Reading and writing and editing the news over the years

Longtime Baltimore Sun news editor David Ettlin joins Nestor for crab cakes and newspaper memoirs

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

wife, paper, night, calls, baltimore sun, reporters, editor, worked, week, newspaper, left, baltimore, newsroom, job, teacher, dan, years, teaching, teletype machines, story

SPEAKERS

David Ettlin, Nestor Aparicio

Nestor Aparicio  00:00

We’re back at WNST. Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore Positive we are positively down here at families I am giving away Maryland lottery scratch off tickets I still have a handful of ravens left Ross is going to be here bringing me some holiday giveaways also our friends at Goodwill reminding everybody during the holidays do the right thing gathered stuff take it to Goodwill mix your shopping at Goodwill. Did Rogers had a great thing he’s like this holiday season, go to Goodwill and shop and buy secondhand stuff just for the environment for the world don’t do and the good things. Also our friends at window nation I have I left my floppy hat over costs. Maybe I’ll get it back next Thursday as well. When donation 866 90 nation you buy to you get to free do what I did. But I didn’t get 0% financing, but David Ettlin can the play was Baltimore you have no idea Dan Rogers came on. We’ve been eating crab cakes down here and catching up. And there was a point Rogers was sick of me or he was done with me. But it was a point where I was going to try to mix the streams of old editors and old reporters and columnist and old agate clerk editorial assistants, but you were one of my spiritual godfathers at the Baltimore Sun back in the day. Your daughter work there you were on the other end of the newsroom all night long closing out then the night shift on the paper. And I was coming in from hammer Jacks usually very sober. I might add sadly to tell that story. But what was your was your the night at what were you David Ettlin?

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David Ettlin  01:26

Well, the finale was night Metro editor for the last six and a half years. And probably before that about nine years of being a rotating editor in the counties. But the real key was 25 years on rewrite, rewrite. And that’s telephone journalism. Breaking news happens and nobody’s there to cover it. You’re either going to send a Reporter Out, and you’re going to take the notes from them by phone, or you’re going to make the calls and find out what happened. And on rare occasions, the night editor will just sit there and you will run out and cover it yourself because there’s nobody else left to do it. And when there was a major catastrophe, like the famous Howard Street Tunnel fire, where a train carrying Haris hazardous cargo derailed under Howard Street,

Nestor Aparicio  02:10

or the accident over chase that night, I was a banker that night the train wreck, Chase train

David Ettlin  02:14

wreck, then you’ll have multiple reporters doing a story and the person on rewrite or somebody on rewrite will be the poor soul that’s got to put everything together and write the main story. And that’s the challenge on deadline

Nestor Aparicio  02:27

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the one dot the to dot the chaser the final right. Yeah,

David Ettlin  02:30

back when the paper was so large and had so many papers being printed that they had time to make changes from addition to addition.

Nestor Aparicio  02:37

I mean, it’s been a little while since we’ve said this. Stop the presses. Stop the presses. Right?

David Ettlin  02:42

Well, not that but sometimes it’s slowed down so we can make a change.

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Nestor Aparicio  02:46

David Edlund was how many years 3040 How many years? Did you do this?

David Ettlin  02:50

40 almost to the day for Okay, so

Nestor Aparicio  02:52

39 and some change down to 501 North Calvert then down the poor Covington, why did you leave the paper

David Ettlin  02:59

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2007. They were offering buyouts, and I’m familiar with that concept. Last buyout, I was worried that there wouldn’t be another one. Because I was coming up on my 40th anniversary. And I got back from a vacation in Japan with my wife. And I heard there was going to be a buyout. And it took effect the last day at the paper for anybody was actually my 40th anniversary at the paper. And I said, it’s like they wrote my name on it. But the reality was they had not they wanted 50 jobs out of the building. And my job was not on the list. So I said, Well, what happens if I asked for a bio? They said, Well, if we don’t get 50 jobs, maybe you’ll get it. And in the end 48 People said they weren’t meant to go. And they had two slots left. They laid off one person. And I was the 50th. And I was out the door with a year’s pay and benefits 15 years ago. Yeah, well, wow. Yeah, that’s the math just about.

Nestor Aparicio  03:56

Wow. So I got to the paper on January the sixth 1986. Jack Gibbons hired me I was 17 years old, 17 years and three months old. My parents had to sign a special permission slip for me to join the Baltimore Washington newspaper, Gil, because I wasn’t old enough to vote. I wasn’t old enough to I was a minor, you know. So that was kind of the fun part for me. And I, I came into that newsroom. And I was, I was so I had a card that said the Baltimore Sun on an evening sun on it. And I was just so thrilled to be there. I’m 17 years old. And I think to this day, one of the reasons that you can’t be asked me is because all I did was live my life being challenged by editors saying, is that true? Is that right? Can we put our reputation on it says Baltimore Sun. It’s got to be true. It’s got to be a fact. It’s got to be real. It can’t make things up here other than the lottery numbers, which I apologize for because I always screwed those up. got called into Jack lemons office. by screwing up the lotto numbers back in the 80s, which is kind of the the inside track of how I’m sponsored by the lottery. I always joke with John Martin about that. But for me back in the day I was so it was like Willy Wonka to me to put the paper out every night, you know, to be there on the night that led by his parents to be there, unlike the Challenger exploded to be there on the night that the chase Chase, and this is all in the first year is oh my god, six things I’m telling you about right. I’ll never forget that. But people like you were so memorable to me. Because I felt like I could learn something from you. You know what I mean? I really, really everybody in that newsroom was a teacher and a mentor to me at 17 years of age, teaching me the right way to be a reporter. You know,

David Ettlin  05:41

well, I got in I got an indifferent route. I’d been a supermarket cashier. I’ve been the store announcer at EJ Corvette for about six weeks until I got fired by a floor manager because I wouldn’t do

Nestor Aparicio  05:53

like specialty gotta pick up on aisle three. Is that what you did? We’re

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David Ettlin  05:57

having 15 minutes special and admirable televisions. It was called the blue light in America came it was one of my great bloopers admirable televisions instead of Admiral. But you know, then I was in office boy for the Baltimore Symphony for about a month and a half. And then I got sick and I took it. I said, You need somebody the seasons about to open. I can’t handle this job right now. So I left there. And I was unemployed. My then wife was reading the health one. It’s in the Baltimore Sun. And there was an advertisement for a communications

Nestor Aparicio  06:27

that’s what you get a gig other than going into the newspaper to get a job in 1980 years. This

David Ettlin  06:32

was this was in 1967 67. Yeah, in June, that would be 40 plus June 1 1967. I got fired. I can’t believe this, you Well, anyway, the job was working in the wire room full time job. I was a student at Towson University Towson State College then learned your Scarlett’s learning how to be a teacher. And I needed a job. And this was full time gig in the wire room, which meant basically being the handmade, two teletype machines that were bringing in news from all over the world. And the latest paper with the little rivets on the side, we have race results, play by play from the West Coast baseball games and the clickety clack noise.

Nestor Aparicio  07:15

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I remember that and every now and

David Ettlin  07:17

then a big story would come in and bells would start ringing on the A wire, which was the big one. That’s where the main pitch, right? And when you started here and that bill, you’d holler out in the newsroom and say there’s some big coming in and a sick

Nestor Aparicio  07:28

since getting indicted and that kind of stuff. Man on the Moon. You were there for this stuff, right? Yeah,

David Ettlin  07:33

the cop the copy boy would come over and grab it and take it to whatever basket I put it in national foreign, whatever. All the President’s Men. Yeah. So if there was major news, that was it. And I did that for all 10 weeks. And at the end of 10 weeks, I had to go back to school full time and it was going to be a strange year training. Oh, what kind of teacher were you going to be de Matlin? I was going to specialize in urban education. I was in a Ford Foundation program and my senior year training inner city teachers. And for the full year of my senior year, I was going to be teaching full time and taking 22 credits a semester, all related to classroom experience of teaching poor kids and rough navy. This

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Nestor Aparicio  08:13

is why the city’s not as if you had you gone on that path. teaching teachers maybe you know, the world would be a better place. No,

David Ettlin  08:21

that would have been hard, because I was a terrible teacher.

Nestor Aparicio  08:25

But you were hell of an editor David Attenborough this year, I saw you and this comes on. It’s right. Like last Friday night. My wife had been sick. We and I told this story with Dan early on, but I’ll tell it again. It’s 430. In the afternoon, my wife was getting a haircut. And I didn’t get tickets for dance thing Dan was supposed to do show Pappas last month when Mike Porter came out. And David Steele came out, he got jury duty, never told me what the play was about. I was kind of bought into wanting to do it. Then my wife got sick and it didn’t have tickets. And I thought, Well, I’ll see at the end, maybe there’ll be tickets wherever Dan’s like sold out. And I’m like, oh, that afternoon, I put a little thing on his Facebook and I said, if anybody’s got two extra tickets, my wife’s feeling better because she had been in bed sick as a dog Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, most of Wednesday, kind of set up a little bit. And she want to be coffin in the theater. That’s what she’s like. I don’t want to be in the theater coughing but put a mask on. So she coughed into the mask. But for 30 we get tickets, five o’clock, we’re there. And then I walked into that play. As the lights went down. I didn’t see anybody. And when of Dawn Scott was sitting five feet away from me just like the Ravens games. But that show I didn’t know what to expect. And then I saw you afterward, which didn’t shock me that you would be there given your relationship with Dan, you probably didn’t shock you when I was there. Right. Okay, tell our audience about that. Because I think that would be the travelogue of your life at the paper like you saw the reality and probably the way I did it being a reporter and the way he it was a magical show really was well, it

David Ettlin  09:54

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was a magical experience working for a major city newspaper. I was lucky. I mean, I went into the back door I did. I did my job as a communications clerk, I was going to have to leave the paper. And there was a guy named Charlie white for who covered state politics. He was the main political writer for the paper. And he took a liking to me in the wire room for some reason. And he tipped me off that there was going to be an opening on the morning sun city desk, part time, weekends only editorial assistant. And it was perfect. Same guy, same job I had, it was three shifts from Friday night through Sunday night. 24 hours of work, and it’s what I needed to pay the rent because I was a young married guy at 19. And, you know, it’s like, you know, 20 years old, I needed to pay the rent. So I get that job instead. And for a year and a quarter. I worked hard on the city desk at night making police calls leaving memos for people coming in the next morning about what dropped on the gutter somewhere in Baltimore,

Nestor Aparicio  10:49

or when would always come over in the middle of the night. You know, even leave your side of the room come over. He would just sit down and pull his glasses out and say there’s a white male in blue jeans with a white top. Driving a late model. I elastic vehicle

David Ettlin  11:06

I loved working with Dicker with I mean he started at the news American when the news American folder. They brought police blotter in Dicker when did the evening sun when the evening sun eventually got murdered by a by the company. And they just focused on the morning paper. I was part of that attrition. We ended up with police blotter in the morning paper and I was editing that as night editor and it was just wonderful girl and one of the great, great little vignettes. I mean, you know, the the time somebody had a burglary and their TV was stolen, and told the police that there were roaches in a TV you know, place that was full of roaches. Stan

Nestor Aparicio  11:45

wrote such great stories write about that into play, and how quirky Baltimore is and what it’s like, really to be a reporter and to get a phone call in the middle of the night from anyone that says I have a story right? But what

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David Ettlin  11:57

is his one of his great little stories, which he mentioned in the show was the guilty but mostly stupid kind of crimes. And one of them was a case that actually was in my Pasadena neighborhood at the Union was then the union Trust Company, night deposit box. And some crazy local guys with a pickup truck and too much beer decided, hey, let’s just break into the bank vault. We can just pull the night deposit drop off so they tied the bumper to the handle of the night deposit and started to drive away instead of the night deposit door ripping up bumper to bumper came off the back of the truck with their license tag. And they didn’t come back and take the license tag. And now Now it’s a Wells Fargo branch and I’ve long thought that they really needed to have historical marker there one of the stupidest crimes ever committed. Well,

Nestor Aparicio  12:43

they have cameras now. Yeah, you’re not then David Lewis here longtime editor. What do I call you night editor desk editor

David Ettlin  12:51

was the night Metro editor but more and more than that,

Nestor Aparicio  12:53

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were you the horn the shoe or what were the names we had there the slot? We had names like that, right? It we had that on the sports desk

David Ettlin  13:01

nine Metro editor was not a whole lot different than rewrite. I was still basically massaging stories, making trying to make them better trying to help young reporters learn how to turn a phrase and also to do it in a hurry when deadline. And that’s not everybody can do that.

Nestor Aparicio  13:16

I’m making it sound sexier than it is though, right? Well, when it’s like making soup, it tastes good, but you just got it you make and it’s not all that much fun. I

David Ettlin  13:22

when I was a lowly wire room clerk the only newspaper I’d ever worked for before that was in Baltimore Junior College, which is worth now is Baltimore City Community College. I worked on the college crier for all five semesters, it took me to get through a four semester academic program. Because basically, I spent so much time in the newspaper office and writing stupid stories for that paper. But I found I really liked newspapers. It was fun. I liked it. And then I ended up working at the Baltimore Sun in the wire room, looking out from a little kind of like this long, narrow room that had all the teletype machines. And there were these reporters out there walking around, who got their names in the paper every day. They got paid to write and I thought, wow, that’s just amazing. I

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Nestor Aparicio  14:07

never considered any other life. Other than that when I was a kid, you know, my dad the day my dad died, my dad died in July 1992. And my dad died angry at me, because I had left the paper. I took the buyout January 15 92. And my dad had dementia at the end to a large degree, but was very angry me because he’s like, you’d have a job the rest of your life you’ll get a gold watch. And I’m thinking to myself, I made a good decision leaving the paper I knew that because Stedman told me, Senor, you’ll never regret it. Don’t look back, senor. That’s what he said to me in 1992. But I have such and I tell the banner people this is you know, the people doing the digital paper. I do a digital paper at Baltimore positive as well. There was something about that experience that really shaped everything about my life. You Dan Jack Gibbons Mike Marlowe bagnasco I mean, all those people that I worked with at 54, now I am I’m, I’m a better person, because I did that really. I mean, it did because I worked. There was an amazing, amazing educational experience for the rest of my was, it was my college, really,

David Ettlin  15:14

it was a, it was a thrill to do what we did. And it was the heyday of newspapers, things were going well, they were making lots of money. They had nine foreign bureaus, and they could afford us we had reporters as far away as Beijing. And sometimes you’d get calls from those places. And calls weren’t cheap in those days. But calls would come in and somebody was in a hurry, and they had to dictate a story. And, you know, you’d be on the other end, typing with two fingers as fast as you could go. Because I never learned to type that was another little CD type. No, I typed with two fingers six boop, boop, boop, boop, boop boop, you know,

Nestor Aparicio  15:49

we would call that to Christopher Columbus to seek seek and look for as

David Ettlin  15:52

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I call it, a discover key and then land on it. But yeah, that’s the Columbus system.

Nestor Aparicio  15:56

Am I hallucinating? Or did I wake up in Christchurch, New Zealand on the South Island? To some Facebook message? Were you like had friends there or something? Um, is that correct? Probably. Yeah. You I mean, you have people all over the world like you and your wife traveled extensively.

David Ettlin  16:09

Yeah, my late wife. She died almost two years ago heart to you, as always. And we tried to have big vacations. And one of the reasons I wanted to take a buyout from the paper in 2007, was they were leaning on management people to take a vacation, every three months, take a week off, stay fresh. And you can’t go anywhere in the world for just a week. How do you go to Australia, New Zealand for a weekend? How do you go to Europe for a week? How do you get in your car and do a cross country road trip for a week? It’s just impossible. And what we needed was big adventures in the summer, kids would go off to camp, and we could go and do something thrilling. And that was in the labor place. That’s hard to say we were in we went to Japan twice we we had friends all over Japan. My wife as a teacher was selected to go to Japan, courtesy of the Japanese government for three weeks and learn about their educational system and bring back a little Japanese culture to her classroom experience at George Fox Middle School and pass teach man eat with chopsticks. Well, no, but that’s

Nestor Aparicio  17:14

the most important thing you can do to any young person other than teach a second language is teach chopsticks because I’m missing a finger. Ross is here about away from America. You got to do next segment. I hope you’re getting get some call get some ROFO get ready. So I’m in Beijing, China in 2007 with Cal Ripken John Marino’s his story. And my wife and I broke off from the State Department because we were there like one official journalist, my wife and I got into taxi, we went to a regular play places called Bellagio we found it in the mobile travel guy back in 2007. And went in and we ordered off the menu. We didn’t know what we ordered. And they brought the food they brought chopsticks and I’m missing a finger. I lost my finger when I was three years old. And I didn’t really know how to eat with chopsticks at all. And I was trying to express my mandarins not so good. And I said, you know, I I finger it and they’re like, oh, you know, no problem that we’ll be right back and they come back. They brought me toothpicks to eat my soup with. And at that point, I made a commitment to my wife. I’m like, Look, I’m a grown man. At some point, I’m going to need to learn to eat with chopsticks. And part of it is like anything else that you do and you learn in life. You fumble, you fall you stumble, you pick up food and it falls or whatever. But I have learned to eat with chopsticks now. And I consider it one of the great accomplishments of my adulthood.

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David Ettlin  18:36

I’m very clumsy at it. That’s why I like sushi. You can see you know, with your fingers, that’s

Nestor Aparicio  18:39

what I’m saying. Everybody’s clumsy until you learn you have to work at it. It’s like editing. It’s like which takes the common that does not. I got taught all that stuff.

David Ettlin  18:48

But anyway, the best place is I don’t know, Japan. I love New Zealand and I love Japan. But we also traveled across Europe. We did it by car a couple of times, six countries in a three week period. Drive fast in Germany do that 100 miles per Autobahn caught a rock on the windshield. Nobody

Nestor Aparicio  19:06

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goes to Germany and then come back without talking about driving there. You know,

David Ettlin  19:10

100 miles an hour in Italy on through A’s and like,

Nestor Aparicio  19:13

Well, I would say this You stupid cars. You have been his biggest supporter and Your late wife of my wife and my wife’s battle and you’ve actually met Niels Niels is coming over a week from Wednesday to Boston touring all of New England with my wife, twin sister I might add so shout out to Niels and frosty so Niels is gonna be here for Christmas

David Ettlin  19:34

so that’s he’s a wonderful guy Germany man talk about heroes

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Nestor Aparicio  19:38

well you know he’s really bummed about the whole world cup thing you know, Jeremy digital to do so well the World Cup. David Edlin is here. He’s in retirement i i usually plug my guest and plug their book and plug their Twitter and all that. Leave that alone man, he’s enjoying himself. I gotta plug that plug away. What do you plug in? What are we doing other than?

David Ettlin  19:55

I’m plugging my wife. Oh, well, that’s it. She wrote six self published books including a memoir that was finished three weeks before she died. And I ended up doing the editing and publishing it after she was gone. But there there’s a book that’s available as an e book and through Amazon for ridiculous $50 Because it’s just a thick book full of color pictures. She was a photographer and writer as well as a teacher. And the book is called 365 gifts on turning 70 And it was a book that was a full year of looking at each day. And the gift that that day brought, no matter how terrible the day might have been. There was always something good to be written about. And she illustrated each one with a photo and she wrote it as a blog initially every day she would post the blog on her journey site. And then at the end, she decided this needs to be a book. So she put it together and self published it and it’s available on Amazon. And it’s an inspiring thing because you really do need to look at every day as a gift. It’s a magical thing if you look for it that there are wonderful wonderful things happening and your staff to appreciate them and savor them because life is just terrific guy man

Nestor Aparicio  21:06

thank you for as a beautiful beautiful sentiment and her I knew you would give me something beautiful as you’re a writer

David Ettlin  21:12

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and her name is Bonnie Shep sch UPnP and 365 365 Gifts,

Nestor Aparicio  21:18

gifts gifts, that’s that well if I hit that on Amazon I’ll find it is that right? Yeah, totally. I’m gonna do it right now I’m gonna I’m gonna I’m gonna find it right now. 365 gifts I’m gonna do it I’m gonna hold it up right now just because I want to 365 gifts and I’ll just put Barney in yeah and and I II and there it is. Barney. Shep there it is gifts alternative that it’s the first thing that pops up so do it. Go buy it you can get the ebook is just 699 Yeah. All right. Well, that’s affordable. Merry Christmas. Happy

David Ettlin  21:45

holidays to you Nestor. It

Nestor Aparicio  21:46

was great. David Edlin my one time a night editor. father figure mentor crazy ass uncle in the newsroom that a 501 Is that okay? Let’s say that. Yeah, North Calvert Street. I think he likes that. It’s all brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery in conjunction with our friends at Goodwill and winter nation. We’re giving away some scratch offs down here. I’m getting some holidays scratch offs. Siri, go right. There you go. Are you 18 or older? Yeah, I’m just making sure I gotta do all the legal and do all that stuff. We’re fading these right now they’re shipping crabcakes down here that are as delicious. As you can go all over the world. You’re not gonna get a fade these crabcake anywhere but fatally. So you can ship this here. Damn. He’s going to be joining us in a couple of minutes as well. And Ross is here. I’ve been married in the live response for two years now. And I’m trying to get Ross down here trying to get her hobby, Greg from Northeast down here, but I’m gonna give her a proper crabcake we’re gonna have a little talk here about the Maryland lottery and about holiday giveaways and do’s and don’ts like what I just did. Don’t be giving that to the grandkids. Atlin I’m Nestor we are wn S T. We are Baltimore positive data fadeless at the old market stay with us.