“How do you want to be remembered?”

By Willie Bans
Special to chipsquinn.org

Posted: Nov. 2, 2007

Willie Bans

In newsrooms across the county this summer, many interns filled in for a reporter on vacation or were assigned a beat temporarily to learn what it involves.

The latter was true for me during two weeks of night-cops duty.

I went into the assignment with a positive attitude. But as the days went by, I became more nervous; I dreamed of having missed a murder downtown or a riot at the state penitentiary.

The experience turned out not to be so bad. And it all kind of climaxed during lunch my final day on the beat.

Two days earlier, I received an e-mail with “1A story” written in the subject field. I always get nervous when e-mails or voicemails greet me in the morning. I think, “Shoot, what did I miss? Don’t tell me the guy was 25 and not 45!”

The e-mail was from a reader, but the message contained nothing bad. The reader was a former reporter who liked my story.

We traded some e-mails throughout the day and eventually met for the lunch I mentioned earlier.

My lunch date was with Jan, a tall woman with gray hair, glasses and a San Diego Padres T-shirt. She was the cops reporter for about 35 years, essentially our newspaper’s Edna Buchanan, a workhorse whose reputation hasn’t faded.

She told me about the struggle to get things right, her college experience as a woman sportswriter, her arguments with editors that never got personal because their goal was the same: to make the story better.

She also recounted her relationship with the police, one that local officials still comment on, saying, “Well, when Jan was here …”

The police department’s public information officer retired recently after more than three decades with the force. He gave his home phone number to one person: Jan.

Her stories were awesome and her lessons stayed with me, especially one I thought about as soon as we left the restaurant.

The work you do, even if it’s as a fill-in, might have been someone else’s career. The effort you expend must be done in recognition of those who’ve done the work before you.

The brief you’re filing? Make it clean and clear — like the thousands written before yours.

The interview you’re conducting? Dress professionally and do your research — so the interviewee can respect how journalists work.

The readers you’re trying to engage? Some of your hometown natives have read the paper since they first learned to string words together. They remember the errors, pictures, headlines and writers of the past.

Yeah, 10 weeks is a short time.

But how do you want to be remembered?

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