You’re a good reporter, but I think you’re also human. Those don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
Until the situation presented itself and he was talking to a character from The Des Moines Register, I did not know that my fictional cop — Detective Edward Shaw (“Red” to his close friends) — took such a dim view of newspaper reporters.
That attitude certainly doesn’t come from yours truly, B.A. Journalism, University of Iowa. I was, after all, a reporter and copy editor for The Daily Iowan, and a reporter for The Ottumwa Courier and The Clinton Herald, where I occasionally covered the police and courthouse beats. Mrs. Smith also was a reporter and editor in Cedar Rapids after I crossed to the dark side, into public relations and beyond.
Shaw’s comment doesn’t reflect my own opinion of reporters, at least not the many good ones I’ve known and respected. He must have had some bad interactions with the media before I created him from nothing.
I’m curious as hell to know what he’ll say in the next book.
The Smith Compound 