I got to relive a little bit of my journalism past recently when four of my fellow reporters and editors from the former City News Bureau of Chicago, circa 1970-72, attended The Business Ledger’s Newsmakers’ Forum held earlier this month at Arrowhead Golf Club in Wheaton.

We came together because I had invited Paul O’Connor, executive director, World Business Chicago, to serve on our panel of business and economic experts. I served as the moderator.

Paul’s job (he since has left the agency) was to serve as the primary economic development agency for the city of Chicago. Of course, Chicago is not a world to itself, so any development has a spillover effect to the suburbs as well.

I had not seen Paul for probably more than 30 years. I left the famous news wire service to join the Chicago Tribune, eventually moved on to manage a national newspaper trade association and finally to The Business Ledger which we founded 15 years ago.

Paul, son of the former Chicago newscaster Len O’Connor (his famous signoff was “and I am...Len O’Connor”) moved on to the Chicago Daily News where he worked as the “legman” for Mike Royko. He eventually ended up working in Washington State as a journalist and then press secretary for the governor before coming home.

I also invited Naperville resident Bill Crawford, who worked with me at the Tribune before moving into public relations in the commodities industry. Bob Saigh, who worked in newspapers and for the city and is now with the Ray Graham Association, was also able to attend.

Joining us was our mentor, Paul Zimbrakos, city editor at the City News Bureau for more than 30 years. Paul had the bittersweet honor of turning the lights off at CNB when it finally closed after more than 110 years of service.

Paul is one of those legendary editors who trained more journalists than anyone in Chicago. You never saw his byline but, in effect, you see it every day in Chicago’s newspapers and broadcast stations through the many reporters who trained under him.

City News Bureau was my first professional job in journalism. I started in September 1970 for $110 a week. I was a paid a “bonus” for being a military veteran.

I’m sure we all have stories about how we got to where we ended up. I often credit, or blame, depending on your point of view, two producers from a TV station in Dayton, Ohio. I have long forgotten the call letters.

I was a sophomore in college majoring in “communications,” which I felt might lead to a job in broadcasting. I decided to audition for a summer internship at this TV station which was conducting interviews on our campus. At the time I had had zero experience in any aspect of journalism.

So I really didn’t know what to expect in the interview. After a few minutes of chit chat, I was given my assignment. The two producers, as I recall, men approximately in their late 40s, gave me the some bare facts about a breaking news story. I think it was a multi-vehicle traffic accident. I had two minutes to interview them for additional information. Then I had five minutes to write my “one-minute standup.”

I got through the interview okay. I remembered the basics from my one journalism class—ask “who, what, why, where, when and how.”

The writing went okay. Then I had to stand in front of these guys and do what now looks so easy and commonplace for professional TV journalists.

Perhaps the first 30 or 40 words came out okay because I could remember them from my script. Then I started to quickly descend into babble. My tongue began to feel as if it were about two-feet wide. I’m sure I began to sweat bullets. As I heard about the 14th “uhh” come out of my mouth, I gave up.

“I can’t do this,” I said. Of course, I realized at that moment that I wouldn’t be spending the summer in Dayton.

I’m not sure what other applicants did that day. The producers looked surprised by my failure, giving me the impression that they hadn’t seen such a horrible performance before. To their credit, they tried to make me feel a bit better by commenting that they thought my “writing was pretty good.”

That was the moment I decided to stick to print journalism, probably costing me hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation during my career. Of such moments are major life decisions made.

Contact publisher Jim Elsener at jelsener@thebusinessledger.com or at 630-428-8788.