Masking the news

For the first time in my career as a journalist, I did not write a news story based on what occurred during a meeting.

Not that news was absent. Not that my crippled shorthand nor my tape recorder didn’t work.

No, I didn’t write a report for a reason I never envisioned during a career that began more than 75 years ago while I was a freshman in college.

During the years that followed, I learned to take notes about meetings, speeches, accidents, deaths, all sorts of things.

I always carry two pens for obvious reasons. If one runs out of ink, I switch to the second pen. If I lose a pen, etc.

I take notes on all manner of objects. Usually, it is a reporter’s pocket-size notebook. I have used folded sheets of paper, a napkin, 3×5 cards and my left arm. That incident occurred shortly after midnight when I tumbled out of bed to cover (report) a mill fire on the banks of the Columbia River. When I arrived at the scene, I discovered that I had failed to bring anything on which to write notes.

So, I scribbled notes on my left hand and arm (I’m right-handed). I decided to go to the office and to write the story immediately after leaving the fire scene so that I didn’t erase my notes when I showered later that night.

I keep my notes for at least six months, then discard them. I figure that if anyone is going to complain about my story or to sue for libel, that will occur soon after my story is published.

I didn’t write a story about Monday night’s Pleasant Hill School Board meeting because I could not understand what was being spoken by board members and school officials. Unfortunately, too, I didn’t have copies of “the exhibits” that contained detailed information needed to write a story.

The real reason, however, is that I decided to attend the meeting via ZOOM, and I couldn’t understand what was being said because EVERYONE WAS WEARING A MASK.

I could write a book about why I dislike masks. No, make that HATE masks.

Granted, we need to protect others from COVID-19, especially children who are attending school. (And what a stellar job school officials have done in stepping through the minefield of regulations during the past two years.)

To complicate my information-gathering attempt Monday night, a number of people who participated in the school board meeting were not identified. I couldn’t read the itsy-bitsy signs posted in front of some participants, who appeared about the size of pencil erasers on the screen. Their faces were hidden beneath MASKS, and their comments often were unintelligible because of the MASKS.

I plan to resolve this problem later this month when the Pleasant Hill School Board meets again.

Unless I’m plugged into a ventilator, I’ll attend the meeting in person, borrow someone’s exhibits and ask questions of board members and school officials after the meeting to clarify information in my notes.

All of which I’ll record on my left arm if I find it necessary.

Or on a MASK.

Longtime Oregon journalist Dean Rea, widely known for his years as a University of Oregon journalism educator and editor at The Register-Guard in Eugene,  serves as a founding board member, correspondent and columnist for The Herald.