-Ben Bradlee (Portrayed by Jason Robards in "All the Presidents Men)
Production night. Fourth issue. For the editors and veteran staff members the most important issue of the semester. It will be the issue that will define our newspaper, our semester. This is the one that has to be PERFECT. It feels like we are part of a real life Washington Post, Woodward & Bernstein staff where the every deadline counts and the fate of our organization rest's on a reporter's ability to get the facts straight.
Page editors scramble like rats scurrying along sewers to finish their pages that some started yesterday as they finish today: DEADLINE. That word strikes fear into any journalist. We are in the mist of the single most important deadline: 12 pages of pure unadulterated news, sports, arts, features made in a few automated hours in a cubicle for editors. I RESPECT my editors immensely for being able to put up with this weekly grind. As a staff writer I know most of the time we take our job lightly, if our profession were greek lore us writers would be the Demi-Gods, half man, half god, in the vain of Achilles or Hercules, we can do everything, write, interview, destroy lives or make careers. But the editors. They are the ZEUS' of the newsroom, with one fell swoop of a red pen they can command us to dig deeper and do better. In laments term though they are here to look out for us. I trust my editors. I trust Feigned Interest. I trust Cleo (Well sort of). They are the veterans, the commander I would follow in to war. Pearl especially.
The movie "Shattered Glass" about the fiasco that was fraud journalist Stephen Glass who published enough puff pieces to smoke out an entire Bob Marley Fest crowd. There is a line in that movie where his editor, Michael Kelly, is removed from his position and is fired. Probably the most profound line in the entire movie Stephen Glass says something along the lines of: "Sometimes in life you get good editors, but every once in a while you get a really great one." Feigned Interest despite only having known her for a couple months I can already tell is one of the great editors, excellent writer, but more importantly she is focused and driven.
Watching the way she works is like a lesson in how you are suppose to do it. I feel like I have to step up my writing game up just to be at your standards, which I like because it is a challenge and editors should challenge their staff to strive for more than meeting the deadline...they should strive for us to to meet the deadline before the deadline. Im working on that part at least and tonight at 9:03 pm as I write this and the editors finish their page I have realized I have met my deadline...at least till next issue.
(Miles will return in Miles PER The Tao of Lloyd Dobler)
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