Published: April 29, 2008 11:05 am            

How to read a newspaper

Blow instructs readers at annual Business & Industry Luncheon

Dallas Morning News columnist Steve Blow told the crowd at the 2008 Commerce Business & Industry Appreciation Luncheon April 24 that there are five ways they should read a newspaper.

Blow said they should read the paper faithfully, skeptically, sympathetically, actively and optimistically.

After 30-plus years working in journalism, Blow said he has noticed that his colleagues in the newsroom read the newspaper and watch news differently than those outside the business.

“I’m not suggesting this is the perfect way or the only way, “Blow said, “but I hope it’s give you some perspectives on how to read the newspaper like a reporter.”

The first way Blow described was to read faithfully.

“That one is really pretty easy,” he said. “Please read the newspaper. Please (take time) in your busy day to subscribe and read a newspaper.”

Blow said he loves the Internet, even though it is putting the future of newspapers in real question. But they don’t call it surfing the Internet for nothing.

“It’s a thing you do when you just sort of skim along the surface of it, reading a little bit here and a little bit there,” he said. “What a newspaper allows you to do is dive down beneath the surface and get a little bit more substance on the subject.”

Blow said although he also likes TV news, he feels the same way about it.

“They don’t call them sound bites for nothing,” he said. “You can hardly get a balanced feel of the news from watching television because everything goes by so quick. Do we really want to run a country based on sound bites?”

Newspapers help people get through the issues that are a little bit deeper and more complicated, according to Blow.

Second, Blow told the group to read skeptically.

“I encounter old coots every now and then who say to me, ‘I don’t believe what I read in the newspaper.’ My reply to that is, ‘Me neither,’” he said.

Blow said every reporter he knows reads the newspaper with a real reservation of judgment.

“What we understand as reporters is what a slippery devil that thing called the truth really is,” he said. “We understand that those stories we print are the truth as best we could get our hands on it at deadline.”

Blow said there’s always more that may come out the next day.

Thirdly, Blow encouraged the crowd to read sympathetically.

Journalism is a human enterprise and Blow said a newspaper office is just like any other office. They have their good days and their bad days.

“Though we understand that mistakes will be made, we take those very seriously because we’re in journalism,” he said. “What gets drummed into our heads very early in journalism school is that a job in journalism is not just a job. Journalism is part of the very fabric of the way this wonderful country of ours works.

“There is a special obligation to do that job with diligence and as much attention to detail and accuracy as possible. When we fail to live up to that standard, let me tell you, it bothers us more than anybody else.”

Blow shared one of his own embarrassing incidents from he worked at the Corpus Christi Caller Times early in his career. He said he had been sent to do a feature story on local character named Momma June Bunch who ran a halfway house for prison parolees. After writing a glowing article on Bunch and her work to help these men get their lives back on track, she was arrested a couple of months later for running one of the biggest drug smuggling operations in the state.

“It took me a while to get over that one,” he said.

Blow also encouraged the listeners to read actively.

He said journalism is not like a McDonald’s franchise that belongs to a few, journalism belongs to everyone.

“When you see something’s that’s wrong in the newspaper or on the television report, I want you to be an active participant,” Blow said. “Pick up that phone and set the record straight. Ask to speak to an editor, don’t be shy. You are part of the process of keeping us on our toes and keeping things accurate.”

Blow encouraged everyone to let news sources know about stories and not just assume they already know and are covering it up.

“Chances are we haven’t heard about it,” he said. “We’re not omnipresent. It’s just a human endeavor.”

Blow also said that everyone should be an active reader by getting involved.

“When you read about something in the newspaper that just gets you, it cuts you to the quick, there’s where your passion is,” he said. “The stories that upset you the most, the ones that make you tempted to cancel your subscription, or at least go down to the newspaper; what that tells you is, there’s where your heart is, there’s your passion is. Chances are that’s where your talents are. That’s where you need to be an active reader in taking a step to do what you can to fix that problem that we’re writing about.

“I think so many people think of journalism as just this sort of perverse form of entertainment where we dredge up all the bad stuff we can find and just sort of wallow in it just for the sake of wallowing in grief and heartache.”

Blow said journalists drag up all the bad stuff as a starting point for fixing the problem.

Finally, Blow said everyone should read the newspaper optimistically.

“You know what? It works. It really works,” he said.

“Get your head up out of that newspaper. Get your eyes off that computer screen or away from that TV long enough to look around. Take in the world around you, the community around you and look at all the good that gets done.”

Blow shared a story out of one of his columns about a 13-year-old girl whose mother forced her to join a program, after reading about it in the newspaper, where young people met with other young people who were mentally retarded on Saturday mornings. The girl resisted at first, but after a few weeks began to look forward to the time.

When the program was canceled due to budget cuts, the girl took over and found a church that would let them continue meeting. They continued to meet for the next 40 years.

Blow said his favorite part of the story was that her mother read about the program in the newspaper.

“I do love that part of the story because what it tells you is that almost 40 years of joy in so many lives began with probably two paragraphs tucked back somewhere in that newspaper,” he said. “That’s the power of what active, optimistic reading can do. You see an opportunity and you take it and you make a difference.”

        

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