Bob Zaltsberg works his dream job, editor-in-chief of The Herald-Times, a Bloomington, Ind., newspaper.

He spoke on July 21 to students at the High School Journalism Institute at Indiana University’s Ashton Center about his experiences getting into the newspaper business and working at The Herald-Times. Newspaper was not always Zaltsberg’s first choice of media, however.

“I wanted to get into radio, and when I went to college, I worked at a radio station until I decided I wasn’t very good at it,” he said.

Zaltsberg decided to go into newspaper journalism, and he hasn’t looked back.

Born in Indianapolis and raised in Winchester, Zaltsberg participated in his high school newspaper. He also worked for his campus newspaper his last three years at Miami of Ohio.

Zaltsberg’s first job out of college was with the Plainfield Messenger, just outside of Indianapolis. He worked 70 hours a week for a year to get his foot in the door. With The Herald-Times, Zaltsberg first covered sports. He worked his way up the company ladder and has been editor for 18 years.

Zaltsberg’s job as editor includes writing one or two editorials per week, handling issues with personnel, managing a $2.4 million budget and attending “lots of meetings.”

Two qualities of a journalist that Zaltsberg thinks are important are accuracy and trustworthiness. He takes a definite stance on the recent scandal involving Jayson Blair of The New York Times.

“If an individual is going to be dishonest in a job, they really shouldn’t be in the job,” Zaltsberg said.

The story Zaltsberg considers his best is a piece called “The World According to Mable.” He compiled information for the work through telephone calls to Mable Gunther during the last 11 years of her life. When she died at age 92, Zaltsberg wrote about the uncommon wisdom of this common lady.

“If you don’t think you can learn something from a person who is 81 years old,” Zaltsberg said, “I’ve got my experience with Mable to prove you wrong.”

He went on to share Gunther’s first pearl of wisdom for him.

“She said,” recalled Zaltsberg, “‘Truth is a prism that shattered at the top of the world, and all you ever get to find are the shards.’”

Zaltsberg has noticed several changes over time in the technology of journalism. When he first started, people in the newsroom used typewriters instead of computers, and the telephone was the only option for contacting people without seeing them face-to-face.

“When I was first editor of the paper, when people tried to call me, they either got me or they didn’t," he said. "They either left a message with somebody or they didn’t, and I’d just go about my day and do what I wanted to do. It was my agenda.

“Now, it’s not my agenda every day because I get these 200 e-mails, or I’ll come back from lunch and have five voicemails, and everybody leaves me a message and says, ‘This is what I want you to do.’”

Zaltsberg has also noticed an increase of other forms of media as competition to the newspaper, namely television and the Internet. He hopes The Herald-Times can maintain its position as a primary information source.

“We have to be more and more local than we have been before,” he said.

Bob Zaltsberg would know.