GENE ROBERTS ’ 54
PAUL FETTERS
‘In an effort
to force me
to be graphic
and vivid, he
[Henry Belk]
made me end
every column
with a paragraph
labeled, “Today’s
Prettiest Sight.”
Let me tell
you, it’s tough
to go into
a poolroom in
your hometown
for an end-of-
the-workday
beer, known as
the guy who
writes “Today’s
Prettiest Sight.”
There is
no better
admonition
to the writer
than “make
me see.” ’
Gene Roberts
removed because of a precancerous condition. Roberts took off from teaching for a
semester and had to learn how to eat all
over again. He said he’s fully recovered and
has been able to enjoy one of his favorite
pursuits, travel. He and his wife, Susan, visited Turkey when the spring semester
ended. Still, he said dryly, “Tell your readers: You don’t want to have your esophagus
removed.”
He left the newsroom a long time ago,
but Roberts continues to champion longer
stories that feature strong reporting. At
Maryland, he teaches a class on writing the
complex story.
The prize he has sponsored since the
early 1990s through UNC’s School of
Journalism and Mass Communication is
pure Gene Roberts. Along with $5,500,
The Eugene L. Roberts Prize, says the
school’s Web site, “goes to an undergraduate interested in a career in print journalism who proposes the best idea for a Gene
Roberts-type story: one that is dedicated
to the untold event that oozes instead of
breaks; to the story that reveals, not repeats
...” One recipient, Roberts said, used the
money to visit every major league baseball
stadium and wrote about what he found.
With The Race Beat completed and his
place in journalism’s pantheon secure,
Roberts said he’s assessing whether it’s
time to pull back completely, although he
was scheduled to teach this fall. He and his
wife still love to travel and there remain
new places to see. But not many. After he
left the Inquirer, the two traveled around
the world for a year: “We deliberately
sought out the end-of-the-world places.”
In the essay he wrote about those
formative years, he recalled something he
learned from the hard-driving Henry
Belk.
“In an effort to force me to be graphic
and vivid, he made me end every column
with a paragraph labeled, ‘Today’s Prettiest
Sight.’ Let me tell you, it’s tough to go into
a poolroom in your hometown for an
end-of-the-workday beer, known as the
guy who writes ‘Today’s Prettiest Sight.’
“But I persevered. It took me years to
appreciate it, but there is no better admonition to the writer than ‘make me see.’
There is no truer blueprint for successful
writing than making your reader see. It is
the essence of great writing and great
reporting.”
As he considers
winding down his
teaching career,
Roberts believes
newspapers are not
reacting effectively
to shrinking circulation and advertising
revenue. “The great
bulk of newspapers
are on a suicidal
course and have
been for a long
time,” he says.
“They’ve been cutting space for news
and the number of
people who gather
the news. For quite
some time, they have
given readers less
and been charging
them more.”
TIM WARREN is a copy editor for the
national desk of The Washington Post and
a freelance writer in Silver Spring, Md. He
has written for a number of publications,
including Smithsonian and Washingtonian
magazines.
