No more gin mills and greasy spoons

By: Mark Fitzgerald During his losing run as the first vegan to contend for a major-party presidential nomination, Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich offered Washington Post staff writer Mark Leibovich a theory about why reporters were so curious about his no-meat, no-fish, no-dairy, no-animal-anything diet.

As a teenager, Kucinich worked as a copy boy at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, "where he witnessed the appalling health and eating habits of the press," Leibovich wrote last November. He quoted Kucinich as saying: "Journalists, probably as an occupational hazard, have the worst diets. So I think that their special interest in my diet comes from some desire [that] they have to eat better."

But if Kucinch were to pop in at his hometown newspaper these days, he'd find a cafeteria with a huge salad bar and fruit section that recently added an entire range of low-carbohydrate "Atkins Option" meals. He'd see flyers for Weight Watchers meetings and an employee-organized group that takes long walks at lunchtime.

At the Plain Dealer, the cliche about today's young reporters is true: After work, they're at the gym, not at the bar.

City Hall reporter Angela Townsend, now 34, tells a story about herself from a few years ago that neatly captures the generational change. One day, she was approached by the PD's indefatigable rock critic, Jane Scott, who was still a year or two away from her 2002 retirement at age 82. Scott had some passes to the opening of a hot new club, but she had a scheduling conflict. Would Townsend like to take them?

"I said, 'I can't, it's my gym night.' So she asked another reporter and he said he had to work out, too. And I thought, we're more than 40 years younger than her and here we are wimping out," Townsend recalls. Scott's reaction? "She just smiled and said, 'What's wrong with you young reporters?'"

The disappearance of the stereotype of a journalist as a hard-drinking chain smoker reinforces healthy habits these days, reporters at the PD say.

"I'll tell you one thing: I'm glad I'm not a journalist in the days when smoking was allowed in the newsroom. I couldn't handle that," says Susan Vinella, a general assignment enterprise reporter in the sports department. As for making a habit of heading to the bar right after work, she says: "I think a lot of people don't want to go out and get trashed in front of our co-workers. There may be a little political correctness that way."

Editorial writer Joe Frolik has seen the changes in his 20-plus years at the PD. "The idea then was that drinking is part of the job and I just don't think it is anymore," he says. Lunch for many newsroom employees used to be "a couple of beers, a hamburger and greasy french fries" and the PD cafeteria offered "pretty much a lot of grilled sandwiches, just that kind of heavy stuff."