The universe is circular and infinite

And we shall meet again in that circular infinity, PBS NewsHour. ‘Cause that’s where I’m headed in a couple of weeks.

[HANKINOTE: This is the last I'll be blogging about the job-to-be. As a strict blog constructionist, I'm returning to the original intent with which I framed this blog in my online publishing class at Medill (Read about that here).]

Old-school Hank with bad hair and an awkward suit

I paid my first visit to the NewsHour on an SPJ trip to Washington about six years ago. Our chapter was in town delivering a shield law petition to Sen. Robert Byrd and we decided to make an extended weekend of it.

We got lost on the beltway and were running late for our appointment, so the staff whisked us through the studio where we got a glimpse of Mr. Lehrer in the makeup chair.

Then we squeezed into a spare control room to watch the program. Most of my classmates were sort of ambivalent, but I was ecstatic. I think I still have the NewsHour reporter pads they gave us on that visit.

I give public broadcasting a lot of credit for igniting my curiosity about the world as a young person and for continuing to expand my worldview as an adult.

I was a “Viewer like you” long before a career in journalism was even a twinkle in my eye (and I’ve got the tote-bags and coffee mugs to prove it.)

As a kid, my favorite “movie” was a video cassette taped from TV containing a NOVA documentary on Easter Island which then overlapped into half of an Amy Grant: Live in Concert TV special.  (That explains a lot, doesn’t it?)

I also remember watching the television news with my father as a tiny child, seeing the blasts of the Gulf War in glowing green night-vision. While we weren’t always watching the NewsHour, it was in regular rotation.

I only hope that I’ll be able to adequately carry that torch, to cover stories as important and hard-hitting as the one below, from the archives of the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. (Credit goes to Patrick for passing this along!)

“That’s what’s wrong with the media today. All they have is questions– questions, questions. They never have cookies!”

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 23rd, 2010 at 12:46 pm and is filed under wealth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.