My father used to get me to read the newspaper to him, as if I was a radio. I would stand there and read the 'Times.'
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
At 6:30, which was when the national news began, my father raised the volume and adjusted the antennas. Usually I occupied myself with a book, but that night my father insisted that I pay attention.
Even as a little kid, I was fascinated by newspapers and magazines. They were my TV. I'd be the first one up to grab the morning paper, mainly to look at the sports pictures, the war pictures.
Radio, newspapers, they were normal parts of my life. In those days, you had to go somewhere to watch television and leave something to see it.
My father was a journalist.
Somebody once said I had a face for radio and a voice for newspapers.
My grandfather had been a newspaper reporter, as was my uncle. They were pretty good writers and so I thought maybe somewhere down the line I would do some writing.
The process was remarkably cathartic. I'd sit and listen to my father's voice - having not heard some of these tapes for 30 years and hearing his voice laying me down for a nap, our giggles and cooking dinner - and I remembered all those wonderful days. Normal days.
My father was a newspaper editor, so I was surrounded by journalists my entire life. I think the fact that he was so well known may be why I chose to go into magazines and move to the States at a young age.
I wrote a lot of stuff quickly: pages and pages of notes that seemed pretty incoherent at first. Most of it was taken from the radio because -suddenly being a parent- I'd be confronted by the radio giving a news report every hour of the day.
My father was from the South and turned me into a news junkie at a very early age. I would sit and watch TV with him.