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#15 reporter’s notebooks

Today’s journalists have so many tools at their disposal: Google, the Internet, computers, GPS devices and Blackberries.

But none of these are as iconic or important as journalists’  No. 1 tool in their arsenal – the reporter’s notebook. It’s always at a journalist’s side -  through press conferences, court hearings, breaking news and even while sleeping. Because unlike other devices, the notebook doesn’t need batteries or service or a USB connection. All it needs is a pen or pencil and a hard-working journalist attached to it.

The reporter’s notebook is unique given it’s its shape. It’s longer than it is wide, making it the perfect size to slip into a back pocket and makes taking notes an ease since a journalist’s hand doesn’t have to swoop across the entire length of a full-page while writing.

Reporter’s notebooks are also essential to journalists because of the fact that they contain every number, lead, quote and scoop collected while in the field. So important these are to one’s work that journalists have defied court orders, subpoenas, threats of physical violence and even gone to jail to safeguard the contents of their notebooks.

While vital to any journalist, finding a reporter’s notebook in a newsroom can prove to be a harder task than finding an uncorrupt Illinois politician. Because of this fact, journalists have been known to hoard notebooks, hiding them from fellow journalists.

The reporter’s notebook has proven it’s necessity by outlasting such tools of the trade such as typewriters, the printing press and fedora hats.

#84 writing standing up

If you ever see someone writing on a steno pad while standing upright odds are they are a journalist.

According to a recent study, journalists write standing up 95 percent of the time. The other five percent is split between sitting and squatting. Journalists like writing standing up because they tend to think better on their feet. Ask any reporter why they got into the business, and writing while vertical is at the top of the list. Journalists like to write standing up in the cold, snow, rain, tornadoes, hurricanes, press conferences, town hall meetings and zombie attacks. Given the option of taking notes while sitting or standing, majority of journalists chose the latter.

The only thing better then writing while standing is writing while walking. It takes years of practice to perfect this technique.  Some advanced journalists are even able to hold a voice recorder while walking and writing, just in case they can’t read their shorthand later. Often walking and writing is reserved for special scenarios where the interviewee doesn’t have patience time to deal with the press.

Be prepared to walk and write if you are interviewing a politician, musician, athlete, coach, lawyer or anyone who doesn’t want to be interviewed. With budget cuts and smaller staffs in the industry, some journalists are also required to take photos, record video, update the web, blog and Twitter while standing and taking notes.

DY takes credit for  this one

#666 layoffs

Being a journalist is hard work. There are the long hours, the little pay and don’t forget the unappreciated effort. Journalists live very unglamorous lives. That’s why shareholders editors and publishers are doing journalists a favor in laying them off.

With the thousands of layoffs of late, the percentage of journalists leaving the industry is, for the first time, higher than the percentage of readers leaving newspapers.

In fact, editors, publishers, senior editors, managing editors, deputy managing editors, copy editors and editorial assistants have been so busy lately laying off journalists, they can’t even find time to think about strategies of ways to save the newspaper business.

Now, instead of worrying about how to juggle four court cases, finding art for the weekend’s centerpiece and finding the time to write three stories and four briefs before deadline, recently laid off journalists now only have to worry about updating those resumes and deciding when is it too early to start drinking.

These former journalists now have all that free time to write that book they have been meaning to get at, decide which newspaper and magazine subscriptions to cancel (which can only make things better) and explore their new interests in working at call centers and running fast food restaurants.

And alll these layoffs are great news for the rest of the newsrooms. No more long lines for the vending machines or waiting for the copier. It might also mean a new a desk and chair and a closer parking spot.

Also, no more worries about their stories making A1 since it’s now more than likely they are not only writing the lead story but also the rest of the paper.

#50 Google

Google

Before, if a journalist wanted to do some real research, he or she had to pull out their library card and dust off the newsroom’s microfiche machine.

But like how the typewriter gave way to the word processor and then the computer, those tools for journalists have become archaic. All thanks to Google.

All without leaving the newsrooms, journalists have access to more information than the predecessors ever had. Google makes it possible to trace old stories, follow up on tips, scan through the day’s big headlines and read about the current round of layoffs at newspapers.In fact, when journalists want to read about the death of newspapers, their source of choice is Google News.

While some may resent Google’s role in the death decline of newspapers as the primary source of advertisement news, the power and appeal of Google is too hard to resist. In fact, if Google existed during the Watergate scandal, “All the President’s Men” could have been wrapped up in a “Law & Order” episode.  As Google improves and continues to absorb data, journalists will have fewer and fewer reasons to venture into the catacombs of libraries and other research centers.

For many journalists, it’s hard to imagine what reporting would be like without Google and the Internet. Present a microfiche machine to a J-school student and they’ll probably respond with, “I didn’t think anyone used fax machines anymore.”

#63 procrastinating

Journalists are always under the gun. It’s always a race with the deadline clock to get copy turned in. So much so they are always putting stuff off until the last minute. That is why journalists like procrastinating. So much in fact . . .

Wait, is it almost deadline?

Will need to finish this post later . . .

#21 All the President’s Men

All the President's Men

It was the movie that launched a thousand journalism careers. Every wet-behind-the-ear J-school student writing his or her first story hopes to one day uncover a scandal like the journalistic  heroes in this 1976 film.

It was the book that taught journalists to “follow the money” and it was the movie that for the first time in recorded history made journalists a tad sexy. That is why “All the President’s Men” is journalists’ favorite movie.

The movie and the book gave journalists their first modern day superstars – the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The two went on to unravel the Watergate scandal and bring down a United States president.

From the opening scene of the sound of typewriters in the Post’s newsroom to meeting with Deep Throat,  it was a story straight from every journalist’s wet dream. And every journalist wanted a editor like Ben Bradlee. The movie is responsible for a generation of newshounds hoping for their chance to bring down the man.

The movie encapsulates an ideal time of journalism. A time when big metro papers ruled the news landscape, when newsrooms were populated with ambitious and eager journalists and people still cared for and were willing to pay for their news.

Nowadays, journalists are endangered species in newsrooms and instead of following the money, because newspapers are hemorrhaging money, they are stuck in a world of endless soft coverage while plagued with reputations of being inaccurate and elitist and/or liberal. Back then, saying you were a journalist could score a free drink from the bartender and a number for the blonde sitting alone. Today, journalists are less respected then trial lawyers and dentists.

Still, journalists endure the perils that come with the profession because they all know there is a sequel to “All thePresident’s Men” out there somewhere.

#26 writing a book

writing a book

During the day, journalists are busy feeding the daily news beast but at night journalists have different and loftier ambitions. Writing a book.

Buried under nearly every journalist’s notebooks, papers and clips is an idea for a book.

Whether it’s a memoir, fiction or a children’s book, it would be hard pressed to find a journalist who doesn’t want to write a book.

And journalists who really don’t plan on writing a book still tell other journalists that they are as to not appear less ambitious.

Journalists usually get an idea for a book after: a notorious murder trial, a political campaign, discovering an inspiring story of a homeless man with no limbs who reunites with his family and becomes a millionaire or simply being fed up after 15 years covering the same beat.

Not all journalists are so forthcoming about their book idea. It make take some prodding from fellow journalists, drinks after at work or upon hearing rumors of pink slips.

The transition from journalist to “writer” can be a daunting one – as journalists must navigate through the crowded pool of other journalists who also think they have the chops to go from writing 19 stories a week to writing 300 pages over six months.

Journalists who aspire to be authors see be a daily reporter akin to being a short-order cook; whereas writing a novel is like being a gourmet chef. The goal to write a book is a promise journalists make to themselves as a way not to get stuck writing the same perennial stories for their daily rags. Unfortunately, a good percentage of these ideas for books will stay just that as journalists are usually burnt out on writing after a full day day of writing for their newspaper, blog, Tumblr and Twitter.

Still, every day in newsrooms across the  country, the following line can often be heard: “You know, that gives me an idea for a book . . .”

#14 bylines

BY DAVID YOUNG
www.stuffjournalistslike.com

Journalists work hard. They slave over their keyboards and notepads. They work endlessly to report the news. And what do they have to show for at the end of the day? Money? Power? Fame?

No. After all of it, journalists are left with only their cherished bylines.

Every journalist likes to see their name in on online cell phones print . Be it a tiny contribution line, or a front-page byline, journalists like to get their name in the paper. Even if only a handful of readers actually bother to read who wrote the story, that one line of ink means the world to journalists.

This is because journalists are narcissists. Journalists, no matter if it is their first article or the 100,000th article, never get tired of seeing their name in print. It is not uncommon to hear a journalist say something like, “I had 589 bylines last year” in an effort to show what an intrepid journalist they are. No matter if 400 of those “bylines” were for stories that were simple one source stories or press release rewrites. In a journalist’s mind a byline is a byline is a byline and they like them all equally.

Journalists also like bylines because in today’s news business of cutbacks and hiring freezes, it is all about what journalists have done lately. Who cares if a journalist won a Pulitzer in 2006 for an amazing investigative piece about the inner workings of the Chinese Mafia where they spent 16 months undercover as a drug mule? How many bylines have they had in the past three days? That’s what editors care about, and if the answer isn’t 35 look out. Bylines equal job security for journalists.

Though after all the labor and sweat that journalists pour into their bylines, at the end of the day bylines exist only for that day. The next day journalists get up to do it all over again.

#44 Barack Obama

Barack Obama

On Jan. 20, America will get her new leader and journalists will get a president they like.

The election of Barack Hussein Obama means when journalists talk about the president, they will actually do it with smiles and glimpses of hope instead of smug faces,   disappointing tones and fits of rage.

It would be quick and easy and correct to write off journalists’ love of Obama as part of the much rumored liberal media agenda but it’s not just that – at least not all of it. Journalists like Obama because he’s the ultimate America success story, photogenic and has that perfect family. And because he is less likely to wiretap their phones.

Despite their fondness of Obama, in an attempt to appear neutral in the election, journalists actually showed a sign of restraint by not declaring Obama the winner until he actually won. When the election was called for Obama, in newsrooms all the country, journalists did subtle air fist pumps and nodded to each other that better times were ahead.

But the departure of George Bush is bittersweet for journalists. Though this is the president who duped the White House press corps on the existence of weapons of mass destruction, he is the same guy who gave journalists not one but two wars to cover and then forget and scandal after scandal after scandal. Not since Nixon, has a president brought so much inkjoy™ to journalists. And for that, journalists will forever be indebited to the 43rd president. There is speculation that Bush’s gift to journalists could have only been topped by a Palin/McCain McCain/Palin administration

Still, journalists are looking forward to four eight years of Obama’s presidency. Because there is only thing to do after building one man up so much – bring him down.