Lucky in the path that led me to the newsroom

Some of the best advice I ever received about writing was not to write the same way I talk.

Considering the people, the fellow offering the advice and I, it was good advice because we both talked like dirt farmers. That’s because that’s how we grew up.

It’s not that what Mrs. Gilbert taught us in English class didn’t stick; it was just that the way we spoke around the crowd we hung out with determined whether or not we were accepted. I know from my grade Mrs. Gilbert thought I was hopeless but I got the last laugh.

This contemporary with the advice formalized his education in journalism and went in the back door and wound up in the editor and publisher’s chair before I ever heard the advice. Fortunately I had pretty much found my own way to that realization but it stuck later as I found myself training and editing the work of other young writers over the years.

Writing was never very hard for me. I won creative writing contests in junior high and I could wait until the last minute to turn in book reports and writing assignments in school because the right words always flowed easily if I had enough time to read just a little on the subject.

The tough part for me, and the least interesting, was always copy editing. I could mark up a piece pretty accurately, but teaching young writers why and getting it to stick with them drove me crazy. With some I just kept going back to that advice, “quit writing the way you talk you knucklehead.”

Looking back on all the copy editors I had reading behind me, I think most of them suffered from the same problem. I had a few that were just as lost as I was but refused to let it show outwardly. There were a couple along the way that were real pros though.

I got lucky in the path that I took into the newsroom, except for one short stint, I came in as the publisher and some good editors under my watch took a light hand to my copy. It’s a wonder I ever learned anything. It also makes sense why I was never the best either.

It’s OK though. I was able to teach a few people a little bit along the way and once in awhile those folks went on to greater things than their mentor. Those were the cases in which, as they accepted the big award or got the big promotion I could say proudly I taught that person everything I know.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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