Mediocre Fred's Mediocre Blog (Ret.)

Introducing Our New Contributor

Today's Musical Selection: "Shiloh" by Neil Diamond

Hello, everybody! As promised, today I'm introducing a new member of the Mediocre Fred team. I've been thinking about what this site is missing. Of course, we've got my semi-informed speculation and ramblings about pretty much everything under the sun. And we've got the best romantic advice columnists in cyberspace, at least if quality is measured in quantity of alcohol consumed per column. We've got occasional "contributors" like Hammerin' Hank, who contribute, uh, something. And of course we've got the readers, the most intelligent and informed readership in cyberspace, who contribute at least as much to the quality of the site as I do, and quite possibly more.

But I still felt like we were missing something: some good, old-fashioned, hard-nosed, shoe-leather investigative reporting. True journalism is rarely committed here, and that's a shame. Now, my own schedule doesn't really allow for true reporting, so I bit the bullet and hired myself a reporter.

Naturally, I went out looking for the very best. I contacted top journalists from the Washington Post, New York Times, Slate, Salon, and other big-name publications. A couple even returned my calls. I'd mention their names, but they asked me not to. See, weblogging is an emerging medium, shall we say, that's not quite got complete legitimacy among established old-school journalists yet. Especially not at the salary I was able to offer. (I am not, after all, an international media conglomerate, nor am I independently wealthy.) So I had to sets my sights a little lower. Then a little lower than that. But eventually, I found just the right man for our team.

Danny Goodwin, known as "Deadline Danny" in newsrooms across the country, has been a professional journalist for almost two decades, winning numerous journalism awards and garnering a reputation in the industry as a man with an unerring sense of purpose and dedication to his mission. I'm proud to have Danny on board, and I look forward to seeing the work he produces in the weeks and months to come for us.

I interviewed Deadline Danny over dinner last night at a local restaurant, talking to him about the craft of journalism, his own career and what he hopes to accomplish as a member of the Mediocre Fred team. The transcript of the interview follows.

* * * * *

MEDIOCRE FRED: So, Danny, welcome aboard! When you first got into journalism, I'll bet you never thought you'd find yourself here.

"DEADLINE DANNY" GOODWIN: Oh, boy, you're telling me. How far I've fallen. I've made some bad decisions in my career, and now I'm paying the price for-

MF: Ahem.

DDG: Oh, sorry. I mean, yes, it's certainly a new media universe out there! When I got started, I never could have envisioned something like this. But then, I'm not one much for envisioning. Hell, I thought cellular phones were a flash in the pan. I had the opportunity to invest in one of the first cell-phone companies in the nation, and I passed. You know where that money went instead? Llama farming. Suffice it to say, investments like that are why I'm here now.

MF: Uh, right. So, when were you first bitten by the journalism bug?

DDG: When I was a seven-year-old boy growing up in Hanover, Pennsylvania.

MF: Very nice! Got started off early, did you?

DDG: Most great journalists do. We all have our stories. My father worked in a print shop in Hanover, and for Christmas when I was 7, he gave me one of the old printing presses that the shop was getting rid of. I was hooked. I started my first newspaper the following spring.

MF: What was it called?

DDG: The Queen Street Gazette. I can't even say the name without getting a little flutter in my heart. Every journalist remembers his first paper.

MF: So you were the star reporter, eh?

DDG: Actually, no. I was the publisher.

MF: The publisher?

DDG: Yeah. I had other kids in the neighborhood write the stories. But that experience taught me a valuable journalistic that has served me well ever since.

MF: How to work as a team to put out the paper? How to direct and organize a staff?

DDG: No, how to get people to give me things for free.

MF: Ah. So how long did you publish the Queen Street Gazette?

DDG: Until high school. At that point I joined the staff of the Weekly Wildcat.

MF: Your high school paper?

DDG: Right, Hanover High. Up until that point, journalism was just a hobby for me. But it was in high school when I really became dedicated to it, and started to consider it as a career.

MF: What was your beat for the Weekly Wildcat?

DDG: I was the foreign correspondent.

MF: I'm sorry?

DDG: No, you heard correctly. We were the only high-school paper in the country with a foreign correspondent.

MF: I'm amazed! How did the paper have the money to send you overseas?

DDG: They didn't, actually. I was sort of a locally-based foreign correspondent.

MF: How did you, um, report?

DDG: Well, whenever a foreign student moved into town, I'd do a profile on him.

MF: Interesting idea.

DDG: It won me my first award. I was named a Pioneer of New Student Journalism by the Keystone Press Association.

MF: Nicely done!

DDG: But the best part was that I'd interview the new student at their houses, which usually meant I got a free meal out of it.

MF: I see. And where did you go to college?

DDG: Pennsylvania Tech. I wrote the "Fine Dining" column.

MF: I'll bet that was exciting!

DDG: Not really. There were only 3 decent restaurants within a 50-mile radius of campus.

MF: And you got a column out of this?

DDG: Sure. Every year I'd check out the 3 places and see if they had any new dishes, then I'd spend the rest of the year writing about how bad the dining scene was.

MF: Did you win any awards for that column?

DDG: Actually, yes. My "Desperately Seeking Sushi" column won an award from the National Restaurant Critics Association. I won third place in the Non-Restaurant Restaurant Column category.

MF: Third place?

DDG: The competition was brutal that year.

MF: So did you go straight into journalism out of college?

DDG: I did. I graduated in 1974, just in time for Watergate. Suddenly, young idealists everywhere were trying to emulate Woodward and Bernstein. And I joined the crowd.

MF: Did you head straight to Washington?

DDG: No, I went to Cadiz, Ohio.

MF: Well, you have to start somewhere.

DDG: It was a humble beginning, but it's the experience that counts.

MF: So, were you out covering City Hall, ferreting out corruption and shady dealings?

DDG: No, I was the society columnist.

MF: The society columnist?

DDG: Well, the big event was the Harvest Moon Bingo Ball every October, so naturally I covered that.

MF: And what did you do the rest of the year?

DDG: I pounded the streets, looking for society events. I didn't want to miss anything.

MF: Did you find a lot of clandestine balls and soirees happening?

DDG: Not really. Cadiz is a pretty small town. But hey, I won a Buckeye News Hawk Award as the Best Rural Society Columnist in Ohio.

MF: Congratulations.

DDG: It's nice to be recognized.

MF: So what made you decide to leave Cadiz?

DDG: Well, after a couple years I got bored and decided to strike out for the big time. And Washington was where the action was happening. So I hooked on with an alternative weekly there and moved to D.C.

MF: All right, the real action begins! What did you do in Washington?

DDG: I was the baseball beat writer. This was in '76, and everyone was buzzing about Washington getting an expansion team. President Ford was supposedly intervening on the city's behalf to land a team.

MF: You must have been disappointed when it didn't happen.

DDG: Absolutely. And I was concerned, too. With no team, my position was in jeopardy. I was afraid I'd be told to pack my bags. Fortunately, the editor-in-chief liked my work and kept me around.

MF: It always helps to have a fan in management.

DDG: I know it. Originally, he was going to switch me over to general-assignment reporting, but I talked him into letting me keep my original gig.

MF: As baseball beat writer? But... there was no team.

DDG: Indeed. That would have been a problem for a less creative mind.

MF: So what did you do? Cover the Orioles?

DDG: Oh, no. I wrote stories speculating how things would be if we had a team. Interviewed would-be fans, figured out the hypothetical standings, talked about which free agents the team would be going after if it, you know, existed.

MF: That's an innovative approach.

DDG: It was unprecedented. I didn't win any awards, unfortunately, but I did receive notice from Hunter S. Thompson.

MF: The father of gonzo journalism himself! What did he have to say?

DDG: "Quit hogging all the bourbon."

MF: I see. So how long did that gig last?

DDG: Up until the paper folded in 1982. After that, I moved on to a small daily in New York, where I was hired as a war correspondent.

MF: Did you cover the Falkland Islands?

DDG: No.

MF: Afghanistan?

DDG: No.

MF: Grenada?

DDG: Almost. By the time I got there, the war was over. No, I was reporting from Switzerland.

MF: Switzerland? There was no war in Switzerland!

DDG: No, but I'd heard rumblings, and the paper agreed to send me over to check it out.

MF: Rumblings of war? In Switzerland? The country that officially declares neutrality? That Switzerland?

DDG: Of course. Is there another Switzerland I'm not aware of?

MF: No. But what in God's name did you do as a war correspondent in Switzerland?

DDG: I trained with the Swiss Army.

MF: There is no Swiss Army!

DDG: I learned how to use the knife.

MF: Incredible.

DDG: I'm still the fastest corkscrew on the Eastern Seaboard.

MF: And what did you do when you weren't learning to operate a pocketknife?

DDG: I kept my ear to the ground in case war was about to break out. And I filed occasional dispatches on what wasn't happening.

MF: I'm amazed.

DDG: I won an award for that, too. Amnesty International named my article "All Quiet on the Alpine Front" their Best Non-War Story of 1987. They said I was an inspiration, and they hoped all war correspondents could have beats like mine.

MF: I'll bet they did.

DDG: So anyway, I held that position until 1993, when I decided that the rumblings I'd heard were a false alarm.

MF: It took you eleven years to figure out that an officially neutral country wasn't going to war?

DDG: I never like to draw hasty conclusions.

MF: So what did you do after that?

DDG: Well, I decided that the travel and the hurly-burly daily grind of the news industry was wearing me out. So I took a sabbatical and backpacked across Europe for six months.

MF: Pretty convenient, since you were already there.

DDG: I thought so.

MF: You couldn't have gone backpacking across Europe during the eleven years that you were covering the non-war in Switzerland?

DDG: Yeah, but I knew that the minute I decided things were safe and took a vacation, that would be the minute that war finally broke out. I wasn't taking a chance on being scooped in my own backyard.

MF: Your dedication to task is admirable.

DDG: I've got ink in my veins. Anyhow, during my backpack tour, I realized that I needed to take my life in a new direction. So I retired from daily journalism and entered academia.

MF: Did you head back to your alma mater?

DDG: I did indeed. For the last decade, I've been teaching a course called Principles of Journalism at Penn Tech.

MF: What does that include?

DDG: I use my experience to instruct my students in the basics for journalistic success. Padding expense reports, turning a conversation with some guy in a bar into a "sources suggest" item, receiving free invitations to parties, that sort of thing.

MF: So what made you decide to become a practicing journalist again?

DDG: I missed the excitement, the thrill of the chase, the routine of real reporting. Once you get that in your blood, you can't ever get it out. Also, I figure it will improve my chances of getting invited to society functions. No one hands out freebies to journalism professors.

MF: And what caused you to decide to join the Mediocre Fred team specifically?

DDG: I think the Internet is a facinating new outlet for journalism, and I've wanted to explore its potential. Also, you promised to pay me in cash.

MF: Indeed. And do you have any advice for any aspiring journalists who may wish to follow in your footsteps?

DDG: There are three basic Goodwin's Rules of Journalism. First, stay close to the opinions of the people, by which I mean spend a lot of time in restaurants and bars. Second, if you can't get free perks at an event, it's not news. And finally, a picture may be worth a thousand words, but I'm not getting paid to paint pictures, so use as many words as possible. Column inches are everything!

MF: That's quite an interesting perspective. I look forward to reading your stories in the coming year here at Mediocre Fred.

DDG: Me too. Now, can we talk about an advance?

MF: No.

* * * * *

Deadline Danny Goodwin, ladies and gentlemen. We're currently developing his first assignment, and I'll let you know when we figure something out.

And that's all for me today. See you tomorrow!

Posted by Fred at December 29, 2004 01:41 PM