Getting it Right
I had a heart-to-heart chat with longtime Parkville administrator Barbara Lance at city hall last Monday night. Naturally, our conversation revolved around the loss of Nancy Jack.
She asked me what my immediate plans were for The Luminary, and I told her what I’ve been telling everyone for the past few weeks – Nancy is irreplaceable, therefore, I will not be replacing her.
“So who’s going to handle the reporting?” she asked.
“Well…for the time being at least, me,” I offered.
At that she sort of blinked in surprise, then looked at me with concern before asking, “Well…who’s going to get it right, then?”
And with that vote of confidence, I march boldly into the post-Nancy Jack era of the Parkville Luminary.
I used to think I was a reporter – I made my bones on the police beat for a respected daily newspaper long ago – until I met Nancy Jack. She was the real deal. A few people are aware that I write a syndicated sports column for Hearst and am a regular contributor for several magazines, but to most, I’m just the eccentric (re: weird) publisher of The Luminary – a big difference.
This past week, I covered my first alderman meeting in about three years. Not only did I cover the meeting, I covered the work session before the meeting, too. I was surprised at how much things had changed from the last time I was at city hall. For starters, it was a new city hall, and it felt a lot more impressive than the previous one. The chairs were really nice, and I thought I saw some barbecue in the corner – both symbols of the city’s prosperity.
I was also pleased to see that there were pens because in my haste to return to my reporter roots, I had forgotten a writing implement. And my reporter’s pad? Forgot that, too. I had also forgotten the meeting packet, but City Clerk Claudia Willhite was able to supply me with an extra one. In fact, all of the city staffers seemed to be really nice to me, you could tell they wanted to give me a hand up. Harry Sievers, who attended the meeting, wasn’t as forgiving.
“Who ever heard of a reporter without a pen?” he asked, shaking his head in disdain.
It was enough to make me consider hiring a “life coach,” but I figure I can wait until I hit my 50s for that.
Still, I think it’s heartwarming that people are concerned about their local newspaper.
Staffers for presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani were certainly concerned when they saw me at his downtown press conference the other day. Surely the “back on the beat” reporter vibes I was throwing off had them watching me in amazement. Hizzoner’s aide, a nice guy named Tyler, quickly dispelled that notion.
“Are you a member of the press?” he asked. “Yes,” I replied. “Yes, I am.”
“We weren’t sure…because your camera…it’s so small,” he went on.
Alright – so maybe I wasn’t conjuring up images of Ernie Pyle clicking away on my Kodak EasyShare – but how many of the other journalists had torches on the side of their company cars, huh?
After giving Mr. Giuliani “flu-like” symptoms, I returned to my regular beat and pounded out this week’s edition amidst the several other pre-Christmas deadlines I faced.
Of course, there were bumps along the way.
After writing the English Landing Park story, in which I do my best Nancy Jack impersonation. I dutifully e-mailed it to my managing editor Amanda Hay – or so I thought. I have one of those autofill e-mail clients and instead of submitting it to “Ahay@gmail.com” I submitted my story to “Ahyland@kcstar.com” – a particularly swift move on my part. But then, I’m sure Woodward and Bernstein often sent their work to the New York Times by accident on occasion, too. Young Master Hyland was gracious enough to reply the next day and mentioned that we seemed to be at odds on one specific part of the story and much like the famed WWI Christmas truce, we compared notes. “I just wanted to make sure we get it right,” he said.
Aye. I hear ya.
I had a surreal moment at one point. While working on the city budget story I received an e-mail from Nancy Jack, the subject read simply: “Thank you.”
For a minute I just stared at my inbox. Was it an e-mail from her that had somehow been stuck in the internet for the past few weeks? I knew, of course, it couldn’t have been. I remember how we discussed the wonders of e-mail. Technology like that is what kept her in the business. Able to work from home on her computer, she extended her career right up until the very week of her death.
The e-mail was sent by her nephew Charlie, who was thanking the newspaper for last week’s memorial issue but he didn’t need to – we were just trying to get it right.