Reporting is a tough job. It may seem easy, like all we do is sit behind desks and churn out story after story, but really, the task of reporting can be difficult, stressful and time consuming.
Reporters have to be thick-skinned yet empathetic and courteous. They have to be sensible writers steering away from big, flowery words or arrogant, poetic prose. They need to be patient yet aggressive when the time calls for persistent questioning.
An effective story if founded on full reporting gaining all sides of the story. Writing is almost an afterthought to a reporter. It’s the cup holding the coffee. Good writing brings the story together and makes difficult subject matter clear to the reader.
Well-rounded is what a good reporter is. And we’re pleased to have two of them here – Douglas Wright and Peggy Roberts. Welcome aboard Doug and Peggy!
Peggy Roberts:
I’d love to say that I’ve always wanted to be a journalist, but it wouldn’t be true. Because of a decent voice and a love of acting, after high school I hoofed it to the big city where I intended to “make it.” Back then, I just wasn’t sure what “it” was.
While attending Boston University, I lived on the same dorm floor as Jason Alexander, better known as George Costanza from Seinfeld, which always impresses people. When I graduated, I received a perfectly useless degree in voice performance along with the confidence that comes from high hopes and no experience in the real world.
Twenty-five years later, I am convinced I have “made it,” at least by standards I consider important. I have a wonderful husband of 23 years and three terrific children. And, although I’ve never sung at the Met, I have continued to pursue music and theater as a hobby, both by performing and directing.
Other hobbies include the home improvement trap my husband and I have fallen into – a suck-you-dry activity that we’re sick of being sucked into. I also garden and my association with this paper began over a year ago with my weekly garden column.
Winning Family Circle’s Mary Higgins Clark Mystery Magazine’s short story contest five years ago was pivotal in my decision to become a writer. My resulting freelance credits include a reading workbook, a national magazine article, and a home and garden humor column, still published weekly in another paper.
Now, as a full-time staff writer for The Lakes Region Suburban Weekly, my life is rewarding but extremely hectic. I have enjoyed meeting so many of you and learning more about your communities during my first two months on the job. I look forward to getting to know many more of you as I continue to cover Standish, Raymond, and the Lakes Region.
Douglas Wright:
I drink a lot of coffee, probably far too much for any one person to imbibe. I don’t know if this is a trend among newspaper reporters because I’m fairly new to the game, but it keeps me going. A little jumpy, but on top of things.
I’ve always been a writer, that is to say I’ve always written, ever since I was a little kid clacking away on my great aunt’s Royal Portable typewriter at her cabin in Vermont. That cabin, fondly referred to by our family as Frog City, was a place of myth and wonder, a setting where the animals talked and the trees and brook spoke a wisdom to a kid like me wandering the woods at the time, and still does.
After my great aunt passed away, I came into possession of the old Royal Portable along with another typewriter, a 60s model Smith Corolla. Since then, I have collected two others: another Smith Corolla and a brand new Olympia Traveller C (believe it or not, they still make manual typewriters), which I lugged around Europe on a month-long backpacking trip. I guess you can say I’m a bit of a fanatic.
I likewise am obsessed with books, especially old books because of the smell of the old pages. My bookcases are overstuffed with far too many books, many of which I know I’ll never read, but must have in my collection just in case.
In college, though I focused my studies on film and sociology, I spent the bulk of my time writing fiction, short stories, great American novel gibberish, which I continue to do. Occasionally, I perform in “spoken word” shows around the city of Portland where I live with my girlfriend Lyn and our cat Francis Xavier Herman Murray Mozart the III.
It wasn’t till earlier this year that I took the jump into the hectic world of a newspaper reporter. And though I have only been a full-fledged reporter for a short time, I am continually fascinated by the many facets of the Lakes Region. I see different sides to life in this job that I would never see otherwise. And having lived by the ocean most of life, I am beginning to realize now why people gravitate toward the lakes: the calm for fishing, the boating in the summer, wading in the still water and the woods, the endless woods. More and more, I’m beginning to realize why the Sebago Lakes Region has come to be known as the “heart of vacationland.”
As I continue to cover news in Windham, Casco, Naples and Sebago, I’m excited to learn more about what makes up life here in the Lakes Region.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
