer they called Animal.
Animal is the inspiration for the M&M appearing in this post. You'll see more of him in the future. There have been lives and times where I have been more like what I imagine Animal was in his personal life than the reporter in her professional life. That will make for good posting another time.
There was one episode of Lou Grant that made an impact with me. Essentially, he told the reporter that everyone has a story. He told her to go out and find one. I believe that he saw someone walking along the street and told her to find out what that person's story is. I maybe wrong about that; it plays out well though in terms of a 60-minute storyline.
About 10 years later, I had a similar experience in real life.
I was at the grocery store waiting my turn in line at the deli. I started shooting the bull with a guy who was waiting. It turned out he made sculptures from tin foil.
I was working at the Tribune-Review's Mon-Valley Bureau. When I got the job I had business cars printed. I was, again, working as a stringer finding my own stories. Having cards, I'd learned, would help build a referral network.
I gave this guy a card and then passed the story idea on to my Editor. She liked it, he was interested in sharing his story. I went to his house to interview him. It was amazing; I could never imagine someone could create sculptures from nothing but tin foil and make them so lifelike. Some were small, some were a few feet tall. There were animals, and people and...things.
Instead of having the article run in the local bureau section, it was picked up to run as the cover story in the main paper's Sunday Home & Hobby section!
Now, about 30 years after walking into the Enterprise office, I'm talking to a weekly newspaper about working as a stringer. I've never forgotten Lou Grant. I'm really hoping to get the job!
