"News organizations need to stay alive"

Yesterday I went to a "cake torture," which is what the The Seattle Times staff calls a farewell party for a departing employee. This one was for Carol Ostrom, a reporter at The Times since 1980. 

The cake torture went as they usually do: Embarrassing stories about the departing person, gag gifts and finally, cake.

Right before the cake, Carol got a chance to talk to those who will carry on. I found her words inspiring and worth passing along. 

I especially address this to those former students who may now be wondering why I encouraged them to go into a field with fewer and fewer jobs and lower and lower pay, not to mention a changing technological landscape that has them working harder to tell their stories in blogs, tweets, in video and audio. And there are undoubtedly more changes on the way. More disruptions and more financial upheaval for the industry.

To those former students, I say, "Listen to Carol." She gives good reasons for why it is worth carrying on -- and why it's still a fun way to spend your life.

(I left it as Carol wrote it. As a retired reporter, she deserves to be free of editors.)

Carol's goodbye address to The Seattle Times

Carol Ostrom

They say if you’re nervous, you should just imagine your audience naked.

thank god some of you are standing in the back.

There are some people here who have secret instructions to yell out EMBARRASSING things if I start to lose it, which I most certainly will. they might have to do with youthful indiscretions at a journalism convention, a hot tub, hotel security police at 2 a.m. Possibly.

2. I STUMBLED INTO JOURNALISM in the 1970s, like oh so many english majors who WANTED TO get out into the real world. 

Ross Anderson

THE IRE CONVENTION IN 1975 OR SO WAS IN a big, crowded, noisy room, heavy with the smell of booze and cigarettes. Most people were dressed a bit like my former colleague, the more-than-slightly rumpled Ross Anderson.

They were all the I-words -- INTELLIGENT, irreverent, iconoclastic, idealistic -- and sacred-cow free. They wanted answers to life’s persistent questions, they believed in the people’s right to know stuff, in the importance of newspapers in maintaining Democracy and that we should all be wary of the Military Industrial Complex. 

I said to myself then: These are my people. I’ll do what it takes to walk among them.

3. I came to The Seattle Times in 1980 after working at two weekly papers -- where a shy kid from Bothell learned to ask strangers a lot of impertinent questions.

In my application clips, I included a story I’d written criticizing The Times -- and they still hired me. Later, when something I wrote had advertisers threatening to boycott the Times, the executive editor backed me up. Publisher Frank Blethen, even when he was running the anti-death-tax campaign from his office, didn’t mess with my news story that found evidence contrary to his point of view.

When i came to The Times, the air in the newsroom was thick with smoke from cigs cigars pipes. and at first, women were very scarce. but from the beginning, there was a sense of purpose and being able to make a difference. I was hooked.

4. Ross, busy taking prostitutes to dinner to help investigate rampant corruption and bribery in the police department, became my sartorial mentor.

I learned from everything -- every encounter, every story, every source, every mistake. And most of all, from every colleague.

 5. There were -- and are now -- so many brains in this room, so much talent and skill. We have one big advantage -- we know so much more -- collectively -- than that solitary guy in the basement blogging away in his boxer shorts with the little doggies on them.

Together, we know the history and twists of politics, health care, education, science, culture and just about everything in our region. 

i know we’ve all been focused on creating the future medium for news, which is very important. But to take advantage of our collective knowledge -- to offer something that no other media enterprise can -- we have to learn from one another. 

Together, we are big, smart and unstoppable. Separated, not so much. 

Now that we’re so small, we each work so hard, such long hours, so fast, so much to do, it’s hard to take time to connect -- ESPECIALLY FOR REPORTERS. But even though I rarely had time to do it, I do believe it’s crucial for survival -- of us personally and professionally -- and also for survival of The Times. 

5. News organizations need to stay alive because what we do is the key to democracy. I personally need the Seattle Times to stay alive because my pension will pay for that one weekly latte.

6. Now I have to get out of here before I have to learn something even more awful than Methode. I have used up my lifetime quota of mouse clicks.

I hope I’m not closing the door forever -- I will miss you too much, dammit. All of you here are the best, hardest working, funniest, most principled and just plain swell colleagues a working girl could ever have. 

And now, Andrisevic, you can take my fucking desk chair.