I can't remember a time when I didn't want to be a reporter. I

“I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be a reporter. I don’t know where I got the idea that it was a romantic calling.” Thus spoke Charles Kuralt, a voice once carried across America’s highways and small towns, a seeker of stories hidden in the ordinary lives of men and women. In this confession we glimpse not only the vocation of one man, but the ancient yearning of the human spirit: to be a witness, to be a teller of truths, to hold up a mirror to the world. For the path of the reporter has always been both humble and heroic—humble because it begins with listening, heroic because it dares to speak what is seen.

The ancients too honored the chroniclers of their age. The romantic calling Kuralt speaks of is kin to the duty of Herodotus, who gathered tales of far-off lands, or Thucydides, who recorded the harsh lessons of war. These men were not kings nor conquerors, yet their words outlived empires. They remind us that the reporter is more than an observer—he is a keeper of memory, a defender of truth against the decay of silence. To walk this path is indeed romantic, for it is touched with the nobility of service, but it is also perilous, for truth often offends the powerful.

Kuralt’s words echo with a paradox. He admits he does not know where the idea came from, as if it descended upon him like fate. This is the way of true vocations: they are less chosen than discovered, less adopted than inherited from some hidden source. The calling to bear witness may begin in childhood curiosity, or in admiration of storytellers, or perhaps it comes from the whisper of destiny itself. To feel that one’s life has always bent toward a single purpose is to walk in step with something larger than the self.

Consider the story of Nellie Bly, who in the nineteenth century disguised herself, endured danger, and infiltrated an asylum to reveal the cruelties inflicted upon the vulnerable. Her work was not glamorous; it was fraught with hardship and risk. Yet she embodied the romantic calling Kuralt describes, for in her daring was both the poetry of courage and the power of truth. Like her, countless reporters through history have ventured into battlefields, storms, and prisons, so that the hidden might be revealed. Their task was never merely to report events, but to give voice to those unheard.

The romance of such a calling lies not in ease, but in sacrifice. The reporter often forsakes comfort, anonymity, and even safety to bring others into the light of awareness. What appears to be simply words upon a page or images upon a screen is in truth a kind of offering—time, energy, and life poured out for the sake of knowledge. In this way, Kuralt was right to sense something noble, something almost sacred in his desire to be a reporter. For what higher service can one render than to seek the truth and share it freely?

Yet, as with all callings, there is also danger: pride, distortion, the temptation to shape truth rather than report it. The true reporter must be both poet and guard, tender enough to listen, yet disciplined enough to stand firm against falsehood. Kuralt’s humility in confessing uncertainty about the origin of his dream reminds us that this calling is not for vanity, but for service. The greatest reporters are those who know the work is larger than themselves.

Thus the teaching is clear: honor the power of bearing witness. Do not dismiss as small the work of listening, recording, and speaking truth, whether in the grand halls of history or the quiet corners of your own life. The romantic calling to report is not reserved for journalists alone; it belongs to every soul who dares to see clearly and speak honestly.

Practical action follows: cultivate the habits of attention and honesty. Listen deeply to the world around you. Speak truth when silence would be easier. Write, record, or remember, for in doing so you preserve the stories that shape generations. And above all, let your life be lived as though you too were a reporter—bearing witness to both tragedy and beauty, and leaving behind a record that proclaims: I saw, I heard, I told the truth.