Anne Stuart - Breaking News

 

I'm in high school, and I'm thinking a lot about what I'm going to do when I go to college next year. All my friends, my family, my teachers, everybody assumes that I'm going to go into journalism. This isn't surprising, because my dad is an editor at the local newspaper. Both of my brothers are interested in journalism. One's studying to be a TV photographer, the other one wants to be a sports writer. And I myself have been the editor, or reporter or writer on every school newspaper and newsletter and yearbook all the way through school. So, it's really not surprising. 

 

But I sometimes think maybe I don't want to join the family business. Maybe I'd like to do something else. Maybe I would like to be an English professor or a veterinarian. I like animals. Or, maybe go into politics. But still, when my dad tells me that there is a part time after school job down at the newspaper. I am thrilled. Thanks, dad. I jump at the chance, because I can try it out. I can see what it's going to be like to work in a newspaper environment and see if it's something that I want to do. 

 

Now it's actually a crappy job. It's not in the newsroom, it's not even on the same floor, it's downstairs in a corner in a closet and it involves answering the phone. And specifically, it involves answering the switchboard. So, all the calls to the newspaper come into this one central number and the switchboard operator, in this case me, sits there with a headset on and flips a button as the calls come in and then takes the line and plugs it in to whatever slot it's supposed to go to on that switchboard. 

 

So, if somebody calls in and they want to place a classified ad, it goes up here. And if they call in and complain that they didn't get their paper, it goes over here. And if they call in and they've got a news tip for the newsroom, it goes up here. But I quickly learn in this job that people call the newspaper for all sorts of other reasons. This is decades before the internet. There's no CNN, there's no 24-hour news radio, at least not in central Michigan where I live. And so, when people get the news, they get it when the newspaper lands on their doorstep in the morning or on the 6 o’clock and 11 o'clock news at night. 

 

And if they want to know something in between times, they often call the newspaper and they'll get me. So, they'll call and they'll say something like, “We want to go on a picnic this afternoon.” It's looking kind of iffy, weather wise, what's the latest forecast. So, I put them on hold, and I call up to the newsroom, and then I'll come back and I'll tell them, “Well, 20 minutes ago, the latest from the National Weather Service said, sunny and clear, so you're good to go. Have a good time.” [audience laughter] 

 

Or, they'll call and they'll say, “I had to miss the Detroit Tigers game. Can you give me the score?” And I'll call upstairs and I'll ask the sports desk, “What was the score?” I'll go back and more often than not, I'll tell them that “The Tigers lost again. It was a really bad year for the Tigers.” [audience laughter] And every once in a while, usually late at night on a weekend night, someone will call in and say, I see all these strange flashing lights in the sky, and I wonder if anybody else has reported seeing UFOs.” So, I put them on hold and I call up to the newsroom just to be safe. And then, I invariably come back and tell them, “No. Sorry, it's just you.” [audience laughter] 

 

The summer after I graduate from high school, I start getting calls about something different. It's about something that's happening hundreds of miles away in Washington D.C. And even though this event is partially being televised, people are so anxious about what's happening that they're calling the newspaper for the latest news, the latest nuggets, the news in a nutshell. And they get me. 

 

So, I find myself saying things like, “The Supreme Court has ruled that President Nixon has to release his secret tapes.” Or, “The House Judiciary Committee just voted to approve the second article of impeachment.” Or, “We've just learned that there's this new tape and they're calling it the smoking gun and it proves that the president knew about the Watergate cover up.”

 

And then, I find people calling and saying, “Is the president going to resign?” And I say, “I don't know. We don't know.” And then, one hot day in August, people start calling and saying, “When is the president going to resign?” And I tell them, I've written out a little script and I say, “The president will address the nation on live television at 9 o'clock tonight. We expect that he will say that he is going to resign tomorrow and Gerald Ford will be our next president.”

 

 

I am 17 years old. Two months ago, I was in high school. And now, I'm telling people about the biggest news story of our time. I'm telling them one at a time over the telephone, but I am telling them. [audience laughter] When I go off to college a couple of weeks later, I am so grateful for that crappy little job, because I no longer have any question about what I'm going to do. I'm not going into politics. No way. I'm not going to be a professor. I'm not going to be a veterinarian. I'm going to go into the family business and be a journalist. And that's what I do for the next 30 years. Thank you.