{"id":47390,"date":"2021-04-05T00:30:36","date_gmt":"2021-04-05T00:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=47390"},"modified":"2021-04-05T00:34:06","modified_gmt":"2021-04-05T00:34:06","slug":"time-of-my-life-part-55-recalling-those-bylines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=47390","title":{"rendered":"Time of My Life, Part 55: Recalling this byline"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By JOHN KANELIS \/ johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

A brief exchange with a longtime friend reminded me of an aspect of my former career that inexplicably had escaped my top-of-mind consciousness.<\/p>\n

My friend and I were exchanging views about the devolution of the Republican Party in my home state of Oregon. I mentioned how the Oregon GOP had produced giants such as U.S. Sen. Mark Hatfield and Gov. Tom McCall. Then my friend threw another name at me: Norma Paulus.<\/p>\n

And that triggered a remembrance that had gone dormant over many years.<\/p>\n

In early 1977, I was working on the copy desk of the Oregon Journal, the now-defunct afternoon newspaper in Portland. I was an aspiring reporter at the time. I had worked as a freelance sports writer for a community weekly newspaper. The Journal was my first full-time job in a newsroom, which thrilled me to no end.<\/p>\n

Then the city editor called me into his office and offered me a chance I snapped up with maximum gusto. Norma Paulus, who was Oregon’s newly elected secretary of state, was talking that night to a group of accountants. Would I be interested in covering that speech for the newspaper?<\/p>\n

Well … yeah!<\/em><\/p>\n

So I went to the meeting that night. I listened to Paulus, who then was a political superstar in Oregon, deliver a bone-dry speech to a roomful of bean counters. I cannot remember the precise content of her speech, but in the moment I managed to somehow weave a story and turned it in the next morning to the city desk.<\/p>\n

That afternoon, when the presses started, I grabbed a copy and pored through the Oregon Journal and found my story: It was a bylined piece on Page 2.<\/p>\n

Here’s another lesson from the good old days: Back then, reporters didn’t generally put their bylines on stories. That decision was left to the editor(s) to determine whether it merited a byline. If it didn’t pass muster or required too much rewriting from the editor, the reporter didn’t receive credit for writing it.<\/p>\n

My story made the grade, I am proud to report. The editor put my name on it and it was published in all its (supposed) glory.<\/p>\n

The next task that awaits me is to find that story, which I am certain I saved. It’s likely tucked away in a file cabinet. All I need to do is find it and read what I wrote. It must’ve been a doozy.<\/p>\n\n

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By JOHN KANELIS \/ johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com A brief exchange with a longtime friend reminded me of an aspect of my former career that inexplicably had escaped my top-of-mind consciousness. My friend and I were exchanging views about the devolution of the Republican Party in my home state of Oregon. I mentioned how the Oregon GOP had … Continue reading Time of My Life, Part 55: Recalling this byline<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[2978,3445],"class_list":["post-47390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-news","tag-media","tag-oregon-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47390"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47393,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47390\/revisions\/47393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}