Virtual Expert: Darin Newsom

Darin Newsom was awarded first place in the Humorous Article category in the 2007 AAEA Writing Awards Program.

Believe it or not, I actually earn a living providing "serious" analysis on a wide variety of commodity markets; from grains and livestock to energies and metals. I've been with DTN since January 2004 and one of the first opportunities DTN's Editor in Chief Urban Lehner gave to me was to write a weekly column about the markets (predominantly grains), how they behave and what drives them.

Now, having grown up on a small farm in western Kansas I've been around and in agribusiness all my life. My dad, picking up on my ineptitude for all things mechanical and my inattention to fine detail, guided me toward a career working at the local cooperative rather than helping on the family farm. In other words, passed me off to be someone else's problem while working my way through college!

But while working at the coop, particularly while standing in the blazing heat of a Kansas summer wheat harvest talking to customers about the markets, I realized that most of the market information and analysis available via print, radio and television was as dry as the hot wind blowing across the barren Kansas landscape. The typical commodities report was aptly satirized by the television show "WKRP in Cincinnati" when newsman Les Nessman read the hog reports.

I told myself that if I ever had the opportunity to provide my own view on the markets I wouldn't fall into the trap of just reading the same old numbers on air or writing about the same old reports in the same tired verbiage that I had grown up with.

I have always enjoyed reading with some of my favorite authors being Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Twain, Andy Rooney, and Edgar Allan Poe. So when my various jobs as broker, grain merchandiser and analyst led to radio, television, and written commentary and analysis I drew on the combined form and of these and other influences to develop my own style of writing and presentation.

And then when Urban provided me the opportunity with my weekly column "Newsom on the Market", I had a clean canvas on which to work. There were no templates I had to follow, no set criteria of topics to be discussed, only that the piece had to relate to the markets in some shape or form.

What a perfect situation for me and a goal for everyone else to strive for! To be able to do what you love to do without being told how to do it! I love to write my opinions and now had the chance to illustrate these thoughts with analogies and references to Bugs Bunny, Winston Churchill, and Beethoven just to name a few. The possibilities remain endless as so many aspects of life, from traveling through the South Dakota Badlands to the gift opening ritual at Christmas time provide opportunity to make an analytical point.

As does the simple act of being a couch potato, when sitting down in front of the television on just the right day at just the right time and tuning to just the right channel sparks an idea for a column. Such was the case the Monday before Halloween 2006, when I was thinking about what to write about in my weekly column that ran on Wednesday. I like to try to tie the different seasons, holidays, and observances into my writing for I think it helps to increase reader interest. Plus, it presents a challenge to the writer to keep the material fresh.

Anyway, knowing that I wanted a Halloween theme I took a break and tuned into that evening's installment of "The Simpsons", which just so happened to be a rerun of the first of the series' Halloween themed "Treehouse of Horror" episodes. I'd seen it before, so was only half paying attention when the final segment began. But once I heard one of the characters mention Poe's "The Raven" and James Earl Jones take over the narration, I knew I had found my subject for the week!

I hadn't read Poe's poem in many years, so I went to the library and checked out a collection of his works as I wanted to use as much of the language and keep the original meter as much as possible. All the while keeping in mind my only charge for the column, it had to somehow relate to the markets.

I began by changing the setting but not the mood, for as in almost all of Poe's works mood was critically important. As for the narrator, instead of a love-lost gentleman it would be a bearish analyst longing for the days when markets actually trended lower. Part of the irony in this is that throughout my career as a commodity broker/grain merchandiser I had often been viewed as a bearish market analyst, one who was always looking for the markets to go down.

And so it went. Finding words and phrases relating to the markets to replace Poe's original rhyme while keeping to the story was wonderfully fun. I made good use of a simple dictionary I've had since high school (believe me when I say I've had it quite some time), the aforementioned library book, and my own understanding of the behavior of the market and its participants.

The piece actually came together relatively quickly with few rewrites necessary. I've often found that one can do the best writing when doing it in a way they truly enjoy, and this type of piece is what I've always imagined myself putting together. While I was writing, I could hear Jones' voice reading the lines, interspersed with the occasional Homer Simpson as the tension builds toward the end.

When all was said and done I sat back from the keyboard, read it over once, and sent it to be edited. There are few times when you know that what you've done is different, better - and this was one of those occasions. In retrospect, I owe a great deal of gratitude to Poe. I also find it interesting that one of his most dramatic works would eventually help to earn me a humorous category award. Part of me likes to think he would have appreciated the irony of that.