Instilled with Excitement   

Thank you so much for Beth Macy's article "Notice What You Notice" (August/September). As a young reporter (28) at a relatively obscure paper, I crave the kind of feedback, input and all around good ideas that my older colleagues are full of. I'm sort of a Romenesko junkie, but reading your piece instilled in me the kind of giddy little-kid excitement that I used to get as, well, a giddy little kid thinking about seeing his name in the paper.

I cover cops and courts, and about 90 percent of my job entails sitting in court and scouring police logs and then reciting what happened in removed language. I suppose that's fine, since basic crime reporting is getting the facts straight, but sitting in a courtroom listening to the umpteenth person plead not guilty to a DUI, I let my mind start to wander down crazy little corners like the ones you profiled. Certainly I'm nowhere near as good as some of the people you talked to, but I'm so happy to know that crazy, ADD-type thinking is still embraced in newsrooms and needed by readers.

So thank you again. I'll think about you the next time I'm walking down Main Street wondering why our walk signals buzz instead of chirp.

Adam Benson

Bristol Press

Bristol, Connecticut