Jay Rosen, chair of the Journalism Institute at NYU, recalls the auld tale of how and why he didn’t end up working as a journalist:
In April I was supposed to contact [Buffalo Courier-Express editor] Doug Turner about a starting date. I did so by calling his office. He wasn’t in and didn’t return my call. I called him again. No call back. I called him a third time. Nothing. Thinking he was too busy to answer his phone, I wrote him a note. He didn’t reply to my note. I wrote him a second note. Again, no reply. Now it’s mid-May and I have graduated from college. Turner ignored my third note, too. But why? In my desperation and confusion I went down to the newspaper and headed straight to his office.
“Do you remember me? You wanted me to quit school and come to work for you. You promised me a job after graduation. Now you won’t even talk to me… What is going on here?”
Turner wouldn’t look directly at me. He said, “There’s an explanation, but you’ll have to sue me to find out.” Then he picked up the phone and had the security guard escort me from the building.
[…]
A few years later, through a friend who had a friend who worked at the Courier-Express, the mystery was solved. My case was a newsroom legend. It turns out that the job I had [separately] applied for, “Northeast Daily: General Assignment Reporter…” was for an opening at the Courier-Express. Yes. But I didn’t know this because in the standard format for those ads the newspaper was never named. You applied to a box number. The employer was described vaguely. What you were supposed to do is write on the envelope, “Do not forward to the Dayton Daily News” if you worked at the Dayton Daily News and didn’t want your boss to know you were on the prowl for something better. But I didn’t know any of that.
Not only had I stupidly applied to the newspaper that had already offered me a job, but it was my job they were advertising in Editor and Publisher! Yes. Turner had to post the opening to fulfill legal requirements; in reality he had reserved that slot for me [based on a prior verbal agreement]. When he got my application he obviously considered it an act of disloyalty, and that’s why he ceased all communication. So I lost my job by applying for my job.
and then, as if that’s not enough of a story, he gets this quote from the editor in question, whose memory of these long-ago events is spotty:
We’re both aware fortunately that the events you describe happened more than 30 years ago. I wish that my recollection of my conversations with interns such as yourself was as firm as those with whom I worked closely for a year or two. Yet “sue me for it” does sound like me in those days.
Priceless.
And I have to disagree, Jay: you are one hell of a journalist. You just don’t play one professionally.
Lemkin 