What makes it worth it to you?

My loving struggle with Jones and DFW - and Liebling and Heinz and Deford and Smith and Pierce and a hundred thousand others - to be the best who ever lived.

 

The abject fear and realization that if I wasn't doing this, I wouldn't have the drive to do anything else. I barely have the drive for this.

So rather than get bedsores and eventually get evicted while refusing to even look for another job, I just keep plugging along, hoping someday I'll see what all of you see in it.

 

It still beats getting a real job.
Even on my worst days, I can't imagine doing anything else, and on my best days, well, I actually feel sorry for people who don't do this for a living.

 

Watching other people read my stuff at breakfast in the college dining hall always felt pretty cool. : I s'pose there's a bit of an ego boost involved, which sometimes makes up for the lack of $$$. Those high school kids actually <i>appreciate</i> coverage, though their cranky parents might not.

I'm no closer to my goal of saving the world though.

 

creating something out of nothing

fascinating people

unforgettable moments

the rush of beating deadline with a good read, the satisfaction of kicking the competition's ass

and the Marriott points

 

Strange as it may sound, I've come to appreciate getting beat on a story. Well ... maybe not getting beaten, but that feeling I get in the pit of my stomach panging with regret, frustration and the desire to make up for myself the next day.

I love that after all these years, that still bothers me -- the day I half-ass it and greet getting scooped with a ho-hum is the day I power down the laptop for good.

 

Mostly I like the fact that I spend my work hours going to events that most people pay to see during their free time. It's also cool just to see the fruits of my labor if I've produced a big takeout package or just a really good gamer, notebook and sidebar from a big playoff game or something.

 

I plead the fifth.

 

i know exactly what you mean

my first year on my beat, I got hammered on an absolutely huge A-1 story by another beat guy

couldn't eat, couldn't sleep. was inconsolable

but also really drove me to work harder so I wouldn't feel that way again

a few weeks later, i broke the A-1 resolution of the same story

and that feeling is one of the big reasons I'm still in this business

 

The thrill of the chase of a news story in the minutes before deadline ...

So tonight we're putting the finishing touches on the news section when a co-worker calls in and tells us there's a bad accident and bodies are laying all over the street. I'm night editor here so I can't really go out, but since I'm still a newbie here, the editor works nights till I get up to speed. The only reporter tonight is banging out the rest of his story, so the editor asks if I wanna go get the story. I grab the other copy editor, who'll take the photos, and we scram to another part of town.

Bad accident. Indeed, bodies strewn about the car parts and shattered glass. I walk right up to the yellow tape to get a glimpse of the bodies, then start asking anyone who wants to talk about what happened (In this city, I'm in the extreme minority). People openly talk, and I get great stuff from witnesses and people who live nearby. One woman went up to a pile of five bodies (they weren't dead) and tried to get a 15-year-old girl to respond. She was dazed, so the woman took the girl's cell phone and called the last-received number. It was the girl's dad, and that's how he found out.

Anyway, talked to a bunch of people, including the co-worker who called with the original tip, and got what I needed. Rushed back to bang out the story, which was tight. It didn't go in the first run, but it'll be in the rest of the papers.

 

Tonight, absolutely nothing. Friday nights suck.

 

I thought about this thread at a few points tonight.

Tonight, I covered a game that was low-scoring in the first half, but exploded in the second. The lead changed twice in the last few minutes and the game came down to a final FG that didn't get off.

This is the second week of the season and the players were reacting as if it were a playoff game. After talking with coaches and players, I trudged up the stairs and immediately felt my knee pain kick in and my shirt is soaked with sweat from running back and forth on the field and the humidity/heat being up there.

I originally had about 60 of my 80 lines written with first half stuff done at halftime, I sat down, called in my final, caught my breath and deleted all of it. I banged out a quick story and filed at 10:35 p.m. (40 minutes from deadline) and packed up quickly because the stadium manager has been very cordial about giving me time to compile stats and write and I didn't want to keep him while I knew I'd be finishing up stats.

I walk out of the stadium to my truck, drive it underneath the stadium lights and turn on my emergency blinkers. I break out my laptop again, boot it up and finish my stats while it loads and my PDANet connection connects. I finally finish my stats and send them in just after 11:15 p.m. I pack up again, jump in the truck, put the windows down and blast some Reckless Kelly as I head back to the newsroom to help out on the desk.

I login at work and begin picking up the fax slack on summaries for the night when the HS editor comes to the lead designer sitting next to me and calls my game as "Game of the Night."

My newest mentor comes in and we talk about our games and the work for next week. All that and we're still getting summaries typed. Go back about an hour at this point and think to when I arrived in the newsroom and waited for the elevator. I'd just run in through the entrance carrying my huge backpack, swipe my card, put my bag down for a bit and just start laughing.

That's what makes it worth it to me.