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“Newshound.”
Don’t hear that word much anymore. Hails from a different era.
My desktop dictionary gives it little thought.
“Noun … informal … a newspaper reporter.”
Hardly sufficient. Let me add some depth … with two words.
Barry Schrader.
You don’t know him. Unless your home is in DeKalb County in Illinois or the Livermore area in California.
So let me tell you why he’s important … and part of my history.
In the ’60s I was learning the guts and glory of journalism at NIU in DeKalb and the campus newspaper.
We knew of Barry, an earlier graduate of the J program.
If news was happening, he was there. With camera. Always with camera.
When a siren wailed someone in the newsroom would lift a head and announce, “There goes Barry.”
We’d joke about it. Not appreciating that Barry represented what journalism needed … then and now.
Energy. Passion. Love of the chase. The need to know. The importance of telling stories. Being there when others cannot.
Add all that to the definition of newshound. A word that fits easily with “nose for news” — the ability to sniff out good stories.
That sniffing instinct is in Barry’s DNA. Picture that newshound, snout on the ground, tracking, discovering.
Barry’s nose for news always took him to people — good and bad. But mostly good. People with stories to tell … past and present. He loves history.
Most memorable was his interview with the Rev. Martin Luther King.
“He was the most charismatic and inspiring person I ever met during my career in journalism,” he told me.
My career also is rooted in DeKalb County, where our paths criss-crossed over the years.
Barry also made his mark in California, but retirement brought him back to DeKalb County, where he picked up as if he never left.
His stories turned into columns for the local paper. About local people and issues that mattered to those people.
This week a friend of Barry’s said, “Barry has been a ‘fighter of worthy causes’ all his life — in fact, I have always kiddingly called him a ‘rebel without a pause.’ I hope he’s up for one more fight.”
Perfect. With a hint of sadness … that reference to “one more fight.”
Barry is in a tug-of-war now with pancreatic cancer, dragging him toward a final deadline.
Talking with him this week he told his story as usual, a simple statement of facts.
I sensed no anger but a heavy cloak of frustration. He lacks energy. Stopped writing his column. The newshound cannot chase the siren.
His wife is ill in a nearby nursing facility, isolated. They connect via FaceTime.
Barry refused cancer treatment and now wonders how much time he has.
That’s hard. Reporters dance with time, an integral part of every story building to a deadline.
Barry honored lives through stories and columns
His accomplishments are impressive. But beyond his resume I see Barry as an icon — a symbol of what drives reporters and newsrooms.
We talked about the business he loves.
He grieves over the tattered newspaper industry. How talented, dedicated journalists are being dropped from papers, like sandbags off a sinking hot-air balloon.
We remember early days of yellow typing paper, stories spliced together with rubber cement, manual typewriters, chiming wire machines, and presses galloping to beat a clock. Being first with the story.
We remember with pride, then worry about what’s ahead.
I wonder who will be in the pack of newshounds that Barry has left?
When I hear a siren I will remember.
Only now I will lift my head and whisper, “Where’s Barry when we need him?”
LONNY CAIN, of Ottawa, is the retired managing editor of The Times. Please email thoughts, comments or ideas to [ mailto:lonnyjcain@gmail.com ]lonnyjcain@gmail.com or mail care of The Times, 110 W. Jefferson St., Ottawa, IL 61350.