Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 3, 1994 TAG: 9405030116
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
I admit it. I'm horrible with names.
Never have been able to remember them the second, or third, or sometimes sixth, time I meet someone.
This is a problem. It's tough enough if it's in social situations, over a beer or among friends. But it's especially tough when you're a journalist. Quotables often like to think the connection between their name and face is absolute.
But now there's this Bill Brown thing. Chief Bill Brown, of the Blacksburg Police Department.
Folks in the newspaper's New River Valley bureau recently debated on whether to call the new chief "Bill," or "William." We finally let him pick and decided on the former. But for the record, if I slip up and call Chief Brown "Capt. Brown" - to his face or worse, in print - I mean no offense.
I mean, c'mon, Mayor Roger Hedgepeth slipped last week and said Capt. Brown - five minutes after he had just administered the oath of office to the new chief. "I don't think I'll do that again," he said later.
I also admit that, with all the places I go, sometimes, it's difficult to remember where an earlier discussion with someone happened.
This can be embarrassing. Take last month. I'd attended a Christiansburg-Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce banquet one Friday night, then went to a Greater Blacksburg Chamber of Commerce banquet the following Monday.
Three days later I cover a meeting of the Montgomery Regional Economic Development Commission, which had members who attended both of the earlier banquets. As they milled about outside the boardroom before the meeting, Truman Daniel, asked me, "How'd you like the chamber banquet the other night?" Clayton Tinnell stood beside him.
Fine, I said. I'd enjoyed it more than the one three nights before in Christiansburg, I told him.
"But that's the one I was talking about," said Daniel, bending closer and looking perplexed.
Oops.
Daniel is on Christiansburg's Town Council. Tinnell owns Tinnell Lighting and Supply Co. of Christiansburg and is a former president of the chamber there.
Flabbergasted, I explained. It was simply that I preferred the chicken cordon bleu I ate in Blacksburg to the steak and potato in Christiansburg. Absolutely nothing personal, I assured them.
Tinnell, a robust, sizeable man given to wearing a cowboy hat and boots, said his steak was perfect.
Needless to say, the commission meeting seemed longer than it was.
Numbers are tough, too. This is not uncommon for journalists, many of whom gave up trying to do simple math back in high school.
So when I was assigned to cover a Virginia Tech Board of Visitors meeting with budget numbers galore and an agenda a half-inch thick last week - while the higher education reporter was on vacation, in New Orleans, no less - I got nervous.
Budgets are hard enough for any reporter who covers a municipality or local government. But to dissect a big'un that's out of your normal element can be downright scary.
After pouring over the pages and pages of revenues, expenses and fees, I put together your basic budget story, relying on the cheat sheet the reporter-gone-South had given me: that it'd be safe to go with a "Tuition goes up" first sentence lead.
I think I added up the numbers right. Nobody's called to complain.
But if they had, I'd have taken it to heart, apologized, written the correction, worried about my career and vowed not to let it happen again.
In action, reporting can sometimes be a mite imprecise.
There are always so many questions to be asked, answers to be weighed, sources whose motivations must be considered. There's PR, and real news. There's on-the-record, and off-the record.
But there are some things that demand precision, namely, the facts. As the editor demands, if it's in print, it'd better be right.
There's no room for carelessness.
The job's OK. It'd just be easier if there weren't so many little things to contend with. Little things that loom so large in a reporter's job that I lie awake at night second-guessing myself as to whether I got them right. Little things like Names, Places and Numbers.
by CNB