I spoke to Ms. Richards’ fifth-grade class at Herriman Elementary School last week. The kids wanted to know how news is gathered and put into a newspaper. Why they picked me to explain this is a mystery.
I’m a columnist, not a reporter. I have no idea how the news happens. Looking around the newsroom, I assume everyone is doing the same thing I’m doing — thinking up weird stuff and then writing it down in a manner more or less legible. It’s not that hard. Any medium size reptile could do it.
Ms. Richards’ kids are smart. They asked a lot of important questions. How much did I get paid? How old was I? Was I married? Was Lyndie really my granddaughter? Had I ever killed anyone? Did I have a dog? What was its name?
With the background investigation out of way, we got around to discussing newspapers. I drew an outline of a news page on the board and showed them how stories are laid out. For this purpose, I invented a story of rats taking over Herriman. Then I explained how it became news.
Somebody — preferably someone from Herriman or at least Earth — would call the newspaper to report a rat sighting. A reporter then checks into the story, pulling together as much information as possible, including a groundless rumor that rat meat is routinely used in school lunches.
When printed, the story causes mass hysteria and provokes all levels of government to promise thorough investigations into the matter, none of which ever actually transpires.
Readers then send letters to the editor or post comments online, speculating on such things as how much protein is in a rat, what should be done about rat-borne diseases, and how all of this is undoubtedly the fault of the Mormon church.
One of the kids — almost certainly a future journalist of considerable merit — raised his hand and said, “I saw a rat once. It was dead.”
Another kid asked if anyone had ever seen a monkey in Herriman. “It would be cool if they did. Monkeys are smart.”
Things could have stayed on track if I had kept my meager wits about me. But I’m old and forgot that more than half a century has passed since I was in the fifth grade.
As a joke — and that’s ALL it was — I casually mentioned that the job of reporting the news was so tough and so important that only boys could be reporters.
Had this been said at Garfield Elementary School in 1963, the boys would have snickered evilly while one or two girls muttered something about unfairness.
But this was 2017. As soon as I said “only boys,” half the class shot off their seats and threatened my life. I hadn’t been so close to death since my time as a cop.
My granddaughter Lyndie was the only girl unbothered by my sexist comment. Having spent all 10 years of her life listening to me offer rude observations, she just rolled her eyes.
The rest of the girls offered lynch mob instruction on how girls are just as good as boys at anything they set their minds to. Even monkeys knew that. What was the matter with me?
Genuinely frightened, I babbled that my boss was a girl, most of my editors have been girls, and Superman’s girlfriend worked as a reporter.
I managed to extricate myself by resorting to the truth. I said girls actually made the best reporters of all. Proof was that The Salt Lake Tribune had recently won a Pulitzer Prize, an honor in which no one with a boy chromosome played a major part. It was all girls.
I should probably stick to the facts when reporting to elementary school classes.