From the Editor: Indulging in some newsroom nostalgia
When I think of a newsroom, I picture loud, messy, a bit chaotic.
Phones ringing. Infringements on personal space as mountains of papers and notebooks spill from one desk onto another, and conversations ricochet across the room, interrupting your thoughts.
Blaring police scanners, arguments (some good-natured, some not), laughter. Reporters and photographers coming and going at odd hours. Editors meeting behind glass walls.
Our Impact: How our journalism impacted Brevard in 2022
That newsroom doesn't exist anymore, not since COVID-19 introduced a whole new way of working. Actually, newsrooms had started to change even before the pandemic.
Now I’m sitting in the FLORIDA TODAY newsroom and only one other journalist, Business Editor Dave Berman, is here. He’s on the phone but if he weren’t, I’d hear only the sound of my fingers typing on this keypad and the air conditioning.
Don’t get me wrong: I love having the option (and the ease) of working remotely. But I miss the busy newsrooms I grew up in.
I got to thinking about this because for an hour Thursday, the FLORIDA TODAY staff was gathered in the newsroom like old times. Not for a staff meeting or brainstorming session, but just to enjoy each other’s company during a much-delayed potluck. There was more food than people. We’re still not fully used to our smaller size, and it was a busy news day so quite a few journalists were out on assignment.
Food & Dining reporter Suzy Leonard made a king cake (sports reporter Brian McCallum got the baby). Engagement Editor John Torres brought delicious pulled pork. There was mac and cheese, latkes, corn casserole (so good!), BBQ and Buffalo chicken wings.
Better even than the food was being together, listening to stories. Government reporter Tyler Vazquez came with a show-and-tell: copies of Alaskan newspapers from the 1980s that his son found discarded outside their Brevard home. That got us talking about print newspapers, and as always happens, someone brought up where they were during one of the biggest news events of our lives: the terror attacks of Sept. 11.
Investigative reporter Eric Rogers had just finished school and stopped at a gas station, where he picked up a copy of the extra edition FLORIDA TODAY put out. “Ink still wet,” he said. Editor John McCarthy recalled watching the second plane hit the tower on TV, grabbing a notebook and rushing out to start reporting, probably to write a story that went into that Extra his future colleague, Eric, bought.
It all made me nostalgic for newsrooms of old, but it also made me grateful for all we still do, like the stories inside today’s Sunday print edition (and online for those reading us at floridatoday.com).
Dave Berman looked at the local impact of the new Form 6, which is now requiring city and town mayors and members of municipal commissions to provide extensive financial disclosures. The result: Across Florida, many have resigned, declaring the demands too onerous and invasive for their often part-time, barely compensated positions. Take Peter Miravalle III, who resigned his seat on the Grant-Valkaria Town Council and told Dave Berman: "I did not want to expose what I worked hard for all of my life.”
Ever wonder what happens inside the medical examiner’s office? Trending reporter Michelle Spitzer takes us behind those locked doors. We debated whether this story was appropriate for a Sunday cover but it's such an interesting read, and I'm guessing you're as curious as we were. It also happens to have a very clever opening two sentences.
There’s so much more inside from an update on what’s planned for the former Glass Bank site in Cocoa Beach to an ode to friendship in Style and an op-ed from Florida Tech's new president. Executive Editor Mara Bellaby can be reached at mbellaby@floridatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Inside Sunday FLORIDA TODAY: Financial disclosures and the deceased
