Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

I will never forget Bob Feit, the mad Hungarian who ran the newsroom I landed in right after college. When the news really excited him, he would pound his fist on the rim (a horseshoe-shaped copy desk), then jump on his desk and wave his arms with utter joy. “I love the news,” he would yell.

The slot man, a Brit who wolfed down onion sandwiches for lunch, would express mild amusement as he continued to move copy to Carmine, a.k.a. Ace, the gruff-on-the-outside, sweet-on-the-inside teletype operator. I also remember Feit (no one ever called him Bob) because he taught me to write concisely. He would sit to my right, cut my two-sentence news briefs in half, then tell me to fill them up with facts. When I finished, he would do it again. To this day, I write my posts with Feit in mind, knowing he’d easily find words to cut....