What we can learn by not using technology – The Advocate

The passing of veteran Mississippi newsman Bill Minor has been widely noted.

What may not be as readily known is a trait shared by many of his generation of pre-technology reporters the ability to observe, store and retrieve observations banked in their memories.

I met Minor in August, 1968, in Jackson, Mississippi. I had dropped out of the seminary in New Orleans to spend three months in Jackson working on a political campaign. The idea was to save money and return to New Orleans in December with enough in the bank for the January semester.

My job was simple, but mentally challenging for one who knew so little. I was to turn out a daily press release, get it approved by the boss and distribute it to the half dozen Jackson media outlets before the 4 p.m. news cycle at the wire services.

An experienced person could have written the material in an hour. It sometimes took me until 2 p.m. to get the final copy through the eyes of the boss, himself a walking almanac of national and state political facts.

My office desk was surrounded by a large dictionary, thesaurus and a congressional directory, plus file folders stuffed with information about state politics and government.

By contrast, as I made my rounds to distribute the press release, I noticed how lean the work spaces were for the citys news people. Jim Saggus at the Associated Press operated out of a tiny room on the news floor of The Clarion Ledger. Andy Reeses United Press International quarters were in an office building not much larger. Two chairs and a teletype machine pretty much filled the rooms. Desks at all the places were usually barren except for a manual typewriter. The same could be said for the the press room at the state capitol, where the only color was a green and white Draft Dot bumper sticker someone had slapped across a grey desk. The reference was to a failed dream of someone to get Dorothy Johnson in the 1967 race for governor. Her husband, Paul Johnson Jr., could not succeed himself.

These veteran news people did not need to look up a lot of facts. They already knew that Jamie Whitten was elected to Congress in 1941 and that Paul Johnson Jr. made his first try for governor in the same decade. It was in their heads.

In about 1970, Clarke Reed, chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party, invited columnist William F. Buckley to Greenville for a dinner speech. A group, including Bill Minor, boarded a small plane for Greenville. Afterwards, when we arrived back in Jackson, it was at least 10 p.m. Minor only had precious minutes to go somewhere and pound out the Greenville story before a midnight deadline. Next morning a complete account of the event was in the paper.

No big deal? Maybe not today. But that was a time before things were portable and quick. There were no personal computers, cellphones, email and all the available resources on the internet.

Today I drive to New Orleans once a week to teach an English composition class. The students are working adults. Most are soldiers, police officers and health field professionals.

I tell them to observe, soak up their impressions, store it in their memory and later retrieve it all out when they write an assignment.

Sometimes they smile and remind their teacher from another era that they have technology to make all this easier.

Yes, I smile back. Use all your technology and be grateful for it. But dont pass up the opportunity and enjoyment to train your mind to pay attention and store all the interesting things around you.

Comer lives in Plaquemine

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What we can learn by not using technology - The Advocate