Awesome. I bet you've got stories that put mine to shame. My father worked for the WSJ until a series of unfortunate events that I don't fully comprehend. My grandfather was one of the last two or three ombudsmen of major news publications in the United States. A devout liberal, his biggest fans were the group of intelligent conservative readers who found him to be the only one intelligent enough to soak in and counter their viewpoints on what was unquestionably a left-leaning publication - at least its editorials were left-leaning. I wanted to be a journalist but following those footsteps was more than a little daunting. So I stand back and appreciate good writing and on some level envy it, as it could well be mine in an alternate reality.
I am as in awe of your father as you are of me, I suspect. I missed newspapers, when I went into broadcasting. An astrologer friend after going my chart said you were doomed to reporting at birth, something about Mercury and Uranus or something.
The days of your father and grandfather were the hey day of the interpretive journalist. They stood against tyrants, exposed corruption and they were
expected to get to the truth, not merely quote whoever. MY earliest memories in newspaper are of being told "ask more questions, talk to more people, use every wit to get to the truth. They were the vanguard of classic liberalism.
My first editors were Germans who had escaped Hitler where they refused to print his propaganda. And they took on English like everything else, a strict science from which there can be little deviation.
Then in radio I learned to write concise copy, get the same message across with less words. Television was a sell out for money. You don't write creatively in TV, you have to spoon feed the audience "...the man was shot here, as you can see from these bullet holes. He then fled over this fence and made his way to this car.....'
I wanted to train my dog and send him to work for me. Instead I resigned with the words "Television news is an oxymoron. Good bye and good luck!"
The secret to writing is to read. Read this and read that, I consumed Time and Newsweek, studying their style, and terse, concise delivery of information. Watergate was a very involved subject, too huge to deal in simple terms. The and Rolling Stone as well as National Lampoon who had extremely gifted writers...
The other thing is vocabulary. I began doing crosswords early in my career as reporters spend most of their time waiting, it was entertainment, but it schooled my in alternative nouns and verbs.
Lastly, write. Write, write and write some more and like all good artists come back and read it months later. I have never written anything that with which I was 100% satisfied. Not one piece. If not for deadlines I would probably spend my life editing myself