Journalism, like this backboard and net, may be a bit worn, but it’s still hanging in there. (Amy King photo)
I write.
Of course, over the years, I’ve had a lot of jobs.
Fast food flunkie to dish washer, lawn care “specialist” to liquor slinger, carpet shampooer to the day care guy who got kids so wound up they didn’t take a nap for a week, my working days have been varied.
I’m still haunted by my stint harvesting mussels for a low-rent operation (so, NOT the guys currently working Penn Cove’s waters…), while my 13 years at Videoville was a true rarity — being paid to do something I would have done for free.
But, through it all, I have written.
Since moving to Whidbey midway through my senior year of high school, I have written thousands of stories in local newspapers.
Sports, a movie column which ran without missing an issue for 15 years, epic house fires which made page one, school board meetings which definitely did not, dead starfish stinkin’ up the beach.
A little bit of everything and a lot of it.
The past five years my words have lived here on the internet instead of in the pages of a newspaper.
It was, for me, the best decision I ever made with my writing.
I’m not here to trash newspapers.
They are where I started, and I still remember what it was like to see that first byline in the News-Times when I was 18, refusing to go to college and working in the press room at night and badgering Fred Obee for freelance assignments during the day.
The current group at the News-Times is a stellar collection of journalists, made up of good people who are in the job for the right reason.
The Sports Editor, Jim Waller, and the Publisher, Keven R. Graves, are two of the biggest reasons I got into journalism and have somehow managed to bounce around on the fringes of that world for almost three decades.
They, and their co-workers, are fighting the good fight, at a time when the very nature of newspapers seems to change on a daily basis.
I respect what they do, and why they do it.
Of late, I’m trying to be a little more open about my support, and a little less of a sarcastic pain in the keister.
But, I also realize, life inside a newspaper doesn’t work for me anymore, and hasn’t for a while.
When I started Coupeville Sports Aug. 12, 2012, I’m sure there were some who thought it would be a short-term affair. That I would eventually fall away like the loonies at Island Politics and similar short-term blogs.
Instead, here I am, publishing my 5,399th article, less than a month away from my five-year anniversary.
I still tick people off from time to time (simmer down, Klahowya…) but I’m less prone to poking for the sake of poking. Most days.
Coupeville Sports isn’t perfect, but it is perfect for me.
It means I can post at 2:30 AM, I can write 700 words about a JV game, I can have final say on anything and everything I write (with my readers as the final word on whether I made the right choice or not).
Do I abide by the Associated Press style book at all times? No. They’re not big fans of exclamation points, for one thing.
But while I have freedom in how I write, when I write and why I write, I still view myself as a brother in arms with my newspaper brethren.
I don’t publish smear pieces. I don’t make up stories. I fact check and use sources, and have from day one.
I may publish quicker and more prolifically than most newspapers, but I don’t shortcut to get there.
If you choose to lump me in with the patently fake “news stories” which mushroom all over social media, you do me a disservice.
While I use Facebook and Twitter to promote links to my work, the same as newspaper do, those links exist to send readers to where I actually publish — on my blog.
Journalism has had to adapt in an ever-changing world.
In 1989, there was one way to be a journalist. In 2017, there are many.
Some writers choose to stay within the framework of a conventional newspaper. Some don’t.
We are not enemies. We are on the same journey, just taking different routes.
I respect those still in the trenches at newspapers. Their commitment to the cause is worthy of praise.
I hope the feeling is mutual.
Coupeville Sports 