Meet a Journalist

A journalist's profile, stories and career in the field of journalism. Know a journalist who should be profiled here? Send an e-mail to Janet E. Bardon

November, 2003
Linda Kay
Graduate Program Director
Concordia University Journalism
Montreal, Quebec

Why did you choose journalism?

Like many in the profession, I'd been singled out for my writing ability early on, winning third place in an essay competition on fire safety in the fifth grade. In junior high, I gravitated to the school paper and served as both the women's sports editor (I'm dating myself -- in those days, women covered only women's sports) and the book review editor of my high school paper. I loved writing, I loved asking questions and I loved learning about different subjects, which reporters must do. At Syracuse University, I flirted with majoring in poly sci and thought about becoming a foreign service officer, but decided to major in journalism while serving as the managing editor of the weekly news magazine and realizing that I really wanted to report and write and take photographs -- and that I seemed to be good at it. I went to work as a journalist full time at age 20 and never looked back.

What experience best prepared you for the job of journalist?

I'd have to say journalism school best prepared me for the job. At Syracuse, we had to cover real events and meet real journalists in order to write our stories. Another key factor was the deadline pressure imposed at Syracuse. For every hour a story assignment was late, your grade went down one level. I truly learned how to meet a deadline at Syracuse. On the other hand, as many journalists will tell you, six months on the job teaches you more than you ever learn in J-school. There's no substitute for working a beat and seeing your name in the paper every day -- which fuels you to work harder.

Highlight of your career?

I've had the good fortune to cover many big stories in my career, which spanned 17 years as a fulltime reporter and continued another ten (and still does) as a freelance writer. Perhaps the highlight was covering what was then the biggest prison riot in American history. It happened in 1980 in Sante Fe, New Mexico. I was working on a sports story in Albuquerque (I was a sportswriter for 13 years), when my colleague and I learned about a prison riot sixty miles away. We drove there and ended up staying a week. I'm most proud of an interview I obtained with a prison guard, who'd been held hostage and then released. I was the first reporter for any newspaper or wire service to get an interview with a hostage. The interview occurred in a trailer park in Espanola, New Mexico, and I filed the story by phone from the trailer. It was quite a memorable feat.

Who was your mentor?

I've had a few. My first sports editor at the San Diego Tribune, Joe Stein, really supported my effort to establish myself as a female sports journalist and really helped me to shape stories. There's not much time on a daily newspaper to work with writers and Joe was the exception to the rule. He helped me refine my story ideas and helped me organize my copy. My second mentor was Andrea Hermann, the classical music writer on the San Diego paper. As a veteran reporter, she helped me navigate through landmines that women confront dealing with the mostly male power structure at a newspaper. She also urged me to promote myself as a sportswriter to the Chicago Tribune, where I ultimately ended up working. On that paper, my very special mentor was the late David Condon, the senior sports columnist. He introduced me to everyone-who-was-anyone in sports in Chicago, a very sports-minded town. David made sure I met face-to-face with the lions of sports--men such as Arthur Wirtz, owner of the Black Hawks, and George Halas, owner of the Bears, who were old men at the time. Condon wanted to instill in me a sense of history and continuity, for which I'm forever grateful.

What do you recommend to young people considering a career in journalism?

Read widely. Read everything you can get your hands on. Seek the extraordinary in the ordinary. Really look at the world and see what others don't. Ask many questions.

Biggest task facing journalists today?

Establishing credibility with the public through dogged reporting. There's not enough investigative reporting and just plain hard nose reporting. Skeleton staffs are partly to blame. There's a dearth of man/woman power in many newsrooms. But reporters need to dig deeper even when reporting on seemingly smaller issues.