The little old lady that dreamed of a career in the news biz

Editing a small town newspaper was a real eye-opener. For years, I had made my living as a reporter or photographer for one paper or another, but my job at the Lakeview Enterprise represented my first full-time managing editor gig.

For the first time, I was the Big Kahuna, the man in charge, and the sucker who got to deal with all the crazies. And brother, lemme tell ya, small towns do have their share of crazies.

As editor of a community newspaper, you’re expected to cover the Lion’s Club breakfasts and Garden Society soirées. That’s the beauty of small-town newspapers, in fact; you report the stuff the “big guys” would never be interested in, the news that matters most to the locals. Your product is a vital link in keeping the community connected.

It’s a role I loved and one I’d still be doing if declining ad revenues hadn’t prompted the paper’s parent company to close it down.

During my tenure there, I learned a little about the newspaper business, a little about writing and editing, and a lot about dealing with crazies.

I call them crazy, though most were technically sane. Probably. A lot of folks, I guess, are crazy about one thing or another. Beauty pageant moms, for instance, simply cannot understand why you won’t run a photo of their seven-year-old daughter on the front page more than three weeks in a row. (“She came in second in the Little Miss Muffit Pageant in Kalamazoo, you idiot! Do you have any idea what a big deal that is?)

Women who own dance studios—the sort where elementary school kids stumble around a gym in sequined tights to the soundtrack of “Saturday Night Fever”—also demand front-page coverage for each of their weekly recitals.

Also worth noting are soccer moms, Little League moms, Rocket Football moms, band moms…basically, moms. I’m a parent too, and can certainly understand what it’s like to be proud of your kid and to want to share that pride with the community. But a paper has only so many pages and sometimes hard choices must be made.

That’s one reason I found it so difficult to pass over the stories Eunice brought in. In addition to being a self-proclaimed octogenarian with a “nose for news,” Eunice was also my neighbor. As a neighbor, she felt comfortable delivering “scoops” not just to my office, but to my home, day or night, seven days a week.

Among Eunice’s hot news tips were the following:

1) A prehistoric creature of some sort was spotted (by Eunice) living in the town’s lake. It looked something like the Loch Ness Monster, only smaller.

2) Bill, from down the block, had murdered his wife, Lillith, and Eunice had seen him burying her dismembered body in the back yard. (I saw Lillith at the grocery later that same day. She seemed to have all her parts intact. I am nothing if not a fact checker.)

3) Several young women were spotted, by Eunice, strolling casually around the neighborhood buck naked in the middle of the night after skinny dipping at the lake. (This story I checked out for myself, just in case. My late night front porch vigil failed to produce any solid evidence. Dammit.)

There were dozens of others over the years, and I think Eunice honestly believed in the veracity of each and every one of her reports. And honestly, most of Eunice’s stories were far more interesting than the village council minutes I was running each week.

In fact, it’s a shame I wasn’t able to put Eunice’s stories on the front page accompanied by lurid, heavily-Photoshopped pics. If I had, that paper might still be in business today.

More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.