By Jim Hagarty
2016
The other night, six retired journalists, including me, went to the racetrack. We do this spring and fall, twice a year. Our journalism careers were all played out in different places, mostly weekly and daily newspapers, a bit of TV and radio broadcast. We were all pretty good at our craft. And when the six of us wound up teaching together at the same local college, I hope I am not bragging to say that the quality of the journalism program there took a significant leap.
We started going to the racetrack a few years ago because one of our former students, who most of us taught, sort of runs the place now, and we all like her. She is a genuine sparkplug and she seems to like us. She’s always slipping us free “betting bucks” which we usually proceed to lose right away.
We all put $20 on the table and bet till it’s gone. This week, we did pretty well and we all got our $20 back. Usually, there are only a few coins left on the table after we’ve blown the bundle. But one night we did win $800 which was a thrill.
We don’t talk about our journalism careers or the college much any more, thank God, but we are all still very interested in anything to do with news and news media. If you were forced to listen to our conversation for more than an hour, you might be looking to dash out onto the racetrack in the hope that a horse would run you down. But we think we are interesting and that’s all that counts.
I hate to report that we do too much moanin’ and groanin’ about what we seem to have decided is the poor state of journalism today, especially when it comes to newspapers that serve towns and small cities in our area. If we had been sitting around a table in 1900, instead of 2016, we probably would have been badmouthing that newfangled horseless carriage with the motor in the front. We would long for the days when horses ruled supreme and make all sorts of predictions about how the automobile would never catch on.
I am afraid to say I moan and groan with the loudest of them, but I am secretly not as pessimistic about the future of journalism as they appear to be. This doesn’t earn me any hero badges; I just think mankind is not doomed. My faith in the younger generations coming along may be misplaced but I don’t think so. There are a lot of good things happening in the world, including in the world of journalism. The Internet has allowed for the explosion of “citizen journalism” and I see great potential in that. People who are not tied to any corporation and don’t have to worry about keeping advertisers happy are free to stick their nose into all sorts of monkey business. Yes, they are mostly non-professionals and yes, they get things wrong sometimes, but there is a fearlessness there that I admire.
Journalists do not belong in the entertainment business. We have one job only and that is to seek the truth and tell the world about it.
One of my proudest moments in this business came one night when I was eating alone in a restaurant. A policeman came in, made a phone call from a pay phone at the back where I could see him, and jotted down something on a notepad that was always there by the phone. He ripped off the top page. After he left, I went over and took the page that had been under the one he wrote on. Here’s some high-tech sleuthing for you: I got a pencil and shaded in the imprint the policeman’s pen had made. Plain as day was revealed a phone number.
I phoned that number the next day and ended up with the biggest story I had had till then. The authorities involved in the story were furious with me but if a journalist goes through his career without ruffling a few feathers, he might want to leave the chicken coop for all the good he is probably doing.
The thing about freedom of the press is, it is a pillar of our society. When it is degraded somehow, our communities suffer.
In perilous times, the role of the journalist is vital.
Times such as these, for example.
