From the February 19, 2010 Issue of the County Journal...
When I was 18 years old and was in-between colleges (waiting for another semester to start), I got a job as the Sports Editor of a bi-weekly newspaper in Morehead, Kentucky. My job, they told me, was to report on all the local sports, both college and high school. Perfect. Right up my alley.
And then they dropped the bomb.
I had to do a Man on the Street interview for each week. I would take a picture of five local citizens and ask them a question, such as, “Do you think Ronald Reagan will push the button?” Their photo and their answer would appear in the next issue of the paper.
My first few weeks featured mostly people I knew. My boss then made a rule I couldn’t use anyone under 25 years old. Then another rule that I couldn’t be related to them. And then he said that I couldn’t give them $10 or offer to wash their car.
So I hung out at the post office, a solitary figure with a notepad and camera stalking people as they came to get their mail. It was pathetic.
For a while I was IN the Post Office, until people complained. Then I was on the front steps of the Post Office until later I moved (involuntarily) to the sidewalk in front of the Post Office, where Federal Laws didn’t apply. A week later, I moved to the Trademore Shopping Center out near Interstate 64, where I stood in front of the Goody’s (or maybe it was Payless Shoes, I can’t remember) and tried not to look desperate.
This was not much better although I didn’t have to bear the threats of the Postmaster, which I suppose was an improvement.
The problem was, normal people didn’t want to talk to me. No one wanted to tell an 18-year old kid if they thought, for example, “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” should have won the Academy Award for Best Picture. The people that would share, well, their answers weren’t all that newsworthy.
Question: Where do you see yourself in five years?
Answer: Well, unless they move this bench, I’ll be right here. That banana on the ground is mine, you understand?
So when a local radio station offered me a job a few months later, I quickly gave up my dreams of working at a newspaper.
Well, until now.
Darrell Teubner, Editor
