Most journalists’ vices are on public display. Drinking? Journalists are at their local watering hole enough they have their own key to the john. Cursing? Parents know not to bring their kids around journalists who can’t say more than two sentences without uttering the f bomb. But there’s one vice journalists keep stashed away – their penchant for hoarding.
Journalists are not known for being a clean species. The cluttered desks, the messy cars – that’s nothing compared to what journalists keep hidden in closets, drawers, bookshelves, and bathroom cabinets. Journalists are hoarders of newspapers.
It all starts with journalists’ first published story. It’s not uncommon for journalists to collect no less than three dozen copies of that first article. Oh, and some extra copies for families and friends. From there, it just all snowballs. With each published story, journalists keep multiple copies. Journalists just can’t seem to part with all those stories that were paid with blood, sweat, and the loss of a social life. And newspapers are enablers in this hoarding addiction. It doesn’t help that journalists have free access to all the newspapers they want (it’s the only perk of working for a newspaper).
First, the newspapers pile up at the office but after a warning from the fire marshal, the pile migrates to the car but sooner or later someone will need a ride and the journalist will be forced to take the wheelbarrow load of papers to their apartment, joining the collection. After a few years in the biz, a journalist’s apartment resembles a newspaper’s morgue more than a living space where any human should reside. While most civilians use newspapers to pack up valuables when moving, journalists usually have to rent a bigger U-Haul because of their newspaper hoarding.
Most see the hoarding as a sign of need for institutional help but those piles and piles (and piles) of newspaper represent journalists’ storied careers. While most people have keepsakes like photo books to remember key events in their lives, journalists can look at a newspaper from Oct. 21, 2003 and remember that’s the day he became a dad or find an issue from the summer of 1998 and instantly remember what the college newsroom smelled like (toner and Red Bull).
Hoarding is another reason why journalists fear the digital age. You can’t hoard links.
And for the significant others of journalists, if you were able to get used to the cluttered car and finding reporter notebooks on the john, then you should be able to accept the newspaper hoarding. And if you try to persuade him or her maybe to get rid of all those newspapers, just remember one thing – they’ve been there longer than you have.
Deep down, all journalists are pack rats. Pack rats who know AP Style.
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Lovely piece. Identified with it absolutely. In fact, I carry y the stuff i hoard to different cities in India where i keep moving when i shift news organisations. No one absolutely understands why i need to keep all this old stuff with me. I not only hoard my own articles but well written ones by others. So, my luggage is quite heavy!!!
It all starts with journalists’ first published story. It’s not uncommon for journalists to collect no less than three dozen copies of that first article. Oh, and some extra copies for families and friends. From there, it just all snowballs. With each published story, journalists keep multiple copies. Journalists just can’t seem to part with all those stories that were paid with blood, sweat, and the loss of a social life. And newspapers are enablers in this hoarding addiction. It doesn’t help that journalists have free access to all the newspapers they want (it’s the only perk of working for a newspaper).