Dick is a Pulitzer Prize winning Journalist who has served in the newspaper business for over thirty six years. According to Dick, one of the best aspects of journalism is that every day is different and you never know what to expect. Dick states that there is no thrill like breaking a story; however, the hours in the news business are very long and demanding, which comes with some sacrifices. He states that in order to succeed in this field you have to love it, and that you will you know very soon.
Transcript
>> My name is [Inaudible] Cooper, I'm a retired newspaper reporter and editor. I served 36 years at daily newspapers in Rochester, New York, and also at the Philadelphia Inquirer where I spent most of my career. Doing that, I was reporting and writing stories covering the police feed, federal courts, and other assignments that came up during the day. Well, one thing about being a newspaper reporter, there's no such thing as a typical day. You don't know when you go to work whether or not somebody is going to fly a plane into one of the World Trade towers or if nothing at all is going to happen. That's kind of one of the exciting parts of the business, I spent a good part of my career covering the police department in Philadelphia, which meant that you could have absolutely nothing happen all day or five people would get killed in five different places and then the town would burn down. So that's basically what you came in every day not knowing what your day was going to be like. Well, he's very [Inaudible] if you -- for instance, when I was covering the police feed we actually had regular shifts, and I would work 10 in the morning until 6 at night. And then I would be relieved by someone who would work 6 to 2 a.m., and someone would work 2 a.m. to 10 a.m. frequently, when I was an editor the day would be longer because I couldn't really leave until all of my reporter's stories were in. So that day would generally run from about 11 in the morning till 8 o'clock at night. So that was pretty much the general hours in the newspaper business. If you went on the road, for instance, you had a story out of town, then you know, your day would be -- whatever it took to get the story. And you usually -- you're working out of town in those days you had -- you write in a motel room some place and then dictate the story back into the office over the phone. But it was a -- you know, again, depending on what the story was, if you, you know, you were out on a major storm or news event you were constantly in communication with the office giving them information on things that were being added and updated to the stories.
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