The version of the song I learned was Johnny Verbeck, ot Johnny Rebeck. But I didn’t learn the last verse where the people ate the sausage anyway. That makes it so much funnier!

Just got a text from someone who was freaking out over the kidnapping and murders of Americas that just happened across from Brownsville in Matamoros.

“Don’t go to Mexico anymore! Get your dental work done over here!”

I saw the video she was talking about it and I hated it, just like all the violence I see on my screens these days. But I reminded her: We both used to work in the paper business.

We got to see the sausage being made.

If there was a murder in town, newspapers sold like hotcakes. If you reported on all the murders that didn’t happen, you’d run out of paper.

If you’re doing journalism for the right reasons, you cover what you need to cover, whether it sells or not, but we knew damn well which stories management liked.

To be fair, I got excited about stories like that too, at least at the beginning. But these days too many people are getting their news from sources that scare them all day long. If you’re scared all the time and you don’t get to enjoy life.

I like sausage. Sausage is tasty. But don’t kid yourself that it’s health food. Every place I worked tried to make good sausage. But it was still sausage.

#News, #Journalism, #Murder, #Brownsville, #Fear, #JohnnyVerbeck, #JohnnyRebeck, #Folk