Coachamatic

It is a sin in the evolutionary process of God to try to suppress another’s creative spirit.
– Paramhansa Yogananda

I think so. I think Yogananda’s right.

Yet so often we do it.

In fact, I’ve wandered in and out of the news business for 3-1/2 decades for this very reason. I have a love-hate relationship with reporting.

It can be such a force for good. And it can be so inherently destructive. And a reporter doesn’t get to choose between the two.

A reporter is required to operate within certain news standards and news values. And those aren’t the same standards and values the rest of the world plays by. They encompass a tight set of ethics and a pretty narrow set of values that determine what is or is not a story.

Newspeople are taught and expected to be hard-nosed professional skeptics: Critics who challenge everything and are constantly on the lookout for failings, shortcomings, inconsistencies, misrepresentations, missteps, hostilities, wrong doing and ulterior motives.

Even when there are no obvious failings, shortcomings, ulterior motives, etc., in any given situation, newsrooms are abuzz with speculation about what MIGHT be suspect. And who might know where some dirt might lie in this instance.

Reporters and editors (or news directors) are bright people but tend toward being sarcastic, cynical, critical and suspicious.

Because that’s a fundamental of the news culture.

I’ve found the culture too close-minded, hurtful and objectionable at times and have taken long leaves of absence.

Which in the eyes of my fellow reporters and editors made ME suspect.

And while away during those interludes, I would find myself missing the excitement and sense of righteousness and public service and even power I’ve felt when chasing down and breaking an important story or exposing wrong-doing — and especially when in competition with other news outlets to see who can get the best most-revelatory story first.

I schemed to make the jump from news to lifestyle-and-arts reporting at one point. Wish I had.

A newspaper consultant I greatly admired, Eli Eisenberg of Los Angeles, vigorously advised me against it in 1985 as I considered accepting a dreamy Bay Area job offer covering arts and entertainment. Ultimately I took Eli’s advice. And have regretted it for a couple decades even though I did quite well during my years in the news business, winning many industry accolades and even editing a Pulitzer-cited investigation.

But I got muddied and bogged down in the hurtful stuff too many times. And too often felt conflicted about what I was doing.

I remember just-elected Ojai, California Mayor Frank McDevitt crying when he saw me the morning a front-page headline story, “City Council Muzzles Mayor,” hit the streets.

I liked Frank McDevitt. He was a good, simple, sensible and interesting man. A former letter carrier who dedicated his retirement years to voluntary public service.

The council cronies were concerned about Frank’s signature frank outspokenness and occasional malapropisms. He wasnt sophisticated enough, in their eyes. So, as soon they swore him in as city mayor, they passed an ordinance prohibiting an Ojai mayor from making public statements unless the statements first were submitted in writing to the city manager for approval.

It was an incredible insult to popular-with-the-public long-time councilman McDevitt. But he brushed it off. He was excited to be Ojai mayor. And I guess he didn’t realize I’d write about it, or at least didn’t think it would be the front-page banner headline story following his first council meeting as mayor.

I didn’t mean to hurt him. And really didn’t realize I had. Until I saw the sudden grimace and pain on his face and tears pouring from his eyes the instant he spotted me on the sidewalk from his perch atop a Wells Fargo stagecoach as he was leading a Frontier Days parade.

When you work in news, you have to burn people you like sometimes. Those are the rules. I haven’t always felt good about the rules.

You have much more opportunity on the lifestyle-and-arts side of a news operation to celebrate human accomplishment and potential and creativity and intriguing personalities. But even there, you find the cynicism that pervades news.

The tongue in cheek sarcastic and lambastic pieces get the best play.

Those reporters who consistently demonstrate a finely honed cynical humor in their pieces are the newsroom stars. And get the quickest and largest raises. And promotions. And cushy assignments.

Why the title of this piece?

It comes from an old saying that probably did not originate in a newsroom. But that’s where I first heard it.

It’s what reporters and editors say to one another after a subject of a story calls up furious about how it came out.

Amid knowing looks and sheepish grins all around, someone will say, “F— ‘em if they can’t take a joke.”

And that, I guess, is supposed to make everything all right.

For the record, I officially retired from the daily news grind in 1991 at the ripe old age of 38. But I dive back in a bit from time to time. And I hope I can manage to do it on balance those times in a professional way that doesn’t stifle people’s creative expression and development and potential.

I didn’t always manage to sustain that intention during the time I was developing the “late, great” Coaching Insider, I’m sorry to say. But we came close.

Back to Yogananda’s statement:

How often do we put down other people’s creative efforts? Do we ridicule, resent, challenge the validity, intellectualize and tell them why we think it won’t work? Do we suggest they stick with their day jobs? Tell them they aren’t cut out for what it is they are undertaking?

And why?

Wouldn’t the world be a more fascinating place if instead of discouraging people’s creative fire and ideas, we allowed them a chance to grow?

We don’t have to endorse. We can simply say:

“It will be interesting to see what you do with that.”

Because that’s true. Always.

Isn’t it?

Posted on Oct 27th 06 by ken winston caine.

Million-selling holistic-self-help author ken winston caine explores and shares "what works" from the frontiers of holistics, personal development, rapid therapy, and planetary healing. He has doctorates in holistic health and New Thought. http://www.mindbodyspiritjournal.com

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