Reflections on a career in news
My first story for the Daily Herald was not actually for the Daily Herald but for the still-weekly Herald newspaper group Paddock Publications owned in Lake County.
It was a story about a terrible movie, “The Lost Honor of Kathryn Beck,” which was shot during the summer of 1983 in Mettawa.
I neither drove to Mettawa to see the production nor interviewed any of the actors. Hard to tell whether the movie or my story about the movie was thinner on quality and impact.
Things could only get better after that, right?
This was my first summer internship, and I really was starting from scratch. I’d only transferred from engineering school the year before. But that summer, among that merry band of reporters, photographers and editors, I caught the journalism bug for real. I learned what made those people tick. I learned about their commitment to the craft and to the communities they covered and the volume of blood, sweat and tears they invested in the work every day. What a joy it was. I even got to visit the town drunk in the local lockup.
I learned about different kinds of journalism ― investigative, informative, inspirational ― and settled on a favorite early on.
As a full-time reporter right out of college, I sought out stories in which I could pair people in need with people who had means and a desire to help. Sure, a Pulitzer Prize would have been nice, but there was never anything I found more satisfying than writing a story about a person in trouble and writing a follow-up story about someone who was inspired enough to help that person out.
A community newspaper’s mission is to inform its readers, to keep an eye on the people who spend their tax money, make sense of local politics, alert them to the comings and goings in town and describe what’s going on at the schools.
But what I discovered early on is the awesome power a community newspaper has to unite people. To build community.
I was only a reporter for five years, but as I moved up the editing ranks I tried to instill this in all of my young reporters. And they’ve carried that spirit forward.
In my time at the newspaper, I’ve seen more proposals to build professional sports stadiums on our suburban turf than I care to count. I’ve reported on or led teams on any number of tragedies ― the 1985 conflagration at Arlington Park, the Palatine Brown’s Chicken Massacre, the school bus/train crash in Fox River Grove, the heroin epidemic in the suburbs.
I’ve seen sleepy suburban downtowns transformed into fun places to be. I’ve seen buildings proposed, built, then torn down after their useful life has passed. That makes me feel old.
I’ve seen our company branch out where media companies have not to help support the heart of who we are ― a local newspaper.
What’s never changed, though, is the commitment of the newspaper and the people who work here to do right by our readers.
As I retire today, I hand the keys to newly-minted Executive Editor Lisa Miner, a close friend whose heart is in the same place as mine. A better person you’ll never find.
As always, thanks for reading and for your continued support of local news.