Thanks for agreeing to do this, Alan. There is a lot to discuss. Let’s start by getting into some of your pursuits since leaving The Providence Journal, where during a long career you rose to Executive Editor. You are an editor at SlashGear.com. Tell us about that.
I hadn’t thought about how much fun it would be to edit stories about cars, planes, ships, and other tech stuff before I got the job as a news editor with SlashGear. But last week I got to edit stories about a newly commissioned class of Chinese warships; how apps like Google Maps and Waze avoid traffic jams; and why current and former U.S. presidents aren’t allowed to drive — among many others. We check all of the facts in a story as well as correcting spelling and grammar, so our stories are pretty airtight by the time they’re posted. I get to suggest stories, too (the story about the Chinese warships was one of my ideas), and I’m about to start training new writers for the site. So SlashGear scratches a lot of itches for me.
Before that, you were a syndication editor at BestReviews.com. What is that site, and what was your role on it?
BestReviews does what it sounds like — it reviews lots of consumer products and helps readers choose the best ones for them, whether they’re looking for the top of the line or a budget pick. I assigned and edited stories for BestReviews, and gave writers feedback to try to help them improve.
A true passion of yours is as a reviewer of audiobooks. Along with other duties, you reviewed them for over 20 years while at The Journal – and now at the Warwick Beacon and The Valley Breeze Newspapers. Why audiobooks? You could, of course, just review the e- or print editions.
Partly, it’s that they help me make good use of my time — I can listen to a book while driving or taking a walk or dealing with the dishes, which I can’t do while reading. But it’s more than that. Audiobooks have an extra dimension that print books lack — the performance.
What makes for a great audiobook?
A top-notch book, plus a terrific multi-actor cast or an excellent narrator. A great narrator can bring a book to life in a way the little voice in your head just can’t. They use different accents, they shift their timbre depending on whether a man or a woman is speaking, they have a whole host of characters they animate in varying ways in the course of the book. They can elevate a so-so book to something that’s really enjoyable, and when they’re reading a good book it’s even better. And there are lots of wonderful audiobook narrators today.
Conversely, what makes for a poor one?
By the same token, a bad narrator can make a decent book unlistenable. I tried listening to one book, set in Fall River, that I thought would be interesting. But I had to abandon it after only an hour or so, which I almost never do — the narrator was so flat and paused in such weird places, I couldn’t keep going.
Some audiobooks today have “narrators” that are not people but AI-generated. Your thoughts on those?
I’ve only listened to one AI-narrated book, but I wasn’t a fan of it. It was a reasonably good facsimile of a human voice, but then it would mispronounce a word or pause in a strange place, which pulled me right out of the story.
Would you agree that audiobooks are almost like radio plays of long ago? One of the most famous of those, of course, was Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds.
It depends on the book. The ones with multi-actor casts, especially, are like radio plays. There are many, though — especially fact-based ones that aren’t celebrity memoirs, and are read by their authors — that are more like a good professor giving a classroom lecture.
How do you choose your titles?
I look first for Rhode Island authors and subjects. There are a surprising number of Rhode Islanders — both established writers like Ann Hood and newer talents like Vanessa Lillie and Riss M. Neilson — who are being published today. And even non-Rhode Islanders will sometimes pick Rhode Island subjects or settings to write about.
Beyond Rhode Island, I try to pick New England-based books. After that, I’m looking for whatever interests me. History, science fiction, mysteries, literary fiction, actors’ autobiographies — there’s a long list. I figure if I’m interested and enjoy a book, I can convey why potential listeners might like it, too.
Also, I try to pick a diverse set of authors and topics, so anyone in my audience can see themselves reflected in the audiobooks over time.
On your Facebook page you write that you are “proud lifelong #Cubs fan” – and in fact, your Facebook handle is https://www.facebook.com/ricubsfan. Why the Cubs? You’ve been in Red Sox country now for most of your adult life!
Ah, but the old religion dies hard, Wayne. I do like the Sox, Patriots, Bruins and Celtics, and those Brady-era Pats, especially, were my guys. But I have an emotional place for the Cubs, Bears, Blackhawks and Bulls that no other teams will ever be able to fill.
What attracted you to journalism in the first place?
I actually wanted to be president of the United States, but that’s not a job you can get right out of college. In looking at how I might prepare for a career in politics, I thought the law would be a good field — but you can’t just become a lawyer. So I went to journalism school, because I thought journalism school would help me learn to be observant and express myself concisely. And it turned out that I had some aptitude for it, so I put law school and politics on temporary hold. Which is where they still are today.
And what schooling and jobs did you have before coming to The Providence Journal?
I went to Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, which had and still has a program that places students in newsrooms around the country. I took an unpaid internship with the Herald-Dispatch in Huntington, West Virginia, which led to a paid internship there, which led to one at the Detroit Free Press. And there I was lucky enough to work with Marty Kohn and Carol Stocker, who both had come to the Freep from The Providence Journal, and who talked a lot about how great both The Journal and Rhode Island were. And, of course, they were right.
Let’s indulge in a bit of nostalgia about The Projo. You and I were there together for about four decades. Any favorite memories?
Oh, gosh, so many. The Journal’s former bureau in Greenville, where I worked with folks like Frank Prosnitz, Debbie Horne, Peter Gosselin and Gregg Krupa. Wandering around the old Providence police station as a young reporter, getting to know the cops and trying to dig out news. Covering both trials of Claus von Bulow, which involved competing with reporters from all over the world. My years in Features, working alongside unforgettable personalities like Andy Smith, Gail Ciampa and Michael Janusonis, just for starters — and where I got to interview William Shatner and Majel Barrett, and review restaurants along with my wife, Avis Gunther-Rosenberg. And working with my team as executive editor, especially Mike McDermott, Michael Delaney and Whitman Littlefield. I guess it’s really the people I remember most fondly.
What do you see as the biggest problem facing journalism today?
When I became The Journal’s executive editor in May of 2017, I wrote that the news media faced “the hostility of a president who has labeled the news media as the nation’s enemy, and the suspicion of those who think he might be right.” Today, journalists face the same conditions, only more so: a president who now seems implacably opposed to fact-based journalism, and is working hard to undermine it, as well as the open scorn of many of his followers. It’s not clear to me how journalists can break through that scorn so that the information on which people base their decisions is factual, rather than being driven by ideology.
Finally, what advice would you have for young and emerging reporters and writers?
Understand that this is a historically hard time to be starting out, and prepare yourself for a long and winding road in trying to make a living as a reporter. Be ready to work long hours for not much pay, if you’re lucky enough to get a job, and to take photos and shoot video as well as reporting and writing. Make sure you’re building your own brand as well as burnishing your employer’s, because you might find your job evaporating at any moment. And above all, try to conduct yourself ethically in everything you do. It takes a lifetime to build a reputation, and as we’ve seen so often over the last few years, just one false step or ill-considered social-media post to blow it all away.
