Sold! To the corporation on the right?

Outside they were filming; inside we were coping like all families cope amid tragedy.

It was like the last day of school. A looseness in the air. The jokes were inevitable and grinding. But the busyness continued, the overlap of the interview voice. We were worried, tense and relieved all at once. The phone calls seemed pointless. The 20-inch centerpiece I was working on seemed pointless. I couldn't wrap my mind around it. I had to get out.

We skipped out for the convenience store in the corner, she and I. We used the back entrance to avoid the news crews who smelled demise. I wanted to buy the entire newsroom some beers with petty cash. I wanted to throw the windows wide open and show everyone we were unafraid, that the uncertainty meant nothing. Only we were and it did.

I'd given up reading the public comments under stories of our sale. They were so full of venom, so critical of our worth and credibility, of the job we'd been doing for a long, long time bringing them news. Sometimes I have to remind myself why we go into work everyday, why we write to inform and get torn down in the process.

I left the office yesterday nearing 7 p.m., a copy of today's story in hand in case the night desk called. It was still daylight--waning, but daylight. Out front, our courts reporter stood outside at the picnic tables with with one of my favourite editors, one who fights for sentence fragments, who loves the narrative voice for its truth.

They were, no doubt, going over the reporter's story on our impending sale. And I thought about how much I've grown in this job more than I've suffered, and how many talented writers and amazing people I've met because of it. I thought about the people I've helped and the people who hate me because of my words. I thought of the good that has been and can come, and the negativity that exists and might remain. It has been a privelege to work here as much as it has been a trial some days. Change is here, right now. How many will be gone, I don't know. I might be one of them. But I'll never forget the way these hallways smelled the first time I timidly walked them as an intern, how the chase has been painful and arousing all at once, how love equals hate and ego is never enough.

I will never forget how the orange evening light fell on a reporter and an editor just so, just going over another story, getting it right, putting out another paper alongside the pain because the news? The news never dies. And neither does our spirit.


For more information on The News-Journal's sale, I'd suggest you get it straight from the horse's mouth.