News work continues to be rewarding

By Debbie Irmen (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published Thursday, March 6, 2008

Most people I talk to don’t like the month of February. I love it because two significant personal beginnings occurred in this month: The first obvious reason I like this otherwise bleak, cold non-month is it is my birth month.

The other reason I like February is I started at The Daily Journal in mid-February. Until I found myself in the Journal newsroom in this otherwise non-descript month, I had drifted from job to job.

I have enjoyed my life in a newsroom, though Lord knows why. It doesn't matter what you do, it's never enough, nor is it ever right. We fall short of readers' expectations with every publication, despite our best efforts — if we put something in, we shouldn't have; if we take something out, we shouldn't have. If we want to put something in, we shouldn't.

And if that isn’t enough, we set ourselves up to make mistakes. Though I've never actually tested this theory, we in news have at least 1,000 opportunities within each publication to mess up someone's name. In news alone, excluding advertisements, news staff publish roughly 1,000 on average every day. That's a lot of names — and chances to misspell them.

Assuming we get relevant stories in and spell everyone's name right, there's always something else.

Such as the topic for a story or column. Holy cow, people can rip on you if they don’t like the topic. It’s enough to make you want to quit writing, and something I’ve considered multiple times. Not may people want to take the risk of weekly criticism so conveniently hide behind an alias.

What those nameless people apparently fail to realize is that if they don’t like the topic, they don’t have to read it. Newspapers are set up that way with headlines and all.

If those who like to remain anonymous would like to write a weekly column — it’s difficult to find a topic each week — I’d be happy to entertain the thought. Like most jobs, it’s never as easy as people who know how to do the job make it appear.

And it's not like we can hide our mistakes, either. Heavens no, they are there for generations of historians to see.

So why do I and other news people put themselves through this gauntlet day-in and day-out? Because we hope our recording of the town, its people, community trends, the happenings and events we write about, the information we impart — helps people, makes them feel better about themselves, informs them or entertains them.

Believe me when I say I’d rather have my arm cut off then be subject to the criticism from people who have no clue what this job is all about. Like most things, it’s easy to be an armchair coach, or to have hindsight show you the action you should have taken.

Each day we have the opportunity to tell people something they may not — indeed would not — have known without us. Each day we take up the challenge to do a better job today sharing information than we did the previous day. Each night when I go home, I wipe the slate clean of my mistakes, my triumphs, my blunders and vow to do it better tomorrow.

Everyday, I learn something new about the business of sharing the news — sometimes from people who also know news, but more frequently from non-news experts — our readers.

Too often, we are expected to be perfect and disappoint you because we aren't infallible. While I wish that wasn't the case, it is our reality — yet every day we come to work which invariably exposes those imperfections, to give you the news you need to know.

Debbie Irmen’s column runs Thursdays.