Hometown News

HOMETOWN NEWS

Reports from Trump country

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A novel by Jnana Hodson

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Copyright 2018 and 2014 by the author

Dover, New Hampshire, USA

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Contents

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First take

Add one

Add two

Add three

Add four

Coffee break: Today’s editorials

Add five

Coffee break: How do you take it?

Add six

Add seven

Coffee break: The traffic lights of Rehoboth

Add eight

Coffee break: CeCe’s Kolumn

Add nine

Coffee break: By the way, here’s my resume

Add ten

About Jnana Hodson and more

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First take

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Have you seen what's on this morning's front page? What caught your eye, grabbed your attention? Wondered just who's behind deciding what to display out there so prominently, anyway? What they're thinking and feeling? As for what's inside — the stories, photos, ads, comics, and puzzles?

I'm not talking about the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, or Los Angeles Times, either — as important as they are. No, my concern is the majority of the 1,300 daily chronicles still serving the smaller cities and surrounding countryside across the nation — a drop of more than 400 in just four traumatic decades. Out-of-the-way localities like Altoona and Erie, Parkersburg and Steubenville, Canton and Massillon, Kokomo and Kenosha, Kalamazoo and Flint, Kankakee and East St. Louis, Superior and Rock Island. The industrial heart of the nation, boasting of steel mills and railyards, auto parts and assembly plants, foundries and refineries, appliance manufacturers and toolmakers and many, many more.

Rehoboth was one of these. And the Daily Starbud was its own voice.

Not all that long ago, groups ranging from school classrooms and scout troops to civic clubs and senior citizen centers anticipated months in advance their tours of the often grimy, wondrously complex factories that gave each community its identity and purpose — and those included the local newspaper building, where they observed just how it would all come together, deadline by deadline, day after day, week after week, year after year. Their stories, mostly — births, honor rolls, graduations, marriages, promotions, festivities, obituaries.

Ever take the tour, reaching the printing press just as it's hitting full speed? Ever look agape as the spinning webs of newsprint whipped out a glorious creamy flow emerging as stacks of paper at the end?

It all depended on your timing.

Reality was, most of the day, the giant rollers sat idle while being meticulously webbed with fat new spools of paper and the latest plates of reversed impressions for each page. Somewhere in the life-size Erector set, shadowy human figures crawled about to clean chaff away or lubricate the endless gears and bearings and cutters that guillotined an endless blank stream into folded sheets ready for delivery to doorsteps, stores, and streetcorner vending boxes.

Each time a mechanic's thumb flattened another stout, blotchy button, a circuit of invisible bells looped with ringing throughout the oil-scented air. Banks of lights flickered green, yellow, red. Inching along at first, when the press was activated, wide sheets of newsprint snaked through the two-story machinery. As they accelerated, the day's news coiled around and around like pasta before blurring altogether. Locomotives ran in place. The floor quivered. The tour guide smiled. Once again, we're on our way.

Trouble started in the strangest places. But it always ended up in the newsroom.

And just what do you do?

Journalist.

Oh, that must be so interesting! Television or radio?

Newspaper. It could be interesting. So damn interesting. But not with the topics most of us wound up covering in places like good old Rehoboth. Or the people we wrote to, for, and about, like Edwards County and the St. James River Valley. What they said and did in council meetings. With school board budgets. Garbage and trash. Zoning. Brine dumping. Liquor permits and penalties. Garden clubs. Lost and found pets. In the shadows, well, there was the frustration of wanting to take real controversies deeper. Show the people, our readers and neighbors, what was happening beneath the surface. Incite reform and revolution. Force the villains to confess, even when our newspaper's money side reminded us our advertisers didn't like a hassle. Everybody accused us of being negative, even if we wrote a puff piece. It was insane.

And then the press itself gained velocity that shook the very foundation. Printers in slate gray coveralls and pale square pillbox hats made from blank newsprint eddied around their racetrack anxiously while ashen spools the size of tractor tires ended up as slabs of stacked newspapers. At the other end of the building, we, too, measured our work in Revolutions Per Minute. Everywhere in the world. For starters, the bells, which the tour guides never pointed out, seemed to ring everywhere — NAARAING! NAARAING!

Answer the phone.

Is the Second Edition on schedule?

Yes, boss.

You covered politicians who knew less than you did, even fresh out of college. They never went. Their qualifications? Stayed in the neighborhood where they grew up. The alderman was an insurance agent or real estate broker everybody remembered except you, the newcomer. Hello, I'd like to introduce myself. NAARAING! NAARAING! Another demand, another expectation.

Yes, ma'am, the business could be genuinely interesting if we could just liberate our stars to live up to their calling. Endow them with enough monetary and artistic incentive to stick around rather than move on. Low pay usually keeps journalists roving, scrounging halfway around the country for a few more bucks each week or the chance to shine.

NAARAING! NAARAING! Mozart, Matisse, and Melville answer the line. The trash hauler has a new schedule.

Free from direct competition on their own turf, most newspaper owners reaped hefty profits as they turned out skinny rags held together by a half-dozen comic strips, local obituaries, high school varsity scores, zoning board and county commission summaries, and car-wreck photos. Exciting stuff? No, that's living death. Monumental boredom, even for reporters and editors who put in long hours, far above the compensation. Maybe it was a sense of civic duty. There was always more to do, another phone call to make, another fact to dig up or check, another spelling to question. Maybe it was an awareness of creative possibility. The headline could always sing a little more enticingly, reflect the story a little more sharply. The page itself could be more attractive. Maybe it was simply an addiction. A lot of boring routine had to be done accurately before getting to the difficult stories we fervidly desired to do. Maybe it was raw ego, or a matter of time and assets, or diligence and exhaustion. How many sewage stories did you care to cover, much less read?

Not everyone was star material, of course. Nor did everybody in a newsroom have a way with words, either. Some come aboard as political junkies. Others just like sirens. A few enjoyed schmoozing and making promises, regardless of their ability to deliver. Sometimes it was somebody's son or daughter who needed a job, way back when. Some were downright nosy — and loved being paid for it. Throw in a few former teachers, a seminary dropout or two, and an aspiring playwright, and the configuration appeared. Over the years, the Daily Starbud had acquired a motley crew, and not just in the newsroom. Now that he had become publisher, Goodwin Page intended to raise the bar throughout his family-owned operation and the communities it served.

Admittedly, most readers had their own priorities, which rarely extended far from their own billfolds or Mrs. White up the street. They told survey after survey they wanted more local news. What they didn't say was that their definition of local news leaned more toward gossip than city hall deliberations — unless it affected their own block or their kid's school. The reality was that most local news — especially lists of names or stand-'em-up-and-shoot-'em photos — was pretty boring if you didn't know the people or it didn't land on your street. And, if you did know the people, you probably already knew their report. The story or picture simply confirmed the event. The secret, then, was to present news of local interest, rather than just plain local news. After all, an armed conflict halfway around the globe had local interest if your son was stationed there or the country was a major supplier of raw materials for your factory.

Having lived abroad for much of his adult life, Goodwin could see past Rehoboth's parochial interests and place them in the larger worldview. At the same time, he could embrace the city and its surroundings the way he would a foreign locale — one having its own particular customs and values to cultivate and advance. More important, he had roots in the community — he understood its nebulous past and its prevailing movers and shakers. What he envisioned was an essentially blue-collar Athens in the Heartland — a place where ideals and excellence would be respected and embodied. He believed that his newsroom could navigate this transformation, providing ideas and dialogue, advocating and encouraging, prodding and needling, as needed.

To accomplish this, he would have to appeal to the professional aspirations of journalists who knew that only one percent of the nation's press corps constituted the category they aspired to join: those thick, celebrated newspapers whose reporters had expense accounts, travel opportunities, and skilled research librarians; papers where reporters were expected to stick their necks out to get an exclusive angle on a story. Papers that backed their reports with powerhouse photography, statistical charts, and illustrations. Papers that, as a result, commanded authority in their immediate locales and throughout the world. Papers that won the big prizes. Papers that paid — and paid off. Power of the media? NAARAING! NAARAING! Not where we worked. It was back to sewage stories. We were those wormy faced liberals everybody hated, remember? Nobody reads us. Not anymore, remember? Nobody reads anything these days. No wonder we were seen as aloof and bookish as we tried to uphold literacy against a consumer-culture torrent.

Consumer culture? Most of it isn't local, but it is of local interest. Rockers. Movie stars. Pro athletes. Supermodels.

Keep your eyes open, there's more to come. Have we really become that powerless? Tensions, of course, are inevitable — whether in economics, politics, religion, romance, friendships, or the family. Who owns the resources? Fewer and fewer hands, admittedly. And more of the big decisions affecting the public are being made thousands of miles from home. Even so, Goodwin tallied the local resources — payroll, owner-operated enterprises, labor unions, agricultural output, educational and medicinal institutions — and concluded that Rehoboth could still shape its own future, if it pulled toward a common goal. What hurt most was seeing the people turn on themselves and cut away at their nearest leaders.

Goodwin should have known it would be difficult. Enter this business, you soon learned how many folks try to manipulate you to their individual ends. Forget truth. Forget justice. Forget selfless leadership. Forget community. They just seemed to keep asking: What's in it for me? Two hots in a cot. A quick fix or a scam. You never really got used to the incessant NAARAING! NAARAING! NAARAING! NAARAING, either. Please, please, mister. Leave my name out of the police report. I'll do anything you want. That, for a simple speeding ticket.

How do you spell your name? Uh-huh. G-R-E-E-N-E. (Covering the receiver, you shout across the newsroom: Hey, Porter! Do we have a Dorothy Greene in today's police blotter? No? Then make sure we do!

It's the flip side of local gossip. They want it but don't want to be in it. Sorry, lady, we're all in this place together.

You commenced full of innocent ambition, a belief you could help enlighten the universe. You often ended up as a cynic or alcoholic. There was nothing to show for your faith except, maybe, an ulcer or cancer. Peaceniks at the Army Reserve. Guess who wins? Who has the guns? Who has the government contracts? Who has the extra cash?

Everybody started small. Out in the sticks somewhere. With luck, the survivors moved up the ladder — Goodwin's recruiting ace-in-the-hole. He could promise up-and-coming journalists opportunities to strut their stuff as they built a good resume for shooting to the top.

No one had to tell him that some reporters and editors begin with a love of language or how, over time, that sours. Just the facts, now! Radio or television? Keep it short and fast. Soon there's no history. No future or present, either. Soon nobody connects to others. Switch the channel. Still, Goodwin knew words have led humanity from the cave and treetop, propelled the species to the moon and beyond. In this country, alas, both government and advertising assault language with impunity. Told it's a losing battle, you dug in deeper. Maybe you'll love the trenches. Or the underdog. At least, the maverick.

Become boss editor, you had zero time for your own writing, except maybe a column on unpaid overtime. Very little time for the news, even. Human resources, budgeting, annoying lawsuits, community dinners and speeches, product promotion, marketing, and migraines crammed those days and evenings; so did management meetings, computers, and the telephones. There was little time to manage your staff. Too many crises took priority.

In a newsroom, titles seldom conveyed much about what anybody did. The top editor could be called the managing editor, editor, editor-in-chief, or executive editor, depending on the publisher's whim or the particular management chart.

The publisher? Represented the owner's interest, the family or corporation. He usually rose from the advertising or accounting side of the operation, seldom from news-gathering. Generally, the guy who wrote the editorials and handles the opinion page had little contact with the other editors and reporters; he might be called editorial page editor or simply the editor, typically confounding both the managing editor and rest of the newsroom with his baffling viewpoints. So while the reporters and editors did their professional best to remain pure from partisanship, he was free to take any side he was paid to uphold. The community assumed his views were the newsroom's own, which was seldom the case. Follow that? Just remember, he manufactured opinions that have the good of the community at heart, as long as good was defined somewhat along the lines of the chamber of commerce.

Moving along, somebody called the city editor, metro editor, regional editor, or local news editor had charge of local news reporting and editing; he assigned stories, dispatched the staff, scheduled available personnel, and edited their stories as time permitted. There was also the news editor, responsible for wire service dispatches of state, national, and international news, as well as squeezing all that news into the paper and seeing that the composing room put it together according to his specifications. (Composing room? You'll see, next time the phone rings.) Filling out the newsroom were copy editors and assistant editors, as well as the sports staff, and maybe even a features editor and her crew. Other positions might also carry editor in the title — business editor, society editor, graphics editor, political editor, travel editor, television editor, or whatnot. There may even be an associate editor. But not on a tiny newsroom of seven or eight people, where many started. And not even in a medium-sized newsroom of fifty people, like the Daily Starbud's. Every newspaper had its own variations. Often, the miracle was that a paper gets out at all, never mind accuracy or other perfection. NAARAING! NAARAING! So who did you want to speak to?

Then there were the advertising, accounting, circulation, or production departments, all reporting to the publisher. It was a crazy business. Always was been, always would be.

The publisher could be your patron, as they say in the arts. Or your godfather, as they say in other circles. If he shared the vision, anything was possible. The sky was the limit. Reach out and achieve IT. But if his eyesight was poor, watch out. He controlled the purse strings. Since he had the money, the paper was his baby. You worked at his pleasure. Contracts? Unlikely. Tenure? Never. Paid your dues? Every day.

The upheaval in Rehoboth originated when Goodwin Page IV returned from abroad to become publisher and his mother stepped down. It must be wonderful to be the scion of a patrician family, to return to your hometown to instill with new life and direction. Goodwin came back from Sri Lanka full of purpose and a choice collection of South Asian art. To say nothing of an Ivy League pedigree in classical literature, tennis, French, and philosophy. Through his world of connections, he backtracked to Rehoboth at age forty-two, pony-tailed and unmarried, as one of those rare and fortunate individuals who finally begins at the top. At least, after an extended version of the Old World grand tour via the Orient, he was now working a regular job and enjoying prosperity as noblesse oblige, American style.

To initiate his mission, he promptly hired Sam Berkowitz, an ace reporter on the archrival American-Standard down the valley, and made him city editor. A month later, he plucked Sherry Dunn from a highly regarded small newspaper Out West for assistant city editor.

To be fair, Berkowitz was the Am-Stand's only star reporter, a reputation built not through investigative reporting — something the Darbytown editors avoided — but through routine police and courtroom stories, which he wrote in a clear, lively manner, and always with colorful quotations found nowhere else. Apart from the series he developed from a couple of travel junkets — one to South Africa, the other to Egypt — it was all old-fashioned newspaper coverage.

Dunn, on the other hand, came with a more varied portfolio. She had covered political campaigns for one newspaper, education and community-action development for another, and finally settled in as another's newsroom sparkplug.

From a distance, they might appear to be an unlikely trio. Goodwin was tall, blue-eyed, and blond, with a horse-country, old-money patina. His musical preference tended toward Debussy and Ravel. Berkowitz was short and intense, with big ears, wire-rimmed glasses, and a penchant for loud neckties. His music, by chance, was country-western. And Dunn was just plain big and black, with a wickedly earthy outlook on life. She was definitely Motown.

Yet somehow they clicked. Maybe the defining moment came toward the end of Dunn's job interview tour, when she was being introduced to Goodwin. Berkowitz seems to speak quite highly of you. Says you two go way back. How far was that now?

Tex and me? she laughed.

Wait a minute — Tex?

You're forgetting his middle name. We don't. It's Houston, making him Sam Houston Berkowitz. From Dallas, no less.

Uh-huh. I should have guessed. A wry smile crossed Goodwin's face. So you met in Texas?

No, it was at Northwestern, Berkowitz interrupted. I should have warned you. She has a knack for nicknames. So everybody wound up calling her 'Merry Sherry' in retaliation.

I see, Tex, Goodwin said with intentional relish. Well, welcome aboard, Merry Sherry, I expect we're going to have some fun ahead.

She didn't dare mention she had coined the nickname for herself, as well. A little self-protection and self-promotion, in fact.

Bit by bit, their new team started arriving. To the wall Merry Sherry taped a favorite quotation: Feisty newspapers are essential to good community. They are a living history of the commonweal. Journalists can never get close enough to their subjects. They're guardians of our language lore. Beside it she put two posters: A newspaper's job is to raise hell and let the chips fall where they may and Hello, Sweetheart, give me Rewrite. Finally, at the end of them all, she placed a headline in massive gothic type: DOOM & GLOOM. In her mind, they all fit together.

Remember your first day on a new job? All the introductions to people whose names you never quite got right? Maybe it doesn't matter; half of them are usually gone within six months anyway. Just smile and nod. For the moment, concentrate on Tex and Merry Sherry. Besides, as the new kids on the block, they arrive with some clout. The big question is, how much will they have in six months? Some new managers play cool, assuming a wait-and-see attitude. Others figure they'd better make their moves while they still have bargaining chips. Sometimes it depends on the situation they inherit; sometimes, their superiors. Hello, I'm so pleased to meet you.

[MORE]

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Add one

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NAARAING! NAARAING! Ants scurried across the mound. Not yet 8:00 a.m., and everywhere you looked was already littered with paper cups, half-eaten doughnuts, scattered notepaper, and tangled lines. Outside, gloomy gray, promising a day like any other. The top-echelon editors were in their regular Monday-through-Friday morning conference, industriously arguing which stories and photos deserved the best play. One by one they considered what had already moved in advance for the sports, opinion, and features pages, and then anticipated what might develop in the next few hours. The elite were once again in their usual drowse, all the while bracing for the bona fide panic already pirouetting toward deadline. Tex was in the middle of his list of anticipated local stories, including Carl Fletcher's hot report announcing INTEGRATED STEEL MILL EXPANSION, FROM ORE TO SHEET METAL. It's big construction money now. And in eighteen months they'll be hiring a thousand new workers at union scale. Lots of impact on the valley. Has a noon embargo.

Dean, the managing editor, gazed up from his legal pad and stared at the far corner of his tiny office: Any art to go with it?

Smoky Thornhill tossed him a stack of eight-by-ten black-and-white glossies: Of course! A few problems, but we still lucked out. No sweat, as you see. Look at this, got the chairman, the CEO, and the general manager all holding hands at the podium. Some really nice work.

Dean flipped through the stack and then flipped out. Smoky, this is a pile of crap. Consider what you're doing, will you? Move your ass. Look at all this empty space in the middle of these photos. I see more of the catering hall's insignia than I do of the big wigs. Mug shots would be better! Dean sucked in quickly, then asked: What about artists' renderings of the new plant?

Bill Gorton, an old-timer who had been moved into a kind of senior advisor's role, coughed. So that's what he threw out the day before yesterday? Good ol' Goober. Ho-boy! Completed, the new mill would be a mile long. With a thirty-story high blast furnace, it would be the highest structure in Rehoboth,