Learning the Craft at the Medill School of Journalism

Grad school teaches me about some moral complexities in journalism. And, I learn what “winter” really is.

Students walk past Fisk Hall at Northwestern University

The topic of the day in my journalism class was the “public’s right to know” and how journalists and editors define it. Unexpectedly, it became one of the most memorable days in my grad school program.

Our instructor held up a page from one of the Chicago dailies for us all to see. The page featured a large photo showing the victim of a fatal car accident, his body covered by a sheet on a gurney at the scene of the incident. The question for the class: was the newspaper within its rights to publish this tragic photo? Or had they pushed the envelope too far?

I was angry at the naïve, callous, and cavalier attitude among those applauding the published photo. I doubted that any of them had ever faced such a tragedy in their own families.

Students eagerly raised their hands to weigh in. I listened to most of my classmates arguing emphatically that yes, the paper had every right to publish the photo, based on the value of “the public’s right to know.” Some disagreed, citing a needless intrusion on the family’s privacy, an exploitation of a private grief.

This issue was personal for me. I can’t recall whether I spoke up that day because I was so upset emotionally during the discussion. I was angry at the naïve, callous, and cavalier attitude among those applauding the published photo. I doubted that any of them had ever faced such a tragedy in their own families.

I had. My brother died in a car accident at the age of seventeen when his car careened off Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles. The fabled, scenic road follows the ridgeline of the eastern Santa Monica Mountains, and in its most dangerous loop it twists and turns like a snake. David Lynch’s thriller Mulholland Drive begins with a scene of a fiery head-on collision on this road.

I was nine years old when my brother died. It was a brutal shock and an overwhelming tragedy for our family and our community of friends and neighbors. There was a newspaper account about Allan’s death, which published the story alongside his high school graduation photo, handsome and dignified. I can’t imagine how awful it would have been had my family had to look at an accident photo, with Allan’s body covered on a gurney.

Journalism is a craft. For the especially talented and hard-working, it can become an art. But it is not a science and never can be.

Those arguing in favor of the accident scene photo cited a possible public good: it could make people who were reckless drivers be more careful. That would certainly be a huge benefit, but even that benefit should be measured against the harm of pouring a river of salt into a family of broken hearts, or hyping fears among the already fearful. I was emotionally drained by that discussion and depressed as I considered that in a few years, many of these classmates would become editors making editorial decisions in newsrooms or television stations all over the country, green lighting such coverage. As the saying goes in journalism, “If it bleeds, it leads.”

The trend toward agenda-driven journalism was well established among many classmates

Journalism is a craft. For the especially talented and hard-working, it can become an art. But it is not a science and never can be. The media create the messages through the angle of their reporting, the images they share, what stories they write, whom they choose to quote and whom they ignore, how headlines are written, among many other choices. These decisions will always remain judgment calls, and increasingly, even then, a reporter’s political or personal agenda, as opposed to trying to achieve a semblance of objectivity, had taken precedence.

We also had classes on legal issues such as libel, intellectual property, and plagiarism. (This class came too late for one student who plagiarized one of his first reported stories. He was summarily thrown out of the program. What a cretin!) These areas of law offer clear definitions and boundaries, but are only a lawsuit away from a new evaluation of those definitions, and what people could or could not get away with in publishing.

I was glad to be in Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism in Evanston, Illinois. Columbia University’s J-school had turned me down and I wasted no time in accepting Medill’s invitation. I landed in Chicago never having been there before, and while the college town of Evanston was lovely, I burst into tears upon turning the key and seeing my dismal, dreary shoebox of a dorm room. The faded walls were riveted with hundreds of holes where tacks had previously secured posters and pictures of other tenants. My window view was of the parking lot and the “El” train tracks and platform. It was quite a comedown from my spacious apartment in Los Angeles, where my living room sliding glass doors let the sunshine in each day on our tree-lined street.

All day long, I slipped and slid through the city in my totally inappropriate tread-less, frostbite-inviting shoes until I finished my day’s work. Then I slid and slipped over to Marshall Fields where I bought a real, long winter coat and boots.

But I quickly adjusted. The campus was beautiful, and the college town still had a small-town feel, lovely and slightly upscale. I took daily walks along Sheridan Road, which hugged the campus, and I gazed at the beauty of Lake Michigan and the architecture of the beautiful, stately lakeside homes.

I felt oddly estranged from most of my classmates right from the start. Usually I made friends easily, but not here. Although I was only twenty-four, I felt much older than the majority who had just graduated from college and hadn’t yet had real-life work experience. And as that class discussion about the accident photograph revealed, to my mind all too many had arrived at school with a certain high-handed arrogance, eager to become heroes by publishing the kinds of stories that would “make a difference,” but perhaps not measuring their cost.

As a lifelong Californian, I learned what “winter” really meant. One morning I was standing on the train platform outside my dorm waiting for the train to whisk me into downtown Chicago for my day’s reporting. I was standing next to a student from Dearborn, Michigan, who was sensibly dressed in a wool coat and wool scarf. I was wearing open-toed shoes and my lightweight California “coat” as snow began to fall. All day long, I slipped and slid through the city in my totally inappropriate tread-less, frostbite-inviting shoes until I finished my day’s work. Then I slid and slipped over to Marshall Fields where I bought a real, long winter coat and boots.

An old-school professor defends the use of typewriters–in the mid-1980’s

Other than wearing these open-toed shoes in the snow, I dressed and behaved unimaginatively and in a low-key, almost boring manner. This confused several Midwesterners who expected a real Californian to be a bit flamboyant, outrageous, maybe have purple and green hair or carry a mandolin or a surfboard around. Their disappointment was amusing, but I made hay with it by selling a humor column about it to the Chicago Tribune, the first of several I sold that year.

My friend and former editor at UCLA, Judi, had been right: there was nothing like the pressure of daily reporting to build your skills and teach you to work fast.

Several of my instructors were old-school, tough journalists. All had been reporters, art and theater critics, and editors at the nation’s top newspapers and magazines. We were all shocked that on our first day in reporting class we met in a classroom still equipped with typewriters! Computers already graced the downtown school newsroom but were on a slower boat to Evanston. Our professor made no apologies. He was probably in his 60s and would have come of age as a member of the press before Steve Jobs had been born. He defended the use of typewriters, arguing that if the power went out you were out of luck working on a computer, but a typewriter would never fail you—unless your ribbon ran dry and you had failed to stock up.

A tragic national disaster stopped all work for the day

My writing experience at my first few jobs put me at an advantage for grad school, but my friend and former editor at UCLA, Judi, had been right: there was nothing like the pressure of daily reporting to build your skills and teach you to work fast. With some exceptions, we were expected to find a story to cover, track down sources and complete other research, and write the piece, all in the same day. During the winter I covered lots of lawsuits, sifting through the latest legal filings in Chicago’s main courthouse, choosing anything that caught my eye. Once I had my “catch of the day,” I would head to the school’s far more modern downtown newsroom, pick up the phone, and hunt down interview subjects. When I introduced myself and the reason for my call, I hoped they’d be willing to talk to a Medill student. The school’s repuation certainly helped to ease my path, and almost nobody turned me down.

Just after 10:30 a.m. on January 28, 1986, I was standing as usual in the courthouse looking for a meaty story when I stopped to watch the live coverage of the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger from Cape Canaveral on the huge television screen. Dozens of people were in this enormous space in the courthouse. We all stopped and watched, waiting for the exciting lift-off. When the shuttle broke apart only seventy-three seconds into its flight, there was stunned silence. But almost immediately, some people cried, others uttered gasps of shock. It was impossible to do anything for the rest of the day other than try to absorb this horrible disaster.

When the surgeon general pointed to me for my question, I froze, my question completely forgotten. As hundreds of people stared at me, I felt humiliated.

I spent my last quarter of the program in Washington D.C., writing for the school’s news service. Students could choose to cover issues relevant to regional subscribing newspapers—usually small-town papers that couldn’t afford their own D.C.-based reporter—or one of the established topic beats. It amazed me that healthcare wasn’t already an established beat for the news service, and I got permission to create one. From the dangers of lightning to new FDA guidelines on medication to new nutritional studies, this beat was perfect for me, building on my background and my desire to stay in healthcare writing.

Fessing up to a “rock star” journalist helps me see the world hasn’t ended

At a huge press briefing I attended with hundreds in attendance, Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop made a statement about the latest findings about the AIDS virus. Afterward, he took questions from the audience. In my excitement to be with “the big league” reporters, I shot my hand up, not expecting to be noticed. But I was. And when the surgeon general pointed to me for my question, I froze, my question completely forgotten. As hundreds of people stared at me, I felt humiliated.

Afterward, I happened to share a train ride with Marlene Cimons, a longtime medical writer from the L.A. Times whose work I read avidly. I knew who she was from her media name tag, and I looked at her like a rock star groupie might cast her gaze at her music idol. I struck up a conversation with her, confessing how stupid I felt over my moment of self-immolation. Her manner wasn’t sympathetic; it was coolly journalistic, yet she said it was no big deal, very understandable, and she spoke to me as if I were (almost) as professional as she was. By the time I exited the train, I began to climb out from the hole I had dug for myself.

Other than this momentary disaster, which fortunately none of my classmates had witnessed, my biggest challenge of that year had nothing to do with journalism, my work-study job, or researching my thesis. Instead, it zeroed in on my personal future.

I had been dating a man named Jeff for nearly a full year when I left L.A. for Chicago–ironically, his hometown. He was studying with an Orthodox rabbi and on track to pursue an Orthodox Jewish life. I loved him but could not see myself becoming that religious. I wanted to raise a Jewish family, and I admired his thoughtful, serious approach to defining his values. But hadn’t I already worked for a Jewish student press service, and edited a Jewish campus paper? Didn’t I love bagels and Chinese food? Wasn’t I Jewish enough?

Trying to define myself relative to my Judaism loomed over me throughout the year, and there were no easy answers.