Later, reporting for the Wall Street Journal, I had an editor named Paul Ingrassia, whose pet hate was to catch someone in his newsroom looking up something online. He would creep up to the terminal and bark: “The story’s not on Nexus. It’s on the street. Get out there!”
So, for whatever it is worth, I’m passing on this advice to the next generation of short story writers, those jeunesse dorée who will come to the form at what might be the most perfect time in its history—a golden age to rival and perhaps surpass the era of the popular weeklies.
- from guest editor Geraldine Brooks’ introduction to The Best American Short Stories 2011
1) It’s Nexis; not Nexus.
2) Sometimes the story is on Nexis.
3) George Strait’s “All My Ex’s Live in Texas” is just sitting there waiting for some newsroom troubadour to create ”All My Ex’s Search on Nexis.”
4) Now that smartphones exist, I hope newsrooms are emptier than they were when I left my newspaper job in 2003. It always felt like such a wasted opportunity to have reporters start the day at their desks, making the phone calls that might scare up something newsy enough to justify leaving the building. If I ran a paper, I’d urge reporters to make those calls while walking around town — walking a beat, essentially, since familiarity makes it possible to detect change. Because change is news.
