The proliferation of journalism and media studies courses in this country and elsewhere has resulted in a progeny of young, would-be journalists with plenty of qualifications - but little experience. This method of training for work in the media undoubtedly has its merits, but its general implementation has robbed an entire generation of journalists of that most necessary attribute, experience.
Good old Virgil saw the benefit arising from close acquaintance with the big, bad world and its ways. "Believe the man with experience," he wrote; and what journalist would not want to be believed?
In the days before journalism training courses were even thought of, we "hacks" won our spurs in the provincial press, working long hours (no benchmarking in those days) on small-town papers and doing everything from reporting, sub-editing and proof-reading to making the tea for the editor.
Snippets of news
We attended wakes and weddings, dog shows and football matches, council meetings and courts. We churned out verbatim reports of inquests and District Court cases, picked up snippets of local news in pubs and Garda stations - even took photographs (when the paper could afford a camera) of GAA conventions and traffic accidents. We were Jacks (few Jills then) of all media tricks and trades, and it was all valuable experience.
The trainee journalists of today are generally denied this familiarity with life in the provinces. They miss the priceless happenings of the town and village, the tragic as well as the hilarious events that fill the pages of every provincial newspaper in Ireland - and the tragic and solemn events that are often laced with humour. This writer, schooled in the tough journalistic world of the 1950s in places such as Wexford, Dungannon, Monaghan, Carrickmacross and Drogheda, can recall several such tragicomedies which bear retelling today.
An inquest was held in a Co Monaghan town into the death by hanging of an elderly woman and the proceedings were dutifully reported by a local press correspondent. Of several witnesses who testified, one man described how he found the body. "I approached the shed and looked in. I saw Mrs X hanging from a beam. I asked her what she was doing there, but there was no reply."
The dead also provided the local paper with the makings of a story in Monaghan town, where two undertakers, in carrying on their business, were accustomed to chalk the names and addresses of the deceased on slates which hung on the walls of their public offices. Two local fly-boys, who were fond of the drink especially if it was free, visited the undertakers' offices regularly, took note of the recently deceased and then went off to the wakes. Already in possession of the names of the dead, they sympathised effusively with the relatives as if they were old friends and were then treated to food and drink for the duration of the wake. Understandably, the pair rarely went hungry or thirsty.
Fancy-dress parade
In another Co Monaghan town, a member of the local Urban District Council, Val, who was perpetually but unsuccessfully moving motions at council meetings, became the butt of a public joke in a local fancy-dress parade. A tableau on the back of a lorry showed him as a patient in bed, with a nurse standing beside him. She bore a bedpan and a placard which read: "Val's motion eventually carried." In the same town, on the occasion of the feast of Corpus Christi, when the town's streets and shops put on special displays in keeping with the feast-day, a local butcher dressed his window with a picture of the Lamb of God. Unfortunately, he forgot to remove a notice proclaiming that his shop sold the "best lamb cutlets in town".
Another local correspondent, who was his town's librarian and amateur drama director, was assigned to cover a football match. His lengthy and colourful report, replete with theatrical terms, more than adequately conveyed the story of the game; but he ended by listing the players "in order of appearance" - a feat which still baffles GAA officials and fans in Co Monaghan.
Total abstainers
But one incident above all gave the entire staff of our paper not only cause for mirth but also for fear of a belt of a crozier or, at least, the thump of a parish priest's stick. It happened after a Pioneer Total Abstinence Association rally in Drogheda which was addressed by the then director of the association, Father Dargan. His speech emphasised the three "marks" of the true total abstainer - the prayer, the pledge and the pin - and was duly reported in our local paper. Alas, for reasons that were never fully explained, this phrase appeared as "the prayer, the pledge and the piss" when the paper was being printed.
It was too late to make a correction and reprint the entire double spread of four pages. Instead, the entire staff, from editor down to messenger-boy, were provided with pins (ironically) and told to scratch out the last two letters of the offending word on every page of the several thousand already printed.
We never heard a single word of complaint from Father Dargan, or anyone else for that matter. Obviously our unique method of correction had worked successfully - but no one who worked on the paper breathed easily for weeks after the event.