ETHAN MAY
I enroll in the school of thought that believes journalists are only allowed to use a quote in a lede once in their entire career. For that reason, I’m going to start this post with a quote in the second graf.
George Kissel is credited to have said, “Come early, work hard and stay late. You’ll be around for a long time.”
This certainly applies to the newsroom.
I try to be in the newsroom by 8 each morning. This usually makes me the first person in the newsroom, as I currently am when typing this. This quiet time is my time to myself to read the day’s newspaper, catch up on any personal social media and map out what I need to complete that day.
These early mornings are the smooth introduction to the large sheet of music that is each hectic day.
I’ll admit that I can be what some people call a ‘workaholic’—I actually take this as a compliment. I take a special pride in a full, productive day.
At this point in my life, a full productive day is a morning and early afternoon in the newsroom, moving the ball down the field on at least one if not a couple stories. Then the afternoon consists of several hours at work, checking items off of the eternal to-do list.
There’s a common saying that says, “Work to live, don’t live to work.” This is something I should probably subscribe to a little bit more.
This morning I read this fun blog post written by an ESPN journalist who covers, get this, uniforms. ‘Ethan, how in the world did you find a blog post like this?’ Well, sports are my way of disconnecting from work whether it be journalism or my job. I use them to relax and escape. One special area that I think is fun to read and write about is sports uniforms. That’s why I follow a blog called Uni-Watch where two men write a daily post about what is happening in the world of sports uniforms.
I’m starting to stray from the path here, but my point is that this weekend there was a large, wacky sports uniform story that basically dominated Saturday’s headlines. In the blog post I linked to earlier, this journalist talks about where he was when the news broke and how he had to decide whether or not it was his responsibility to cover it even though he was on vacation out of state.
Reading this I saw my two worlds collide. My early-morning-in-the-newsroom reading about sports suddenly moved my thoughts into my own world of journalism and work.
I think it all comes down to having a balance of work and relaxation. I know that’s not a groundbreaking new thought, but it’s the honest truth.
Ethan May 