Monday, April 8, 2013

"EDITORS ARE LIKE FLIES..."

Sorry, but I think that as my retirement date (Apr. 30) draws nearer, I will have to bore my facebook friends and anyone willing to read this blog with a few newspaper career quick hit (and some not so quick) posts that I will call "Memories from a 43-year career in newspapers."
 
As most who know me or who've worked with me know, I've always been something of a rebel. Although that sort of attitude actually started while I was in the Navy (that's right, ours, not "theirs"), I think it escalated while I was a reporter at The Louisville Time, my first full-time job out of college in 1970.
 
My desk in the newsroom got moved around a lot depending, I think, in large part on how pissy my attitude was over any given period. Finally, it end up right outside of Managing Editor Mike Davies' door.
 
As ...everyone knew, Davies, who took over from the much more affable Bob Clark, was not one of my favorite people. So I hung a sign on the pillar right in front of my desk so that Davies could see it every time he walked out of his office. It read: "Editors are like flies, all they do is eat shit and bother people."
 
It didn't make me any more popular with Mike, but I sure got a lot of pleasure out of it.
 
In the interest of fairness, however, I will have to admit that after I became city editor at the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., I, for a while, posted a sign on the pillar beside my desk that read: "Reporters are like flies, all they do is eat shit and bother people."
 
Funny how circumstance alters beliefs. :)

Catch y'all later.

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