Notes from the Grillo Pad
Hold the presses: Mrs. Wolf loves to cook, and her favorite color is green!
This was just one of the news stories that emerged from Career Day at Tesnatee Gap Elementary School (T-Gap) last Friday, when your local editor faced a procession of third-, fourth-, and fifth-graders, putting many of them to work.
Some students, specifically those who claimed to have the best handwriting or knew how to use a camera, did my job. That is, they took notes and snapped pictures.
While these teams of miniature Woodwards and Bernsteins combed the classroom for headline material, the rest of us discussed two of the more important topics embedded in modern journalism: the difference between fake news and real news, and Superman.
That first part was easy. I just made myself the butt of a silly joke (like I said, easy). Each class was greeted with, “Wow, you guys are the smartest bunch of 12th graders I’ve seen today.” That tiny bit of misinformation was usually greeted by howls of, “fourth graders!” or whatever grade they were in.
To which I’d reply, “you mean, this isn’t Mrs. Kowalski’s 12th grade class?” Then shouts of the teacher’s correct name (editor’s note: surprisingly, there are no Mrs. Kowalskis at T-Gap, but I didn’t know this, so I was really taking a chance). That’s when we’d launch into a short discussion about fake news versus real news.
“See, if I wrote a story about you guys and it said this was Mrs. Kowalski’s 12th grade class, that would be fake news. Now let’s write some real news!”
So, I’d send another kid with decent handwriting to the back of the room to ask thought provoking questions of the teacher. How else would I know that Mrs. Wolf also enjoys spicy food and coaching softball?
Amazing how quickly nine-year-olds pick up on stuff like the difference between misleading, fake news, and responsibly gathered real news. These kids understood immediately! They also got bored immediately, which led inevitably to the second topic.
“Who has heard of Superman?”
Every hand went up.
“Who knows what Superman does for a living?”
Silence. Puzzled expressions.
“What is Superman’s job?”
Every hand went up. The answers were usually, “superhero,” or “crime fighter,” almost always some variation of, “he protects the world.”
Of course, those are all wrong answers. I explained that Superman did those things as hobbies, that he just happens to be a nice guy (and kind of a busy body) who enjoys saving the planet in his spare time. But to pay his bills and buy food and support his family, he works for a newspaper. Superman is a journalist.
I’d like to say that the kids looked at me in a new light after this revelation, something close to awe at journalism’s knight of the keyboard, standing here before them in khakis and trifocals. But time was up by then and they rushed off to another session (probably one with people in uniforms who do dangerous, cool outdoor stuff for work).
That’s OK, because a new group of kids always arrived to replace the old group and before long, we were looking for verbs and proper nouns in the White County News, discussing fake news and Superman, and breaking the story that Mrs. Oliver’s favorite color is yellow, and she loves visiting waterfalls.
Jerry Grillo is the editor/publisher of the White County News.