Down Time

With no classes today, I stayed close to home in an effort to catch up on some of my reading, which included going through the foot-high stack of the New York Times that I have allowed to accumulate.

I have this weird obsession with the Times where I feel like if I don't read the whole paper (or at least scan it), I will inevitably miss some crucial piece of information. I understand, at an intellectual level, that news, by definition, must be new, and that leafing through papers that are days, weeks, or even (when life has been really busy) months old is a rather futile exercise. Nevertheless, I have on several occasions gotten positive reinforcement for doing just that -- I've found some nugget of information that, had I read the paper on its publication date, I would have had no use for but now, for some reason, do.

Of course, I have been kicking myself for falling behind in the last few weeks leading up to j-school (you know, the Mecca of news junkies) -- I had hoped to be extra-well informed on the first day of classes, not behind the Times (couldn't resist).

So, I started going through the stack, knowing that the best approach is full triage mode, in which anything that merits a full read gets put to the side and everything else goes straight into the recycling pile. That usually allows me to reduce the stack to a manageable pile, and there is a great sense of accomplishment in tying up the rest of the papers and taking them out to the curb (or to our front hallway, if it doesn't happen to be recycling night).

Today I got about a third of the way through the papers before finding the positive reinforcement for my obsession: the July 17 issue of the Book Review, which contains a review of two recent books on public radio: Listener Supported: The Culture and History of Public Radio by Jack W. Mitchell and NPR: The Trials and Triumphs of National Public Radio by Michael P. McCauley. The review was written by Samuel G. Freedman,who just happens to be a member of the faculty at the J-school and my master’s project adviser.

We haven’t met with our advisers yet -- that will happen after Labor Day -- but Freedman was my top choice based on the past student evaluations I read. He also teaches a renowned seminar on book writing in the spring semester, which I am aching to take. (No, I don’t have a topic in mind yet. Yes, I realize that that is a prerequisite.) In his FAQs about the seminar, he says: “It is too much work. So only enroll if you are burning with ambition and energy.”

My kind of guy.

So thank you, Professor Freedman, for giving me a good read, for reminding me how excited I am to work with you, and, of course, for validating my obsession.