I remember as a kid growing up during the space race, one of the most exciting things beside maybe Christmas and my birthday, was the preparation for launch of a spacecraft from Cape Canaveral.

When I wasn't in school while a spacecraft was being readied, I was either glued to the television or more likely walking around with the earphone from my transistor radio firmly inserted in my ear listening to every nuance of conversation from Mission Control. As capsule communicators and engineers prepared to give the go ahead to launch the rocket into space, I soaked in every word. It was always an added bonus to get to hear the voice of the astronaut perched atop the booster in his tiny capsule anxiously going through checklists ensuring ground controllers that readings on his instruments matched readings with other groups in the launch team and that all was A-OK. By the time the countdown reached T minus zero, I was nearly breathless as the main engines started and flames roared from the base of the pad as the rocket shuddered and lifted slowly from its launch gantry while smoke filled the dawning Florida sky. I admit that more than 45 years ago, those were also the days that excited me with regard to news as well. It surely must have started with me listening to the voices of Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley and others describing every detail of astronauts' pre-launch breakfast routine. They described how many hours of sleep the pilots had before suiting up, and descriptions of their wives and families nervously waiting and hanging on commentators' every word. I marveled that it was the same as I was hearing at that very minute. The men preparing to fly into space were my heroes – no doubt – but so were the familiar and trusted voices of network news anchors back then. I've had the news bug for a long time.

Photo Courtesy of NASA

As I grew, my interests turned to the printed word in newspapers and I remember racing to get the evening paper to catch a glimpse of stories making headlines. I used to look forward to weekends when I might get a chance to read a neighbor's Sunday New York Times, sometimes for hours digesting “all the news“ that was “fit to print” as their masthead proclaimed. Over the years, I continue to consume news however I can get it albeit, sometimes I really have to study the angle of a writer's story to get that there's even a scrap of real information in some of the stuff that passes for news lately. I've pretty much given up on television as a news delivery vehicle and lament that so much that comes over the airwaves is little more than infotainment from major broadcast outlets. It seems, in the sometimes celebrated style of Walter Winchell, the more salacious a story, the more face time the commentator receives while divulging the antics of people who happen to make headlines on any particular day. I read a great deal on the Internet as well, but most of what I see there isn't news either. Even though I personally live in a very high tech world heavily reliant on computers almost like a lifeline to the world at large, I find much of my recreational reading resorts to comfortable handcrafted stories in print. I still very much admire the standards I learned in some of my first journalism classes and hold high those standards when I attempt to light phosphorescent crystals on imaginary sheets of paper in cyberspace as well. The “Who, What, Why, Where, and When” of Journalism 101 and earlier in my education still rings true with this writer.

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