Beautiful!

Journalism is beautiful. One night I and a couple of reporters were staking a late night meeting between House and Senate Republicans at a state capitol. The budget discussions to fix a deficit of about $1.2 billion in the current fiscal year had been going on all week. The lawmakers were trying to hammer out an agreement before the end of January. In order to expedite the budget’s implementation, assuming they came to an agreement and they had the votes to pass the proposal, they needed the governor to call for a special session. So here’s the scenario. It was 9 p.m. The lawmakers huddled in the House Speaker’s office. The reporters waited outside the office, near the House gallery. One of us suspected they might try to sneak out. A head had popped out of the office’s backdoor, presumably to check if the reporters were still around. We were. So we guarded all possible exists we could see. And as it always happens, we missed one — the building’s back entranceway. So the lawmakers sneaked out — or so they thought. As soon as we found out they were gone, we rushed outside the building and tried to beat them before they entered the executive tower, which was a feet away from the House. We knew they were on the way to the governor’s office. That was the point of the marathon meetings — to twist enough arms so they could go to the governor and tell her they have the votes and she could now call for a special session. We caught them just outside the executive tower. They refused to answer questions. Later that night, the governor called for a special session.

So why is journalism beautiful? It’s the wait. It’s the rush. It’s being there. It’s asking the questions. It’s chronicling the event. It’s staying late into the night to type up a story. It’s staying until the wee hours of the next day to finish that story. And the best part? It’s telling the world what happened.