A Quote by Ben Sasse

For a Nebraska kid in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Nebraska football was a quasi-religion, so I ran out to get The Omaha World-Herald every morning, salivating for the sports page. My dad, however, required that I read one front page story and one editorial before I was allowed to turn to the sports.
I'm in the storytelling business, and so you're always drawn to the unusual. And early on, I discovered that's the easiest way to tell stories... If you come up through a newspaper as I did, your whole goal is to get a story on the front page, and you only get something on the front page if it's unusual.
I split time between Nebraska and Florida. I'll come to Nebraska in the summertime and stay through Thanksgiving and then I go back to Florida because I have family in both places. One of the reasons I got the place in Nebraska is I've always wanted to live back in Nebraska.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
No one reads to hear someone complain about the weather or how poorly their children are behaving. You have to give the readers a reason to turn the page. As a writer you have to invite someone to turn the page. And that is a skill you have to refine. That is why you have to read. You have to read to learn what it is that makes people turn the page.
The sports page records people's accomplishments, the front page usually records nothing, but man's failures.
I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people's accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man's failures.
I'm interested in all kinds of sports. I'll glance at the front page and then go straight to sports and then I'll come back to the rest of the paper.
I get the 'The New York Times' and 'Los Angeles Times' thrown at my door every morning. I'll read the front page of 'The New York Times,' then the op-eds, then scan the arts section and then the sports section. Then I do the same with the 'L.A. Times.'
Until Sammy Baugh - pro football in Texas was a one-paragraph story on the third page of the Monday sports section.
The media uses polls to create news stories. I think polls are just an extension of the editorial page, an excuse to get them on the front page. You can ask any question you want, get any answer you want, and then run around with that as a news story.
Most people don't read editorial pages. I think I must have been 40 before I even looked at an editorial page.
In the morning, I reach for the sports page.
If you go to Australia, the Australian Open is on all day long on network TV. There's no way CBS, NBC and ABC would do that. They only show the finals. That's always been the case. They don't want to give the time to the biggest tournament we have in the United States. Any other country, it's everywhere -- front page of the main paper, front page of the sports section. We haven't had that here.
I'm trying to read/edit my story as if I have no existing knowledge of the story, no investment in it, no sense of what Herculean effort went into writing page 23, no pretensions as to why the dull patch on page 4 is important for the fireworks that will happen on page 714.
I remember growing up, getting the Colorado Springs Sun in the morning and the Denver Post in the afternoon, and my dad just inhaling both of them, and me waiting to get the sports page from him. I fell in love with the craft. I remember being 9 years old and playing baseball in the backyard and coming in and writing little newspaper articles for my dad.
The importance that our society attaches to sport is incredible. After all, is football a game or a religion? The people of this country have allowed sports to get completely out of hand.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!