Oral History Interview with Laura Miller, October 30, 2014 Page: 24 of 25
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doing this?', 'Is this important?', 'Does this...' And it's very hard to instill that in a young
person.
Chase: But you think as soon as you've started asking those questions, you've
lost...you've taken off the blinders?
Laura: Yeah, its a very...it's, it's, it's...
Chase: A catch-22.
Laura: A catch-22, but you know, hindsight is 20/20. But I think journalists need to
understand what it means that they have that freedom.
Chase: Yeah
Laura: It's an enormous tool. There are people who come up to me today, and say 'I
remember this specific story,' or 'You don't remember me, but you wrote about me thirty
years ago." And I'll always go like this: "Was it bad?'
Chase: "Oh, no!"
Laura: And they say, 'No, if it was bad, I wouldn't even talk to you.' And I say, 'You
were one of the five people I wrote something nice about?!' (laughs) 'Yeah, I was one of
the five!' So, anyway...that's it. That's the whole story, guys!
Chase: This is great. These are so many good anecdotes. Um, I don't know if I had any
more questions. Um, I guess part of why we are doing this...I want to ask you about new
journalism, digital journalism. Your opinion on that. We have talked a bit about it. You
mentioned how you aren't happy, especially in broadcast, how things are going.
Laura: Yeah, but what I do think are wonderful are the tools available. When I was at
my first job at the L.A. times, I was behind a typewriter with some carbon paper, and
that's how we turned in our stories. So weird, and we didn't have any mobile phones. So
I'd be covering a fire -- my first assignment at the L.A. Times was to cover a fire, in the
mountains north of L.A., and, like, I couldn't get my information down the mountain to
anyone because there was no way to communicate until I came off the mountain and gave
them my story. So, the tools are wonderful. It's shocking to me that a journalist today can
sit at her desk and Google someone and find out about their whole life. I mean, you found
out about my background all on the Internet, and it's crazy you can do that. It's
incredible.
Chase: Like, I got your life story in my PJs with a cup of coffee.
Laura: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's so weird. Uh, so that's a gift. It's a great thing for
journalists. So. Back then it was more of a challenge, a pursuit. Because I was able to go
out there with just shoe leather and get information.
Chase: Like, that was a skill that you could tap.
Laura: Right. Like, literally, I have been in the alley and taken people's garbage, okay.
Like, I have done that. 'Cuz you just...those were the tools that were there back
then.. .there weren't many.
Chase: You drove seven hours, and convinced a family over tea to give you the story no
one else could get.
Laura: Yeah, all that kind of stuff. There's some great joy in that. And being at the
courthouse -- to get property documents, you would have to sit down and go through
microfilm. Years and years of microfilm to find something, and now it's just on the
Internet, and it's bizarre. So I think journalism should be even better because you can get
things so much faster. You can get the story so much faster, and just go to that next step
much more quickly. Yet, the tendency seems to be for it to be more dumbed-down just
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Carter, Chase & Miller, Laura. Oral History Interview with Laura Miller, October 30, 2014, text, October 30, 2014; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth586995/m1/24/: accessed June 20, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Frank W. and Sue Mayborn School of Journalism.