Journalism and the Call

 
There'll be a golden ladder reaching down.

When the man comes around. 

 
-Johnny Cash 

This was supposed to be my last column.  It’s not.

Last month, I told my biggest boosters, Al Smith and Jim Todd,  that I planned to stop writing.

I then contacted the three journalists who most inspire me,   Al Cross, Byron Crawford and Joe Nocera, and told them the same thing.  

No tried to talk me out of it.   My  business is  helping people with their money.  Journalism became a second job.  I never quit the first one.

I didn’t go into writing looking for a new career.

The structured settlement business is a dream profession.  I get paid well to help people. My vocation  is  consuming and  my writing   draws  on my  experiences.

  I was ready to hang writing up.  I had thought about it for months.   

I’ve written 2 books and over 200 columns in four years.  Many columns were written on airplanes and in hotel rooms.    Several when my personal life was in upheaval.

It was time to ease back.

The day after I turned in my resignation,   I heard from a famous person. I don’t know how he found me or my column. He told I inspired him to get treatment and he has been clean for 2 years.  He picked that day to thank me.

A few hours later, I got an email from a high school student in California.  Her senior project was  to study a writer. She was studying me.   She selected me from a list of 200 possibilities.

I then heard from several people who told me they liked  recent columns or just liked my work.    

The cumulating of random events drew me to a conclusion.

I was getting the call.  The call to stay in journalism.

I’ve know people who’ve had the call to preach.   Dana Jones, my pastor when I lived in Lexington, was a Yale educated federal prosecutor when he got the call.  He dropped everything to be a minister.   

He came to Kentucky determined to make a difference.

Just like journalists can make a difference.   

I grew up wanting to write.   Woodward and Bernstein came to fame when I was in high school.  They were good guys going after bad guys.  I wanted to be like them.

  For 25 years, I   wrote numerous   legal   and financial planning   articles.  Some were groundbreaking but not   the kind of journalism I wanted to practice.

Then the Richmond Register gave me my chance. The column became syndicated and I appeared in other mediums.   I made an impact.    I’ve made   bad people unhappy and honored good people.

 
In the rush of living, it’s easy to forget that I’ve connected to thousands of people I’ve never met.  Like the famous addict inspired to get treatment.
 
Some sneer at the idea of journalism as a calling.  Media bashing has become a sport.  Politicians have a mantra: don’t blame us, blame the media.  The business model for media companies  is falling apart.

The world is changing and old rules don’t apply.  My father owned a successful travel agency.  That business is dying.  Its easier to call William Shatner or   book a trip online.

  The media field is in the same flux.  If a client told me they wanted  to make a living  as a writer,  I would try to talk them out of it.  The economics don’t justify it.

  It is nice to be paid well but people called to journalism   are not motivated by economics.   People who tie their   journalism to money become lousy journalists.  They worry about making people mad.

 
Inspiring action is how a  journalist answers the call.  A call that I nearly gave up.  

    I’m not sure my life  events were divine intervention but they were an eye opener.

Once I threw myself back into my writing, my focus in both careers has been sharper and with more purpose.  I’m getting positive feedback.   

It makes sense.   My dad said that life is a matter of how badly you want it.  If I want to have an impact, I need to balance  life in a way  to make it happen.

  Good journalists  make a difference.   Consciously or unconsciously, many have answered the call. 

  Like I have.