"I'm one of those people who really feels what we do comes very close to being a sacred calling. I love what I do. I love getting up. I can't wait to get to the office every day.''
      Those are the words of Gerry Goldstein, a veteran reporter, editor, columnist and manager of the South County bureau for the Providence Journal-Bulletin.
      Periodically Goldstein is invited to speak at a seminar on writing with his colleagues. His comments range from the value of local reporting to the joy of writing a clear sentence.

      ONE OF THE best insights into why reporting from the suburbs is a worthy calling came not from a reporter, Goldstein says, but a doctor.
      It developed during one of his first interviews in the 1960s, a doctor who had been a pioneer in heart transplants and later took up a family practice in Narragansett. Goldstein asked the doctor why, with a background like his, he relocated to a small town:
      "This look of utter amazement came over his face, and he looked at me like I was the most pitiable creature, and he said: 'What in the world is the difference whether I save a life by transplanting a human heart at Johns Hopkins University or save one by curing a pneumonia in Narragansett?''
      Goldstein says that's as applicable to local journalists as it is to physicians.
      The advantage of small town reporting, Goldstein says, is that it's possible to get close to the people and communities you cover and thus get to the essence of stories.
      Goldstein recalls covering an emotional rape trial that became even more controversial when the defense asked a judge to open records of a Rape Crisis Center, trigging an outcry from feminists and other advocates.
      During a break, Goldstein asked to see Superior Court Judge Thomas Needham about a point of law. He found the imposing, bushy-browed judge at his chambers desk, head buried in his hands, a letter on the desk.
      "He said: 'I don't know if you know that, several years, ago my son committed suicide.' I said: 'Judge, I'm sorry.' He said: `That's not the point, a letter has come in: You son of a bitch, you are so mean that your son had to kill himself, and why don't you do us all a favor and kill yourself the way he did.
      "Needham was trembling, saying his wife never got over it (the suicide). 'How am I going to go back out in that courtroom and do justice to the law?'
      Minutes later, Needham, in black robe and utterly composed, walked back into the courtroom, the trial resumed, and Goldstein had a look into the true drama of great stories:
      "You have got to try to see those things and bring a little extra insight when you write, and that's what separates the good story from the great story, and maybe the good reporter from the great reporter.
      "And, I must say, I urge you all, if you are going to be in this business, don't be anything else but great. Because in some ways, it can be such a rotten, demanding business that, if you are not great, you are going to live a life of frustration.''

      GOLDSTEIN SAYS that he thinks a lot about what news is and has fashioned his own definition. This is it (and don't blink):
      Truth that matters.
      "It's a scary definition,'' Goldstein says, ``even though it's only three words, because it gives us two chances to fail.''
      The first possibility of failure, Goldstein says, is that a reporter will just not see the truth of a story -- that he or she will get some of the basic facts of a story, but not the underlying meaning.
      The second is that the story is found, but "nobody cares about it.'' The failure is one of bad news judgment: "We make the wrong call, and it's not important, and we picked the wrong story to write.''
      Goldstein also wrestles with the writing-versus-reporting debate that's being going on in journalism as long as reporters having been writing and writers have been reporting.
      Cutting through the rhetoric, Goldstein makes this clear choice:
      "There's no substitute: If I had my choice, give me the good reporter every time over the good writer, because I'll take the writing and fix it. But boy, you can't, there is no substitute for that instinct to bore in there and get the information you need.''
      Later in the seminars, with no reference to his first conclusion, and no apologies, Goldstein has this to say about the value of writing:
      " . . . the story has to be written professionally. The story, the way you write it -- you may have the information -- (but) you've got to pay attention to how you write it.
      "I mean: absolute focus, and absolute clarity are so essential, because you can have the greatest information in the world, and if you muddle it, it just isn't going to sound great.''
      So, that settles it.

      "IT'S NOT ACCIDENTAL,'' Goldstein says of newsgathering. "It's only accidental if we are unconscious as we go about our jobs.
      "But if we are on that ball and we are getting our week's pay for being alert, we are going to find these things, we have to.''
      Example.
      It was a dark and stormy morning as our reporter was driving by the Narragansett town beach and the helicopter that had parked there. He drove on. And finally slammed on the brakes and turned back. A helicopter?
      It was still there and the elderly man inside motioned him out of the rain. The man said he was a retired businessman, Tom Watson, and that he was learning to fly. His pilot suggested they put down because of the rain, and had gone to phone in their location.
      Goldstein noticed a twinkle in the man's eye, and wondered whether there was more to all of this. Goldstein was reluctant to ask the "stupid question,'' pressed on.
      I said: Look Mr. Watson, what business were you in?
      A corporation.
      What corporation?
      IBM.
      What did you do?
      I was president and founder.
      Goldstein had landed Thomas Watson Jr., genius behind IBM, soon to be ambassador to Russia. What scares him to this day was the thought that if he had not pushed the identification, he might have written just a cute story about a business guy in a helicopter and been embarassed later when somebody said: "But that was...''.
      What's worse, Watson told Goldstein later, was that he had not been about to lead him to safety:
      "I went to Brown (University),'' Watson said. "I was waiting for you to ask. I read the Journal a lot, I have great respect (for it). It didn't bother me for you not to know who I was, but I was waiting to see what kind of reporter you were going to be and whether you were going to ask.'
      Goldstein's advice: Don't drive by helicopters in rain storms. And of course: "Ask stupid questions.''

      "I READ EVERY single church bulletin,'' Goldstein says for starters.
      But his self-imposed "reading program'' hardly stops at church. He reads all the local papers in his area, including the shoppers, and reads them closely: every classified ad, every display ad, every legal ad.
      Example of how this can work:
      An Op-ed piece in another local newspaper, the North Kingstown Standard-Times, was signed by the chairman of the GOP town committee, who observed that immigration from Third World countries could lead to "genetic and cultural suicide for much of white America.''
      Goldstein got on the phone with the author, and observed during the chat that the remarks sounded somewhat racist. The guy replied along the lines that if the shoe fits, he'll wear it; and that a country's values are superior when it's majority is white.
      Two days later, Elmer Chipparoni resigned as GOP chairman in North Kingstown after a firestorm of criticism, including denunciation by his fellow Republicans.
      There was this added element of satisfaction: the guy's comments had gone virtually unnoticed until Goldstein picked up the story -- from the Standard Times.
      The Standard Times had run the piece on the editorial pages, but had not recognized the potential for a hard news story.
      Goldstein's "reading program'' includes mailings of every organization in the area, minutes of the local anti-poverty agency, women's groups, virtually every piece of written material he can get his hands on.
      He advises regular, systematic checks with the stalwarts of local government, clerks and secretaries of planning boards, zoning boards, probate clerks, as well as police, and further, of knowing who people in the community are, clergy and the like.

      SOMETIMES IT'S necessary to speak to strangers about unspeakable sorrows, and therefore necessary for editors to send reporters to the homes of victims' families.
      Goldstein not only has no qualms about doing this, but. . . .
      "One of the great satisfactions I get as an editor, is when I take a new reporter who has never done it before and force that person to go and knock on that door. It is the greatest feeling for me, because I know that is the beginning of that person's professional development, and that person is going to learn a tremendous secret: that people will talk to you.
      "It is a catharsis, if you couch it right. It's the victim's last chance to be told of and to be told of accurately. Seventy percent of time they will talk to you, and then you are going to be getting into a person's psyche and into a person's heart.''
      "I can do it at the drop of a hat. It doesn't bother me a bit. I've done it so many times. And I know that what I'm doing is right.''
      But if small town reporting puts a reporter close to the news, is there a danger that things can get too close?
      "I believe in neutrality,'' Golstein says. "I try to befriend but in a professional way.''
      If a friend of 20 years runs for town council, he's not going to request a transfer. But he tries to stay clear of social or other functions that seem to compromise his impartiality.
      He once even suggested to his wife that she not seek a job that had anything to do with a municipality he was covering.
      "Her view is: 'I have a life to lead.' And I agree with that and this is not a resolved question.
      "But it just makes me feel better to know that's the way it's going to be:'' his determination to operate at arms' length.

      GOLDSTEIN WAS ASKED: How do you make a sentence?
      "There is nothing accidental about a sentence,'' he replied. We have the verb, and everything else is plaster. The sentence has to have a cadence.
      He says at times he will work on the cadence to make sure a sentence has the right rhythm.
      "I think there is a lot of poetry in prose. It shouldn't be recognized, but it should be there.''
      Goldstein says he also goes through a checklist when he reviews a sentence. He especially looks to make sure it does not have passive voice. He looks to shorten it. He looks to make sure that the right word is there.
      "I'd hate to think that when I bring a car in for repairs, that the guy almost gets the right part.''
      Goldstein also said he reads the Bible and in particular the King James version, for inspiration in constructing sentences.
      Further, he strongly believes in the economic use of words. "I'm a firm believer that what I put down the first time is worth nothing. They have to pry my hands away from the story. There is only one correct word, and I have to find it.''
      Conan Doyle was successful because he wrote a story called The Hound of the Baskervilles, as opposed to The Dog of the Baskervilles. "Think of the different conotations,'' says Goldstein.
      When do you know to let go of the story?
      He says if you are talking about organization, it's when he knows exactly where the story is going to take him. But if you are talking about polish, it's when someone forces him to push the send button. "I read the story 20, 30, 40 times and I change something every time,'' he says.
       Goldstein said he almost felt ashamed to talk about writing because it is as much fun as talking about sex.
      "The interviewing and the reporting is exhausting,'' he said. "The writing is the joy.''