I don’t know how the website Overheard in the Newsroom (click here) escaped my notice for so long, but my friend Hanna alerted me to it a couple of weeks ago. “Wall quotes for the web” is how she described it, and I knew exactly what she was talking about, because wall quotes are one of my favorite things in the world.
In my college newspaper office, an entire wall was devoted to wall quotes — the goofy things reporters, photographers and editors say, usually, but not always, around 3 a.m. There were common themes — deadlines, exhaustion, uncooperative sources, drinking and writing — but also room for the odd comment about fish, Ben and Jerry’s and history class. When I started working at the Oberlin Review, the wall was covered with typed-up quotes uttered by staffers who’d graduated before me and quotes by intimidating upper-classmen, and I wondered whether I’d ever say anything clever enough to get on the wall. Although clever might not be the right word. Stupid, inane, ridiculous — these might be better descriptors. Regardless, I was wall quoted numerous times over the course of my college career, and I also succeeded in memorizing the entire wall, as well as The Drawer of Dead Wall Quotes, where old wall quotes go to die.
I wasn’t the only person who loved the wall. We all did. During a banquet for newspaper staff my senior year, my friend Nachie and I were called up to separate podiums, “Jeopardy!”-style. Hanna then read the first half of a wall quote, and when Nachie or I identified the quote, we banged the podium and finished reciting it, while our friend Susanna kept score. The contest ended in a tie, and since Nachie is one of the fastest people in the world, I felt pretty pleased with myself.
I loved the wall so much that I took photographs of it before I graduated, and these pictures actually came in handy during the Great Wall Quote Controversy that occurred after I graduated. One student, feeling that the ghosts of Oberlin Review staffers past needed to be exorcised from the office, or some such nonsense, ripped the wall quotes off the wall and destroyed them. Friends who were still on campus contacted me, distraught. “THE WALL IS EMPTY !” one person e-mailed. “PEOPLE ARE CRYING IN THE OFFICE! CAN YOU AND NACHIE HELP US?” I was living in Birmingham, Ala., but I pulled out my photographs of the wall, and a magnifying glass. I began typing up the quotes in the photos. Some quotes I just remembered, and of course Nachie, who was living in New York City, remembered quotes, too. We created a Wall file, and e-mailed it to our friends, who painstakingly recreated the wall. What’s amazing is that these quotes are still on the wall 10 years later, which I like to think is just more evidence of our timeless brilliance. Or something.
In any case, I’m happy to discover that there’s an online hub for wall quotes. I might not know the people behind these quotes, but I feel like I do. What’s clear from looking at Overheard in the Newsroom, which posts quotes submitted by people who work in newsrooms, is that there’s a certain type of cynical newsroom humor that cuts across geographic boundaries and demographics. Much of the humor seems to derive from the precarious state of the industry, and the somewhat morbid and depressing nature of the work we do. Take this quote:
Photog to Reporter: “I need directions, can you help me find something on Google maps?”
Reporter: “Sure, where are you trying to go?”
Photog: “A bigger market.”
Or this:
On the day a 2.5 percent wage cut was announced for all supervisors and managers:
City Desk Assistant: “How’s it going?”
Assignment Editor: “About 2.5 percent worse than yesterday.”
Or this:
Publisher to Online Editor: “Hey! You still work here?”
Or this:
Assistant Managing Editor to job candidate: “If you can get a job in newspaper, do it while you can. You can always get your master’s after you get laid off.”
All of these quotes made me laugh, but I agree with my friend Geoff, who says that nothing will ever top our college wall quotes. Which include:
When the lead story is positive, that’s not good. — Greg, stating Review policy
Bring him down here. I like little boys. — Julianne learns about the 14-year-old trumpet player living in South Hall.
When dreams and reality collide, Thursday night:
Nachie: Next week, I’ll have my stuff in by Wednesday.
Geoff: That’s what I like to hear.
Sara: Even if it’s a blatant lie.
Everyone has a favorite wall quote, and this one might be mine:
He doesn’t wash his hair for four weeks, and he thinks he has the right to talk about love in a newspaper office. That pisses me off. — Greg, in a boldly cynical opposition to Jeremy “Mr. Romance” Broomfield
The above quote pairs nicely with the following statement (which was uttered at 3 in the morning and ended up on the wall not because it’s the most outlandish thing ever said, but because it was wildly out of character):
I think love is the most important thing in the world. — Sara
Who says you can’t talk about love in a newsroom? Although I wouldn’t recommend it — your words might end up pasted to a wall, and quoted by your peers for all eternity.
Got a comment? E-mail me at sfoss@dailygazette.net.
