Finding the News

by Peter Copeland

  My notebook out, my pen ready, I said, “Chief, what have we got here?”

  He looked at me with a glare that smacked me back a step. Then his faced softened, a little. “Son,” he said, as if to a small child, “I’m not the chief. I’m the chaplain.”

  What about the white hat? I looked at his white helmet again, which also helped me avoid his eyes, and I noticed the shield with a red cross.

  “The chief is over there,” he said, pointing me toward an even bigger, more serious guy in a similar heavy jacket. And an all-white hat.

  I strolled over, more confident now that I had found my man.

  “Chief, what have you got here?”

  If the chaplain had looked at me with condescension and pity, the chief’s face was pure contempt, unleavened by any compassion.

  “What the fuck do you think I’ve got here?” His voice rose above the noise of the trucks and the fire and the people yelling. “I’ve got a building fully engaged and a bunch of my men inside. Now get the fuck out of here!”

  I slinked away from the chief, pretending to check my notebook and hoping to find instructions for what to do next. My face was burning with shame and frustration. The cold made my eyes water. I couldn’t read my own scratches on the page.

  A TV crew piled out of a van and clambered toward the chief in a noisy cluster of gear, the camera rolling and a long foam-covered microphone aimed like a lance at the chief’s head. The blow-dried reporter, dropping into his on-air voice, fired off questions. With the camera rolling, the chief turned all professional and calmly described the situation. I wrote down everything he said. The reporter got in a series of questions before the chief excused himself and pulled away to fight the fire. The questions the TV reporter asked were the ones in my notebook that Holley had told me to ask, in almost the same order.

  I ran back across the street and pounded on the shy lady’s door. She opened, bowing again, and stepped back, and I nearly ran her over to get to the phone. I clumsily dialed, my fingers swollen with cold. “Let me talk to Holley.”

  Holley walked me through the questions, interviewing me about the details and going back over things that weren’t clear. She didn’t assume anything and didn’t allow me to presume I knew something when I did not. Only when we both were sure of a detail did she take it down. I heard the THWUK THWUK of her typing. Anything else? I flipped through the pages of the notebook, but that was it. I had told her everything I had written down.

  “Go,” she said. “Get more.”

  Back in front of the burning apartments, I saw a young African American man and introduced myself. I had noticed him when I arrived, so I asked when he first spotted the fire. I was trying to answer Holley’s questions about where and when the fire had started. That would be a scoop if I could figure out the cause of the fire. He told me he was painting one of the apartments when he heard screaming and ran outside. That’s when he saw the building was on fire. I tried to write down everything the young man said.

  Then he mentioned he had caught a baby dropped from an upper floor.

  Excuse me? I looked up from my notebook. Holley had not asked for that, but even I knew it was good stuff. I pressed for details.

  He looked about my age. He was very matter-of-fact about catching the baby, who actually was a twenty-month-old boy, and pretty big.

  Somebody dropped it, I caught it, he said. “Easy, man. No problem.”

  This is great, I said. Really great. What’s your name?

  He pronounced it, “Suh-BEE.”

  What’s your first name?

  “That is my first name, man.”

  I checked the spelling with him and asked for his last name and middle initial. There probably weren’t many “Sabbes,” but I had been instructed that a name, even an unusual one, was not complete without a middle initial.

  My notebook filled up with more quotes from residents and witnesses, more details from the chief. I didn’t ask him anything myself, but now many other reporters were shouting questions. All I had to do was write down the answers.

  The fire was coming under control, and some of the firefighters were cleaning their gear and putting hoses back on the pumpers. Nobody claimed the car that had been smashed and muscled away from the hydrant. Groups of reporters interviewed people on camera, with white lights shining like little stars on the snow.

  When I returned to the office my new clothes reeked of smoke, and my good shoes were soaked. I was cold and exhilarated. I met Holley Gilbert in person for the first time at her desk. I looked down and saw the stacks of carbon paper where she had written the story. The sheets of paper were stuck together and backed with ink, so typing on them made several copies at once. On top of each page were the words “Copeland to Gilbert.”

  She had taken my jumble of impressions and formed a clear, concise picture of the fire. She had guided me to see what others did not notice, made me check everything twice, and then crafted the chaos I witnessed into a news story. I got my first—and I would learn later, rare—attaboy from Paul Zimbrakos, the editor. There were jokes about the new guy getting his baptism by fire.

  Then over the noise of the police and fire radios, above all the typewriters and the Teletype machines, and the yelling back and forth between reporters and editors, I heard the clear voice of an announcer on an all-news radio station. He was reading a story about the fire, and it was my story. I heard my own words coming over the air and through the radio. Right back to me. It was thrilling, a rush, the best attaboy ever. This was what I wanted to do with my life.

  I spent the next thirty years chasing stories. Over time, I got better at covering the news, but it was a craft you never stopped learning. The basics were pounded into me in my first job: be fast, be accurate, be fair. We reported real news based on verified facts. At my first job I also learned how to operate the technology used to cover the news and share it with our audience, an aptitude that would be useful years later when the internet changed the business of news.

  One thing that never changed during my career was the importance of journalism to democracy and to our future. Although many will disagree, I believe our core journalism values have not changed, either. We might lose sight of them, but those traditional values are the engines that power good journalism today, whatever the type of media or latest technology.

  I was raised in an old-school news culture that had clear expectations and standards of behavior, so clear they didn’t need to be written down or recited. The burden was on me and other young reporters to learn the rules, to ask, to watch, and then to get our own stories. We were called “cub” reporters because we were just starting, but we were given a lot of responsibility early and were expected to grow into our jobs. We were learning, so we made mistakes, and the humiliation we felt made us less likely to repeat them.

  This is the story of my time as a cub reporter, which, like during kindergarten, is when you learn everything that matters. The most important lessons were not about reporting techniques, or writing skills, or the latest technology, but about the values that underlie the work. Later I would become an editor, a Washington bureau chief and news executive, but the time when I absorbed the most fundamental and enduring lessons, and had the most outrageous fun and adventure, was chasing cops, criminals, soldiers, and dictators around the world.

  The lessons I learned—the journalism values—are more relevant today than ever before, especially as media technologies evolve. If we adhere to those solid values of speed, accuracy, and fairness, we can stay true to our mission and earn the trust of our audience, even those who accuse us of manufacturing “fake news.”

  The story of my career appears to be a logical, steady progression toward better assignments, but at the time I felt no such sense of order or direction. Often I felt fear and anxiety over what would become of me, or I was swept along by forces I did not control or even see. Every time I visited a strange country or was given a fresh beat, it felt like starting something new, in ways that
were both exhilarating and terrifying.

  I had no idea I would love covering the news until I did it for a living. Nor did I realize the work would give me a profound sense of purpose and belonging, things I didn’t even know I craved. Growing up, I wasn’t one of those kids with a “passion” for journalism, or for anything. How my career developed is still kind of a mystery, even to me.

  Along the way, and far from home, I fell in love with a girl. That story remains just as mysterious, especially to me.

  All I can tell you now is what happened at the time, based on my memories, the journals I kept, and the thousands of stories I wrote from dozens of countries on five continents. During an era when newspapers ruled the earth, I was trained by some of the great characters in a wild and quirky business, and they pushed me forward, often when I was afraid to go.

  In the beginning, I was petrified. Riding up the elevator for my first shift at my first job, dressed in my grownup clothes, I felt a woman staring at me. She was about my age, but a little stern. I realized we both were going to the City News floor, so I smiled and explained myself, “First day.”

  She looked me up and down for an uncomfortable few seconds, and then pronounced, “I thought you looked like fresh meat.” The door opened and she charged into the office ahead of me.

  The man who ran the place had been equally chilly during my job interview. Jim Peneff, the general manager, who was almost fifty years my senior, questioned why anyone would leave the good money I was making in house painting and construction for the miserable pay of a reporter. The hours were bad, too, he said.

  Are you sure you want to do this? he asked.

  No, I wasn’t sure, but I felt like I had to convince him. This was a job interview, and it was my challenge to win him over.

  I smiled, leaned forward in my chair, looked him in the eyes. We weren’t connecting, though, and I was beginning to doubt I would get the job.

  After a few strained minutes, he put his palms on his desk, stood up, and asked when I could start.

  So, wait, am I getting the job? I still wasn’t sure what was happening. I said I was finishing up a few construction projects, but I was eager and could start next month.

  He shook his head no. We’ll see you Monday.

  I didn’t realize until later that the meeting wasn’t an interview at all. I got the job Chicago-style: somebody had made a call. Chicagoans were open about how things worked. The saying was, “We don’t want nobody nobody sent.” The man who sent me to City News was about as powerful as could be in the news business, and for some reason, he took a chance on me.

  After graduating in 1979 from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, and traveling around Europe, I was living alone at our family cottage in northern Michigan. I painted a few nearby houses, built a shed, and installed a split-rail fence across a neighbor’s wooded property. I had done that kind of work through high school and college, having learned from my grandfather on my father’s side, who was a carpenter and general contractor. I liked the satisfaction of a job completed on time with a tangible result.

  On my mother’s side, my grandmother and grandfather had worked at newspapers, so that was a respectable profession, too. My grandmother gave up her career after my mother was born, but my grandfather went on to become a newspaper editor in Illinois and then the Washington bureau chief for Business Week magazine.

  I first tried journalism in 1975 when a fellow student convinced me to volunteer for the weekly paper at our small liberal arts college. My first story was about bike racks; not very exciting. I was an average freshman student from a good high school in the Chicago suburbs. I played on the hockey team and went to parties on the weekend.

  My happy-enough, B-student life changed when I fell in with student activists who were fighting racism, sexism, and injustice on campus and in society. They ranged from progressives to socialists and radical Marxists, and I was drawn to their passion and commitment, their vision of a better world. They were smart and cool and arguing about things I had never considered. We sat on the floor of our dorm, drank coffee, and debated whether revolution would be necessary to bring about the changes we demanded.

  Professors and the other students, probably the majority, regarded us as weird, dangerously misguided, or dreamily nostalgic for the radical 1960s. We thought we were on a mission.

  Seeing the campus newspaper as a means to advance the cause, I became the editor in chief during my second year. No journalism classes were offered at Lawrence, but an English professor, Peter Fritzell, gave me a one-on-one tutorial in newspaper writing. He tore up my editorials and stories, not just because he disagreed with them, but because they were sloppy, fuzzy, and poorly written.

  I learned about editing, photography, and page design from the other students working on the paper. With no one to teach us, we laid out each edition as if it were the first time, and we learned newspapering by doing it. On the long nights before publication, we ordered pizzas and worked happily until morning.

  I hadn’t even read a newspaper regularly before I was editing one, but I liked the rush and focus of deadlines. Seeing my name in print was a thrill. I liked asking questions and trying to figure out things. Crafting a story and laying it out in the paper felt like building something from scratch, and it made me feel proud. The camaraderie among the newspaper staff was as tight as on any sports team, and on a few occasions we had the chance to right a wrong, or at least expose it.

  I only worked on the school paper for a couple of terms, though, because I was more interested in politics than journalism. I never really considered a career in journalism for two reasons: it didn’t seem impactful enough merely to report about what other people were doing, and my friends and I considered the media to be part of the repressive political system we opposed. After graduating with a degree in Government, I agonized over what to do with my life. I wanted to do something good and important that would make a difference.

  When I looked at America and the world, I saw only the problems, especially racism, sexism, and economic inequality. My ideals had become more radical, far to the left of the established political parties, but I didn’t know how to make them real. I considered community organizing or even factory work to be on the front lines of political change, but an older person who had been an activist during the ’60s convinced me that wasn’t the best use of my skills. You can write, she said. Use that.

  At age twenty-one, my plan was to divide the day into thirds: work, sleep, and write. I could make a living with carpentry and painting houses eight hours a day. I would sleep eight hours, leaving eight hours to write about the problems of the world. When I tried to execute my plan, I did manage to build and paint houses eight hours a day. Working outdoors in northern Michigan was physically demanding. I might have a beer after work. Then dinner. Pretty soon I was asleep in my chair. After a few months working and living alone in the Northwoods, I felt less passion about politics, and I didn’t write at all except for a journal. My plan wasn’t working, but I liked living up north. I had friends and was making enough money.

  Then one of those things happened that didn’t seem like much at the time, but changed everything.

  I had signed on to paint a vacation home owned by a family from Chicago. The father, Karl Hoenecke, was a businessman, the mother an artist, and they had three smart, cute daughters around my age. I spent long days there, and while I was the help, they treated me more like family.

  At the end of the day, Mr. Hoenecke and I talked politics, even though we agreed on little. I liked him, but he was a right-winger who spouted all kinds of craziness about free markets, individual rights, and the pursuit of happiness without excessive government control. Where did they get that stuff?

  I rose to the challenge of setting him straight. How can you support a capitalist system you can’t even understand? I asked. Nobody can comprehend how markets operate. They are irrational and unfair and allow the few to profit from the many. Wouldn’t it be bet
ter to sit down and plan how we are going to work and share the fruits of our labor?

  Since I was so worldly, I also explained there were people in other countries who were different than we were but not inferior. Did you know, I asked, that there were people who not only brushed their teeth but also cleaned their tongues, as if that should end the argument about diversity.

  He smiled and said, “I brush my tongue.”

  One day after I finished work, he was standing on his dock talking to another man with the same bearing and yacht-club style of dress. I pegged him for another titan of industry.

  Mr. Hoenecke called me over. I want you to meet someone, he said. This is Stan Cook. He’s at the Chicago Tribune.

  I wiped my hands on my paint-splattered pants and shook his hand.

  We started right in on politics, but now it was a tag team of them against me. I could handle them.

  This country’s greatest export is oppression, I patiently explained. Look at Latin America: we benefit from their misfortune, and if they get out of line, we change their governments. And at home the deck is stacked in favor of the privileged and their children. It’s almost a hereditary system where the rich pass on their money and opportunities to their own kind, freezing out everyone else . . .

  When I stopped for air, Mr. Cook said, “I see you’re interested in politics. Have you ever thought about journalism?”

  I have thought about journalism, I said, and told him I had been the editor of my college paper and had quite a bit of experience. I did not mention that I would die before working for the bourgeois media, especially the conservative Chicago Tribune.

  Still, it was flattering to be thought of as a potential journalist, and I knew in my heart that my current plan wasn’t changing the world. Maybe I could take a job inside the system and fix it from within. I imagined working inside, literally, in an office with doors and windows instead of scrambling around job sites. I was confident I could cover government, since I had a degree in political science and considered myself very knowledgeable. Maybe journalism could be my way to make the world better. I kept all this to myself. It was pleasing enough that successful men were talking about my career, my future.