Finding Faith ... in vocation

The famed Chicago Tribune Tower, which is now being converted into luxury condos in downtown Chicago.

Yes, I’m 45 and still jazzed about the newspaper business

Last August, I was in Chicago for a media convention. As the president of a start-up, media technology firm named Modulist I was getting my feet wet at my first national convention. To say that I was excited would be an understatement.

Because, you see, for me, the city of Chicago started it all for me. … My passion for journalism. My love for newspapers. My dream of one day being a famed newspaper columnist the likes of Mike Royko.

Chicago was my journalistic ancestral home, and there I found myself in the city, representing my new journalism company to the rest of the industry.

To me, it was the stuff movies are made of.

But to tell this story, I have to go back almost three decades to my college days, and the decision that changed everything.

I was a college sophomore, bumbling along on a path with no major, when my best friend and college roommate said, “Hey, you’re a good writer, you should take this class with me.” … With no concrete direction for my future, and the reasoning of a 19-year-old, I thought, “Hey, why not?”

And the rest is history.

That class was “Introduction to Mass Communication,” a 100 level course that gave potential media mavens a brief overview of all things comm related: radio, television, magazines and newspapers! … Let’s be honest here, it was the early 1990s, and the Internet was only a shiny bauble in which media companies were dabbling.

Now my friend was in the class because he had known since high school that he wanted to be in newspapers. He went to college knowing that he wanted to be in newspapers. And he was hooked because of this guy from Chicago that wrote humorous newspaper columns, some of which were borderline inappropriate for teenagers, and my buddy had somehow gotten a hold of those columns in his small, conservative, Midwestern high school’s library. Well, his career choice was set!

That guy writing those sometimes borderline inappropriate newspaper columns turned out to be Mike Royko, of Chicago newspaper fame, and thanks to my friend’s fandom, Royko became my newspaper muse too. In fact, by the end of that semester in college, I was convinced that my career track included finishing with a stint as a major newspaper metro columnist just like Royko. And I dreamed with all my might it might be in Chicago.

Well, that career path never really panned out. I did get into newspapers and had a successful career of reporting and editing in towns across Minnesota for 20 years, until my career track took me into the innovation business 10 years ago. And while each successive position I’ve held since has been devoted to creating a better working environment or better tools for journalists, I haven’t worked in an actual newsroom in a decade.

But that hasn’t dulled my passion for journalism, and more specifically for the journalism that newspapers almost single-handedly do. The kind of journalism that doesn’t make a splash, but changes lives incrementally, day by day. The kind of journalism that holds local public officials accountable. The kind of journalism that uncovers systematic abuses by government or corporate greed that takes advantage of the masses. … Frankly, the kind of journalism that looks out for the marginalized and the voiceless. The kind of journalism that rarely gets noticed, but is so fundamentally important to a democracy.

Me inside the Billy Goat Tavern when I was first there in 2013.

So when I was in Chicago last August for that conference, I discovered it was being held in a facility that was only a couple of blocks away from the famed Billy Goat Tavern on Michigan Avenue, which of course is across the street from the even more famous former Chicago Tribune Tower. And one day during the conference when we were on our own for lunch, and the rest of the attendees fanned out to some of the more trendy eateries nearby, I made my way down below the glitz and glam of the upper Michigan Avenue to the underworld where the Billy Goat Tavern is located.

And anyone who has ever read Royko knows about the Billy Goat Tavern.

To be fair, this was the second time that I had ever been in this diner (Mecca?), and as impactful as the first time was five years earlier, this second visit gave me even bigger chills.

Five years prior, the Chicago Tribune building across the street was still filled with dozens of experienced, grizzled newspaper journalists who were still banging out copy in the building once haunted by my muse, my unwitting mentor, my epitome of a newspaper journalist, Mike Royko. ... Five years prior, dozens of venerable newspapers were still open for business and hadn’t closed their doors due to the changing business climate, casting thousands of unmatched journalists into unemployment lines. ... And five years prior I wasn’t the president of a new media services company that is aiming to help give newspapers back some of the revenue that they’ve lost.

As I stood on those entry steps that lead down into the underground diner, I gazed around the room at the dozens of newspaper clippings that adorned the walls, the ancient photos of Chicago luminaries of all kinds -- politicos, athletes, and yes journalists -- and I got chills up and down my spine. It made me nostalgic for a different day in our industry, a different time in my career … heck, a different time for all of us, a time that made the importance of newspapers apparent to an entire nation, not just those of us in the business.

Well, I took my cheeseburger with fried onions -- because really, what else are you going to have at the Billy Goat Tavern? -- found my way to a private, little table for two along the outside wall of the hustling place, and ate with so many memories of my two decades spent in newspapers flooding back to me. And ultimately I began to think about why I was back in Chicago on that particular day: At a media conference, and one that was specifically focused on the digital aspects of the industry.

Finishing the burger and getting back out and onto the street, I started to shake off the nostalgia of the visit for me, and realized that even though I so missed the business that I so loved, it wasn’t dead. … On my walk back, I realized that It’s just changed. Given the current state of our country and the world, this business -- the institution of journalism itself -- is more important than ever. … And thanks to the opportunity my new company offers, I am getting to be a part of that massive transformation that this going to help newspapers, and other local media, remain relevant long into the future.

Yes, we have our work cut out for us, but I see signs of many who aren’t willing to go down without a fight. This publication itself -- the venerable Editor & Publisher -- has new management and is now owned by people who believe in its legacy and its future.

I see family owned newspaper publications across the country experimenting, trying new things, jettisoning old business habits they can no longer afford, and adapting to this new reality.

And I’ve had the good fortune in this past year of meeting dozens of other media vendors, many of them former newsroom folks like myself, who are helping to create solutions to help newspaper companies find a way to do what they’ve always been the best at: Community journalism that changes lives and shapes cities day by day by day.

And that is why, at mid-career, I am still jazzed by a career in journalism. For certain, my role has changed. I no longer sit in hours-long city council meetings listening to local politicians debate seemingly meaningless ordinances, nor am I assigning stories or taking the figurative red pen to a reporter’s Page A1 story for Sunday’s big edition.

But I am leading a cutting-edge company trying to reshape the industry and give it its sturdy financial legs back. And I like to believe that my hero and mentor, Mike Royko, would approve.

And that's why today I am finding faith in vocation. ... Amen.