In recent times, I have been lamenting the sad state of my old career as a newspaper reporter and editor. So many great papers have folded, most recently the wonderful Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and not too long before that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer stopped printing a paper edition and went digital only. It’s all due, in my humble opinion, to social media taking over the universe helped along by the pandemic that drove away advertisers from print media.

I treasure the 20 years I spent as a reporter and editor at the Los Angeles Times, and I have enjoyed writing this column for our Rock dweller newspapers for more than 13 years. But, I also had convinced myself that nobody under 40 even looks at a printed newspaper any more but instead those folks spend hours glued to their phones puzzling over often fake information.

Recently, however, I was forced to change that belief when I was confronted by 22 very bright, gifted and curious students in Sarah Boin’s combined fourth and fifth grade class at Coupeville Elementary School.

Sarah’s students had been studying about newspapers —what they were and what they are—and they are planning to start their own newspaper in their class sometime soon. That’s why they invited me, an ancient journalist, to come talk with them about my ancient profession. I was astounded by the several dozen questions they peppered me with in just over an hour.

What’s a byline? Who decides what’s news? What famous people had I interviewed? What was a favorite story I wrote? On and on it went. Talk about some good reporters!

And they helped me recall some of the things I wrote about and the adventures I had while reporting.

I told them I had interviewed and wrote a story about John DeLorean, a rebel American auto maker who designed his own futuristic car with a door that swings up instead of out. He took me for a drive and let’s just say he wasn’t the safest driver. Lots of speeding and zipping in and out of lanes.

My story got a lot of attention in car-crazy Los Angeles, and DeLorean told me he sold a dozen of his cars after my story ran. The power of the media.

Then I told the students that I had talked with former President Jimmy Carter. I discovered that California actually had a few peanut farmers across the state. And, since Jimmy Carter was the nation’s most famous peanut farmer, I thought a quote from him would make the story more interesting. Carter was friendly and quite humble, and I was grateful that he took the time to talk with me.

When the students asked me about “adventures” I had while being a reporter, I recalled my half dozen three-stop trips I made while I wrote about the automobile industry in the 1970s. At that time, the American companies were struggling to compete with increasingly popular imports from Japan and Europe, especially Toyota and Volkswagen.

The American companies had tried to ignore the imports, believing that Americans only liked “big” cars, like those that came off their assembly lines. And when they finally tried building “small” cars to compete with imports they didn’t do very well at first. Remember the Ford Pinto and the Chevrolet Chevette?

My “adventures” would be to fly first to Detroit and interview car company executives. Then I would hop on a plane to Washington, D.C., where I interviewed the federal regulators. This was about the time the government imposed gas mileage requirements for the auto makers.

Finally, I would jump on a train and go to New York City to interview the Wall Street analyst who closely followed the car companies and offered advice to investors. All in all, my three-stop adventures were memorable and fun — and the paper paid all my expenses.

As I left the classroom that day, I thanked those students for all their questions and strong interest. I really hope at least a few will become journalists. We need them more than ever.

Harry Anderson in a retired journalist who worked for the Los Angeles Times and now lives on Central Whidbey.