A Michigan state senator's forceful response to a partisan 'grooming' attack has resurfaced on the web as she launches a run for the U.S. Senate next year.
In the 2022 incident, Republican Sen. Lana Theis accused Democrat Mallory McMorrow of wanting to “groom” and “sexualize” kindergartners and teach “that 8-year-olds are responsible for slavery.”
“I am a straight, white, Christian, married, suburban mom” who wants “every kid to feel seen, heard and supported — not marginalized and targeted because they are not straight, white and Christian,” she said.
McMorrow later said of her remarks and the attack that prompted them: "Hate wins when people like me stand by and let it happen. I won't"
McMorrow announced last month that she will run for the open Senate seat in Michigan next year, a race that could help decide control of the Senate.
"So who am I? I am a straight white Christian, married suburban mom who knows that the very notion that learning about slavery or redlining or systemic racism somehow means that children are being taught to feel bad or hate themselves because they are white is absolute nonsense.
"No child alive today is responsible for slavery. No one in this room is responsible for slavery, but each and every single one of us bears responsibility for writing the next chapter of history, each and every single one of us decides what happens next and how we respond to history and the world around us. We are not responsible for the past.
"We also cannot change the past. We can't pretend that it didn't happen or deny people their very right to exist.
"I am a straight white Christian married suburban mom. I want my daughter to know that she is loved, supported, and seen for whoever she becomes. I want her to be curious, and empathetic, and kind. People who are different are not the reason that our roads are in bad shape after decades of disinvestment or that health care costs are too high or that teachers are leaving the profession.
"I want every child in this state to feel seen, heard, and supported, not marginalized and targeted because they are not straight, white, and Christian. We cannot let hateful people tell you otherwise to scapegoat and deflect from the fact that they are not doing anything to fix the real issues that impact people's lives. And I know that hate will only win if people like me stand by and let it happen.
"So I want to be very clear right now. Call me whatever you want. I hope you brought in a few dollars. I hope it made you sleep good last night. I know who I am. I know what faith and service means and what it calls for in this moment.
Taking support for NPR stations across the country would
hurt communities most in need of reliable news and information, Katherine Maher
says—even in a time when there are already so many sources of “news.”
“There's a very big difference between disseminating the
news and gathering the news,” she says.
“And what we do is we do news gathering. It allows
for people to then be able to come in and add their spin and their commentary
on it.
"So I have no problem with TikTok influencers or other people resharing
that news. I think that's actually great. But we want them to have
credible sources of news to begin with, to be able to base that work on.”
Maher, speaking on The Daily Show this week about the administration’s
plan to defund public broadcasting, said the big misconception is that this
money goes to NPR or PBS alone.
“The reality is that the vast majority of funds in public
broadcasting go directly to local stations … and that really matters,
especially when you get into rural parts of the country. So I was in Asheville,
North Carolina, recently, (which suffered) as we all know, devastating damage in Hurricane
Helene. They have enormous radio towers that broadcast across that topography,
because it's the Appalachian Mountains.”
The same is true in Eastern Kentucky and the Rocky
Mountains. NPR stations cover 99.7% of the country, “and that allows for
Americans to have access to news, even in places where news deserts are
growing, where disasters happen. That's what your federal funds go to. They go
to your local station, they go to your local reporters.”
Twenty percent of Americans live in places where they
have no local news coverage other than public radio, Maher said.
“What that means is that when we lose public funding, we
are no longer going to be able to cover things like what matters in the
statehouse. We're not going to be able to cover natural disasters. We're not
going to be able to cover issues in local politics, issues of what's happening
in your local sports team.”
Local news, and public radio in particular, benefits everyone because the service contributes to
lower rates of polarization, higher rates of civic engagement, and higher rates
of civic trust, she said.
“This is foundational infrastructure for our country,
even when we disagree. This is the sort of thing that can start to peel some of
those disagreements and bring us back together.”
NPR and its member stations have some of the best journalists in the business, reporting on topics of immediate concern nationally and in communities across the country.
“I think we need to be able to bring more voices onto our air and have folks in conversation about the policies that are being made in this country today. We need to be able to hear from policymakers from across the spectrum.”
Critics will accuse NPR of liberal bias, though the network makes a point of inviting guests from across the political spectrum.
“What I love about our mission and our mandate is that
it's actually our responsibility to try to serve everyone,” Maher said. “No
other commercial media organization has that same mandate. They can hyper-serve
a particular audience, and that contributes to polarization. It's actually our
job to bring folks together…”
“Another criticism that we see is that, you know, we're
too ‘woke,’ she said.
“The reality is, this is a very diverse nation, and our
mandate under the Public Broadcasting Act is to serve everyone, including the
unserved and the underserved, and we can't pull away from that either. We have
to be able to represent America in all of its diversity, even when that makes
us sometimes uncomfortable.”
College students are feeling anxious about the job market, and some have responded with strong interest in our recent conversations about building their networks. Just wrapped up a sixth campus presentation at Indiana University in Bloomington and Butler University in Indy. These were with journalism students at IU and creative writing majors today at Butler.
My big advice, since most schools are headed toward spring break: Get out and talk with people--not necessarily as a job applicant, but in informational interviews to learn from leaders in their field.
Good things happen when students learn to handle themselves in face-to-face professional encounters, and the more practice they get in prepping for these interviews and talking about what they offer, the better.
There's a real need for coaching in this area, but some of the folks who have come up to me after class show they're on the way. I'll be working with a few, and if a college student asks you for a short meeting to talk about your field, I hope you'll make the time. Let's invest in them now so they do a good job running the world later.
I've been speaking before groups of college students recently and had some thoughts based on our conversations, particularly around the job prospects for this year's graduates.
Here's a slide from a quick slide deck, along with a link to the deck, below. I'd love to hear your thoughts, so please send me a note to johncstrauss@gmail.com.
Brad Holmes retired after 34 years as a high school art teacher, but never left behind his passion for music-infused sculpting.
Holmes has played harmonica for years in blues bands. When sculpting a piece in his home studio, listening to music, he’ll pick up his instrument and play along.
“Sometimes, you’re just looking at your artwork (thinking), ‘Where am I going to go, what am I going to do next?’” he said. “For me, to play music while I’m working on this allows me to clear my head.”
A self-described Calumet “Region rat,” from northwest Indiana south of Valparaiso, Holmes grew up in farm country, the son of two teachers. After service in the Army, he came home to enroll at Purdue University. His first thought was engineering, but he realized that wasn’t his passion.
“I really wanted to be happy with what I was doing, so I had a heart-to-heart with my mom and dad and said, ‘Do you guys really like teaching? Because I wouldn't mind being a teacher if I could teach something that I really like.’”
What he really liked was art, which led to his three-decade career at Lawrence North High School. Holmes specializes in three-dimensional bas-relief sculpture, with his figures slightly raised from a flat background. For a show of his artwork last year, former students came from across the country to say thanks for his encouragement and inspiration.
Arts programs at some schools, from Chicago to Hawaii, have faced possible cuts from districts weighing their budget-trimming options. Holmes says cuts would risk taking something important from the students.
“I don't feel like the arts are going to be gone, but they can certainly be reduced--and that would be sad, because there are a good number of students who really need this sort of thing to have an identity of their own,” he said.
“Not everybody's going to be great in math. Not everybody's going to be great in in the sciences or English. So, this gives somebody else an opportunity to be great at something.”
Holmes has a daughter in college, and to help pay those bills he’s gone back to work, teaching art at Marian University in Indianapolis. That connection between his career and dual passions for music and sculpting brings a sense of peace.
“It's really calming to me and it's relaxing,” he said.
Holmes paused after a spirited blues riff on his harmonica, looking over his current sculpture and thinking about what to do next.
“It's about mental and physical well-being,” he said. “Playing music and marking art, all combined, make me the best version of myself I can possibly be.”
That's the concept of my first sci-fi radio show/podcast, "Flying In Our Sleep" -- a group of teens awakens to discover they've been kidnapped into an army of killer drones.
We did a second show, "Countdown," and are writing a third. As the Indy Radio Players, we also perform the shows live in bookstores and coffeehouses.
A friend who is teaching a college course in science communication--writing about science--asked if I could visit to talk about interviewing. I'm glad to do this, recently retiring after a long career in news with AP, print, broadcast and online, nine years as a journalism professor and more recent experience helping run comms for a foundation.
Instead of a lecture and slide deck, I had in mind a relaxed conversation with the class, modeling how a conversation can be effective in setting people at ease and obtaining interesting insights.
As a leave-behind for the students to use later, I offered these links and tips:
Most importantly, in anything you write, be truthful and honest. The Society of Professional Journalists, also known as SPJ, has a code of ethics online. I urge you to give it a look.
https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp
Some of the key points:
Seek Truth and Report It
Take responsibility for the accuracy of their work. Verify information before releasing it. Use original sources whenever possible. annotate arrow
Provide context. Take special care not to misrepresent or oversimplify
Identify sources clearly. The public is entitled to as much information as possible to judge the reliability and motivations of sources.
Provide access to source material when it is relevant and appropriate.
Label advocacy and commentary. annotate arrow
Never deliberately distort facts or context, including visual information. Clearly label illustrations and re-enactments. annotate arrow
Never plagiarize. Always attribute.
An excellent interviewing how-to from CubReporters.org
Before you interview or write the story, think about your goal -- the type of story you want to write, the space you'll have to tell it in, where it'll be published, and who'll be reading it.
Decide what your angle is: What is interesting or unusual about this person? What is this person's story?
All of these things will affect the direction you take with your story (as well as how freely your subject talks with you
Get background info: Do a LexisNexis search for old newspaper articles about your subject and/or do a Google search. Does the person have a personal website or a bio on his company’s website? Ask him to e-mail you his resume.
You may find something interesting in the resume. For example, if you’re interviewing a teacher, you may find that your subject went to private, exclusive, costly schools all her life but has chosen to teach at a very poor school. What inspired this choice? Why is this rewarding for her? Or you may see that she has won awards in soccer in college, and you didn't know she was a former jock. Do your research before you show up!
Talk to people who know them well (friends, coaches, coworkers, mentors, parents, siblings, even enemies). Get the correct spelling of names and their qualifications/titles.
Meet them at place they are comfortable but not too distracted. Meet at time they aren’t too busy
Prepare questions to ask in advance. Group questions into categories.
3. AT INTERVIEW
The point of an interview is to find out what is interesting about the other person and help them get comfortable talking to you so they'll spill the beans and do it in an interesting, quotable, clear way.
The initial interview should focus on making the subject comfortable as well as getting general background information out of the way. The writer should try to make his subject as comfortable as possible. In some situations, the interviews should be held in neutral territory, but for some subjects the interview may go smoother is he is in a familiar atmosphere.
Regardless of where the interview takes place, it should always begin with small talk - develop a rapport with the subject. And once you begin the official interview, start with the easy questions first to get them talking about themselves. Ask them if it’s OK to tape record them for accuracy. Thank them for their time and tell them the purpose of your interview.
Come prepared with several questions, but be let a natural conversation develop. A reporter's biggest mistake is either to go into an interview with no questions or to go into an interview with a list of question and not deviate from the list.
A good reporter begins an interview with a set of questions, but knows when to add impromptu questions that will get a subject to continue on a train of thought if it sounds interesting.
Example: Reporter asks, "What was the goal of the fundraiser'?" Subject answers, "We wanted to make the club look good; no really the goal was to earn enough money to help build a new center for migrant worker education" Instead of skipping to the next question a good reporter follows up on the first part of that answer to find out if there was something behind it. "What did you mean that you wanted to make the club look good'?" the reporter asks next.
Be conversational but let the source do most of the talking. Never supply or suggest an answer. Be patient and wait for it.
Good reporting skills equal good observation and listening skills. If you don’t understand something, ask the person to explain. Underline or circle all names, ideas, etc you’re unsure of so you can double check them.
A good reporter also spends a lot of time looking at the subject as well as the subject’s surroundings. It is a good idea to interview a person in their office, classroom or home if possible because a reporter will always learn more about person by watching him in his environment not yours.
Notice details in the subject's environment, her personal habits, her appearance, etc.: Does she have knitting on a corner of her desk? Does she wear a locket every day; whose picture is inside? Does she have readily visible tattoos; if so, what's the story behind them? Does she roar up to work or school or wherever on a Harley every day, in a Mercedes, or in a hybrid electric/gas car? Does she flinch every time she sees someone toss a bit of trash on the ground?
Closely observing the things a person does and doesn't do, the way the person acts and reacts, what the person surrounds himself/herself with -- these are all clues to what makes the person tick. Pay attention. Ask questions.
Take notes even if you’re recording. Batteries die, tapes get misplaced or stolen, things happen. Your notes will provide a backup and save you time. Reviewing and transcribing your entire interview will take forever. Rather, keep notes, review them and figure out which quotes you want to use. Then go back and listen to the tape to make sure you quote them correctly.
How to Write a Profile Story
A profile story is a portrait of a person in words. Like the best painted portraits, the best profiles capture the character, spirit and style of their subjects. They delve beneath the surface to look at what motivates people, what excites them, what makes them interesting. Good profiles get into the heart of the person and find out what makes them tick.
The problem is that lives are hard to fit into newspaper articles, no matter how much space is allotted for them. Reporters who simply try to cram into a profile all the facts they can come up with inevitably end up with something more like a narrative version of a resume than a journalism story.
Like all other stories, profiles must have an angle, a primary theme. That theme should be introduced in the lead, it should be explored and often it will be returned to at the end of the story. Something of a person’s character, spirit and style will then be revealed through that theme.
Whatever the theme, it takes a thorough understanding of a person’s life to create a revealing sketch of that life. Reporters should spend time with their subjects while they’re doing whatever makes them newsworthy. For example, if you’re writing about a ballerina, try to observe her performing on stage or at least practicing in her dance studio.
Good profiles - and all good journalism stories - show, instead of telling. Use all five senses when you interview someone. What are they wearing? Do they fiddle nervously with their pencil? Is there a chocolate smudge on their shirt? Is their hair stylishly spiked?
Because a profile cannot be complete without quotes - there is no way to write a profile without extensive interviewing. Frequently, more than one interview is necessary unless the writer already knows his subject well Good profiles also contain quotes from people who know the subject of your story well. Spice your story with the words of family, friends, enemies and the subjects themselves.
Finally, good profiles strike the appropriate tone. Think about your profile - is it someone who is involved in a serious issue, like eating disorders? You probably want to be more serious in your tone. Is it someone playful - a comic book artist, perhaps? You can be more playful. But remember - your personal opinion is not appropriate. You are there to merely paint a picture of this person - to let the facts speak for themselves.
Great chance to visit the busy Mirror Indy newsroom in the 16 Tech innovation district, with Chris Sikich, Jennifer Delgadillo, Amanda Kingsbury, Jenna Watson, and Enrique Saenz working on this terrific local news startup.
Take a minute, if you're inclined, to check them out and sign up for the Mirror Indy newsletter: https://mirrorindy.org/
One more reason to subscribe to the Mirror Indy newsletter - these beautiful daily snapshots from doting dad Chris:
"As I was driving Lucy to preschool Thursday, she asked me a question, and I answered and called her 'Sugar Pie Honey Bunch.'
"There was a long pause and then: 'I’m not Sugar Pie Honey Bunch. I’m Lucy.'
"And then another pause: 'And you’re Daddy. You’re not Chris. You’re just Daddy.'”
My Lumina Foundation colleagues offered quite a remarkable sendoff on Dec. 13, 2024, my final day in the office before retirement. That included this video and a standing ovation at our staff meeting. Mike Jensen did a remarkable job shooting the interviews and editing this. It's over the top, but that's what you can expect when a national-class communications team puts something together : )
I worked on the national desk for AP in New York City and helped direct statewide news gathering in Indiana and Tennessee, but some of the most fun I ever had was covering local news as a City Hall reporter for The Indianapolis Star.
On vacation this week, here are some story ideas I would have in Indy:
Winter Streets - The challenges for Indy's unhoused population go up exponentially during the bitter cold of deep winter. Are we any better prepared this year after all the discussions about how to help people? Along with the data from city agencies and advocates for the unhoused, the story would benefit from reporting inside shelters and out on the street with people trying to help.
Compassionate Response - After several high-profile incidents in which emotionally distraught people died during contact with officers, the city sought a way to assist those people in a way that avoids escalated, violent confrontations. The Mobile Crisis Assistance Team (MCAT) is a collaboration between IMPD, Emergency Medical Services and Midtown Community Mental Health to help people in crisis. Spending time with an MCAT team could add vivid color and understanding about how this is all working out.
IndyGo's Future - Public transit agencies across the country suffered major ridership losses during the pandemic. It's worth examining the health of IndyGo, which received a major tax-funding boost in 2016 and has spent more than half a billion dollars on the Red, Blue and Purple Line bus-rapid transit projects. Key to a transit system's health are the "choice riders"--those who could use their cars or other alternatives but choose the bus. What do they think about the service, and what do rider surveys show? This project could use ridership reports and other public records from IndyGo, with reporting from onboard buses and with public transit advocates.
Substitute Teachers - Indiana, like most of the country, is experiencing a major shortage of teachers. That creates a big demand for substitute teachers, but the concern among some in education is that reliance on substitutes puts students at a disadvantage, and a shortage of qualified substitutes impacts some districts and schools especially hard. I have an Indiana teaching license and have spent time as a substitute to learn about this situation. We can work with some of the districts to give us classroom access for a story.
Red-Light Cameras - Indy's police chief recently suggested deploying cameras to catch speeders and stoplight violators. There's a story to be told about how this has worked elsewhere--and why it's being suggested here. Indy has a big problem with pedestrian safety, and if we looked at the data, we would find the top hotspots where the police think these cameras could make a difference--and what the people in those areas want.
Police Story - Indianapolis is critically short of police officers, despite an intensive recruitment campaign that even includes messages on every police car--and an increase in the starting salary to $72,000. The department acknowledges that it suffers from an image problem, but another factor remains the nature of the job itself: increasingly under scrutiny, under appreciated and of course, understaffed. People curious about what the job is like can sign up online to ride along with an officer, which I did recently. This can yield excellent interview material, natural sound--and insights about what attracts people to this work, but also why the job is so hard to fill.
This isn't a criticism of our local newsrooms, which are doing the best they can in an economically challenging environment. Just some thoughts about enterprise stories in my hometown.
The Indianapolis / Marion County Criminal Justice Center, 7:30 a.m.
I came across some notes I took after serving on a jury in Indianapolis a couple of years ago.
The details of the case don't really matter: A "sovereign citizen" picked up doing nearly 90 mph, drunk, through the downtown I-70 north split had an encounter with a state trooper.
The real takeaway for me was how a group of people can get together, hash out the evidence and come to an agreement amicably. In a nation so divided in so many ways, it was a refreshing reminder of how we can get along when we try to work together.
Looking out at the city from the Jutice Center, awaiting for the wheels of justice to turn
This closeup look at the legal system also reminded me of a conversation I had recently on an app where people gather to practice speaking English. I'm a moderator in the group, which is something like a 24 hour talk show with people from around the world, including Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Egypt, Australia and so many other places, who gather to learn what they regard as the world's universal language.
I was in one of those conversations when a person from the Middle East told me how much he admires the United States. That's not uncommon: For all of our faults, we're still a beacon to people elsewhere. I asked this person what in particular he liked about the U.S.
"I like that in your country you have something that doesn't exist in many places," he said.
"In the United States you have the rule of law."
Yes sir, I thought. It doesn't always seem that way, but we are trying.
(I wrote this piece in May 2023 for the North Shadeland Alliance newsletter)
You can drive by a place every day and
never really see it.
That’s how I felt about Indianapolis
Fire Department Station 17, our local firehouse just a couple blocks east of 75th
Street and Shadeland Avenue. We’re lucky to have people like this so close and
ready to help, and I wondered what their lives were like on a typical day.
A Night in the Life of IFD Station 17 C Shift
6:30 p.m. – “It’ll probably be a quiet night—but you never know,”
I got to Indianapolis Fire Department
Station 17 on a Wednesday evening in May as C Shift was eating dinner, and the
firefighters insisted I have a plate with them. They were having barbecue,
fixed in the station’s kitchen by Avery Lewis and Kyle Petroff, both
“backsteppers” on the engine that night. They’re called that because in the
days before enclosed cabs, firefighters would ride on the truck’s back steps,
out in the open.
“It always happens when somebody comes
out – things are slow,” said Dave Yeoman, the truck’s engineer. His job is to
drive the Pierce fire truck to the scene, connect to a hydrant to supply water
to the vehicle’s pump, and then operate the controls that send pressurized
water to the hose lines.
7:14 p.m. – Things are slow…until they’re not.
Suddenly, alert tones sound over the
station’s PA system, and the four-member crew of IFD Engine 17 jumps in their
truck. Yeoman is driving. Capt. Jeff Muszar, in the front passenger seat, is
the officer in charge.
The backsteppers and I are in the back
of the cab in jump seats. A Tesla has slammed into a utility pole on Shadeland
Avenue south of 75th Street. The driver isn’t hurt, but the wooden
pole is snapped in two, and police block the curb lane so the power company can
clean things up.
The fire department is called out to
treat the driver if they are injured and to deal with the car in case it
catches fire, which doesn’t happen this time. Electric vehicle battery fires
are relatively rare, but are still a concern for fire departments because they
present special technical and safety challenges.
8:58 p.m. – A Fire Near Eagles Nest
There’s a fire in the residential area
along 75th Street near the south entrance to Eagle Nest, which turns
out to be someone burning wood from an old fence in a large fire pit.
Indianapolis has an open
burning ordinance, and this homeowner, whose blaze is crackling
about 15 feet in the air, is out of compliance. Someone has called to complain,
and Muszar, as the officer in charge of Engine 17, is cordial to the homeowner
as he explains that the fire must be put out. “I’m not the fire police,” he
says. “But there’s an ordinance, and someone around here is complaining about
you.” The homeowner is friendly in return: “Well, it did get a little out of
hand there for a bit.”
9:26 p.m. – A House Fire Reported
We’re on a run to an actual reported
house fire, assisting the Lawrence Fire Department on Stark Drive next to Fort
Harrison.
This is something of an event for the
station because, by far, they handle many more medical runs than fires.
Yeoman connects a hose and adds his
water supply to help the Lawrence firefighters, who are attacking the blaze in
a detached garage, preventing it from engulfing the nearby house.
Flames are shooting high into the air
when we arrive, and a building makes terrible sounds in a fire, the crackling,
snapping blaze itself, and the weird pops and noises that sound almost like a
thing in pain.
Muszar checks with his Lawrence
colleagues to see what they need while Yeoman runs the pumps. Lewis and Petroff
are standing by in full gear in case other firefighters get trapped and have to
be rescued.
They are serious about safety.Seventy U.S. firefighters died in the line of
duty in 2021, according to the National Fire Protection Association, and nearly
61,000 others were injured. An Indianapolis Star list includes more than 70
Marion County firefighters killed in the line of duty since Daniel Glazier,
then the Indianapolis department’s chief, died in 1873 when a wall collapsed on
him during a major blaze.
This station lost a firefighter 35
years ago when it was part of the Lawrence Township department. David Edwards,
age 28 and Lawrence Township’s EMS division chief at the time, was in a burning home when he fell through a
collapsed kitchen floor into the basement.
Muszar was with him on that run. “My
best friend was Dave Edwards, who convinced me that I needed to be a
firefighter,” he said.
We were talking in his office, and the
station – the house, as it’s called – was quiet between runs. It got quieter
still as the captain talked about that February night.
“I rolled out with them on that fire,”
he said. “We should have died as well, but we didn’t. It just changed my life
in ways that you can’t explain.”
10:21 p.m. – Report of a Fallen Elderly Nursing Home Resident
Engine 17 is called out with the
station’s ambulance to assist a fallen elderly resident of a nursing home. She
is OK, but the medics take her in their ambulance to the ER. After about half
an hour, Engine 17 is back at the station, where things are quiet for a while.
Firefighters work 24 hours on, then 48 off. Though they can grab some sleep in
the station’s dorm, a call can come at any time until their shift ends in the
morning.
Engine 17 Engineer Dave Yeoman
As Society Changes, Being a Firefighter Has Become More Dangerous
Muszar is the “house captain” for IFD
Station 17, responsible for the facility. He grew up around here when 82nd
Street was a two-lane road, and his 92-year-old father still lives nearby.
“I’m from here, so I’m glad to be able
to come back to protect this area,” he says.
But changes in society affect
everybody, including the rescuers.
“We’re not just going out on fires or
hazmat or car wrecks or medical emergencies,” he says. “We have a massive
number of mental health runs, and we’re going out on overdoses now. These can
be volatile situations, and that puts our lives in danger.”
Muszar and Yeoman, best friends, both
plan to retire in three years.
Yeoman, on the job for 28 years,
started with Lawrence Township before it merged with the Indianapolis
department in 2011. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Purdue University and
got his teaching license, but eventually decided to follow in the steps of his
father, who had been a West Lafayette firefighter.
As the older veterans talk about their
careers, they like what they see in the younger firefighters coming up. Petroff
has two years on the job, and Lewis has one. They’re quiet, confident, very
good at their jobs, and respectful toward the veterans.
This Job is About Helping People
On the way back to the station from a
run, everyone’s relaxed—no red lights, blaring horn and sirens now.
Muszar and Yeoman are teasing each
other over their headsets, with the backsteppers listening in over the
background of radio calls. Muszar has a love of corny dad jokes, and the two
younger guys in the back roll their eyes.
Later on, as the clock nears midnight
and members of the crew try to grab some sleep before the next call, Yeoman
relaxes in a chair on the patio next to the station’s giant bay doors and says
he’ll miss some of this.
“I look forward to coming to the
firehouse,” he says. “This job is about helping people, and there’s a fun,
family bond here.”
I do things in
streaks, like running or walking every single day–through rain, sleet or gloom
of night–the past 13 years.
Last year, averaging just over four miles per day, that meant walking
1,495 miles–at least one per day, no matter what. Since
starting this obsession on Sept. 6, 2012, that's 4,135 days and 12,812
miles.
A related obsession has been to keep a daily journal since 2018.
This was inspired by the work of Calvin Fletcher, an early
Indianapolis lawyer and farmer who faithfully kept a diary. How faithfully?
They've been preserved and published by the Indiana Historical Society in nine
volumes.
Last year, my own trivia of daily life, story ideas,
character sketches and other junk totaled about 92,000 words. Since starting six
years ago, the project has reached nearly 872,000 words.
It seems like a lot, but I remember telling my friend
Gerry Lanosga about an early draft of a fiction project that was 17,000 words.
"Great,” he said. “But are they the right
words?"
It’s hard to say if these six years of journals includes many
shiny nuggets, but it's fun to combine the two obsessions: Walking that much
every day, you're bound to get an idea or two, and the phone can be a handy
scratchpad. This mini-essay is my entry to start 2024.
Consistency is key, even when there’s no specific goal. For
some of us, writing resembles as much an act of faith as of art.
If you're having trouble finding a job, you're not alone. Jonathan Rose has some great tips on the Facebook group "What's Your Plan B?"
"Straight up: The job market sucks right now. Folks who have been in PR, content marketing and comms their entire careers aren’t able to find jobs.
"I know CEOs who are getting 500+ resumes for every copywriter or content manager job they post.
"I was laid off from my Plan B a year ago December in an RIF and am just now landing promising interviews — and one of those would put me back in media which is somewhere I never wanted to go.
"I’ve been picky. You def don’t want an entry level position as your current position on your resume.
"That said, I’ve also built a little client book and taken every opportunity to expand my portfolio. I don’t say no to any opportunity that comes my way and have tapped into the relationships I built as a journalist (and private person) to land contract, consulting and freelance gigs. I launched two newsletters. I took Coursera content-marketing courses.
"My advice to you/things to consider:
"1. Build a sexy portfolio displaying a variety of work.
"It should have multimedia, news reporting (short and long form), SEO writing (B2B and B2C), website writing, scripts, advertising writing, etc.
"It should not have a cheapo wix or Squarespace domain name. Buy a domain.
2. Sign up at creative-focused hiring firms like Creative Circle and Aquent. Don’t expect to actually land a job through them but just looking at the job descriptions and getting their emails will give you a good idea of what your competition looks like and how you should evolve your portfolio and resume.
"3. Apply through Indeed! And ZipRecruiter. And LinkedIn. In my experience, you’re more likely to hear back through those platforms because there’s a profile and more holistic presence attached to the application. You’re just an invisible applicant when you apply through a company’s website. Employers use those platforms for a reason.
"4. Tap into your network and network, network, network. Every social engagement I go to — even meeting friends of friends out bar hopping — generally turns up a lead or two.
"5. Embrace AI. I use ChatGPT as an advisor for writing cover letters and anticipating interview questions. I’ve played around on the developer side. I also use it in my writing. It’s not only a great assistant, but you need to know it for any content job you apply to.
"6. Be ready to take a retail gig. If you don’t want an entry level job and don’t want to burn a bridge in the business community when you jump ship for the RIGHT job when it comes your way, be willing to make lattes or be a cashier.
"And finally, I say this with kindness: If you’re applying to jobs that demand AP Style expertise, make sure your cover letter and resume actually are in AP Style (or Chicago or whatever). Don’t use two little hyphens — use the em dash, for example. Brush up on the latest style guidance.
"It’s truly brutal out there. Competition is fierce af and you’re competing against people with tons of experience and no experience but think they can write. Recruiters have to sift through that. Make it easy on them."
Journalist and educator recently retired as editorial director for an Indianapolis foundation. Specialist in digital content, public media, teaching, citizen journalism. I'm at johncstrauss@gmail.com (Thanks: Professor Dom Caristi)
