I worked as a reporter in regional daily newspapers, regional news radio, and Internet journalism
for many years. One thing I found myself having to resist on a constant basis was pressure to write
prediction stories. I could never pound into the heads of anyone I worked with that if there was one
irrevocable rule politics shared with baseball*, it was Berra's Law: it ain't over until it's over.
Somehow I prevailed, but such disagreements usually got entered into my files in red ink. In my
radio days, I was hit with the same thing on election day one year, when I was asked to co-anchor
the day and night coverage. During the day, I refused yet again to fall into the prediction trap.
The station owner happened to be co-anchoring with me. During a break, he accused me of
abject cowardice. My only reply was, "Dewey Defeats Truman." It went so far over his head you
could have flown a 747 between it and his scalp.
(* I wrote a baseball column for one newspaper for whom I worked until the editor in chief objected
to my calling someone who used choplogic---wait for it!---a choplogician; he bawled me out for trying
to invent a word and killed the column when I reminded him someone had to have invented all the
words we use in the first place. Not long afterward, I was fired over a complaint that I hadn't
written a story from a feminist point of view, when one woman I interviewed for the story complained
violently about it and I refused to back down. I was never so proud to have been fired in my life.)
