As a reformed journalist, I can tell you secret things.
Number One: Coffee.
If you want to make a reporter smile, or an editor not growl at you, feed them industrial amounts of coffee.
Number Two: Stress requires unstressing.
Journalists do a stressful job for tiny amounts of monies, and they’re under the Most Insane Deadline Pressure Known to Man, which makes them look for ways to unwind.
Here are my favorite journalists finding ways to unstress.
First we’ve got Bob Herzog.
Bob’s a TV reporter from Local 12 in Cincinatti who took the thankless job of “Traffic Reporter, A Job We Sometimes Have Interns Do” and turned it onto a “Dancing King of the Glowing Tube.”
Then we’ve got WGN anchors Robert Jordan and Jackie Bange, who look quite Serious and Somber while delivering the news.
Once they hit the commercial break, they transform into silly nutballs and do a special shebang, which they’ve honed over the years to take up exactly two minutes.
Also, just because I can, the original Girls Just Wanna Have Fun by Cindi the Lauper.
The Killers once covered Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.
Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj covered it EVEN BETTER.
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Reformed journalist. Scribbler of speeches and whatnot. Wrote a thriller that won some award (PNWA 2013). Represented by Jill Marr of the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency.
The Red Pen of Doom 