Friday, June 24, 2016

A 45-YEAR NEWSPAPER CAREER IS CHOCK FULL OF SOUVENIRS, MEMORIES THAT CAN'T BE BOUGHTEN

In his song "Souvenirs" the late, great Chicago folk singer, songwriter Steve Goodmam came up with this in his lyrics:
   
     Memories, they can't be boughten
     They can't be won a carnivals for free
     Well, it took me years
     To get those souvenirs
     And I don't know how they slipped away from me

Well, I was in the garage earlier this week weeding through boxes of sourvenirs from my 45-year career in newspaper newsrooms -- with the intent of getting rid of stuff I really didn't want -- when I came across a picture frame containing a white name tag enclosed in a clear, plastic sleeve with a swatch of red ribbon attached and a purpling with age 3 x 5 photograph of three guys in tuxedos, each with a name tag and red ribbon pinned on them. The ribbon has gold leaf on it reading "DSA (Distinguished Service Award) Winner." Here is the photo: 


The three tux-clad mokes are (from left to right): Me, then assistant managing editor; Mark Thompson, then Washington Bureau reporter; and the late Jack Tinsley, then executive editor of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The photograph was shot in 1985 in Salt Lake City where Mark, Jack and I had just picked up the Society of Professional Journalists national Distinguished Service Award for Public Service in Journalism. The newspaper won the award, one of American journalism's most prestigious, for Thompson's incredible five-part series detailing a design defect in the Cobra and Huey helicopters that Fort Worth-based Bell Helicopter built for the U.S. military. The series revealed that the company had known about the design defect for years and had a fix for it but did not correct it even though it had apparently been responsible for the loss of many choppers, costing the lives of numerous GIs, particularly during the Vietnam War. As a result of the work by Thompson, who now reports on the military for Time Magazine, all of the U.S. military's Bell Cobra and Huey helicopters were grounded and retrofitted with a device that corrected the design defect.

Naturally, finding the the picture frame with this souvenir ribboned name tag and aging photo kicked off a wave of memories.

During my 45-year newspaper career, the Bell Helicoter series was one of the finest pieces of journalism I was ever associated with, had the privilege of editing and, as it turned out, defending in the face of demands from Bell's top officials that the series be halted and that Thompson and I be fired -- him for pursuing and writing it and me for being responsible for its oversight and publication. Ahhhhhh, yes, those were the days. Incidently, the series went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and several other major national awards that year.

The first part of the series was publish on Sunday, Mar. 25, 1984. By the time Monday morning rolled around, after publication of the second part, the angry phone calls from officials and employees at Bell -- then Fort Worth's single largest employer -- had reached a fever pitch. When I walked into my office shortly after 9 that morning, I was greated by phone and written messages inviting me to Jack Tinsley's office immediately.

Jack informed me that Jack Horner, the president of Bell Helicopter, had called him after trying unsuccessfully to contact Publisher Phil Meek, who was, I think, out of town on business. Tinsley told me that Horner was demanding that the series be halted immediately and that the paper issue an apology to Bell and that Thompson and "the editor responsible for publishing" the series be fired. Tinsley told me that he had left a message for Meek to call him ASAP so they could consult on Horner's demands and he said there was certainly chance the I might lose my job.

Meek finally called back and Jack -- with his phone on speaker and me sitting there across from his large cluttered desk -- told the publisher about the rising storm from Bell and its employees and about Horner's call and demands. Phil assured Jack that he did not want to halt what might be one of the paper's best-ever jounalism efforts and that neither Mark nor I would be fired.

"Well, what do I tell Jack Horner," Tinsley asked. Without hesitation, Meek replied: "Tell Horner to go fuck himself."

So, moments later, and still on speaker phone with me sitting there, Tinsley called Horner back.

"I talked to Phil Meek about your demand that we halt the series, publish an apology to Bell and fire Mark Thompson and Steve Fagan, the editor responsiblefor publication of the series," Tinsley told Horner.

"Well, what did Phil have to say," Horner asked with icy smugness.

"He said for me to tell you to go fuck yourself," said Tinsley. A Loud click came over the speaker followed by the dial tone. Tinsley hung up his receiver, and turned toward me with a big grin on his face and suggested I get back to my office because I was probably going to have a lot of phone calls to answer.

Before I could get back to my office, however, Circulation Director Jim Tingle -- an ex-paratroop officer who stood about a head and a half taller than me -- cornered me in a hallway and angrily backed me into a corner.

"What the hell do you think you're doing? Do you now how many cancellations we've had this morning already," he asked with a glaring red face. "More than 300 and that's just for starters."

He then informed me that officials at the Bell plant had pulled all of our circulation boxes off the property and tossed them outside the main gate and the off-work Bell employees were planning to show up and picket outside the newspaper building after lunch (which they did).

Tingle then demanded to know "why the hell are we running this story and did anybody consider what kind of problems it would cause" for his department.

I blurted out that we were running it "because it's a great piece of Journalism."

"Oh, yeah," he responded. He then drew the thumb, index and middle finger of his right hand tightly together and used them to pound on my sternum with each word as he growled emphatically: "Well, if it's such a goddammned great piece of journalism, why wasn't it in the New York Times or Washington Post first." With one final snort, he stormed off leaving me shaken and my sternum bruised.

Once the flood of memories subsided, I decided to post the photo on Facebook. It almost immediately started drawing "likes" and comments -- lots of them -- from my, Mark's and Jack's mutual and individual friends.

Among the comments, the one that surprised and touched me most came from Phil Meek, who has Mark as one of the select few people he has friended on Facebook. During my newspaper career I was fortunate to have worked for several pretty good publishes including Barry Bingham Sr. and Barry Bingham Jr. at The Louisville Courier-Journal and Times, and Olaf Frandsen and Ray Stafford at The Montior here in McAllen, Texas. But I think, perhaps, the best publisher I ever worked for was Meek because unlike the others who came up with a newspaper background, Meek come to the business from the automobile industry. However, he seemed to have an innate understanding of the role and responsibility of the press in general and newpapers in particular.  As publisher he seemed absolutely fearless and was 100 pecent supportive of his newspeople, putting his full faith and trust in their work until they were proven beyond doubt to be wrong. He seemed to truly believe that the purpose of a newspaper was to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

In his comment, Phil wrote regarding the photo:

"It was so appropriate that by his presence Steve was recognized for his largely unheralded work behind the scenes that helped Mark's four part (actually five part) investigative series lead to the awarding of the Granddaddy of the Pulitzers, the Gold Medal to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for Distinguished Public Service in May 1985."

Appreciating that sort of comment from a publisher I greatly admired, it replied with this:

PHIL: Editor's seldom get publicly heralded for their behind the scenes work and editing of fine pieces of reportage. That, rightfully goes to the reporters who have to bust their butts and often even put their personal safety on the line to piece together the information that makes up a good story or series and then write it in a form an editor can grasp and hone. Editors, the good ones, take their pleasure from seeing the people they supervise doing good journalistic work and knowing that, in part, their directing, influence and encouragement have an impact on that work. As far as the Bell Helicopter series was concerned. I felt I got all the heralding I needed from the people whose heralding really mattered most to me -- you, Mark, Jack, my colleagues at the Star-Telegram and from those who had worked for or with me at other papers who knew and understood that this was one of the finest examples ever of the kind of journalistic efforts I tried to promote and encourage my staffers to engage in.


-30-


f you enjoy reading my blog, please share it and its link with your friends and colleagues.

********
I sure would appreciate if you'd consider subscribing to or following the blog. It's easy to do and there are several options for doing so. If you look on the right side rail, you'll see the "Subscribe to" buttons and a "Subscribe by email" button. Just click any of those and follow the instructions. If you are a Google+ user you can click on the "Follow" button right under my profile picture and follow the instructions. Or, you can click on the "Google+ Add to Circles" button next to my photo and add me to your circles and get notifications of new blog entries when I post them. Thanks for giving this consideration.


As always, your thoughts and/or comments are welcomed.


Thursday, May 26, 2016

LIBERAL MEDIA? BAH, HUMBUG!

If I ever hear the term "liberal media" again after this presidential election I think that, despite my advancing age, I will have to throttle the son of a bitch who says it.

The "media" today is largely corporate owned and in the case of the print media largely owned by investment bankers or companies heavily indebted to investment bankers who are nearly all, by definition, very conservative.

And if you don't think the money is calling the shots on the way things are covered and that that money is anything but either right leaning or flat out right-wing sympathetic you're crazier than an outhouse mouse.

As a result, March-Hare-mad billionaire Donald Trump is allowed, particularly in the electronic media, to say whatever he wants, whenever he wants without question or challenge. Not only is It positively disgusting, but it is enabling the bigotry, hate and fear that he spews to already alter the character of the nation and a large number of its people.

If today's media moguls think that some how after the election they will be able to control Trump and keep him from carrying out his ego-based, insane, fascist agenda that will destroy this country and likely lead to a third -- and this time nuclear -- world war and possibly a second civil war, they are dead wrong and 65 to 80 percent of us will wind up just plain dead.

For nearly 45 years, I was proud to be a member of -- and for many of those years a leader, as the editor of three different daily newspapers, of a small segment of -- the U.S. media.

Yes, throughout that time I was, and still am, a liberal, but I kept my personal politics out of the way the newspapers I was in charge of covered news. (It should be noted that I worked for nine newspaper during my career and only one, the Louisville Courier Journal & Times, was owned by liberals.)

As an editor, I also struggled -- for the most part effectively -- against the efforts, even then, of conservative owners and/or publishers to bend the news to their liking.

When it comes to the term "liberal media," let's be totally honest. Even when print media was largely privately owned, the owners were wealthy and mostly conservative. Then, they started selling off their newspapers to corporations, which were/are mainly conservative. The electronic media has pretty much always been under conservative corporate ownership. Essentially, "liberal" has played an almost non-existent role in media ownership in this country for decades.

During most of my nearly 45 years in the daily newspaper business, most of the top news executives that I've known of being fired for political reasons were let go not because they were too conservative, but rather because they were regarded by those whose money controlled their medium as being too liberal.

Now, with all of the nation's "mainstream," traditional media in general in financial decline, and newspapers in particular suffering, it seems to me that the money interest that are in control of most media outlets -- particularly electronic -- are being allowed by job scared news executives to dictate, subtly or even overtly, the manner and nature of political coverage for this election. It seems that virtually every network news cast begins with the words "Donald Trump today..." And what follows is video and/or audio of Trump rattling off a litany of hate, racism and bigotry unfettered by questions.

From that manner and nature of the coverage, it seems quite obvious, at least to me, that the money behind the media has settled for and is embracing the idea of Donald Trump, who appears to be as certifiably nuts as Adolf Hitler, as America's president/fuhrer.


-30-

*******

If you enjoy reading my blog, please share it and its link with your friends and colleagues.

********
I sure would appreciate if you'd consider subscribing to or following the blog. It's easy to do and there are several options for doing so. If you look on the right side rail, you'll see the "Subscribe to" buttons and a "Subscribe by email" button. Just click any of those and follow the instructions. If you are a Google+ user you can click on the "Follow" button right under my profile picture and follow the instructions. Or, you can click on the "Google+ Add to Circles" button next to my photo and add me to your circles and get notifications of new blog entries when I post them. Thanks for giving this consideration.

As always, your thoughts and/or comments are welcomed.

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

TV NETWORK PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY COVERAGE: All Trump, All The Time?

NOTE: This marks the return of The Ancient Newspaper Editor, which has been on too long a hiatus, which was due in part to my having been through an extended hospital stay in connection with a heart attack and bacterial spinal cord infection. I'm doing better now, thank you, but will be having back surgery next week. My apologies for the hiatus.



A story on Huffington Post Politics this morning (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-networks_us_56df9346e4b0860f99d72720?section=politics) makes in it's headline this interesting observation:

Networks Didn't Cut From Donald Trump's Speech Once To Air Hillary Clinton

Instead, America got to watch Trump promote his line of steaks


The story by Jennifer Bendery, White House and congressional reporter for the Huffington Post, goes on to say: "Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton gave a stump speech Tuesday night, but chances are you didn't see it, since none of the major TV networks covered it. They were all glued to GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump's rambling speech/press conference/self-promotional event happening at the same time."
 
It seems to me that this has gotten to be a really serious problem with all of the networks and not just when providing live primary election night coverage.

This morning, for instance, ABC's Good Morning America allowed Trump to drone on unchallenged, and virtually uninterrupted for way more than 5 and probably closer to 10 minutes -- which is an exceedingly long and unusual amount of time to devote to a single "news" interview -- about his win in Michigan. Meanwhile, George Stephanopoulos sat there largely staring into the camera slack jawed, particularly after Trump verbally slapped him around for "making a negative out of a big win" after the GMA anchor pointed out that exit polls showed Trump had "lost" with late deciders -- a valid point considering 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney's recently launched "Stop Trump" campaign.

On the other side, how long was the GMA interview with Bernie Sanders regarding his stunning upset win in Michigan?

Yeah, that's right, what interview with Bernie Sanders. Or, what interview even with Hillary Clinton for that matter.

Yep, you've got it, the ONLY candidate from either party actually interviewed live or even recorded on GMA this morning was Trump.

This has become the disturbing reality thus far during this presidential primary election season. It's been my feeling for months now that for all practical intents and purposes when it come to viewing political news on the TV networks, Trump almost appears from the frequency, the coverage time devoted and the extent of coverage to be the only candidate running. Certainly, he's the only candidate given so much network time to just run his mouth. It's gotten so bad on Good Morning America, an about 25-year viewing habit that my wife and I just can't seem to break, that we refer to the show these days as the "Morning Trump Hour."

The all-Trump, all-the-time coverage by the networks has gotten so pervasively bad in at least my view that is has me wondering -- against my normally better judgment -- if it's not time to employ some provisions of the Equal Time rule to help retool and bring back the Federal Communication Commission's Fairness Doctrine, which died in 2011.

Between them, the Equal Time rule and the Fairness Doctrine recognized the advantage that excessive TV time/coverage could give a politically charged issue or political candidate and required the networks to provide fair and balanced coverage and/or to give all political candidates equal time on the air.

Granted, living by and complying with an FCC rule that would combine aspects of the Equal Time Rule and the old Fairness Doctrine would be burden on the networks, but I think it would insure equitable and responsible coverage -- something the networks seem to have totally tossed out the window this election season.

It's my feeling that they have done so in favor of fawning over Donald Trump and giving him whatever his bullying heart desires and demands to the detriment of the kind of fair, balanced and inquisitive political coverage they should be providing. In essence, the networks -- intentionally or not -- have been helping Trump sell a rotten bill of political goods that is based on hatred, bigotry, jingoism and Fascist/Nazi philosophy -- all things that are supposed to be totally un-American.

I'm sure the current crop of network news department "leaders" justify to themselves the excessive Trump coverage by telling themselves that they want to be careful to avoid being accused of being "liberal media," which is a myth anyway.

Once upon a time, TV network news operations were run, or heavily influenced, by the likes of  Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings -- journalists with an inbred sense of fairness and balance and the intestinal fortitude and character to challenge bullshit no mater how powerful, wealthy or well-placed the source or politician it was coming from. In their day, network news programming was regarded almost strictly as the coverage and passing along of vital information. Electronic news media leaders with their character and keen sense of journalistic ethics didn't need the Fairness Doctrine or the Equal Time Rule to ensure fair coverage or equal time and treatment.

Today, network news is run by the likes of Fox's Roger Ailes and has become way too heavily regarded within the industry as entertainment and -- particularly in the case of Fox and to a slightly lesser degree MSNBC -- point-of-view propaganda that are passed off as news.

It's as if all of the TV networks have lost any and all sense of journalistic responsibility at a time when their influence is extremely powerful, particularly as the usually much more inquisitive, hard-hitting, fair, balanced and in-depth print media continues to fade from public consumption.

-30-
 
(As a footnote and for the sake of transparency, let me point out that during this primary season I have personally supported Bernie Sanders because he is the one person running who I regard as a progressive idealist of the John and Robert Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey variety.)

 
*******

If you enjoy reading my blog, please share it and its link with your friends and colleagues.

********
I sure would appreciate if you'd consider subscribing to or following the blog. It's easy to do and there are several options for doing so. If you look on the right side rail, you'll see the "Subscribe to" buttons and a "Subscribe by email" button. Just click any of those and follow the instructions. If you are a Google+ user you can click on the "Follow" button right under my profile picture and follow the instructions. Or, you can click on the "Google+ Add to Circles" button next to my photo and add me to your circles and get notifications of new blog entries when I post them. Thanks for giving this consideration.

As always, your thoughts and/or comments are welcomed.