In loving memory of the greatest new reporter I’ve ever known
By Monica Prelle
Note: George Shirk died in December 2016.He was the first and best editor I ever had the opportunity to work with. Hurling myself back into community reporting lately has made me think of him often. Local journalism is more important than ever before, and his passion for news reporting keeps me going, daily. I wrote this seven years ago and am republishing now in his honor. Thank you, George Shirk.
When George Shirk’s friends and colleagues often ask him what he is going to do when he retires the 61-year-old journalist describes living in a small remote town with beautiful scenery, somewhere he can walk his dog and ride his motorcycle; and he imagines himself working as the news editor for a small newspaper.
“So I guess I’m retired,” Shirk said.
It is Wednesday night at the Mammoth Times newsroom in Mammoth Lakes, Calif. and Shirk is leading the team in proofreading. The weekly newspaper has a circulation of 4,200 is distributed Thursday mornings and the team is in the final stages of putting the “paper to bed.” They banter over typos, word usage, and spellings while munching on organic sugar snap peas and popcorn.
“Monoski is one word,” Shirk says. “Who knew?”
The shearling-lined ear flaps of his Russian-style suede leather hat are tied up and his dark graying hair peaks out from underneath. Thin wire framed glasses are perched upon his nose as he hovers over the proofreading table — pink ruler and red pen in hand. There is no dress code at the Mammoth Times, and the staff is mostly garbed in mountain business casual. Dressed in blue jeans, and black Sketchers sneakers, Shirk wears a grey crew neck sweater under a black blazer.
Shirk’s career has taken him to a number of newsrooms around the country. He’s worked as a sports reporter for national newspapers including the Philadelphia Inquirer, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Jose Mercury News. He started his career as a political reporter for the Des Moines Register.
To have someone like George leading the team at the Mammoth Times is invaluable, says Editor in Chief Aleksandra Gajewksi. Shirk almost has more experience than the rest of the team combined.
“He’s definitely a — character,” says reporter Lyra Pierotti.
Working with Shirk is like a free journalism education, she says. With two journalism degrees and having learned under his mentorship as a reporter at Mammoth Local.com and a contributor at Mammoth Monthly, I’d say working with George is the best education.
A former professor in online journalism at the University of California Berkley and City College San Francisco, Shirk says that today the “world wide web is dead.” Journalism is all about social media, he says.
Over the years Shirk has reported hard news, politics, and baseball, but he says that he loved covering NBA basketball the most.
“One day I woke up in Boston, covered a game in Atlanta, and went to sleep in Detroit,” Shirk said. “It was a long day, but how cool is that?”
Baseball has too many games, according to Shirk. They play all the time, so a baseball reporter only has time to report the games. Basketball, however, only plays three days a week, so an NBA reporter covers the games and then has the opportunity to “really write about basketball” the remaining four days.
But there is no NBA team in in Mammoth Lakes.
Shirk and his third wife, Jean moved to Mammoth in 2002 to start their own magazine; George was the editor and Jean the publisher. Mammoth Monthly had a five-year run, but folded with the real estate market in 2007, so the Shirks moved back to Oakland, Calif. where they still own a home. Jean found a job as the Public Relations Manager for the San Francisco Symphony while George took a job as the editor of Oakland Magazine.
In the city, Shirk missed the mountains and the small town stories. He actually liked reporting Mammoth town council and planning commission meetings.
No one loves small town politics more than George. He has the drive to find a story, no matter how big or small.
And even though there isn’t hard news or national sports leagues, what Mammoth does have is a lot of professional and Olympic athletes. From skiers and snowboarders like John Teller and Kelly Clark to marathon runners like Deena Kastor and Meb Keflezighi; Mammoth is the high altitude training ground for many world-class athletes, just not Alan Iverson or Kobe Bryant.
When the Shirks separated a few years after moving back to the Bay Area, George returned to Mammoth in 2009, and he finds the news to be as vibrant as anywhere he has ever worked before.
With four government agencies — the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the United States Forest Service and the Town of Mammoth Lakes — the interplay between government agencies overseeing public land is interesting, Shirk says. Throw in an occasional battle with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and you have one of the more exciting newsrooms in the state.
But the most rewarding part of a lifetime of journalism is not small town drama, but learning something new everyday (like the fact that monoski is one word.)
“I know so much useless bullshit,” Shirk says.
But Shirk isn’t just a hard nose reporter; he is a playwright and fiction hobbyist; his favorite project is “Fido and Me,” the column that he co-writes for the paper with his dog,
Shirk rescued Fido, a six-year-old chow mix, from the local shelter a few years ago. The column, which is entirely dialogue between man and dog, has won numerous awards, but Fido hasn’t let it go to his head.
For his part, Fido filed early this week and is now lounging around the newsroom while the rest of the news team works on deadline.
There’s another round of proofreading to go, but Shirk has to take a quick break.
“Fido doesn’t care that it is five o’clock on a Wednesday,” Shirk says. “He wants his supper.”