Why I Write

By Claudia Johnson
(this editorial that appeared in the Pulaski Citizen the week before Christmas 2000)

Even as a child my reply to “what do you want to be when you grow up?” was “a writer.” Old notebooks are filled with sappy poems and mediocre short stories, an early testament to my lack of talent for fiction. And I never really pictured myself as a novelist either. I wanted to write for newspapers.
I had an image of my camera-laden self, trotting the globe, pecking out Pulitzer-prize winning stories on a well-worn portable typewriter as bullets whizzed past my head or world-changing decisions were made in foreign capitals. I wanted to interview powerful leaders and awe-inspiring heroes.
Obviously, I had watched more than my share of movies and tuned in to way too many Barbara Walters specials, but so what? When I packed up for college in 1976 to study English and Journalism, two journalists, Woodard and Bernstein, were household names, meaning anything was possible for a girl from Rose Hill who loved words.
Twenty years and other careers later, I shoot digital photographs, compose on computer and travel the world via Internet. No Pulitzer Prize is in sight, but the heartfelt commentary (even negative) from people in my home community who read my stories is satisfying. As a person who loves words, people reading what I write is prize enough.
But there are days when I can’t believe I really wanted to do this for a living, and this year there have been nearly 365 of them.
When people who don’t read our newspaper ask what I cover, I reply, “ The human misery beat.” Sometimes it seems that’s all I see. So many of the stories in 2000 involved death, disaster and drugs.
Obituary stories noted the passing of longtime community leaders, like Marlin Goodman, Mack Pinkleton and James Brown, while numerous news reports recapped gruesome traffic-related deaths.
Several articles recounted the blazing conclusion to someone’s home or an irreplaceable historic structure.
Dozens of reports included drug arrests, drug trials or drug investigations.
A few stories explored the facets of murders: the victims, the perpetrators, the arrests and the legal proceedings.
Lawsuits, and there have been a number this year of public interest, encompass their own kind of tragedy. People are hurt emotionally, physically, financially or in a myriad of other ways before, during and after an irreconcilable dispute is litigated.
Despite the safety of my black leather chair and the convenience of my electronic equipment, as in my youthful image, frequently I feel the bullets whizzing past me. These are often the wrongs I see that I can’t right (and sometimes can’t write either).
They are the tears of a mother whose child has been arrested or of a family that’s lost a home or a loved one.
Too often they are ill-advised, uninformed or self-serving votes cast by politicians.
Again and again the bullets are the drugs so pervasive in Giles County and the price this community is paying in human resources and in tax dollars for the judicial system to combat the resulting violence and crime.
In a way I never imagined, being a reporter for the people of Giles County and representing them when they can’t be there themselves has placed me where world-changing decisions are made. I’ve learned that any decision, good or bad, made by our community leaders impacts us all, especially our young people, and ripples outward far beyond our county’s boundaries like a pebble tossed into a pond.
Best of all, I’ve met heroes here, meet them everyday, as awe-inspiring as any who’ve gained international notoriety.
Just this year I’ve interviewed a man who left the coal mines to become a lawyer and is now a judge, another man who lived a secret life for nearly two years to investigate the local drug trade and a man whose great grandfather, a former Giles County slave, was among the first of the African-American doctors to graduate from Meharry Medical College.
I’ve discovered that not often enough do I acknowledge the heroism of each policeman, deputy, trooper, fireman, EMS worker and rescue squad member who regularly risks his or her life for the safety of our citizens.
I’ve watched the family of a murdered young man sit across the courtroom from the family of the accused, each family mourning, albeit very different losses, but behaving with dignity nonetheless. Behaving heroically.
I’ve seen hundreds of heroes stand up for what they believe and rally to fight expansion of the adult entertainment industry in Giles County.
At times I’ve been privileged to witness an elected official cease to be a politician and become a representative of the people.
Despite the difficulty of doing my job when there’s no news (translate: no bad news), I pray that next year is a little less newsworthy than the first year of the new millennium.
Being a reporter on and off for 20 has made me truly understand what the minister/writer John Donne meant nearly four centuries ago when he said, “No man is an island entire of itself…Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.”