Q: How did you come up with your new book’s title, and what
does it signify for you?
A: The title was the easiest part. I was sitting with
publishers Wendy [Thomas Russell] and Jen [Volland] and they said, “We need a title.” I didn’t have one,
but I said, “I’m Dyin’ Here.”
We laughed and then it suddenly made sense on a couple of
levels: I’m dyin’ here because print is dying, and, because I’ve been at the
paper for 40 years (in May), I’m apparently going to be carried out of the
newspaper business feet-first.
Q: You describe your career over the years at the
Press-Telegram. How has the paper changed, and what does that say about the
journalism business overall?
A: The paper has undergone incredible change, from
employing almost 700 people in a four-story building and serving more than 20
cities to a staff of about six reporters and one editor serving Long Beach
and a couple of adjacent towns.
Journalism, as a trade, is doing OK, but print/newspaper
is close to dead in all but a few cities in the U.S. (worldwide, it’s doing
pretty good). It truly is a race between us, at 61, and the print version of
the Press-Telegram, for which will be the first to go.
Q: How do you come up with ideas for your columns, and
what are a couple of your favorite columns that you’ve written over the
years?
A: I very rarely have an idea for a column when I come
into the office in the morning. I fiddle around with colleagues and cruise
the Internet and email and phone messages until I find something.
This week I wrote on Tuesday about local golf courses
turning to FootGolf (you kick a soccer ball until you get it in the hole) to
get more customers during slow times; on Wednesday I wrote about obfuscation
by city officials through their Orwellian public statements; and on Thursday
about my idea of running for city council using Trump tactics.
You learn to see things differently as a daily columnist;
that is, with virtually every event, no matter how trivial, is looked at as
“Can this be turned into a column?” It can, more often than not.
I’ve written more than 5,000 columns, but things still
happen that I haven’t written about. There’s probably about 800 left, then I
will have written about everything.
Q: What do you see looking ahead for print journalism?
A: You can see the end from here.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: Promoting the book which, to me, is way more daunting
than writing it, though this one, of the four books I’ve written, was a lot
more difficult than the other three, and the one I’ve blown the most
deadlines on.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I’m pretty proud to be with a Long Beach
publishing house [Brown Paper Press]. My other books were published by the History Press in South
Carolina. It’s great to have friends as editors and publishers, though
they’re harder to argue with.
And it’s cool being part of the Long Beach literary scene,
which is huge and I’d hate to start mentioning people because I’ll
accidentally leave out the best, but it certainly includes my two publishers
and my fellow Brown Paper Press author Alan Rifkin.
Right now I’m reading a great memoir, Nazis &
Nudists, by a longtime Long Beach writer and Los Angeles Times reporter,
David Haldane.
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--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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