About Us | Reporter's Notebooks for everyone
I’ll never forget the first time I held a reporter’s notebook in my hand. I was in the fourth grade and had somehow convinced the editors at my hometown newspaper, The Pueblo Chieftain, to let me contribute to their monthly student-produced supplement, Images.
Standing in the middle of The Chieftain’s newsroom, the assistant city editor handed me the narrow pad before going out on an assignment. Like a knight awarded his sword, my fate was sealed. I was a journalist for life.
It takes more than a reporter’s notebook to make a journalist. Reporting and writing is a craft that takes years of hard work and dedication to perfect.
And yet for many of us, the experience is incomplete without a special place to write down everything we witness, hear, think.
I know the industry is changing. It’s becoming more digital. Tools such as the iPhone and apps that transcribe interviews and news conferences in real-time are revolutionary.
But as the late David Carr said, the notebook and pen is the one operating system that "almost never fails."
Before I started First Draft Notebooks, there was a dearth of quality notebook options for reporters and newsrooms. The notebooks out there were either cheap and flimsy or expensive and impractical to use every day.
I want every journalist and writer to have a high-quality and affordable notebook — that's why I created First Draft Notebooks.
The story starts here.