newspapers 101

i used to wish i was good at sports.
it wasn't that i hated being picked last for kickball or dreamed of becoming an athletic star. it was more about admiring the way teams seemed to be part of something bigger than the individual, and the only teams i ever saw were sports teams. i loved the way they could make things happen working together -- with secret signals, cues and shouts -- they couldn't have done on their own. i used to watch with my breath held, as if i could figure out how it was done if only i stared long and hard enough.
fast-forward to 1978, when i arrived in tallahassee, florida, fresh from community college.
i quickly got hooked, as a reader, on the tabloid newspaper in racks all over town called the florida flambeau, which turned out to be a little newspaper with a big profile. it was once the college newspaper, had recently gone independent, and often beat the larger papers of record on big stories of the day. it filled me in on my new surroundings in a way that was smart and engaging, funny and deep. eventually, i worked up the nerve to ask if i could try out for the team.
imagine the relief of discovering that what they wanted -- curiosity, stubbornness, energy to burn -- were things i already had.
others have written more eloquently about the paper (see moni basu's blog at http://evilreporterchick.blogspot.com) and the times (track down diane roberts' story about the slutboys in the archives of the oxford american). but having recently returned from the first ever flambeau reunion, i wanted to publically thank the people and place that set me on my path in life. they taught me how to separate feelings from opinions so it was possible to debate ideas. they taught me the difference between objectivity and fairness, how to engage in a community-wide conversation, how to fight for positive change.
maybe everyone who starts out at a small paper feels this way about the places that launched them, where they absorbed newspapering from the ground up.
but even a quarter-century later, i marvel at the mix of personalities and skills, backgrounds and obsessions, that came together as the flambeau newsroom. as part of the team, and as a lone voice, it's where i first learned the power of the right words at the right time.