The Exit Point

The Day I Almost Walked Away

There was a period in my life when I taught aspiring journalists in a two-year training program. Each class had about twenty students. When we met for the first time, I always asked the same question: how many of them wanted to become journalists.

Usually fifteen or sixteen hands went up. Sometimes all twenty.

And then I told them that I would consider myself successful if, by the end of the program, no more than two of them raised their hands to that same question.

Journalism is a practical profession, so my classes were full of practical examples. Since I was an active journalist at the time, most of those examples came straight from my own experience. In other words, twice a week for two years I allowed myself the luxury of essentially telling stories about my own life to a room full of students.

But the classes weren’t only about the funny stories. We also talked about the darker side of the profession — because there is plenty of that too. I believed it was better if the students heard about the difficult parts in school rather than discovering them on their own later. If that discouraged them from choosing this career, so be it. Or rather: all the better.

Year after year I kept asking that opening question. Until one day a student asked me something in return: if I was trying so hard to talk everyone out of becoming journalists, why had I chosen the profession myself?

I brushed the question aside with something like, “Because I’m a masochist.” They laughed, and the subject disappeared.

For them. Not for me. Because the question kept hovering in front of me. Again and again. Until eventually I realized that I didn’t actually know the answer to why. Only to how.

It wasn’t exactly a straight road. I had studied media and communication in college, and I even spent some time in the small television studio that operated inside the building. But I never felt a powerful pull toward that world. At the time, I had different plans for my life.

During my final year of college my weekly class schedule became so light that I started working as an event organizer in the town where I still live today.

It was at some kind of end-of-summer festival that I ran into the editor-in-chief of the local cable television station. (Years later I actually replaced him in that very position — but that’s another story for another day.) The event lasted the entire day, and since he was hosting the program, we had plenty of time to talk. By the end he simply said: “Drop by the newsroom sometime if you’re interested in this work.” That was it.

By the time I graduated, I was already fairly tired of organizing events. So one morning — somewhat to my own surprise — I walked into the cable TV newsroom and announced, with admirable brevity: “I’m here.” Apparently that was enough, because from that point on things started moving rather quickly.

When you begin as an intern in a newsroom, your job for the first few weeks — more realistically the first few months — is to follow the crews around, watch, ask questions, learn… and preferably not touch anything, because that only creates extra work for colleagues who already have enough problems without you. So I was prepared for the fact that I would not be the center of attention for a while.

The first shoot I ever attended took place on a Friday. It was a press conference about a karate tournament.

Not the most exciting subject — and not very visual either: people sitting behind a table talking about something that might become interesting weeks later. In these situations the usual routine is for the reporter to capture an interview with someone before the press conference begins. The cameraman records twenty or twenty-five seconds of footage from the first five minutes of the event. Then the crew disappears as if the building had caught fire — because they still have four more locations to visit that day, which is exactly how much the story interests them.

Steve, the reporter I had been assigned to that day, was a master of the craft. He intercepted the right person halfway up the stairs and dragged him in front of the camera. The interview was done, the footage was done — and we stayed.

Steve happened to be an old friend of the tournament organizer, who therefore asked us to stay for the press conference as well. That way there would be three more people in the audience, which under local circumstances already qualified as a small crowd.

Fine by me. At least I would see the boring part too. To be honest, I wasn’t paying much attention. The interview had already given us everything we needed to know, and I wasn’t the one who would be editing the material anyway. I could sit there peacefully.

Then the organizer, sitting behind the table, casually mentioned that female competitors had to present a negative pregnancy test during registration — just to be safe.

Now that was interesting. I raised my hand and said:

“Peter Radley from the local cable television. My question is: are female competitors really so fanatical that they would step onto the mat even while pregnant?”

The man answered something. I don’t remember what. What I do remember is the way Steve looked at me — like I was a five-legged calf. As it turned out later, he really liked that I showed interest in a story he was just about to bring up himself. The difference was that for him it was his job. For me it wasn’t.

When the press conference ended we were walking toward the car when Steve turned to me and said calmly:

“Listen, Radley. On Monday ask for a cameraman, I’ll put your name on the schedule. Then start working. Your training is over.”

That was it. Well — almost. Steve remained my mentor as long as he could. Five years later he disappeared from my life when he died in his own car on the way to work. A coronary artery tore open. He was forty-two.

It turned out I had found my place. I stayed there for sixteen years.

I worked on news programs and entertainment shows. I produced a five-hundred-episode interview series with some of the country’s best-known artists. I even collected a few journalism awards along the way. And there was only one time when I almost walked away from it.

The police spokesperson called. That wasn’t unusual — if something noteworthy happened they usually informed us, because the police also need publicity. There were even cases when we called them, like when someone found a bomb in their garden but contacted us instead of the police, hoping we might respond faster.

But this time the police had the story. Someone had discovered a dead infant in a trash container on a housing estate. They asked us to report it. Maybe one of our viewers could help the investigation.

I was the reporter on duty that day, so I went to the scene immediately. And I arrived just in time to see them lift that infant out of the trash. I conducted an interview with the spokesperson right there on the spot, then went back to the newsroom.

And I almost threw up. Because I realized that no matter how horrible the story was, my job was still to turn it into a report. That’s the nature of this profession: if you witness an accident and the man lying under the bus is still alive, you are supposed to try to interview him.

That was the moment I almost quit. It cost me a few sleepless nights.

In the end I stayed — but years later it gave me great satisfaction when I could finally say: “I no longer cover accidents.”

And the strangest part of the whole tale is this: sixteen years later I eventually left the profession for a completely mundane reason.

But that is truly another story.