Karl Gude

A relative asked me: “What were you THINKING?? Why would a father of two young boys QUIT working at a place like Newsweek. It may not have been a GREAT job,” she said,” but it was a GOOD job. That used to count for something. Now it’s all me! me! me! and everyone has to be happy! happy! happy!” Then she went on to lecture me about how a dentist chooses his profession because it will support his family. “You think looking into ugly mouths all day makes HIM happy???”

She’s kind of right, but I’ll betcha if that dentist had a chance for rock-solid security as a Playboy photographer he’d leap at the chance for happiness.

It wasn’t just about Newsweek (which was a GREAT job, by the way), it was about the cumulative impact on my mind and body of covering hard news for 27 years at major news organizations. Sure, journalism is MUCH more interesting than looking into one mouth after another. Disasters, crashes and assassinations are much more engaging than filling your 5,000th puss-filled molar.

It felt important and heroic to stay up all night feeding the facts to a hungry readership, even though my family just wanted to know when I was coming home. The thrill of chasing down information on an impossible deadline was like a scavenger hunt and the feeling of knowing you beat the competition was incredible. No molars here.

But, like the kid whose parents own an amusment park where even the most fantastic rides begin to lose their luster, I was starting to lose a bit of steam because journalism was becoming predictable, and I hated that. The details were different, but the script was the same. I could practically write a formula for how to respond graphically to just about any news story. (Maybe I will.) Like drugs, it was beginning to take the harder stuff to keep me high. REALLY big stories, like 9/11, still boil my blood. I’ll miss those.

An eroding passion is a VERY bad thing in journalism. Passion=energy. Journalism takes energy, lots of it, to succeed.

This line of work was taking a physical toll on me, too. News graphics take lots of time to make and I’ve pulled more all-nighters than I care to remember. At Newsweek, where the bar was higher than at any place I had ever worked, being sleep-deprived was becoming a weekly occurrence and catnapping on the smelly closet carpet was getting tough on my bones. My staff and I were usually the only ones roaming the dark, empty halls in our stocking feet at 4 a.m. looking for something to eat other than Pop-Tarts from the vending machines (hats off to you, Kevin).

I’m in East Lansing with my wife right now looking for a new house to buy (she and I met at the Associated Press, so she’s always understood the crazy schedules and now why I’m moving on). We saw a gorgeous four bedroom with an inground pool for $295,000! We love New York City, too, but here your kids can go off on their bikes for ice cream and you may actually see them again.

I met with Jane Briggs-Bunting yesterday. She’s the director of the School of Journalism at Michigan State University where I’ll be a teacher. Jane’s cool and smart and she talked to me about curriculums and syllabuses and teaching materials and students and it’s all new to me and making me a nervous wreck.

The blood’s boiling just fine, now, thank you very much.