Robert Pratt lives and works as a journalist in Phuket, Thailand. He's also a professional musician (retired at the moment), a web developer (again, retired) and a FAA-certified private pilot (ditto). Things that he has considered as a profession or hobby by not yet tried include novelist, nudist, wandering mendicant and English teacher.

Robert got his start in journalism in 1988 working for his hometown newspaper, the Newhall Signal in Newhall, Calif. The legendary husband-and-wife team of Scott and Ruth Newhall ran the Signal at the time. Scott Newhall earned a place in the cultural history of San Francisco by defeating William Randolph Hearst's San Francisco Examiner in the city's newspaper circulation wars. In "The Life and Times of Scott Newhall" written for The Old Town Newhall Gazette before her death, Ruth detailed some of the strategies Scott used as executive editor of the Chronicle to vanquish the Examiner:

Scott's preoccupation was good writing. He filled the Chronicle with columnists who became required reading.

Herb Caen -- Mr. San Francisco -- was hired back from the Examiner. When the Examiner started a popular column signed by "Ann Landers," Scott hired her identical twin, Popo Phillips, for whom he invented the name "Abigail van Buren" -- Dear Abby, to troubled correspondents.

He wrote outrageous editorials. When the Examiner, always on the side of prudishness, started a campaign against topless dancers in the North Beach bistros, Scott wrote the briefest editorial of his career: "The trouble with San Francisco is not topless dancers, it's topless newspapers."

He carried the torch of dissent against the Vietnam War, maintaining (with good reason, it later turned out) that the American government was lying to its people.

He also had notes of cheer: he fondly saluted Pacific Southwest Airlines for redesigning their flight attendants' uniforms "so they look like the delectable in-flight cupcakes they used to be."

Having put the Chronicle on top of all other newspapers in San Francisco--a position it holds to this day--Scott and Ruth retired to Newhall, Calif. where their family held vast properties that would soon develop into one of the fastest growing suburbs of Los Angeles. They bought the Newhall Signal and promptly chased all other newspapers out of town. The two were ousted from the Signal in a corporate takeover but not before leaving their imprint on Robert.

Two things standout. First, Ruth once decried my decision to go to journalism school.

"You don't need to learn how to write--any monkey can write," she wrote. "You need to learn how to think. Take something like English or history or politics."

So I did. Eventually, I graduated with a degree in American studies rather than finishing journalism school. The other thing I learned came through osmosis rather than anything Ruth or Scott said. They always directed reporters to paint a picture of life with every story. They never said much more than that, but I took their advice to mean that I should always look for detail, that I should observe carefully and look for colorful or telling events. And I think they liked their reporters to write stories that contained a sense of drama. The stories they liked set the scene and established a narrative instead of relating the facts acccording to the summary lead formula taught in journalism courses.

After Scott and Ruth left the Signal, I stayed on for a few more months. The new editor was a large man with a large reputation for having been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He taught me how to play up a story. I left the newspaper, however, after a nervous breakdown. I had other demons to fight before I returned to journalism.