Since 1964, on the Beat and Forever Learning

By RALPH BLUMENTHAL


This fellow started at The New York Times as a City College stringer in 1962 and joined the reporting staff two years later. He reported from the city and suburbs, Germany, Vietnam, Cambodia, Texas and points in between, until December when, at 68, he lay down his quill pen to become a freelance contributor. We turned the tables and finally caught up with the writer of this biweekly feature, Ralph Blumenthal.

Why experienced journalist is an oxymoron: Most every day you start at zero, having to write about someone and something you did not know about before. That is why reporters always sweat deadlines.

How to write a news story, lesson one: My first assignment, as a cub reporter on The City College Campus, was to cover a professor’s lecture. My story saved the most important news for the last paragraph. When my student editor asked why I had left it for the end, I explained that the professor had said it at the end. He took me aside and told me the way it works: You put the most important thing first, no matter when it was said.

When New York was a newspaper town: There was a bad drought in the city in 1965, and Mayor Wagner considered electrifying the atmosphere with wires to cause rain. I got the front-page scoop. The Journal American hit back with a big red headline, calling it a hoax. It wasn’t. I miss the anarchy of the competition.

Best line: In Texas, I wrote up a prisoner who was making boots for law enforcement officials. I got to write, “Who shod the sheriff?”

What he doesn’t miss from the old days: Feeding the cumbersome 10-part books of copy sheets and mimeograph paper into the typewriter, struggling through false starts, making a mess on the paper, ripping it out and starting over. We thought electric typewriters were high tech.

Most humbling moment: Preening over a story I once handed in to the foreign desk, I couldn’t resist asking the editor, “Well, does it sing?” Here is what he said: “Just keep triple-spacing it, sonny, so we can rewrite it between the lines.”

Most embarrassing place he ever fell asleep: During an interview. I was doing a story on Newark’s Ironbound district and got an official to drive me around it. He was reeling off facts and it must have been boring because I kept nodding off. Worse, when I realized it, I kept jerking awake and shouting, “Yeah?”

Closest call: A lawyer once tipped me that a certain city official would be among those indicted the next day, and I rushed out a story. But when the charges were announced, the target’s name was missing. I was certain we would be sued. Gingerly, I called the man to apologize. He couldn’t come to the phone, his lawyer said. They were having a party and celebrating. He had expected to be indicted and wasn’t. He was ecstatic.

Most tantalizing newsroom mystery: Why is there never enough time to do it right and always enough time to do it over?

Next for the column: We go back to the old way, interviewing other people.