Wednesday, October 19, 2022

40 Years at the LSJ - From Tickertapes to Email

 


A version of this article appeared in the Lansing State Journal

As Michigan State’s Wharton Center celebrate its 40th anniversary season, it reminds me how closely my arts and music writing history at the Lansing State Journal is linked to the opening of that great performing arts center.

It was in July of 1982 that I approached Mike Hughes, arts editor at the LSJ, to see if I could have a stab at writing music criticism for the paper.

Hughes, always the exuberant and positive observer of the world said, “Sure. Wharton Center is opening in September, and we don’t have anybody to cover them.  You’re hired!”

I was shocked and surprised.  I approached the LSJ a couple of years earlier but that editor pronounced my writing far too high brow for Lansing audiences.

What I didn’t understand by Hughes hiring me so quickly was that I would be hired as a stringer, a free lance writer.  I would be paid by the article without any long-term contract. This translated to the reality that any time, if Hughes or the LSJ in general, did not like my writing, all they had to do was not call me. There was no real commitment on the newspaper’s part – just an opportunity for me.