Ed Bagley asked:
Copyright © 2008 Ed Bagley
Thirty-nine years ago I had taken a weekend job as a police reporter for the Colorado Springs Free Press, a daily newspaper competitor to the long-established Colorado Springs Gazette. The Free Press was a morning paper and the Gazette an afternoon paper in Colorado in 1968.
Early one Saturday night an elderly man who looked like my grandfather came rushing into the newsroom, making a beeline path to my desk.
“I have a problem and I need help,” he said quickly. “What can I do?” I replied, kicking myself for volunteering. I was new to the police scene and really had not acclimated myself to the routine. After glancing around, I became aware that he was headed my way because I was the only choice at that moment.
“Do you know anything about producing a sports section?” he asked.
Not knowing what I might be getting into, I slowly answered, “I played some sports in high school.”
Then he shared his situation: “I have been somewhat critical of my sports editor in recent weeks, and when I arrived to work this afternoon, I found out that he had up and quit, walking out in a huff. Because of the loyalty of his staff, they all walked out with him in a show of solidarity. I need to put out the sports section tonight and I need your help.”
Being older, more experienced and more mature, I now realize I kind of felt like the President was calling, and so I stuck my neck out by agreeing to help.
My needy “grandfather” figure turned out to be the publisher of the newspaper. He quickly ushered me into the wire room, and began a two-minute drill on what I would have to do in taking stories off of the Associated Press and United Press International news wires. The first thing you learn is the stories are continuous on the multiple wires.
Then he took me to the sports department and began explaining how we needed to choose stories to run, edit copy, layout news pages, write headlines, choose pictures to crop and run, write photo captions, answer phone calls from stringers in the field, take dictation over the phone, etc. There were formerly several support staffers that did these tasks daily with the sports editor in command.
It became obvious to me that the publisher had not done squat in producing a daily sports sectionor any section of the paperin years. We started sending copy and photos down to production so typesetters could get cranking out copy. There was some real trauma at times, but we managed to get the job done.
Remember that 38 years ago, there was no Internet, no transferring of files, no software programs to generate area layout, and no automatic plating process. Everything was done by hand with IBM Selectric typewriters, and over the phone.
At the end of the night, the publisher was very grateful and invited me back to join him in the next night’s production. Long story short, I told him I would do it and call him if I needed any help. That made him even more grateful. I did not call him the next night and produced as good a sports section as they had ever done.
What happened after that was incredible. The publisher spent all of his time walking around the newsroom for the next few days and telling anyone that would listen that “he had been in the news business for more than 40 years and had never, ever, seen a kid catch on to the business as quickly as this Bagley kid.”
Within a week, I was the new sports editor of the Colorado Springs Free Press, a daily newspaper. I quickly hired a bunch of my friends and contacts, and spent my immediate future covering the Denver Broncos in the NFL and the Air Force Academy in the NCAA.
How did it happen that I could make such an incredible impression in my most vulnerable moment? Here is how:
When the publisher asked me if I knew anything about putting out a newspaper section, I did not tell him that I:
1) Was an award-winning sports editor for The Arrowhead, my school newspaper at Flint Central High School in Flint (MI).
2) Was a Michigan State University graduate with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Journalism.
3) Was a weekly newspaper editor prior to arriving in Colorado Springs.
4) Knew how to handle wire copy, write stories, take and develop pictures, layout pages, write headlines and photo captions, and do everything else that needed to be done.
5) Was an outstanding prep runner in high school, had played baseball, basketball, football and hockey in my youth, and was also on the swim team in high school.
Why did I do this? Easy, if I shot off my mouth about what I knew and then screwed up, I would never regain the publisher’s confidence in my abilities. By wisely acting normal but giving the impression that I had fallen off of a hayseed wagon, anything I did was impressive to a man with an urgent need.
The moral to this real life, true story is: Never be too quick to tell people what you know or can do, and never be too slow to figure out when opportunity is knocking. It is called street smarts and it is one way that successful people get ahead in life.
From potential disaster, I would go on to be editor or managing editor of 6 weeklies, an investigative reporter for a daily, managing editor of a daily and own and operate a community publishing company.
Another very important lesson in life that I learned from this experience was, when a person has a need, do not shoot off your face about what you know, simply shut up and get about the business of helping the person at THEIR point of need, not yours. Life has a way of rewarding people who tend to be more other-centered than self-centered.
Take your eye off of yourself and put it on someone else, and life will naturally send its blessings your way.
(Editor’s Note: After I left the Free Press, it was apparently acquired by the Sun Newspaper chain and became a liberal leaning news product in competition with the more conservative Gazette-Telegraph. In the 1980s it apparently changed hands again when the Freedom Newspaper chain, owner of the Gazette-Telegraph, bought it and eliminated its only competition by immediately firing the staff and shutting it down.)
RODERICK
