PD reporter Phil Barber: What part of ‘temporary’ didn’t he understand?

“Behind the Byline” introduces you to those who write stories, shoot photos, design pages and edit the content we deliver in our print editions and on pressdemocrat.com. We’re more than journalists. As you’ll see, we’re also your neighbors with unique backgrounds and experiences who proudly call Sonoma County home.

Today, we introduce you to Phil Barber, one of our senior reporters.

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My first job was delivering the Appeal-Democrat newspaper after school in seventh grade, in the deeply weird Sacramento Valley town of Marysville.

I learned all the important aspects of the news business in this role, from folding to porch-tossing to dressing dog bite wounds to collecting bills at customers’ doorsteps.

That last task included a lady with a heavy European accent who paid monthly in silver dollars, each time instructing me to “go to Reno,” and an older gentleman whose apartment the circulation manager cautioned me never to enter when invited in for Kool-Aid — advice that functioned as child protective services in the 1970s.

No, the job did not launch a lifelong career in journalism. You’ve obviously been reading too many Behind the Bylines.

The fact is that I took a quarter-century hiatus from the newspaper industry. I have always worked with the typed word, as either a writer or an editor. But I was no journalist.

I labored in the National Football League’s Creative Services division for seven years, then freelanced at home for eight. That first gig gave me an incredible range of experience at a young age, and didn’t entirely wither my soul despite my role as propagandist for one of America’s most oppressive brands. The second allowed me to watch my four young daughters grow up before my eyes — an immeasurable gift, even if the trade-off was poverty.

I did sell some stories to newspapers as a freelancer. I even covered city council meetings for the Weekly Calistogan and St. Helena Star. But most of what I did was far fluffier than that.

I wrote brochure copy for hospitals, personality features for Super Bowl programs, food stories for the Los Angeles Times’ Sunday magazine, text for coffee table books, fitness tips for WebMD and breathless accounts of fancy culinary gatherings for Bon Appetit. If you had a check to cut, I would write your copy.

When I joined The Press Democrat in 2003, it was in response to a higher calling. I was broke, with six hungry mouths to feed. By chance, this newspaper was short an Oakland Raiders beat writer.

I fully expected it to be a short-term learning opportunity. Then I became addicted to the miracle of health benefits, and my wife Kara went back to school for a master’s degree, and all four kids needed braces… and here we are.

With typical canniness, I entered the newspaper business at the worst possible time. The industry soon began to crater, wholly unprepared for the digital age. We had layoffs. The Press Democrat was briefly owned by a Florida company that gave news gathering a value roughly equal to carpet cleaning.

And my job changed along the way. The Press Democrat liquidated its Raiders beat in 2007, and for a decade I covered a janky mix of professional and local sports. Sometimes almost simultaneously.

Example: On Oct. 28, 2012, I covered the Giants’ World Series-clinching victory at Detroit (attendance: 45,152), and flew home reeking of clubhouse sparkling wine and cigars. Two days after that, I covered a boys soccer playoff game at Rancho Cotate High, in a cold rain (attendance: about 30).

Finally, in 2017, I replaced my friend, the legendary Lowell Cohn, as the paper’s “Bay Area sports columnist,” meaning I analyzed and opined upon the major teams and topics of the region.

It was a dream job. I wrote about pretty much anything I damn well pleased, and flitted from locker room to locker room so frequently that nothing got stale. I was there for most of the Warriors’ dynastic run, the 49ers’ return to the Super Bowl, controversies and scandals.

Then — and stop me if you’ve heard this — the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Suddenly, there was very little to write about in sports, and way too much to cover in news. So, I joined a couple colleagues, Kerry Benefield and Lori Carter, in sliding over to the news side.

Don’t worry, I was assured. It’s temporary.

And here we are.

When I first moved over to news, I felt like a little kid walking around the house in his dad’s oversized boots, coat sleeves hanging to the floor. I feared I would be exposed as a fraud at any minute. I didn’t know how to send a Public Records Act request or use people-finding software to track down sources. I couldn’t name the five Sonoma County supervisors or tell you what Sonoma Clean Power does.

I had known long, long days at the stadium. But there’s an intensity to news reporting that I wasn’t quite ready for.

Somehow, I was able to survive without utterly humiliating myself, or keeling over dead at the keyboard. And the real stunner is this: I have no real desire to be a sportswriter again. I… kind of… (whispers at a frequency inaudible to management) love this job.

My patient editors allow me to write stories I consider meaningful — on decades of forced sterilizations at Sonoma State Home, and the cruel experience of Sonoma County’s Japanese families after Pearl Harbor. On the insidious work of a local neo-Nazi, and the breathtaking rescue of fragile seniors from the Villa Capri assisted living facility during the Tubbs Fire in 2017.

Yes, I’m still trying to explain it all to my disgusted 10-year-old self, who is looking at me like I just traded a Reggie Jackson baseball card for a photo of Walter Cronkite. But the truth is that I was ready for a career change and I didn’t even know it. And I got to do it for a newspaper I still admire, in a community that still fascinates me, with colleagues that amaze me even more now that I know what they actually do on a daily basis.

I’d be happy if this were my last “temporary” job switch. Though I can still throw a newspaper from a moving bicycle with deadly accuracy, should it come to that.

You can reach Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @Skinny_Post.