Posted on

In the news world it’s “root hog, or die”

Quite a piece it has been since I heard those quiet tappings from the keyboards, the telephones, the occasional neighbor talking too loudly to his source, the buzz of CNN on the TV screen, and people pissing me off because they stopped to shoot the shit right behind me as I try to finish a story on deadline. I am talking about the sights, sounds and, yes the emotions, of the daily newspaper newsroom.

Actually, next month it will be six years that I stopped working full-time as a newspaper reporter. I left under what is called a “confidential agreement.” You can draw your own conclusions, but sure as shootin,’ I don’t want to pay back the eight weeks severance I got when I left on that ugly April day.

Over time, though, you see that those feelings you once held so tightly and rightly about how you went about your job and how the means turned out looking differently from the ends sometimes, especially to the readers.

The three local TV stations we had where I worked — we had three TVs in the newsroom and we watched them each night at 6 & 10 — were mediocre small market news operations. Like many small markets I have seen, they always tried to claim their news superiority was more than it really was. Particularly galling, was the phrase several of the news anchors used “”As we first reported.” The trouble I had with the phrase was 99 and 1/2 percent times, the “first reporting” meant that they were first to report it on the air. As to where the story originated, it was almost always something the TV stations stole from the newspapers.

I followed a couple of important stories in that town and market over the seven years I worked for this paper. More often than not, when news broke on these stories, it was I who did the breaking. I fancied myself a better writer than reporter for a number of years until I became really good at the reporting end of it. I am not bragging. It was just a fact that I was an above average reporter who had that “nose for news”  and who kept on top of his “stuff.” That is why the TV people would piss me off. I was the one who broke the stories.

These days, since I do little real reporting and I tend to “bury the lead” more than I would like, I often look differently at TV news knowing that — normally — the area’s local daily or strong weekly newspapers supply the TV with their stories. The “pretty boys and girls” put the underpaid newspaper beat reporter’s words into tons of mousse and hairspray. Sorry, I know I am just being mean there. I know a number of local TV reporters who are nice people and very competent. But I also know some who are as worthless as a beer bottle in a gunfight.

To be perfectly honest, the place where I now reside doesn’t have a very good, prominent, daily newspaper. The paper is blessed with a few good reporters/writers, but the old, established daily, suffers from a severe lack of leadership. The best newspaper reporter in the World can only carry a medium-to-small-medium-sized newspaper so far.

The guided-missile destroyer USS Barry launches a Tomahawk missile March 20, no doubt, to NOT find its way up Libyan strong man Col. Quadaffi's butt. (Navy photo by ICFN Roderick Eubanks)

Okay, so I bury this way deep. Last night when CNN’s foreign correspondent Nic Robertson reported Quadaffi’s compound was “blowed-up” by a cruise missile or something of the kind, I noticed the visible excitement of his back in the “USSA” anchor T.J. Holmes. Continually, it seems, Holmes would replay the moment when Robertson first reported that Q-daffy’s place went boom and he would not be hesitant to announce we saw it all first on CNN.

As the “Breaking News” went on, I was becoming rather ready to throw a shoe (a flip-flop at least) at the TV set and Mr. Anchor Holmes. But I remembered how I used to hate the TV stations for bragging about their exploits to the point where I finally said — with an editor’s approval — if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.’ When we were the ones who broke a story, we told God and everybody.

All in all, dealing with a medium which stole your stories and claimed those stories were theirs, it came down to just standing up to the local TV thieving bastards. Sorry, most weren’t like that, I only used the term “thieving bastards” first, for effect and secondly, because that’s what a very few were with which we were dealing.

In the end, no honor exists among thieves whether it be pimps, dope dealers, lawyers, Realtors, or reporters. The world is that of the subterranean and you have to dig for it, and “root hog, or die.”

 

Posted on

News overload continues

The “Great News Overload” continues. So much is going on of interest, to me at least, I hardly know where first to turn.

Perhaps it is a flip-up between the nuclear crisis in Japan — a little radiation goes a long way — and Libya where the UN Security Council has approved the use of  “all necessary measures“ to protect civilians from military actions by forces of Muammar al-Qadhafi. Yet another way to spell this lunatic’s name.

Maybe I am in the minority but I think the decision by the UN, which is backed by the Arab League and the U.S., is a right one. I just hope that all necessary measures which includes a “no-fly” zone is a) Not too late in the game and b) Something that will not drag our country into a third combat front. It is my understanding many military types are not for it, of course, the military leaders with any sense never want to put their young men and women in harm’s way. Let’s just hope this goes right.

Radiation in Cali? I don’t think the sky is falling quite, yet. I still don’t know what all is happening with the Japanese nuclear reactors. Looks like I might watch some CNN later on today.

Have a good weekend. Here’s hoping that all your news is good. Cheesy, I say? Ah yeah buddy.

Posted on

Truth and blame: Big questions for Japanese residents

Truth is said to be the first casualty of war. Perhaps that can be paraphrased for times of emergency or disaster.

Just now is the first chance I have had today to read a bit about the latest from Japan and its continuing crisis with nuclear reactors, a byproduct of the tsunami and earthquakes. Likewise, I have looked in on my friend Paul and his family in Tokyo via Facebook. They are a couple of hundred miles away from the messed-up Fukushima nuclear plant.

It seems difficult to find the truth anywhere from the media or government sources about just what condition Fukushima’s condition is in, with apologies to Kenny Rogers and The First Edition. One would figure going to a prominent piece of the newspaper medium such as Japan Times Online might have the skinny. But this story is so full of jargon it seems as if  some one used a scientific dictionary for skeet practice and the words fell to Earth in shotgunned fragments. Then there are the news aggregators such as Google News:

Add to that, Sky is Falling Says Dr. C. Little.
What does stand out in the Japan Times story is the assertion of Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano that the problem at the plant “will not develop into a situation similar to the (1986 accident at the atomic power reactor in) Chernobyl” in the Soviet Union, even in the worst case. For comparison, Chernobyl is about all there is to go by talking in worst case scenarios.
Elsewhere in Japan the watchword seems to be “recovery” as in body recovery. How do you blame nature for what it has wrought?
Meanwhile, I read on Facebook that Paul managed to buy some food for the family at the local store along with some Jack Daniels and cinnamon rolls. Ah yes, “Jaques Daniel, that famous Cajun sippin’ whiskey what’s made in Tennessee,” the late Cajun humorist Justin Wilson was believed (by me) to have said. Whatever is good for the soul during an emergency is close enough to the truth. That, unfortunately, seems the  best that can be done in such trying circumstances as exists in Japan. Truth, another casualty of diasaster.


Posted on

Alive from Tokyo, some thoughts from a friend about this earthquake experience

Want to know about the Japan earthquake? Then go away! Leave me alone.

No, seriously, my friend Paul and his family went through it yesterday. Paul and I attended college journalism classes together eons ago. He now lives near Tokyo. I thought he had some interesting takes about getting bounced around like human popcorn and he has been kind enough to share some of his quake thoughts with the blog. Full disclosure, Paul has done quite a lot to move the blog forward somewhat. That it hasn’t moved much since then is my fault. But, let us not speak of faults right now since we are talking earthquakes.

Paul: “I’m a mostly-retired adrenaline junkie and I usually get a kick out of small earthquakes. But into the first minute of yesterday’s quake I started thinking let me off this ride. We live in an older house, so I usually think we are getting more shake, rattle, and roll anyway. Even from upstairs to downstairs there is a big difference.”

I’ve been through tornadoes and hurricanes, but no earthquakes. I have seen earthquake videos of what seems like very quick events and just as quickly, they are over. But just as I imagine, a description such as Paul’s seems to make the quakes crawl as in slow motion:

Paul: “The books started flying of the shelves, and the hanging pots and pans banged out a tune. Our sliding front door slid open, desk drawers shimmied opened, and a child from a neighbor’s house had had enough and let loose a wail. I started thinking our house looks like the set for ‘Poltergeist.’ “

Was the ghost of Richard Brautigan flying somewhere around Paul? I wonder with my friend’s most logical quest for some rum.

Paul: “After it stopped I ducked outside for a bit. A lot of people were outside chatting it up. There were no signs of an earthquake. Off to the supermarket for rum. They had already put all the glass goods on the floor in shopping baskets. The aftershocks had started, but you can hardly feel them outside. I hadn’t opened the rum yet … but that is what I figure it feels like — rum legs.”

Paul and his wife, Mika, have the advantage of living where earthquakes aren’t unique. But a quake of the magnitude that hit is hardly the same old, same old. For their kids at school when this happens, one can only imagine how they view the experience.

Paul: “Mika and I start talking about the kids. She wants to go to the school and pick them up. I think they are better off there. She points out that the kids will be afraid. She wins, we go.”

Once at the school, it isn’t as easy as Paul would wish to get the youngsters and go home.

Paul: “We are stuck in the quadrangle with the other parents. They school won’t release the kids because they are ‘safer inside’. As usual I start wondering who is in charge here? Give me my kids! It’s cold, and the after-shakes continue.. Emergency vehicles are all over the place, but still no signs of damage.

“I was getting really annoyed at the school. Face to face with the bureaucracy. I saw one mother go in and come out with her kid. What’s with that, I pointed out to Mika. But I know I can’t be a troublemaker here. But as I stand outside I wonder if the kids know I am here waiting. The announcement comes that they won’t release the kids as there are still aftershocks. No shit? The aftershocks are not going to stop, so what is the point? They start to look like dorks to me. Give me my kids! Mika tells me to relax. It is the system. Go with the flow.

“They finally release the kids and we decide sushi is proper quake food. Besides, McDonald’s is not serving french fries. Sorry Emma. No deep fat frying in an earthquake. We head home and turn on the TV — same as folks in Texas. Looks a lot worse than thought.”

Later on, Paul discovers the severity of his world versus the earthquake-riddled world of Japan both out and about, and in the quiet hours of the childrens’ slumber.

Paul: “It got dark, and I went out for a racing form. The streets were packed with people walking home. The entrance to the subway is closed. I get home and Mika tells me that the weekend races are cancelled. Wow … this is serious. We spent much of the night watching the news. The kids don’t want to sleep alone. They fear the top bunk bed is going to crash down on them. Mika and I win this round, besides, they have been nonchalant about the aftershocks for the past few hours. Kids do adapt quickly.”

The next morning, as is so often from a morning after a disaster, is this really all that bad?

Paul: “Woke up several times during the night to the sensation of gentle rolling. Back to my style of quake where nobody gets hurt. Early morning announcement over the public PA system to conserve electricity. News on, coffee on … breakfast cooking. Sure looks bad over there somewhere else. Not here. Once again. This all happened to somebody else. It will never happen to us — isn’t that the way it goes?

” I’m a trained journalist Dick … the first thing I did was turn on Facebook and typed ‘earthquake’. We hear there are power outages here and there in Tokyo. A nearby luxury apartment has no elevator service. 50 floors. Heh! Take that rich guy who lives in the nice apartment!

“Finally, as I said, outside it is all different as the aftershocks continue. You can feel them, but you have to pay attention. They ground is subtly swaying. You know in the house it would be magnified and rollicking. No aftershocks this morning.”

Paul replays the event in his head. As one with any modicum of sense might realize, it is not in our norm to process events such as what my friend has experienced, or Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Ike which I went through, and Hurricane Humberto, which I slept through.

Paul: “At first it’s ‘cool’. Then it’s “Whoa, this is kind of long!?” Then, “Is this it? Is this the big one? Is the house going to come down?” Then there is this dreadful sense of helplessness. What can I do here? Then it stops and you start nervously laughing.

“Weird.”

I thank my friend and fellow J-school grad, Paul, for his thoughts in the wake of this historic earthquake. We hope the “new normal” of the kind that emerges from such disasters will soon surface and a better day soon comes for those affected.

 

Posted on

Reelin’ and rockin’ all the way across the Pacific

UPDATE: Paul’s awake. It’s 7:30 a.m. Saturday in Tokyo. His household is doing okay.

“Aftershocks through the night — 7:30 AM now, might be done with them.”

Hopefully so.

It is difficult to imagine the kind of shaking and subsequent damage that came in the massive earthquake striking Japan late last night, U.S. Central Standard Time, my time. At least that is what I have been able to gather reading stories and looking at time zone converters. I have to use those or my World Time Clock app on my cell phone because places across the International Date Line are and always was tricky for me.

The last I looked on Facebook my friend Paul, who lives in Tokyo and who has contributed tremendously to the IT and other portions of this blog, was most likely asleep as it was about 6 something in the morning there. When I first learned of the 8.9 magnitude quake — what is being called the strongest in the history of Japan — I was about to leave for work this morning. I read through some comments before leaving which Paul had posted on Facebook about “the ride” they were all taking. I had actually read a comment last night Paul had posted about a quake, that got his attention, which I suppose was a foreshock of the big one or big ones. Nonetheless, I was relieved to see that Paul, Mika and the kids were doing okay after the major quakes and aftershocks. Others where the quake or tsunamis hit were not so lucky. Authorities in Japan say as many as 1,000 may have died from the earthquake and its aftermath.

Before leaving for the office I likewise watched some live pictures CNN had in the early morning hours in Hawaii, where they were expecting tsunamis from the quake. The waves shown in the pictures weren’t very dramatic but I understand some parts of the islands were affected by a tsunami as was portion of the California coast.

A dramatic representation of tsunami wave heights from the Japanese earthquakes. (U.S. NOAA image)

I began looking for information about the earthquakes, Japan and how the U.S. was affected when I got home this afternoon and I got it. For something so large as the quakes and subsequent tsunamis, you can almost run into an information overload on the Internet. I have yet to turn on the TV and see what, if anything, CNN or the other cable channels are doing. You never can tell about them.

Meanwhile, I will keep tabs on Facebook, e-mail and other forms of news to see how things are going with our friends and neighbors across the Pacific. I’ve been meaning to have a Skype, face-to-face, with Paul soon. Perhaps we can “see” each other this weekend. If I come across anything I should post here, I will do so.