City Desk: A Reporter's Journey

By Patrick Keeffe

Patrick Keeffe's tale is a time capsule peek into a vanishing age of print journalism. His journey takes him from weekly newspapers in Wisconsin and daily newspapers in California, to national magazines in New York City. He enhances his story by using extensive journal entries. Those notes, made after he left the city room for the night, add precise detail and immediacy, and create for readers a you-are-there experience. His adventures include earthquakes, youth gangs and serial gay murders. He encounters explorers, novelists, mountaineers, a renegade spy, struggling immigrants, a mercenary, renowned photographers, and an American president.The trip winds from the low-tech era of manual typewriters and scissors-and-paste-pot editing, through the newsroom's transition to computers, to digital-age writing for internet-based publications printed with pixels. Along the way, he learns his craft from some master writers and editors, keeps company with raffish colleagues, and finds work he loves. He recalls his first journalism teacher, a newspaper reporter, telling him, "If they ever find out we'd do this for free, we'll all be in trouble."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1985027844
• ISBN13: 9781985027848
• Release Date: February 2018
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 222 Pages
• Weight: 0.67 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"