
Jung Bin Park, left, and Nayoon Kim in front of the Times-News building.
When Ashleigh Layton called me a couple of weeks ago she probably thought she might be asking for the moon or something.
Turned out her request wasn’t that difficult at all. The moon, it seems, is easier to get to these days — unless you’re NASA.
Anyway, Layton is one of the hosts for a group of students from Gwacheon City, South Korea staying in this area for about two weeks and in the United States for three. For those who don’t recall, Gwacheon City and Burlington are sister cities through the Sister Cities International program. Leaders from Gwacheon City, a bustling and high-tech area outside Seoul, came to Burlington last summer to finalize the agreement. Sending over these high school students is quite an honor for this area.
Layton, who lives in Whitsett, called me just after the turn of January and only a day or two after a few of the students arrived at her house. Would it be possible, she asked, for one of the teens interested in journalism to drop by the Times-News office and take a tour, maybe meet some staff members?
“What day,” I responded immediately.
She was a little taken aback. “I didn’t know it would be this easy,” she said. “Can I get back to you?”
Hey, we’re not hard to get along with — and one student is pretty easy to accommodate. Bring a crowd and you need to contact Michele Terry. She usually handles our larger tours.
As it turned out, Wednesday would be the day and Layton brought over two students instead of one. No problem.
So that’s how I met 16-year-old Jung Bin Park and 15-year-old Nayoon Kim in the Times-News lobby. Jung Bin is the aspiring journalist. Nayoon wants to be a teacher who specializes in foreign languages. Both speak English very well so communication wasn’t a huge stumbling block. A few years ago I addressed a group of newspaper publishers from South Korea who visited Elon University. They spoke little English and an interpreter had to translate my Southern patter and colloquialisms. Needless to say, my attempts at humor didn’t travel far. Not that they would go over any better with an American audience.
That wasn’t a problem with our guests on Wednesday. They smiled a great deal. They pointed to things, whispered and chuckled. They laughed politely when our staff members made jokes about talking Jung Bin out of a life in the newspaper racket. They were shy around adults.
They were pretty much like American teenagers, right down to the braces on Jung Bin’s teeth.
I arranged with Layton to bring the girls to our office just before 4 p.m. so they could sit in our daily budget meeting, whjch determines what stories will be placed in the Times-News the next day. Afterward, I gave them a quick tour of the building and introduced them to Roger Creasy, our interactive director, Darryl Ayers, our production manager, and Paul Mauney, our publisher.
Jung Bin told me that newspapers are still very popular in South Korea and she reads the daily in her community. She described a country flush with newspaper readers — although Nayoon admitted she wasn’t one of them. Online access at home isn’t common in South Korea. People there use Internet cafes. Newspapers delivered to residences are far more convenient.
We sat and talked for a minute or two before our budget meeting — largely so I could make sure I knew and could spell their names before formal introductions to the rest of our newsroom staff — before I rang the bell for our afternoon sit down.
Our section editors: Brent Lancaster, Jay Ashley, Darren Sweeney, Bob Sutton, Brian Rose and Sam Roberts covered the local and wire events available for publication. As usual, we discussed the relative merits of the stories, how we wanted things presented and what were the highest priority items.
Later Jung Bin told me she was impressed with our meeting. She had no idea that we had such open discussion about what would go in the newspaper. “It was fun,” she said.
The tour of the building included quick stops in all departments, a look at the press (not operating at that time) and mailroom. Again, as usual, the press and the massive rolls of newsprint used to produce the newspaper were the most impressive sights — not including Jay’s office.
Along the way Jung Bin and Nayoon both agreed that they were somewhat shy. I told them newspaper reporters are largely made up of people who were shy as teens. Future newspaper reporters were teens who sat quietly where they learned to observe and listen. “But you do have to eventually get comfortable with talking to people and asking questions,” I told them. Jung Bin said asking questions isn’t something a lot of people do in her country.
“People here aren’t afraid to ask questions about anything,” I told her. “They’re not always good questions, but they are questions.”
After the tour I turned to Jung Bin and told her to fire away with any questions she might have for me. She had a few. All of them were excellent — mainly about steps I took to get where I am today, the importance of journalism school and things she would need to do to be a journalist.
I told her that journalism school is important, but not mandatory to being in the business. A well-rounded education in history, political science, grammar and literature could also be a great foundation for a life in newspapers. I advised her to read all that she could — books, magazines and newspapers. I told her not to be afraid to try new things and to make sure she learned how to shoot and edit video for a future in online journalism.
But reading is the biggest thing. I interview a lot of potential reporting candidates today who admit they don’t read very much.
“Especially newspapers,” I said. “It has a style all its own and one you need to understand. It’s not creative writing or even scholastic writing. It’s very different.”
And while journalism school can play a key role, nothing is better than actual experience. The best newspaper people I know didn’t start out polished. They became that way over time, by learning how the machinations of government, law enforcement, courts and other systems work. Theyy developed good interviewing skills, found out how to retrieve public documents and discovered how to mesh it all together into something others can read and understand quickly.
That comes by doing those things on a regular basis.
She asked if I was glad I had chosen this profession.
“I couldn’t imagine doing anything else,” I said. ”It’s an ongoing educational process — you truly do learn something new every day. Newspaper people know a little bit about a lot of things because they write about so many subjects. You’re in the know about a lot of things.”
And, I thought to myself, it is fun most days.
We said our goodbyes and I took a photo before left. I hoped they learned something on their trip.
I know I did.