Kick-Ass and Take Names
I was a rookie editorial assistant at a real-life disaster scene. In the chaos, I forgot the single most important rule of reporting.
It was August 19, hot, and I was enjoying a day off. I worked as an editorial assistant at New York Newsday and had my windows open on my seventh-story walk-up to catch any relief of a breeze.
It happened all at once: a low, grumbling roar from below that shook the entire building, followed by an enormous BOOM!
My immediate thought: a plane had crashed. I didn’t have a view of the street. My windows faced an adjacent building, but already, I could see wisps of smoke rising. In 1989, terrorism wasn't the first thing we assumed.
I snatched the phone and dialed into the newsroom.
“Some kind of explosion at Gramercy Park,” the editor barked, his voice clipped and urgent. A few blocks from me.
“I can go,” I blurted, adrenaline surging.
“Great!” he shot back, and the line went dead.
I reached for my bicycle. Why? I still don’t know. It just felt instinctive, like the fastest way to weave through whatever chaos awaited. As soon as I was on the street, sirens screamed, and a column of thick black smoke billowed in front of me. As I pedaled toward it, people rushed in the other direction. Some were crying. Some were dazed. All of them were running.
When I arrived, the scene was something from another world. The ground itself was buckling. Smoke sizzled from manhole covers and cracked asphalt. Police and firefighters were shouting to be heard. The air was thick, hot, acrid, panicked.
I stopped near a pair of older folks who seemed dazed and asked them what had happened. I grilled them about what they’d seen, if they’d ever seen anything like it, what they were most concerned about. As they talked, I straddled my bike and scribbled their words into my notebook. When they broke into their own sprint, I wobbled to a payphone, dropped a quarter into the slot, and dialed into the newsroom.
Breathlessly, I relayed what I’d witnessed: the buckling streets, the smoke, the couple’s story. I read their quotes straight from my notebook. For a moment, I felt like a real reporter.
“That’s great,” the editor said when I finished. “Now, can you spell their names?”
“Their what?” I almost shouted, barking over the sirens.
“Their names. Did you get their names?”
I stopped. Journalism 101. The most basic, fundamental piece of reporting. And I had skipped right past it. I could describe their age, the clothes, even the meal they’d just finished, but their names? Not a clue.
“Crap,” I grunted.
“It’s okay,” the editor said, his voice softening. Then he gave me the line I will never forget: “Next time, kick ass and take names.”
I made damn sure I did. And when the story ran, my small piece earned a byline: “Yonatan Greenbaum contributed to this report.” For an editorial assistant, that was rare. To me, it was a badge of honor.
The Aftermath
I had stumbled onto a catastrophic steam pipe explosion. The blast killed three people—two Con Ed workers and a resident—and injured two dozen more. It had also unleashed a massive asbestos-laden cloud of steam that coated the neighborhood and displaced hundreds of residents for months while the area was cleaned up.
The Lesson
I have never forgotten that day. Not for the trauma of the event, but for the embarrassment of a rookie mistake. In the middle of chaos, I had missed the most human detail of all: a person’s name.
The lesson has stayed with me ever since. I have repeated it to many young reporters over the years. The big picture is built on small details. In the middle of confusion, your process is what steadies you. And, above all, no detail is too small to capture.
You have to kick ass. But first, you have to take names.
That editor's advice has stuck with me for decades. What's the most memorable piece of on-the-job advice you've ever received, and did you have to learn it the hard way? Share your story in the comments! 🎤
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