On-the-job learning

 I have allowed a significant date to pass unremarked. On August 17, fifty years ago, I worked my last day at the Flemingsburg Gazette before leaving for graduate school at Syracuse.

Lowell and Jean Denton, the proprietors, had hired me in the summer of 1968, after my junior year in high school, to allow Jean to take the summer off. The six years I worked at the Gazette, a weekly in Fleming County, Kentucky, with about 3,000 circulation, were a practical education, an apprenticeship, in newspaper journalism. 

I attended meetings of the fiscal court (the county council in Kentucky) and interviewed the superintendent of schools about plans for the coming school year. I profiled local worthies. I covered the beautiful baby competition at the Ewing Fair. (I did not determine whether it was accident or design that Mr. Pierce Million, who rented the public address system for the occasion, played a recording of "Born to Lose" as the mothers and babies crossed to the infield.) I Englished the social notes from the outlying communities. I did copy editing and proofreading. I took classified ads over the telephone. On Wednesdays I drove the pasted-up pages to the newspaper in Cynthiana that printed us, drove the printed copies back, helped with the Addressograph, bundled copies for mailing, and delivered the bundles to the post office. On Fridays I swept out the office and dusted the counters. Photography and page makeup were pretty much the only things I didn't do. 

I was reporter, columnist, copy editor, proofreader, clerk, and dogsbody. 

It was grand. Lowell and Jean were generous and indulgent in allowing me to make mistakes and recover from them, and the income from the job was a welcome help with my college expenses. Lowell was the practical partner in the enterprise; he did all the photography and dealt with all the advertisers. Jean was the literary partner, particularly fond of the work of Joan Didion. I was once assigned to profile a worthy and "lay it on thick." I attempted that, and Jean looked at it, told me, "We don't publish satire," and rewrote it herself. 

And I owe them my life's career. When, after abandoning the Ph.D. program in English at Syracuse, I approached The Cincinnati Enquirer for a post on the copy desk, the Flemingsburg Gazette was my only significant journalistic credential. (As an undergraduate and graduate student, I [cough] never took any classes in journalism.)

Lowell and Jean are gone, and I honor their memory, grateful that they were willing to take me, a skinny kid, a bookworm, into their business and allow me to learn it. Yes, I spent six summers at the Gazette, and they became the prelude to forty years in newspaper journalism. 

We used to read the stuff before publication

When I retired two years ago from The Baltimore Sun after more than three decades of service as an editor, I swore a mighty oath that I would not become one of those former Sun employees who splutter that the place went straight to hell once they left. 

But damme, there's a limit. 

A Sun reporter filed a story that began, "Nearly 60 years ago, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. declared he had a dream. ..." It was published online two days ago. 

It appeared this morning on Page One of The Sun, above the fold, with the identical opening sentence, the day AFTER the 60th anniversary. Paired with the story was a refer to the wire service story inside on commemoration of the anniversary. 

So it seems that the print edition has become of so little consequence that there is no editor on hand paying sufficient attention to protect a reporter from looking like a fool. 

This is precisely the sort of thing that used to be caught before publication on the copy desk, when newspapers still had copy desks. 

COUGH:

A fellow copy editor reminds me that tomorrow, Aug. 28, is the 60th anniversary of the King speech. as we see, I do not have an editor to keep me from looking like a fool. 

Shootings first, questions after

 The recent violence at the Brooklyn Homes housing project in Baltimore, in which two people were fatally shot and 28 wounded, is being commonly described as a "mass shooting." That is a slippery term. 

The Associated Press Stylebook says that there is no firm consensus on what constitutes a mass shooting: "Definitions vary. A database compiled by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University defines mass killings as four or more dead, not including the shooter."

When The Sun described the Brooklyn Homes shootings as perhaps the greatest mass shooting in Baltimore history, I wondered whether the Pratt Street riot of 1861 should be included. When the local mob attacked the Sixth Massachusetts Infantry as the troops were marching between two train stations, the casualties included eight rioters, three soldiers, and a bystander killed, with scores of soldiers and civilians wounded. 

But no, the term mass shooting is a 20th-century U.S. coinage. Charles Whitman climbed a tower at the University of Texas in Austin in August 1966, fatally shot 15 people and wounded 31 others before being killed by police officers, setting the pattern for mass shootings: A gunman (mass shooters are typically male), for motives that may be unknown and unknowable, begins firing in public, at specific individuals or at random, with multiple fatalities and woundings, at a single event. 

That pattern fits the shootings in 2017 in Las Vegas, in which Stephen Paddock, firing from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel, killed 60 people and wounded more than 400 before he killed himself. 

But groups of people die in shootings in other contexts. We don't necessarily call it a mass shooting when gunfire breaks out in public between gang members, when people are killed in an armed robbery, or when an entire family dies in a murder-suicide. 

Do the Brooklyn Homes shootings qualify as a mass shooting? There appear to have been two or more shooters, and their motives are unknown. If the violence turns out to have been gang-related, will we still call it a mass shooting? Or if it started as a domestic dispute? Are two deaths rather than four or more enough to qualify?

It would be tidy if we could define the term as a single shooter, at a public event, with four or more fatalities. But the proliferation of firearms in this country and the increasing propensity to use them on impulse make it difficult to characterize these events neatly. And the tendency to lump so many multiple shootings under the category "mass shooting" can blur what is distinctive about each case. 

I don't think that it is a very useful term. 

Yeah, you're not alone

You are writing a story about someone, let's call them X, who has a problem. X has a medical condition and cannot find or afford treatment; X is looking for housing and is unable to afford current rents; X is living in a neighborhood where police presence is sporadic and ineffective, and is afraid to leave the house. 

By the most remarkable coincidence, X exemplifies the larger issues in the story you are actually writing, so after three or four paragraphs about X, you drop them, perhaps to return for brief mention later in the article, and write the nut graph that explains the issue that your article is really about. 

But first you must write the essential transition: X is not alone. 

The thing is that this device, known as the "anecdotal lede" in the paragraph game, has become so familiar to readers over the past quarter-century or so that no transition is really necessary. The reader grasps what the game is. That means that the "X is not alone" transition is something more than a gimmick; it has become a cliche. 

When I was an editor at The Baltimore Sun and an "X is not alone" transition came across the desk, I immediately deleted it, to no harm to the structure of the article and no obstacle to the reader's understanding. We actually disparaged it in the house style guide, to which reporters paid fitful attention. 

But the "monkey-see, monkey-do" tendency in journalism is powerful, and you will see "X is not alone" all the damn time.

On one occasion I deleted it from an article, and the next day the reporter asked for an explanation of the change. A writer is always entitled to an explanation of changes in editing, and so I patiently explained that that transition had become a stock device that was not particularly helpful to readers and that we had been discouraged from using. 

The reporter answered: "It's not a cliche when I use it." 

You see what editors are up against. 

There's a hole in the world

 In the fall of 1973 I arrived at Syracuse University as a graduate student in the English department and almost immediately found my way to the graduate student lounge, a room in the basement of the Hall of Languages featuring pieces of cast-off furniture, among them a repulsive couch the color of spoiled salmon. 

There I met Ed Voytovich, tall, smart, generous, and funny. He was playing bridge with other graduate students. In time I came to see that he was one of the smartest among us, perhaps the smartest, but blessed with an easy geniality that endeared him to everyone in the department. For the next six years I enjoyed his company, making jokes, comparing obscure literary allusions, talking about books and authors, gossiping about the faculty. 

Now he's gone. He died two weeks ago today after several years of fading gradually away from Alzheimer's, and there is a gap in the world that cannot be filled. 

Ed completed an honorable dissertation in 17th-century Jacobean drama (so much stuff there) and made two hundred unsuccessful attempts to find a faculty position, because of the oversupply of Ph.D. holders. So he gave it up. He had made some money by painting houses in the summer, and so he set himself up as a housepainter. 

I joined his crew in 1979, before leaving Syracuse and abandoning my own Ph.D. (though it was some years before I realized I had made the decision and put my notes and drafts on the curb to be pulped into cardboard). 

He was skilled in painting, but his confidence in his abilities led him into more elaborate projects. "I need to have the chimney pointed. Can you do that?" "Sure." And he would read how to point a chimney and do it. During that summer we built a study in a basement with a sloping floor and constructed bookcases for it. He made himself a new career in contracting and gave good value wherever he was engaged. 

He married Marie Sprayberry, another graduate student and friend (she was my best person at my wedding to Kathleen), and over the years they would visit Baltimore or we would visit Syracuse, to eat good food, drink, talk about books, gossip, and jointly recite Philip Larkin's "This be the verse." We were friends for more than forty years until the illness took him from us, and now we mourn. 

I told you he was smart and literate, no one more so. I told you he was funny. But what I need you to understand is that he was even-tempered and the most humane human being I have ever known. And it is left to me to repeat what the Romans said: Sit tibi terra levis. May the earth lie lightly on you. 

The stone the writer accepted

When writing about Baltimore, please keep in mind that those quaint streets in places like Fells Point are not cobblestoned. 

Repeat: Do not write about Baltimore's quaint cobblestoned streets. 

Cobblestones are round, like cannonballs. Cobbles are typically formed naturally, by erosion in rivers.

Those quaint Baltimore streets are paved with Belgian blocks, or setts, which are quarried and rectangular. Those in Baltimore sometimes arrived as ballast in ships. 

Mistaking streets paved with Belgian blocks for cobblestoned streets is sheer carelessness. 

I will never be a true Baltimorean

When I accepted the offer of a job on The Baltimore Sun's copy desk in 1986, my wife and I moved to an apartment in Towson, two years later buying a brick ranch house in Northeast Baltimore. But thirty-five years later, as a resident of Baltimore, I cannot claim to be a Baltimorean. 

First of all, I do not have grandparents who were born here. 

I did not attend City College or Poly or any other Baltimore high school. 

My indifference to the Orioles and the Ravens is complete, now that I no longer have to sit up waiting for their interminable games to end to get final scores into the paper. 

Perhaps most seriously, though I enjoy Maryland crab soup, I dislike picking crabs. The process is reminiscent, not in a good way, of dissection in high school biology class, and the reward of the crab meat is not commensurate to the effort required to acquire it. Not even accompanying glasses of beer make the process alluring.

Oh, there are many things I appreciate about Baltimore: the heron I occasionally see on my walks down the hill to Herring Run, the Cone Collection at the Baltimore Museum of Art, my progressive parish (Memorial Episcopal in Bolton Hill), the now-closed and lamented Hamilton Tavern, the Pratt Library, our day-drinking group at Zen West. 

But really, three decades and more later, I'm still an auslander, an expatriate Kentuckian who responds to the blooming fragrance of the locust tress in spring as a reminder of the locust trees on the other side of the Alleghenies. (My wife discerns occasional traces of my original Kentucky accent, but I would not, nor should I, ever attempt the Baltimore accent.) 

Living in a place which, comfortable as it has been, is yet not quite a good fit reminds us that we are all pilgrims, finding our way through the world. 

Things The Baltimore Sun says are iconic

Charles Grayson Gilbert, subject of iconic newspaper photo ...

Iconic ‘Caddyshack’ yacht is for sale.

Berger cookies run low on shelves around Baltimore as iconic baker waits for repair.

Westminster officials approve new contract for repairs to city’s iconic clock tower.

C.P. Crane power plant demolished, toppling iconic stacks.

Bye, Hon: Iconic Baltimore cafe closing after 30 years.

Rutschman and other Orioles players hung out with the kids in attendance, even sliding down the iconic hill at Lamade Stadium.

National Treasure won an enthralling finish as tens of thousands of racing and concert fans flocked and reveled at Baltimore’s most iconic annual event.

To celebrate Preakness week, the McCormick & Co. iconic seasoning is offering Old Bay lovers a chance to spice things up with a free tattoo. 

Today, racing remains historic and entertaining and, perhaps most notably in Maryland, brings the state its most iconic annual event, the Preakness.

The red scrapings, which pose a threat to public health, especially for children, were found at a day care, a playground and homes within a half-mile radius of the iconic tower.

Cowser was faster, completing his metaphorical Kessel Run in fewer parsecs by finishing off Han Solo’s iconic ship in September. 

Turning around the beleaguered Harborplace — considered an iconic part of the Inner Harbor ...

The special edition brew “represents the pairing of two iconic brands coming together to celebrate Baltimore."

The renowned Italian vocalist, who is blind, is one of the most iconic and recognizable classical voices in music worldwide. 

Warner said the musical’s songs are iconic, and anyone who remembers the decade is almost certain to find themselves singing along to the title track.

Attman’s Delicatessen, the iconic Baltimore deli that got its start on “Corned Beef Row” more than a century ago, will open a new location in Harbor Point.

The trio of iconic R&B performers with a slate of hits and harmonies dating back to the 90s will perform at Baltimore’s CFG Bank Arena on July 29.

 The zipper wig is one of four iconic hairpieces she designed for Kim and then recreated for “The Culture: Hip-Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century.” ... She created iconic ‘dos worn by hip-hop royalty Mary J. Blige and Lauryn Hill — looks still copied today.

Instead, it narrowly cleared the iconic wall, leaving the Orioles with a stunning 9-8 loss on the walk-off home run.

Enough, already? 

Fixing the blame

 Thirty years ago, under John S. Carroll, The Baltimore Sun refined its policy on corrections. Because production of the paper was a collective effort, The Sun took collective responsibility when errors of fact made it into print, not assigning individual responsibility. The Sun regretted the error, and that was that. 

The one exception: A correction assigned responsibility when The Sun had been given erroneous information. 

Reporters disliked this policy and regularly groused about it. Their complaint, and it was reasonable, went like this: "It's my byline on the story, and when a reader sees a correction that doesn't include 'because of an editing error,' the reader thinks I made a mistake, and it reflects badly on me."

The response to that complaint was that the reader is more concerned with the accuracy of the story than with naming and shaming in the newsroom. If there were to be a "because of an editor's error" correction or a "because of a copy editor's error" correction, why not a "because of reporter's error" correction? Guess which category would be most numerous. 

My own perspective after forty years of editing reporters' copy is that the correction policy left them with undeserved blame for mistakes they did not make. At the same time, my work and the desk's work left them with undeserved merit for more accurate and more literate writing than they in fact produced. 

Consider it a wash. 

Weep no more

Someone has suggested on Twitter that it is time for the Kentucky Derby to dump "My Old Kentucky Home," and as an expatriate Kentuckian, I want to object. The very things that make the song objectionable are the very reasons to keep it.  

The author, Stephen Foster, wrote it and other songs for minstrel shows. Minstrel shows, you will recall, were nineteenth-century entertainments in which white people donned blackface and performed songs and dances that were cartoonish parodies of Black culture, for the amusement of white audiences. In the plaintive song itself, a black family of enslaved people who have been sold down the river recall with nostalgia and grief their happier life back in Kentucky, before hard times came knocking at the door. 

You cannot ask for a better illustration of woke history than the spectacle at the Derby of pudgy men in their ice-cream suits and before-Memorial Day seersucker and their ladies in elaborate millinery singing this song. Recognizing the casual racism pervasive in the past and its unexamined survivals today explains much about the double nature of the Republic. 

My own old Kentucky home, the farm my grandfather inherited from his father, where I roamed the fields as a child, is gone, sold to people better qualified to work the land than I am. It, too, has a double history, illustrated by a property tax receipt from in 1850s showing that my great-great grandfather owned two hundred acres, four horses or mules, and four human beings. If you are a thinking person, you learn to recognize and live with both sides of your history. 

So when the band strikes up on Derby Day, I too will stand and sing of the old Kentucky home, far away, for good and for ill. 

*****

After three decades in Baltimore, a digression.

From time to time some yahoo will suggest replacing "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the national anthem, usually with "America the Beautiful" or "God Bless America." 

It's true that Francis Scott Key's text objects to British encouragement of slave rebellions during the War of 1812, but that's in a verse we never sing, and he brings in God in the last verse, which we also never sing. The reason to keep the national anthem is that the only part we actually sing does not go in for triumphalism but asks us a question: Have we lived up to the ideals we proclaimed at the founding? That is a question worth asking every day.

As to the others, "America the Beautiful," with its insipid melody, keeps dragging God in, and "God Bless America," though Irving Berlin could write a catchier tune, does the same. God has many nations to look after, and it would be selfish of us to monopolize the Deity.