Why the Thrill Makes a Difference   

If journalism becomes a business like any other, journalists won't be the only losers.

In basketball they call it "giving up the body."

It means standing in the path of a 250-pound opponent rumbling straight at you full speed, drawing him into commiting an offensive foul. It means paying the price to help the team.

Giving up the body also has long been a part of newsroom culture.

Deeply embedded in American journalism is the notion that you do what it takes to get the story. Long hours? No problem. Seven-day weeks, broken dinner dates, aborted relationships, missed family commitments? Too bad. The story comes first.

(An editor, explaining to his wife why he was going to be late – again – exclaimed, "You don't understand. It's a big story." To which she replied, "No, YOU don't understand. It's ALWAYS a big story.")

Psychiatrists might venture that this is not the healthiest way to look at life. But there's no doubt that this commitment to the story has produced many important pieces of journalism that otherwise never would have surfaced.

It also has been an economic godsend to media companies.

In the thrill of the chase, who worries about overtime? It's a given at quality newspapers and among quality journalists that keeping score is hardly part of the game. You do what it takes.

The 1994 movie "The Paper" perfectly captured the newsroom ethos. The protagonist, a city editor, bags dinner with his parents and his very pregnant wife without skipping a beat in order to pursue a story. The very pregnant wife comes off of the injured reserve list to interview a key source to help her husband nail it down. The exuberance and the excitement and the sheer gusto that can make this business so special have rarely been so vividly conveyed.

When I was at the Washington Post, a reporter was doing all she could one night to cajole a reluctant source into revealing the contents of a critical document. She tried ploy after ploy, to no avail. Finally, nearing desperation, she offered a deal: "I'1l give you my firstborn if you read it to me." I already have two children, came the reply. "Fine, I'll take one," the reporter responded. The source laughed, and gave her everything.

Why do journalists care so much about what they do? Two reasons. There's the sense that their work matters, that it makes a difference, that it is important to society. And because it's fun, it's exhilarating, it's gratifying.

That's why the evolving way many journalists think about their jobs, described with great insight in our October issue by Carl Sessions Stepp (see "The Thrill is Gone"), is so worrisome. Stepp observed that in today's newsrooms, "what once seemed a destiny combining service with ego gratification now seems more and more like day labor."

So what? Why does this matter? Because once journalists stop caring so passionately about what they do, the entire equation changes. It's often said journalism is a young person's game; it's also not a game for clock-watchers. The journalism of 9-to-5ers would be a very pale imitation of what we have come to know.

Not that there isn't much to criticize in contemporary journalism: the preoccupation with conflict and controversy, the growing tabloid influence, the sense that journalists have lost connection with their audiences.

And there's much in the traditional newsroom culture that would not be mourned: the turf battles, the vintage whine, the refrain that "they" – management, the business side, the copy desk – are ruining reporters' precious work.

But at its best, the sense that journalism is a calling fuels efforts like those of Eileen Welsome. Welsome was working for the Albuquerque Tribune when she discovered indications that the federal government had conducted medical experiments in which unwitting patients were subjected to radioactive plutonium.

This was a startling and appalling notion. Welsome knew she was on to something big. But the paper didn't spring her to pursue it full time; she had her beat to cover. Nevertheless, Welsome persevered, often working on her own time, even getting a fellowship to help her figure out how to report the story.

It took her six years. But thanks to her determination and drive, she achieved her goal. Her series had a significant impact. A government commission was empaneled to find ways to make sure nothing like this ever happened again. President Clinton issued a personal apology to the victims.

The Welsome saga is a tribute to individual initiative. It almost didn't matter where she was working. Great journalism will always require great individual effort.

But the more those who run the journalism business stress the business at the expense of the journalism, and the more those who practice the craft come to accept that vision of reality, the fewer Eileen Welsomes we can expect.

Richard Harwood, an astute observer of the media with a penchant for taking the long view, suggests that the apocalypse may not be here quite yet. "Journalists continue to control the content and tone of the news we get," he wrote in a Washington Post column. "If they are today filled with angst, self-pity and disappointment about the work of journalism and the thrill and excitement has vanished, they might test the thrill and excitement of selling shoes."

Fair enough. Of course opportunities for significant and satisfying work remain. But it's important for everyone to remember that if journalism becomes a business like any other, it won't just be the journalists who lose. l