Annoying Newsroom Behavior No. 54

I once worked on the copy desk at a newspaper where several of the reporters were high on self-esteem. This is not unusual.

But one reporter in particular would occasionally do us lowly drudges the huge honor of pulling up a chair after deadline and regaling us with thrilling tales of how he got the story. We were supposed to be a rapt audience. My practice was to get up and go to the restroom.

“Wait, Paul, you’ll want to hear this.”

“Uh, I’ve kinda gotta…”

Anyway, the thing is, the guy was not a terrible reporter. And for all I know he was, gaps in his people skills notwithstanding, an OK human being.

But to paraphrase Woody Allen, he couldn’t write a grocery list.

Though I am quite sure he read every word of his stories after they came out in print, he must not have noticed that someone had bludgeoned his unreadable prose into something almost comprehensible. Or maybe he noticed but didn’t want to dwell on an uncomfortable reality.

Or perhaps he pictured himself as a throwback to the “Get me rewrite” days when reporters phoned in facts and someone else cobbled together the stories.

In any event, the fact that he couldn’t write did not make him modest.