When I worked in Los Angeles covering hard news, very often when something important would happen I'd be off in the woods covering something unimportant, which was more interesting to me.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I think any journalist who spends time in a place realizes that there are lots of stories around beyond their primary story. You meet so many interesting people and have all kinds of experiences.
Some of those stories in local newspapers are just as dull and boring as the stories that I get from on-line services, which are basically sort of straight news.
It turned out I really didn't like journalism. I wanted to make up stories, not cover real events.
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.
I've come to recognize what I call my 'inside interests.' Telling stories. And helping people tell their stories is a sort of interpersonal gardening. My work at NBC News was to report the news, but in hindsight, I often tried to look for some insight to share that might spark a moment of recognition in a viewer.
My journalist sensibilities have guided me toward the types of projects I've gone for, even though the projects have been fairly diverse. It always has to have that interesting to attract me, I think.
I used to work for a newspaper that covered local resource issues, and my coworkers and friends were journalists. Their reporting work was always pretty grim.
I wish I had some interesting stories about living in L.A., but mostly I just do my work and then go home.
Personally, as a print journalist, I always found the most interesting stories to be the ones hacks talked about in the bar after work.
Everything I do lands in the newspapers.