Career choice then was more promising

Eavesdropping can be downright depressing, especially when it has to do with your chosen career.

"There's no future in journalism," a man stated bluntly. He was chatting with a young woman who had mentioned she was thinking about taking some college courses in journalism. Words like "dead-end" and "bankruptcies" soon followed.

I started to sink lower in my chair. OK, it hasn't been a stellar year for those of us in the Fourth Estate. Thousands have been given their walking papers or have taken early retirement. Our newsroom at the Yakima Herald-Republic has shrunk as reporters leave and jobs go unfilled. Last month, The Seattle Times, which owns us, lopped off more than 150 jobs.

It wasn't always this way. There was a time, back in the mid-1970s, when journalists were actually revered, not retired. Watergate had come into our vocabulary and a disgraced president had been driven out of office by the fine work of the Washington Post's Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

During those halcyon days of print journalism, I made my move out of Durango, Colo., a fresh undergraduate diploma in hand and the backseat of my Datsun B-210 cluttered with books, a battered typewriter and an Army duffle bag bulging with clothes.

I drove north to Cheyenne, Wyo., a desolate place, even in the spring. But you have to start somewhere, so there I stood, outside the door to the human resources department of the Wyoming State Tribune. I knocked and entered. A very attractive young lady looked up at me.

"So you want a job in the newsroom," she asked after scanning my resume. I nodded. She smiled back. "You might be in luck."

She pointed down the hall to the editor's office. I had 70 paces to go before my future in journalism would be sealed.

Jim Flinchum stood up when I entered his glassed-in office. Tall and angular, he epitomized what journalism is all about -- tough, serious, committed. He had earned his stripes at United Press International. Legend has it that one day he dashed into the Dallas UPI bureau and vaulted over desks and chairs, arriving at his Olivetti typewriter with fingers outstretched. That day in Dallas, President Kennedy had been shot. He cranked out a copy-ready story, all 300 words, in less than five minutes. That's what journalism is all about -- no glory, just seamless prose in the bat of an eye.

I handed him my resume. His eyes darted back and forth.

"Do you know anything about sports?" Flinchum asked. No friendly chit-chat, no smiles, just business.

"Sure I do," I said, with a self-confident wave of my hand. Though I had never written a sports story in my life, I did like to play tennis and once had started as a defensive back on my high school's varsity football team. I figured those were worthy credentials.

"Have you ever been in a darkroom before?" he asked.

I hesitated for a moment. This is not an answer you take lightly, especially when you are out of work and have listed head grillman at McDonald's and Army medical corpsman on your resume.

I did own a camera and had taken several photos for the Durango Herald while I was finishing college. Surely those count. And how about the time a friend of mine showed me how to process film by dunking it in a vat of D-76 chemicals? That did take place in a darkroom.

I stared back and inhaled deeply the stale air that hung like thick automobile exhaust in the editor's office.

"Yes, I have," I said.

Flinchum's eyes dropped back down to the inked lettering on my resume.

"Can you start tomorrow morning?"

My heart skipped a few beats. I couldn't believe what I had heard.

Only later did I find out that Flinchum was desperate. His sports editor had walked out a few days earlier, forcing him to handle the sports page. And he hated sports. I was his ticket out of misery. Taking photos was an added bonus since his 68-year-old staff photographer could barely see anymore.

My first story for the sports section was a one-paragraph explanation about a high school track tournament that had been canceled due to inclement weather. Though it was mid-April at the time, a blizzard had swept through Cheyenne and dumped six inches of snow, pushed along by 50-mph winds.

Flinchum pulled out the sheet of paper from my typewriter, glanced at what I had written and grunted: "This will do." That's the last sports story of mine he ever edited.

A year later, I loaded up my Datsun again and moved to Washington state, where I worked as cop reporter and later as editor of the Skagit Valley Herald in Mount Vernon. Then I traveled to Yakima, where I have worked since November 1982.

A few days ago, I added another job title to my resume -- editorial page editor. At least when I applied for that position, I wasn't asked: "Have you ever been in a newsroom before?"

* Editorial Page Editor Spencer Hatton can be reached at 577-7670 or shatton@yakimaherald.com.

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