Who, if anyone, has influenced you?

Wilbur L. Doctor, chairman of the Journalism Department at the University of Rhode Island. He taught us all the right way the first time. He taught us the importance of accuracy and the reverence of the profession and the craft.

Tim Tolokan, the head of sports information (and more) at the University of Connecticut. I never worked for him at the Norwich Bulletin, but he set such a standard for excellence and hard work and doing it right that future writers learned from him. There are still people writing today in southeastern Connecticut -- and elsewhere -- who do what they do because of Tim.

Jay Spiegel, my first sports editor and a long-time copy editor at the Hartford Courant. Same thing, taught us how to do it.

The late Bohdan Kolinsky, scholastic editor at the Hartford Courant who coulds have -- and probably should have -- written the book on being a sprots writer and being a great person.

Angelo Cataldi, Philadelphia sports radio host, who took a young kid under his wing and taught him the ropes.

And so many others.

 

Tim O'Brien.

If you've never read him, or even if you have, do yourself a favor and give these two links a read.

http://web.archive.org/web/20011222025122/www.nku.edu/~peers/thethingstheycarried.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/20/specials/obrien-vietnam.html

 

There are writers I've admired (Steinbeck, Gary Smith etc) who you try to emulate in some way and their are writers who you try to emulate the way they deal with people. There are many "big names" in journalism who appear to be in it for their own ego and who are talented, but the way they treat people be they co-workers, sources or readers isn't very admirable. It makes me wonder if the nature of journalism has changed from a "team" mentality to an independent contractor model.

 

Jack's work always had such a fluid, refreshing quality to it.

 

Have no idea where he is today, but a fourth-grade teacher in my school who asked me to cover the new midget basketball program for the town semi-weekly at the age of 13.

 

When you start working for newspapers at 16 in a small town, it's almost everybody. And then you need to unlearn some of it.

The first really demanding place I worked, I was on vacation and asked the sports editor if I could come in and meet him, and he just happened to have an opening. He gave me an editing test, marked it up in red ink in front of me and said, "Would you like to be able to edit like this?" He turned out to be a very tough teacher, and there was a slot lady, one of that first big wave of female pioneers in sports journalism, who taught me a lot at that stop, too. Years later when I saw "Broadcast News," the Holly Hunter character reminded me a lot of her.

A couple stops later, there was a whole desk full of teachers. A long time since, and I still don't know exactly how to describe it. They each had their own personalities, were very different people, yet there was very little variance in work ethic and they each had pretty much the same strike zone when judging news and judging the quality of work. Not complete agreement on a story, but the same standard for judging it, the same basic principle of would most people really want to read this? And if they normally wouldn't, but it's important that we tell them about it anyway, how can we make this more interesting? At times it seemed like indoctrination, but really it was the workplace I've found to be -- by a very wide margin -- the most tolerant of differing viewpoints. If you brought in an idea from someplace else or even something original, it wasn't automatically dismissed as foreign, yet there was still this attitude and process of, "Good idea, now how do we make it uniquely ours?" It was more a matter of people who believed very strongly in the product and in certain ideals that made it a unique culture: teamwork, respect for the intelligence of colleagues and readers, not taking the easy way if a better way was available, intellectual honesty and speaking up if something wasn't right, constant scrutiny and the willingness to rip up a lot of it between editions. Very, very hard to find.

 

A lot of good people have influenced me through the years, from church to school to work.

As well, I've learned a lot of what not to do from being around people who were idiots or poor, ineffective editors, reporters and office managers.

 

I think I speak for the whole board when I say, you're welcome.

 

Frank: If this is the place I think it is, I can't believe I left that group off my list. Gross oversight on my part.

 

Hmmm ...

The SE at my first job out of college. He put me in my place my first month on the job and told me how it is at a "real paper." The man made me work my ass off and pushed me to become a better reporter.

One of my current coworkers. He's a 25-year veteran who's covered everything from the World Series to the Super Bowl to prep field hockey but has never, ever thought that he's bigger than the paper. No shred of arrogance whatsoever. He's a no-nonsense kind of guy. He'll be the first to tell you to get your act together but in the same token he's the first to tell you that you kicked butt on a big story.

Tracy Ringolsby. When I was debating my future in the business, he gave me some great advice that I follow to this day.

 

At the time I didn't know that this person would influence me to become a writer, but my high school English teacher (she was a huge sports buff). She taught me to actually enjoy writing rather than see it as chore. My second influence was (and still is) my college journalism professor Paul Mitchell, some people here may know him considering he seems to know everyone that was ever born. When I started school I wanted to do broadcast, but his influence led me to print (not sure if that is good thing considering the business). He is the type of guy that will tell you how it is, whether you like it or not.