This week, Bob Driehaus visits Miami University to talk about real-life journalism careers.
And Bob's career resonates with many journalists who, like me, are hard-pressed to understand why being the first with a juicy story, doing kick-ass reporting and writing your heart out isn't enough to sustain the news industry anymore.
Bob worked for 10 years at the late Cincinnati Post, covering hard-nosed beats like city government, transportation and economic development. But he knew that the Post's joint operating agreement with Gannett Co. Inc., which publishes The Cincinnati Enquirer, would not be renewed at the end of 2007.
So he struck out on a freelance career, one that today includes reporting regularly for The New York Times.
That's why Miami students are blogging now about The Times, and most particularly its National Desk products, because Bob usually writes for that team.
When I was a journalism student at the University of Missouri, becoming a reporter for The Times was the goal. You could go no higher. And some of my classmates made it.
In fact, above is a photo of some of my Mizzou Journalism classmates at the school's centennial in September '08. From left they are Jim Lynch, a former Miami Herald reporter; Janice Hume, a journalism professor at the University of Georgia; Lynn Uhlfelder Berman, a former New York Times journalist; Dan Berman, a former journalist at several East Coast papers; Gary Graff, the Detroit-based music critic for Billboard, Rolling Stone and other media; and me.
We laughed about our graduation, when the esteemed Times journalist Seymour Topping gave the commencement speech and came to our after-party at Lynch and Graff's decrepit apartment, where he drank cheap beer while seated on someone's bed.
Today the Times is still synonymous with excellent in reporting, in writing and in fearlessness to investigate fraud, abuse of power, corruption, neglect and ignorance worldwide. And it has applied the same high journalistic standards to multi-media journalism.
But it has stiff competition from unlikely media sources, and is yoked with a liberal mantle (rather than intellectual or progressive, as I would ID the Times) in an era of polarization.
So you be the judge of how relevant it is to your generation. And enjoy getting to meet one of the Times' journalists. Be sure to interview him thoroughly.
