The Myth of the Golden Turd

I'm glad I went to journalism school when I did, and learned from the people I did and have had the career I've had. Because with people like Rebecca Maitland and Karen Zurawski around, newspapers will be dead in a decade. And when the corpse is buried I'll be glad to still be above ground, knowing I did it the Right Way.

This Houston Chronicle episode reminds me of a story my good friend Aaron tells about his first interview with a public relations firm, right out of college. As he's in there with one of the principals, another employee comes in with a quote typed on a sheet of paper. He asks the principal with whom Aaron is interviewing if the principal can just say what's written, so it can be properly described as a quote.

That's really not a whole lot different from Maitland's approach in constructing quotes and searching for someone to whom they can be attributed. But it gets the job of a reporter exactly wrong. As a reporter you dig, dig, dig for information and in the end you take what you get. If you're lucky and/or good, you get better stuff. If you're lazy, you won't get shit. When someone gives you the perfect quote for your story, but refuses to be named or even let you use the quote, you drop it. Does it suck? You bet. It's like getting handed a gold nugget, only to turn it over and find it's a painted turd.

But a gold turd is still a turd, and crap is no good. So you go back to work and keep digging. That's how it's done, people. Writing takes work; reporting takes work. Being a journalist is not supposed to be easy. You don't just get to ask your friends or colleagues to say shit and then shop the shit around hoping someone will take it.

Excuse my language, but this story stinks.

I don't know anything about Maitland as a journalist, but this is one stupendous lapse in judgment. And it's just compounded by Zurawski, who is supposed to be an editor. The proper response for a newspaper editor, when asked about a reporter who shopped quotes like Maitland appears to have done, is, "That's not how we do things here." Period. End of story. There's no need to sell your reporter out; you deal with it one-on-one, not in the media column of an alternative weekly. But you definitely make it clear that the behavior that was described to you is not how your reporters are expected to conduct themselves.

This isn't rocket science; it's journalism. I know it's Houston and that with the heat and humidity and the Johnson Space Center so close it might be easy to get confused and think things are more complicated than they really are. But they aren't. It's simple. To paraphrase Durham Bulls skipper Joe Riggins, journalism is a simple game: you report the story, you write the story, you publish the story. Got it?

Riding With Respect

This past spring, I joined the Patriot Guard Riders, specifically the Illinois chapter. I thought about it for several weeks before I signed up. How would I feel participating in such a visible group? Would I have the time to devote to it? Finally I came down on the side of "You know what? What they say is true: One person can't do everything, but we can all do something." And so I joined.

To me it's not about whether or not I support a particular conflict. I'm not in favor of war. What's important to me is showing respect to these men and women who volunteer to serve in the armed forces and who go where they're told when they're told and do what they're told, no questions asked. I can disagree with the policy, and I often do, but my beef is not with the soldiers.

And I appreciated the PGR's original mission—to provide a barrier between families mourning dead soldiers and those Fred Phelps-indoctrinated wackos from the Westboro Baptist Church who insisted on protesting homosexuality by disrupting the military funerals.


For several months after joining I didn't participate in any missions. Either there weren't any soldier funerals (thankfully) or welcome home rides taking place nearby or they were at times when I couldn't get away from work. Finally two weeks ago I was able to go on a welcome home mission for Charlie Company of the 178th Infantry Battalion of the Illinois National Guard. More than 550 bikes showed up on a sunny Sunday morning in Monee, and escorted the 130-plus guardsmen to the community center in downtown Kankakee. I was pretty thrilled to be there and be a part of that. And I was glad it wasn't a funeral.

Then last night I participated in a welcome home ride for U.S. Marine Cpl. Heath "Beaver" Parvis of Lemont. About 50 bikes gathered in the parking lot of a strip mall at 135th Street and Archer Ave. Cpl. Parvis arrived at about 8:45 p.m. After exchanging hugs with family and friends, he shook hands with anyone else who extended one to him. At about 9:15 we escorted him from the parking lot to the American Legion post in Lockport. It must have been quite a sight for the residents of the neighborhoods the procession wound through and for the drivers we forced off the road. Here were three police cars, two fire engines and 50 bikes riding two by two with their emergency flashers blinking, revving their engines and honking their horns.

As I rode out of the American Legion parking lot later, several of those gathered for the continuation of Cpl. Parvis' welcome-home party thanked me for coming. It's a good feeling, receiving that kind of appreciation for doing something out of my own sense of appreciation.

One day I'll attend a funeral, and that will be sad. It's inevitable, living as we do in this state of seemingly perpetual conflict. But for now it's nice to welcome some of these people home. They deserve it.