By Roger Mezger
For 144 years now, working for The Lantern has taught student journalists valuable life lessons. As a Lantern reporter in 1970, two lessons really hit home for me.
- When you have smart editors who see and pursue big stories, try not to disappoint them.
- What you, the reporter, see as “a story” is sometimes a very painful, life-altering experience for the people in that story. Don’t check your humanity at the door.
On Sunday morning, May 3, 1970, I was in the Lantern newsroom finishing up a story. The previous night at Kent State University, student protests against the war in Vietnam had escalated and the ROTC building had been burned to the ground. Suddenly I was being asked to drive to Kent to check it out.
But other than Gov. James A. Rhodes’ inflammatory press conference and clusters of National Guard troops here and there, the Kent State campus looked pretty normal that Sunday afternoon — nothing at all like the violent, potentially lethal tinderbox that was Ohio State on April 29 and 30.
Sunday night was quite different, though, an eerie sight with skirmishes and tear-gassing on the edge of campus and helicopters lighting the scene. The campus was under curfew, so I spent a mostly sleepless night in The Daily Kent Stater newsroom, just me and the ever-ringing phones.
Around mid-morning May 4, all seemed calm again. One of the Stater editors advised that a protest rally planned for noon probably wouldn’t amount to much. Nothing to see here, so I headed back to Columbus. In the Lantern newsroom I found assistant managing editor Lou Heldman and some others huddled around the wire machines. “We have someone there!” I heard Heldman say. Then he saw me, and there was nowhere to hide.
Months later, on Saturday, Nov. 14, the phone in my apartment on East Norwich rang at around 11:30 p.m. The plane carrying the Marshall University football team had crashed in West Virginia. Lantern editor-in-chief Jay Smith was talking me into heading to Huntington.
It was a lot for a 20-year-old to cope with. A smoldering DC-9 upside down in the trees. The sickening smell of burnt flesh and jet fuel. The body bags lined up in an airport hangar,and everywhere, stunned, grieving people. How to approach them? This time I got a story. But it was far different from any reporting class.
Journalism textbooks helped teach us the basics. Our real-world experiences as Lantern staffers taught us so much more.
Editor’s Note: Roger Mezger graduated in 1972 and was The Lantern’s editor-in-chief Winter Quarter 1972. He worked 38 years as a reporter and editor at the Akron Beacon Journal and The Plain Dealer in Cleveland. He lives in Akron.
