Volume 24, No. 6 September/October 1999 The IN THIS ISSUE Internationalnternational President’s Report...... Page 2 Now, Just a Minute, the so-called thinking man’s column on journalism ...... Page 3 ISWNEws ...... Page 4 ocietyociety ISWNE Members share ‘Views From the Field’...... Page 5 S International Briefs ...... Page 6 of Member E-Mail Addresses...... Page 19 eekly REPRINTED STORIES &COLUMNS Weekly ‘Y2K’ cars don’t compare to ones half-century ago...... Pages 8-9 ‘Death-row coffee’ has gotta go!...... Pages 9 & 18 Remembering Heroes: Who was Gene Cervi? ...... Pages 10-13 Newspaperewspaper A Curse on our Nation ...... Pages 14-15, 19 Beatlemania strikes again in Co. Wexford ...... Page 16 The Politics of Soccer...... Page 17 Editorsditors Published by the Department of Communications, Missouri Southern State College, Joplin, MO Check out the ISWNE Website! www.mssc.edu/iswne/iswne.htm

The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors • Awards is finally online. The new site is located on Missouri Currently, this link includes general information Southern State College’s Website at taken from the ISWNE brochure about the Gene Cervi www.mssc.edu/iswne/iswne.htm. Award and the Golden Quill. When construction is complete, the main Awards link will include a Although the site is still under construction, it does separate link for each award that will include include brief information taken from the ISWNE’s nomination information and a list of past winners. brochure. The site has six main links: • Member E-Mail Addresses Membership Information • This link contains an alphabetized list of member This link provides information about becoming e-mail addresses. Please check that your e-mail address an ISWNE member. It also includes an additional is included and listed correctly. link to a list of the Society’s officers and board members along with their respective e-mail addresses. • Member Newspapers This link is still under construction. It contains a list of • Publications member newspapers and contact information. This link gives descriptions of the ISWNE newsletter Newspapers that are online or that have e-mail and the Grassroots Editor. After construction is addresses will have active links. The list is organized by complete, it will include PDF files of each publication state (U.S.) and country (international). that the user will view using Adobe Acrobat Reader. It will also include an interactive index of articles published in the ISWNE newsletter since August 1999. PDF files and an index of the Grassroots Editor We hope you like our initial efforts in producing will be added as the magazine is published. this Website. If you have any comments or suggestions about the site’s organization, content, • Annual Conferences and overall look, please contact Chad Stebbins at This link will include updates about each upcoming [email protected]. We appreciate your patience annual conference and highlights from past as we complete the site. conferences. The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors

ere’s my latest conspiracy H theory. All the Y2K The problems have already been fixed in earlier versions of nearly all of the software on President’s the market, including the accounting software I use. But the fixes were “undocumented Report features” — no one knows By Elliott Freireich they’re in there. This allows the Publisher, West Valley View, vendors to put out a new and Litchfield Park, AZ improved, Y2K compliant version that everyone has to buy. There was no way we were have given up on quite a few editorial writer for a Florida going to risk using the old because they don’t really provide paper who wants to bring in an package and possibly lose our much valuable material. A cou- aircraft carrier to his city as a ability to bill for our advertising. ple I tend to read each time they museum. He has joined the come out are NNA’s Pub Aux., board of the nonprofit agency That leads me to my next which has a lot of nuts and bolts which is raising funds for the gripe: all these kind of stuff, and museum. It could be a problem customers who AJR (American any of us could have to face send me letters Some of them Journalism Review). if we want to editorialize asking me to repeatedly on a subject we feel certify that my don’t know why AJR doesn’t very strongly about and want to company has give the how-to they did it. additionally want to actually completed Y2K articles of better work for out in the community. compliance. The writing, sales But there has been Each of us will find their own last one wanted promotions and comfort zone on these issues, but me to verify we how to stay out a rash of brutal getting a chance to see similar have done testing of trouble on situations that others face can and explain to personnel matters massacres help us come up with solutions them what that I get from we can universalize. testing was done. which the Pub. Aux., but That particular it does have ••• client buys $7 national media interesting reading Some of them did it for revenge, classified ads about incidents some of them for fame and from us once has given that make you notoriety. Some of them don’t a month. think about how what I consider know why they did it. But there newspapers are run ••• has been a rash of brutal and how they way too much play. massacres which the national On the positive should be run. media has given what I consider side of the Y2K AJR has had a way too much play. ledger, expect lots of additional long-running series on the state classified revenue in January I wonder if any other small- of the American newspaper, as everyone tries to sell all the market journalists would have chronicling the Thomson chain, portable generators, Coleman handled these stories differently telling of general practices of the stoves and gas, 50 lb. bags of if they had been in charge. And nation’s small dailies and of the dried beans, solar distillers, guns while I’m asking, am I the only chain’s acquisitions and how it and ammo as well as useless one who wouldn’t have had affects journalism. stuff they bought just in case. non-stop coverage of the search The most recent issue discusses for JFK Jr.’s plane and multipage ••• how far is too far for an editorial biographical sections after his I read trade journals to learn writer to go in advocating for a death? more about our business. I change. The story is about the

2 September/October 1999 The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors

got to thinking about civic I journalism. You read about it everywhere. They call it Now, civic or public or community journalism. Being a well- seasoned newsman, I did what Just most newsmen do — I shrugged a it off. Ivory tower people talking Minute about grass roots journalism, The so-called thinking man’s yeah, sure. How much more column on journalism community can you get than small town, grassroots Y AY AAKANIEMI American journalism? B R L They can’t tell me. . . Then a funny thing happened. people to meetings and to voice editing slightly? What do read- I got a vacation (not the funny complaints and to help out ers want to know, and who thing) and read some things on when needed? speaks for the reader anyway? it. Then I got travel money (also Certainly not the newspaper’s Think about it. Who represents not the funny thing) and I job. the reader? The companies and heard a few more things, and the big guys all have PR reps, it dawned on me. But if not, who? Is anyone else the reader has none. going to do it? The title is the thing that is ANTICIPATE. Know (or find out) killing it. Once you put a label That’s what civic journalism is what the subjects at a meeting on it, people fire darts at the all about. Newspapering being will be ahead of time. And you labels. more than reporting what hap- may have to ask around (report) pened last week. But down underneath all the to other people to see what is labels and the ivory tower and How can people get involved if going on. Some people like to the big city ideas is a grain of the first time they hear about a keep information to themselves. truth: decision at a meeting is two It gives them power. days after the meeting? Is it •People are not taking part in So I have come to the conclu- your job to find out what is society’s big decisions because sion that civic journalism is not going to be discussed BEFORE Brett Favre on Monday night is a flash in the pan, is not some the meeting happens? Do you a lot more interesting. ivory tower idea from the big know anyone else doing it? cities. It is about leadership, •They don’t attend meetings What about including phone about making it possible for because they are cynical about numbers for the people involved people who have to vote on civic how government works. in decision-making so the public issues to get a word in before the •And the fact is, participating in can tell them what they think? decisions are made. anything social or governmental Won’t make you popular, but it It’s about doing something that is dropping off like a boulder is one small step for a paper, no other institution in society is going over Pike’s Peak. one giant leap for participation. geared up to do or wants to do Why is this? Didn’t our fabled And about politics. When the — letting the citizens get in on forefathers participate? Didn’t candidates come smiling into decisions about their future. town meetings bring people your office, do you have ques- OK, bring it on. together? Is it ALL the fault of tions for them or do you take Let me hear from you. television? Whose job is it to get what they offer and print it —

(More good stuff like this in The Weekly Writer’s Handbook, Second Edition, due on or about Oct. 1. Email [email protected] or write Box 71, East Tawas, MI. 48730-0071) Phone (419) 372-2078. September/October 1999 3 The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors

ISWNESend your ISWNEws to Chad Stebbins at [email protected] or to Missouri Southern State College, 3950 E. Newman Road, Joplin, MO 64801-1595 by Friday, Oct. 15 for next month’s newsletter.

‘Freeman Courier’ upgrades Website The newspaper’s Website is designed to supplement the information provided by newspaper which has been around since 1901. The site includes condensed stories as well as a the opinion page, calendar of events, business guide, community page and links to other sites. The site is very easy to update and sports scores and breaking news are added routinely. The page is designed as the portal to the community as reflected by the address: freemansd.com. The Courier is working closely with community leaders in an effort to develop, host and maintain linked sites for the city, chamber of commerce and development corporation as well as individual businesses and organizations. The Courier is working with International Newspaper Network, a Montana company which publisher Tim L. Waltner became familiar with when he spoke on the responsibility newspapers have to their community at a boot camp sponsored by the Montana Newspaper Association in April. (Incidentally, he has been asked to make the same presentation at the NNA convention in Boston this fall.) Waltner and his news editor (and son) Jeremy Waltner are working with developing and maintaining the site. Once a routine is established, they expect maintaining the site will require less than an hour a week.

Freeman Courier, PO Box 950, Freeman, SD 57029, (605) 925-7033, [email protected]

Hix will coordinate requests for student 9/27/99 internships To All ISWNE Members: ISWNE members desiring to hire college journalism This is Jennifer Pease replying on behalf of my Mom students for summer internships are asked to contact to Mr. Freireich’s message. Since Mom doesn’t use Harry Hix, Engleman/Livermore Professor of Community the computer, I checked Dad’s e-mail for her when I Journalism at the University of Oklahoma. Harry said came home for Dad’s birthday on Sunday. he would be pleased to coordinate requests and try to She wanted to let you know that Dad (Don Pease) arrange for students to fill internships, whether in had a heart attack on August 27 while taking a stress news or advertising. Harry’s e-mail address is test at the Cleveland Clinic. He was in the Cleveland [email protected]. His phone number is (405) 325-4137. Clinic for three weeks and is now in Oberlin at Allen Hospital’s subacute unit for therapy. He is making steady progress but we don’t know ‘The Cabinet’ ready for another century when he will be able to come home. Once he regains We have been busy here this summer. We have just this strength, he faces a catheterization to determine started a fourth paper, the Bedford Journal, in the the underlying cause of the heart attack. nearby town of Bedford, New Hampshire. It is another exciting attempt to grow and still maintain the Since I am returning to Minnesota tomorrow, Mom special small town uniqueness that we have always will try to keep Mr. Freireich informed by traditional encouraged and valued. mail or phone when she can. My folks had a great time at the conference in Nova Scotia and they send We have also changed the name of our flagship paper their greetings. to The Cabinet, in recognition that it really does serve five towns. It was The Farmer’s Cabinet for the first hundred years, and The Milford Cabinet for the next Sincerely, hundred. We are now ready for a new century. Jennifer Pease Eastvold Frank and Martha Manley, The Cabinet Press, Inc., PO Box 180, Milford NH 03055 4 September/October 1999 The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors ISWNE members share ‘Views From the Field’ hree ISWNE members were they’re talking about I think should T guests on Jim Lehrer’s be ignored. We pay more in Social NewsHour on July 29. Jim Security taxes than we do in income Nancy Slepicka of the Montgomery taxes. I also think that they should County (Ill.) News, Larry Atkinson of Lehrer’s be talking about health care. the Mobridge (S.D.) Tribune, and There’s millions of people out there Robert Trapp of the Rio Grande Sun NewsHour in New Mexico, children, there are in Espanola, N.M., were interviewed hundreds of thousands of them who by media correspondent Terence don’t have health insurance, are Smith for NewsHour’s “Views from Starring: uninsured.” the Field” program. Trapp also said he’s like the Three other weekly newspaper candidates to discuss bringing U.S. editors were also on the program: troops home from Kosovo and Larry Nicholas Benton of the Falls Church Bosnia. Atkinson (Va.) News Press, Charles Tisdale of “We’ve heard that they’d be home the Jackson (Miss.) Advocate, and Mobridge by Christmas a couple of years Joel Hack of the Bodega Bay (Calif.) Tribune ago,” he said. “They’re still over Navigator. The six editors discussed Mobridge, S.D. there, they’re still costing us millions the issues they thought should be of dollars. I’d like to hear some of discussed in the 2000 campaign. these presidential candidates discuss Slepicka said education and health that. I haven’t heard a word about care would be on her list. Nancy that yet.” Slepicka “I think if we had a healthy Slepicka said she was disappointed populace and a well-educated Montgomery County News that the 2000 presidential populace, a lot of other problems campaign has focused on only Montgomery would be solved,” she said. two candidates and that a national County, Ill. Atkinson said in the heartland of debate may not evolve. Low voter the United States, the farmers and turnout next November was a good ranchers are not enjoying the same possibility, she said. economic boom as the rest of the Atkinson said parts of South Dakota country. were not sharing in the country’s Robert “They’re facing grain prices, cattle wealth, particularly the Sioux prices that are 10- and 20-year Trapp Indian reservations and Shannon lows,” he said. “There are problems Rio Grande Sun County. on the farm. The American farm Espanola, N.M. “We now have the wherewithal, policy has not worked to this point. the money, the surpluses to look at There’s something wrong. It needs to “If that farmer and rancher who what we need to do to fix things,” be revisited.” has been spending $130,000 a year he said. “Now we should be looking Atkinson said although agriculture in that community is not making at what can we do to get everyone represents only 1 percent of the any money, that money dries up on the same level.” and the communities dry up. So it’s nation’s $7 trillion economy, the Trapp said he agreed with Atkinson more than just the farmers and presidential candidates need to and would not return the budget ranchers hurting; it’s rural America discuss what can be done to keep the surplus to the taxpayers. He would hurting.” farmers and ranchers on their land. also keep the politicians’ hands out “When we lose them, we also lose Trapp said he would focus on using of Social Security. the budget surplus, to pay down the communities in rural America,” he “If we had some money left from national debt. said. “The towns of South Dakota, income taxes, I still maintain that of North Dakota, Nebraska, all the “A $6 trillion national debt may it should go to pay off the national way on down to Texas, the rural not mean much in Washington, debt, which would reduce the communities are facing an outflow D.C., but in Espanola, it’ll buy an interest on the national debt, and of people because the business isn’t awful lot of enchiladas,” he said. in the long run I think that’ll be there anymore. “And the income tax cut that beneficial,” he said. September/October 1999 5 The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors International Briefs

The American Press Institute has scheduled five Canadian Community Newspaper Association seminars for community newspaper personnel has new president during the coming year: Gerald Dorge became CCNA’s 80th president on One of the API’s most popular programs for July 24, 1999. Dorge is publisher and general community newspaper publishers, editors, and manager of Transcontinental Distribution & other department heads is the Executive Development Weeklies in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He began his Program, to be conducted March 26-31 and again career in community newspapers more than 27 Aug. 6-11. The City and Metro Editors class for years ago when he first got into publishing a community market newspapers is also Aug. 6-11. French paper before going into partnership at a The Editing the Weekly and Community Newspaper printing and publishing company in the early seminar is scheduled for April 11-15 and the 1970s. program aimed at advertising executives in community markets is Oct. 1-6. All seminars will Teaching evolution in the classroom be at the API facility in Reston, Va. For more (from the Navajo-Hopi Observer, Arizona) information, persons may contact API, 11690 Evolution has been in the news lately, with the Sunrise Valley Dr., Reston, VA 20191-11498, Kansas State School Board no longer requiring the (703) 630-3611. teaching of the theory. The board also prohibited questions about evolution on statewide tests. Jim Sterling receives Missouri Journalism Award Arizona recently did just the opposite, requiring Jim Sterling, former owner and publisher of weekly for the first time that evolution be taught, by newspapers in three Missouri towns, received a including it in the state proficiency standards. It Missouri Journalism Medal of Honor on Oct. 8 on will not be on the AIMS (Arizona Instrument to the University campus in Columbia. Sterling is Measure Standards) test according to the state marketing and media director of the TD Department of Education because the test doesn’t Waterhouse Championship, an event on the include science. But it is specifically required in Senior PGA tour. He is former owner and publish- the proficiency standards. er of the weekly papers in Bolivar, Buffalo and Stockton, Mo. Sterling also is a former curator of Society of Editors, United Kingdom: BT regional awards the University of Missouri. The Journal Newcastle is the BT Daily Newspaper of the Year. The judges admired The Journal’s New Postal form must be in use no later than Sept. 10 confident grasp of a vital region, augmented Newspapers must have started using a new Form by a strong feeling for the national interest. 3541 on Sept. 10. Papers that send copies to Runner-up was the Manchester Evening News. foreign addresses have used the new form since The Tyrone Constitution is BT Weekly Newspaper of the end of May. The new form has the May 1999 the Year with the Basingstoke Gazette and Keighley date on the bottom. Form 3541 can be down- News named as runners-up. loaded from the USPS website at www.usps.com. Persons can save a copy in Pagemaker or Quark and can fill in the numbers on the computer and print out a copy for the Post Office.

NNA Convention Theme was “The Future Begins in Boston” The National Newspaper Association’s 114th Annual Convention & Trade Show opened in Boston on Sept. 29 and continued until Oct. 2. With the theme “The Future Begins in Boston,” the program focused on building circulation, developing newspaper growth, new advertising ideas, recruiting and hiring quality employees, and new technologies.

6 September/October 1999 The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors

hen Houstoun Waring died in of community and W 1997, many young Colorado link Main Street with journalists may have asked, “Who’s the world, principles HoustounHoustoun WaringWaring he?” After all, Waring was 95 at his reflected in many of death, and he retired as editor of his 6,000 editorials. the Littleton (Colo.) Independent His thoughtful more than 30 years ago. editorials made the LITTLETON’S small-town weekly Yet throughout the middle of paper famous, and this century, Waring was among his insistence on the most influential weekly accuracy, precision, newspaper editors in America. and clarity influenced EDITOR He died in Littleton on Feb. 18. the generations of He had been in declining health young journalists BY GARRETT RAY for several years. More than 400 who worked for him Associate Professor, Colorado State University friends attended his memorial or studied under him. service. Waring was born in Savannah, Ga. Independent, beginning in 1926. “Hous” (pronounced “House”) After tuberculosis ended his studies The following year, publisher Waring spent his entire career at at the U.S. Naval Academy, he Edwin A. Bemis (also the first Littleton’s weekly newspaper, moved to Colorado to recover. manager of te Colorado Press including 40 years as editor and 30 Association) made him editor; He studied journalism at the as editor emeritus and columnist. a year later, Waring bought a University of Colorado at Boulder, minority interest in the Waring believed that local but never completed his bachelor’s Independent. newspapers should nurture a sense degree. He left school to work at the Really Bad Headlines Courtesy of Joyce Klug March Planned For Next August War Dims Hope For Peace Blind Bishop Appointed To See If Strike Isn’t Settled Quickly, It May Last A While Lingerie Shipment Hijacked — Thief Gives Police The Slip Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures L.A. Voters Approve Urban Renewal By Landslide Half of U.S. High Schools Require Some Study for Graduation Patient At Death’s Door — Doctors Pull Him Through Blind Woman Gets New Kidney from Dad She Hasn’t Seen in Years Latin Course To Be Canceled — No Interest Among Students, Et Al. Man is Fatally Slain Diaper Market Bottoms Out Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Experts Say Croupiers On Strike — Management: “No Big Deal” Death Causes Loneliness, Feelings of Isolation Stadium Air Conditioning Fails — Fans Protest Flaming Toilet Seat Causes Evacuation at High School Queen Mary Having Bottom Scraped Defendants Speech Ends in Long Sentence Henshaw Offers Rare Opportunity to Goose Hunters Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers Women’s Movement Called More Broad —Based House Passes Gas Tax Onto Senate Antique Stripper to Display Wares at Store Police Discover Crack in Australia Prostitutes Appeal to Pope Stiff Opposition Expected to Casketless Funeral Plan Teacher Strikes Idle Kids Many Antiques Seen at D.A.R. Meeting Lawyers Give Poor Free Legal Advice William Kelly, 87, was Fed Secretary Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant Collegians are Turning to Vegetables Fund Set Up for Beating Victim’s Kin Scientists to Have Ford’s Ear Killer Sentenced to Die for Second Time in 10 Years Quarter of a Million Chinese Live on Water Cancer Society Honors Marlboro Man Hershey Bars Protest Nicaragua Sets Goal to Wipe Out Literacy County Officials to Talk Rubbish Autos Killing 110 a Day — Let’s Resolve to Do Better Carter Plans Swell Deficit 20-Year Friendship Ends at Altar Caribbean Islands Drift to Left

September/October 1999 7 The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors

secretive-looking covers on them. When it turned down the street where the garage ‘Y2K’ cars was located, we knew we were in business. don’t compare to ones The dangerous six-block trek to Yancy’s place began. half-century ago Dangerous because, for one thing, “Thomas,” the town cop, was lurking somewhere out there. Thomas was his last name, and all the kids around town thought he worked for J. Edgar Hoover. Therefore, the slightest offense could result in prison life for other gangsters. We managed to avoid Thomas, and when we got there we BY JIM SAWYER huddled inside a dark recess — the back entrance to tailor anny Payne, Willie Clark, by flashlight inside a tent, and Levanthal’s shop. That was scary L and I slithered up a dark the tent was in my bedroom, because we’d heard rumors that alley at 2 a.m. one Saturday made from bed sheets propped he was “a communist.” But we morning. It was the fall of up with whatever was handy figured it was worth the risk 1949 in our Iowa town of that would work against the because it put us real close to 6,000, which was an island of force of gravity. the now-parked truck. conservative civilization in a After the One by one sea of cornfields. lights were the covers We headed for the Oldsmobile switched off, As the cars made it to the came off “garage.” They didn’t call we imagined the cars, them car dealerships ourselves to lighted interior of the garage, and ol’ then. be explorers in Yancy was one of those we could see them in all their out there Ten-year-olds shouldn’t faraway places hooting, have been up that late, but where corn glory, and they had “rockets” hollering, some powerful stuff was going didn’t grow. and giving on. And like most for hood ornaments! directions. Yancy Peck, the tubby, likable, explorers, we Plus, on their fronts they had As the cars cigar-smoking owner of the took along made it to place, caused all this because he comic books. round emblems with rings the lighted had put butcher paper all over But that truck interior of the showroom windows. And we Lanny heard around them, like a planet. the garage, knew why. brought us we could back to reality Lanny’s the one who got us Revolutionary! see them in real quick, and started on this nocturnal all their I went for the truancy in a town that had a glory, and electricity. curfew for anyone under the they had “rockets” for hood age of 35. We peeked out the window just ornaments! Plus, on their fronts “Listen, a big truck’s coming!” as the truck passed. they had round emblems with rings around them, like a he said earlier as we were telling It was one of those “low boy” planet. Revolutionary! fibs and reading scary comic car carriers, and the six books. This was all being done or so cars on it had very We truly believed we had beat 8 September/October 1999 The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors the rest of mankind in getting the first look at the new Oldsmobile “Rocket 88,” and it was worth every ‘Death-row coffee’ risk we had taken. Willie even peed his has gotta go! britches in the eateries, the process, but he’d done the high fallutin’ same thing earlier that BY JIM SAWYER as well…as the ones night. for those of us us who are When we got back to the t’s getting tougher every serf-class Yanks, is getting bad, house, we stayed up the I day to get a good cup bad, bad. of joe. Too many eateries, rest of the night and drew In this country’s pioneer days including fast food joints and pictures of what we’d seen. when prairie schooners stopped others, plus gas-n-go outfits, Lanny’s car was standing for the night after hot days are messing it up. on its hind end and shooting trudging through virgin wheat flames. This is about java, coffee, fields or through blazing When daylight broke and that delicious-to-many and deserts, hundreds of camp fires the town started coming to apparently habit-forming stuff lit the skies, and as the night life, we headed back to the some believe we get in great cooled down, the scent of coffee Oldsmobile garage. All the quantities only from a guy on a permeated the air. Coffee was butcher paper was off the burro with a big grin on his face often the last thing in the windows, and people were who hails from somewhere in evening for though Westward milling around the new the southernmost reaches of this Ho folds and the first thing on “rocket cars” — Oldsmobile’s continent. early-morning fires. introduction of its first V-8 Coffee, second only to oil in Ah, a good cup of coffee! The engine, which was international trade, with unmistakable aroma of the what the rocket one-third of the consumption coffee bean! hoopla was all about. in the United States, apparently Too often the coffee I’m served was started as a drink by the Ol’ Yancy even had a is the burned bottom-of-the-pot Arabs in the 14th century. “demonstrator” all for stuff that would be considered America’s introduction to the himself, parked out front inhumane to give to someone stuff was in direct response to with a plastic see-through on death row. Or maybe it’s the Boston Tea Party. King hood and an illuminated what should be given on death George tried to tax tea, and the rocket hood ornament. He row instead of lesser punitive contrary Yanks swiftly turned was out there patting people measures currently used. In fact, to coffee. And they’ve never on their shoulders, puffing I think the threat of a dose of it given it up. on that cigar and grinning could do much to deter crime. like a possum. Problem is, nowadays far too Every day, lots of places routinely many places in the United Now, half a century later, push “death-row coffee” off on States don’t have a clue about it’s nothing special when the the public, and they have the making good coffee — and next year’s cars come out, guts to charge for it. They try to it’s terribly unforgivable and and some of the turn-of-the- squeeze the last drop out of a unpatriotic. It either tastes like century Year 2000 models pot, letting it burn to caffeine- the transmission out of a Yellow are already rolling. laced mud before serving it. Or Cab, or it’s too weak. And I’m they make it so weak in the first But it was a big deal half a getting increasingly upset. place that it tastes like hot century ago. Many restaurants and other water on a crusade to make you serve it in forms ranging from Jim Sawyer is a Webster County guess whether it’s coffee or tea. Citizen columnist; this column colored water to burnt mud that was printed September 1, 1999. has to be chiseled out of the continued on page 18 mug. Coffee in all scales of

September/October 1999 9 The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors RememberingRemembering of weekly HeroesHeroes journalism BY RICK FREEMAN

as a non-profit organization in 1959. Who was During the long, feverish decade of the 1960s and into the still-smoldering 1970s, ISWNE attracted an extraordinary group of weekly journalists to the Gene Cervi? annual meetings at the southern end of Illinois. the young wife of an editor put the question They reflected a time when the towns they T to me last week during a hospitality hour at served desperately needed to understand the annual International Society of Weekly , ghetto riots, campus demonstrations, Newspapers Editors conference, this year in assassinations, the 1968 Democratic convention, Halifax, Nova Scotia. My first response was, the war in Vietnam, the fractured psyches of “How much time do you have?” Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon and Kent State. I was a speaker at the four-day Gene Cervi conference, my topic the Woburn These weekly editors were created Advocate’s ongoing coverage of A often was by their tumultuous time and rose to Civil Action, the book and movie, the its challenges in extraordinary ways, local people who made it happen the bulldog sometimes through circumstances and the ramification 20 years later rather than choice. They were at hazardous waste sites created by barking beaten up, shot at, their newspaper W.R. Grace Company. ISWNE gives plants were bombed, they were out a Gene Cervi Award to an editor the loudest. boycotted by advertisers. for outstanding contributions to There have always been courageous community journalism over a long community editors in America but I know of no period of time. There was no recipient deemed other time when they had a place such as ISWNE worthy this year. to convene each year as a group to give each other Upon further responding to my young questioner I the courage to go back and fight the battle still realized how much community weekly journalism another day. ISWNE member Bill Rotch wrote in has changed since I first met Gene Cervi 37 years his Milford (N.H.) Cabinet-Press back then, they ago. It was a different place and time in the came to ISWNE, lifted their heads up over the United States for weekly newspaper editors and trenches and saw there were others just like everybody else. themselves in trenches on both sides. Cervi was an early member of ISWNE. The group All through the 1960s and early 1970s, the award first came together in 1954 when 13 weekly was not the Cervi, but the Elijah Lovejoy Courage editors from 10 states met at Southern Illinois in Journalism, given out by Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. The thrust was to engage University. Year after year, these amazing winners ideas they could carry back to their communities in showed up, almost always for the first time, to the form of editorials and columns. It formalized receive their award, became ISWNE members

10 September/October 1999 The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors and came back year after year to give strength to other Courage editors who had thought they were fighting lonely battles in places most of the world had never heard GENE CERVI of. Like Lexington, Miss. AWARD WINNERS Chief among them was Hazel Brannon Smith, of the 1999 No award given Lexington (Miss.) Advertiser who won the Lovejoy in 1960, and was the first women and first weekly editor to win the 1998 Jack Authelet, Foxboro (Mass.) Reporter Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Because of her views on 1997 Carol Wilcox & Cary Stiff, Civil Rights, the White Citizens Council in Lexington Clear Creek Courant, Idaho Springs, Colo. forced an advertising boycott on her small weekly that 1996 Charlotte & Marvin Schexnayder, lasted more than 20 years, with the only ad in her Dumas (Ark.) Clarion newspaper a free public service announcement from Smokey the Bear to stop forest fires. 1995 No award given 1994 Jim MacNeill, The Eastern Graphic, Her newspaper was bombed, her husband lost his job as Montague, Prince Edward Island country hospital administrator, her closest friends, out of fear, abandoned her. The place she found love and 1993 Bob Bliss, The Montgomery County News, respect each of those painful years was at ISWNE in Hillsboro, Ill. July. Finally, deep in debt to a number of editors and 1992 Robert Trapp, publishers who helped keep her newspaper printing, this Rio Grande Sun, Espanola, N.M. proud southern women, who had once been among Mississippi’s most honored journalists, finally gave up in 1991 Henry Gay, Trapp Shelton-Mason County Journal, the 1970s, $300,000 in debt. Her last words to ISWNE in Shelton, Wash. 1975 was, “I’m tired of fighting.” 1990 Karl Monroe, Collinsville (Ill.) Herald Another Courage winner was W. Penn Jones, who edited the 1989 William Rotch, Milford (N.H.) Cabinet Midlothian Mirror, a tiny weekly near Dallas, Texas. He won the award in 1963 for his battle with the ultraright 1988 Bruce Brugmann, San Francisco Bay Guardian John Birch Society. Its local leader was a speaker at his 1987 James Russell Wiggins, son’s high school graduation. Penn Jones tried to get a lib- Ellsworth (Maine) American eral judge invited to also speak at the graduation. 1986 Rollin McCommons, Athens (Ga.) Observer When he asked the principal in his high school office, the 1985 McDill (Huck) Boyd, principal punched him out. The local head of the John Phillips County Review, Phillipsburg, Kan. Birch Society later started a fist fight with him and they 1984 Richard McCord, both went through the front plate glass window of Penn’s Santa Fe (N.M.) Reporter newspaper office on the Thursday the Mirror came out. On Sunday, the newspaper plant was fire-bombed. 1983 Homer Marcum, The Martin Countian, Penn Jones was stunned that anybody had paid attention Inez, Ky. to what he was doing in Midlothian. He said at the 1963 1982 Kieth Howard, McCord ISWNE conference, “For 17 years I couldn’t even get the Yellow Springs (Ohio) News local school board to hold open meetings.” On November 1981 Edward DeCourcy, 1963, Penn was in Dallas when John F. Kennedy was Newport (N.H.) Argus assassinated. He later wrote four books on the Warren Champion Commission Report and was on the cover of Ramparts 1980 Robert Estabrook, magazine as the focus of a 21-page story on his JFK Lakeville (Conn.) Journal assassination findings. 1979 Houstoun Waring, Estabrook Littleton (Colo.) Independent From 1962 to 69 I wrote about weekly newspapers for Editor & Publisher magazine, out of New York City. Each 1978 Tom Leathers, The Squire, Kansas City, Mo. July, I journeyed to Pere Marquette State Park, near 1977 Charles & Virginia Russell, Grafton, Ill., where the conferences were held. I covered not Dewitt County Observer, Clinton, Ill. only these Courage in Journalism winners, but some of the 1976 Blair Macy, great community newspaper editorial minds the Keene Valley Sun, Kennesburg, Colo. continued on page 12 September/October 1999 11 The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors

Who is Gene Cervi? continued from page 11 conference attracted, first among Keep your James Restons. These By 1975, the United States had them the late Houstoun Waring, weekly newspaper editors were cooled down and far few weekly the Littleton (Col.) Independent, my journalism heroes. Foremost editors were being harassed. then considered the premier was Gene Cervi, editor and The “Lovejoy Courage in weekly newspaper editor in the publisher of Cervi’s Rocky Journalism” award stayed country. He frequently wrote for Mountain Business Journal in at SIU when the conference Sunday Denver, a highly successful headquarters moved to Northern Magazine. weekly devoted to business, Illinois University. A new award, the Cervi was created, There was Don Pease, be given to “someone editor of the Oberlin with a career of (Ohio) News-Tribune from Ask me who Gene Cervi was and I come at you outstanding public 1957 to 1976 and for service through 16 years after that an from a far different place and time community journalism outstanding United States and who adhered to congressman from Ohio. when weekly newspaper journalism the highest standards Presidential primary mirrored a Mac Truck hood ornament of the craft with a candidates going back deep reverence for the to Eisenhower and and a 1960s confrontational sensibility. English language that Stevenson trekked that was a hallmark through the snows of Cervi’s writing.” For of New Hampshire to awhile, along with a interviews at Bill Rotch’s social and cultural coverage, plaque the recipient received a Cabinet-Press in Milford and to or as he described it once to me, gold-plated replica of the bulldog Ed DeCourcy’s Argus-Champion “a combination of the Wall Street hood ornament on the Mac editorial offices to Newport at the Journal and The New Yorker.” truck. The bulldog resembled opposite end of the state. Both, Cervi. Cervi, an imposing figure of now retired, were brilliant average height, some 250 The current roster of ISWNE has editorial writers and columnists. pounds, and a booming voice, many outstanding editors in its Bill still writes his column as was the loud conscience of ranks today, among them sons another New Hampshire ISWNE at a time when many at and daughters of the early primary season under way. the annual meeting were noisy members. Their meetings are a The late Landon Wills, editor and sometimes contentious. lot more quiet than the raucous of the McLean Country in tiny Following his death at 64 on 60s sessions in Southern Illinois Calhoun, Ky., was the subject Dec. 15, 1970, the New York as editors and speakers of all of an ABC TV documentary, Times described his journal political stripes went at each “A Country Editor: Portrait of as the “muckraking weekly other. Gene Cervi often was the a Dying Breed.” business newspaper” and Cervi bulldog barking the loudest. as “one of the most outspoken Bob Estabrook spent 25 years Ask me who Gene Cervi was voices in American journalism.” at as and I come at you from a far London, U.N. and Canadian Cervi, with his successful “in different place and time when correspondent and editorial page your face” journalism, was the weekly newspaper journalism editor before he and his wife, conscience of the ISWNE. mirrored a Mac Truck hood Mary Lou, bought the Lakeville Burt Freireich, retired editor ornament and a 1960s (Conn.) Journal in 1971. and publisher of the Sun City confrontational sensibility. They sold it in 1986 but he still (Arizona) News-Sun, told me at The Mac truck bulldog hood writes his “Perambulating” the Halifax conference that for ornament said it all. column for the weekly. Bob years until he sold his paper he and Mary Lou, along with Don had Cervi’s photo on his office Rick Freeman is a Woburn resident Pease and his wife, Jeanne, were door with the caption “This is and contributing columnist to the at the Halifax conference. what a great editor looks like.” Woburn Advocate. 12 September/October 1999 The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors ISWNE 1999 award competition The 24th Annual Eugene Cervi Award The Eugene Cervi Award was established by ISWNE to journalism and for adhering to the highest standards honor the memory of Eugene Cervi of the Rocky of the craft with the deep reverence for the English Mountain Journal, Denver, by recognizing a newspaper language that was the hallmark of Eugene Cervi’s editor who has consistently acted in the conviction writing. that “good journalism begets good government.” The award also recognizes consistently aggressive The award is presented not for a single brave reporting of government at the grassroots level and accomplishment, however deserving, but for a career interpretation of local affairs. of outstanding public service through community

Cervi Award Nominations should begin with a letter of nomination, which should include the writer’s reasons for making the nomination. The nomination also should have other letters about the nominee, clippings demonstrating the criteria for the award and a biographical data sheet giving basic facts about the nominee’s career. Nominations are open only to editors of newspapers of less than daily frequency. Daily is defined as at least five days per week in frequency. (Note: Since the Cervi Award covers a journalistic career, supporting materials are not limited by chronology. Clips can be made from any point in the nominee’s career.). Nominations should be sent by Feb. 1, 2000, (materials may follow by end of month) to: Chad Stebbins, Department of Communications, Missouri Southern State College, 3950 E. Newman Road, Joplin, MO 64801-1595. Please mark the envelope: CERVI AWARD ENTRY.

The 39th Annual Golden Quill Award The first Golden Quill Award in 1961 went to Hall DeCell of the Deer Creek Pilot, Rolling Fork, Miss. Then as now, the award recognized good opinion writing. Eligibility: How to Submit: All newspapers of less than daily frequency Select up to four best editorials or signed opinion pieces (published less than five days per week) are from your newspaper. Two is the maximum number qualified to enter. Entries must have been of entries permitted from each individual. Mount each published between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 1998. entry on 8 1/2-by-11-inch white paper. Please use glue or mounting material that does not bleed through Entries must be postmarked by Feb. 1, 2000. newsprint. Golden Dozen articles (ISWNE selects 12 finalists from which the winner is chosen) will be Please mark the envelope: GOLDEN QUILL ENTRY. photocopied in their original form for publication in Send to: Chad Stebbins, the Grassroots Editor, ISWNE’s quarterly journal. Missouri Southern State College, On each page on which the entries are mounted, 3950 E. Newman Road, Joplin, MO, 64801-1595. the following should appear in the upper right-hand corner: Name of newspaper, full mailing address of You may also nominate an editorial or signed newspaper, date on which the entry was published, opinion piece by sending the information and full name and title of the person who wrote the above with a copy of the article in the format article. Please mail the entries flat in appropriate indicated. Please enclose a letter telling envelopes. ISWNE that it is a nomination.

GOLDEN QUILL and EUGENE CERVI AWARD winners will be invited guests of ISWNE for a presentation during the Society’s annual conference at Victoria, British Columbia. Each award includes a plaque, conference expenses, and travel expenses up to $500. September/October 1999 13 The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors A

Opinion: Bluntly Speaking From The Ghanian Chronicle, Accra, Ghana CURSECURSEon our NATION BY I. K. GYASI “THE CURSE never fell UPON our nation till now; I never felt it till now.” — Shylock, in Shakespeare’s THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

e are either going through a baptism of fire to security institutions have turned criminal, and con- W toughen us up or we are under a curse that sequently turned their fists, batons and guns on will consign us to eternal perdition. innocent persons. Whatever it is, many of us feel The criminal behaviour of these bad unsafe, deprived, and uncertain of About 1:00 a.m. nuts and other happenings in the the future — our own future and country make some of us feel unsafe, that of our country. The cause of on July 24, 1999 Lance deprived and uncertain about the next our fear? step to take. Take the latest case of Corporal Kennedy military indiscipline and criminal The Ghana Armed Forces and the behaviour reported by The Pioneer of Ghana Police Service are the two Dufour, Lance Corporal Thursday, August 5,1999. regular institutions charged with the primary responsibility of 0duro and another one About 1:00 a.m. on July 24, 1999 securing our lives. Lance Corporal Kennedy Dufour, Lance Corporal 0duro and another The Police Service ensures that yet to be identified, and one yet to be identified, and all from law and order prevails so that we, the 6th Battalion of Infantry in living within the country’s borders, all from the 6th Battalion Tamale, invade the home of a couple can go about our lawful business of Infantry in Tamale, Mr. Kwasi Dubeng and Miss Julie without fear that our lives, limbs Oppong, and brutally assault them. and livelihood will be at grave risk. invade the home of a These three soldiers, fully armed with The Armed Forces perform a rifles, also steal Mr. Dubeng’s purse similar function, with the couple Mr. Kwasi Dubeng containing DM400, ¢80,000.00 and a difference that they ward off gold chain. external aggression Of course, occa- and Miss Julie Oppong, sionally, they may help the police or A clue to this otherwise bizarre and even take over from and brutally unprovoked attack is the bit about them when a very dangerous local assault them. Miss Oppong being a former situation requires their services. A girlfriend of Lance Corporal Dufour. case in point is the celebrated but A few questions arise. Granted that nightmarish Northern conflict. Miss Oppong was a former girlfriend of Dufour, did For the most part, however, our soldiers are that give him and his accomplices any right to expected to be hardly seen, and even more assault man and wife? hardly heard. Did they come all the way from Tamale or Unfortunately, some members of the two were they among a unit of the 6th Battalion 14 September/October 1999 The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors temporarily stationed in Kumasi for official duty? If that is a sincere promise or even an oath, then let Were they on leave or were they guilty of AWOL them turn their fists, guns, ships and aircraft on (absent without leave)? external aggressors instead of turning them on the very citizens they have sworn to defend. Did they take the rifles with or without authority? Carrying arms on a private mission at 1.00 am? That goes to Police boss Peter Nanfuri’s men some of whom, like some of the bad nuts in the Armed This incident and others in the past make some of Forces, allegedly give out their guns and uniforms us wonder if Lt.-Gen. Ben Akafia, Armed Forces to criminals. chief, is really in charge of his men and women or whether he has lost his grip owing to the Mr. Nanfuri should also be left free to tackle police- unfortunate intrusion of partisan politics into the men implicated in armed robbery and other offens- Armed Forces. es. When soldiers walk our streets assaulting innocent We get the impression that some are sacred cows civilians and taking them away into guardrooms, I that should not be touched no matter their direct wonder who is in charge. involvement in serious crimes. When such a politically partisan As long as these criminals roam free organization as the Association of or enjoy the comfort of their homes, Committees for the Defense of the As long as the wrong signals are sent to the rest: Revolution. (ACDR) is allowed to to other criminals who become bold, exist in our armed forces, I wonder criminals roam free and to citizens to come to prefer who is in charge. or enjoy the comfort of suspects to sending them to the police station. When the Armed Forces ACDR issues statements that should have their homes, the wrong Lt. Gen. Ben Akafia and Inspector- come from the Ministry of Defense, General Peter Nanfuri,, the ball is or from the Chief of Defense Staff, or signals are sent to the in your court. Let us walk easy, work at least from the Armed Forces easy, and sleep easy in the sound and Directorate of Public Relations, I rest: to other criminals reassuring knowledge that nothing wonder who is in charge. can touch us unless we willfully break who become bold, the law of the land. And when the Minister of Defense and a Presidential Staffer defend the and to citizens to come Has it truly come to the point where continued existence of this potential- Great Britain has threatened not to ly divisive virus in the Armed Forces, to prefer lynching recognize degrees awarded by the I wonder where we are heading to. country’s universities? suspects to sending them The Armed Forces have, in recent If true, this news might be music to times, diplomatically warned the to the police station. the ears of someone like our President media against reporting events who has more than once suggested involving the institution. that our medical students should be initially half trained so that they will not So when our neighbour Togo blatantly violates our immediately leave the country but will stay to treat air space with apparent impunity, it is not to be malaria. reported. It is no laughing matter, of course, but a serious one So when serving and retired soldiers kill innocent which should engage our attention. And talking of civilians the media should be “circumspect” in university degrees and university education in reporting it. No. The Chief of Defense Staff should general, I ask, what is happening? have the political handcuffs taken off his wrists so that he can bring order and discipline into the Perhaps the President and some of his men and Armed Forces. women do not care because they have their children and other relatives studying abroad in The Armed Forces should have only one ideology — private and expensive schools and universities loyalty to the State no matter which political party abroad. But they should care and not adopt a may be in power. myopic policy that sees university education as On a sign board in Accra, our Armed Forces have benefiting only those who get them. proclaimed loud and clear that they are ever ready to defend Ghana even to the peril of their lives. continued on page 19 September/October 1999 15 The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors BeatlemaniaBeatlemania strikes again in Co. Wexford From the Wexford Echo, The Fab Four may be no more, but it will never be a case of Ireland: Hello Goodbye to the Liverpudlians as far as members of The Beatles Fan Club of Ireland are concerned, writes Seán Whelan (who once almost saw the group).

ISTEN reader, Do you Want to Know a Secret? Beatles Ireland’s honorary patrons include L Take it From Me to You, it’s Something which ex-Beatle Ringo Starr, former Beatles drummer can be said without any Help (even a little from Pete Best, legendary record producer George my friends) that there’ll never be another group Martin, John and Cynthia Lennon’s son Julian, with the same profound impact on popular music and former Pacemaker leader Gerry (You’ll Never as The Beatles. Walk Alone) Marsden. I suppose Tomorrow Never Knows, but for me, Co. Wexford was this year’s destination for the today’s superstars may go through a Hard Day’s annual outing of Dublin-based members of the Night in attempting to emulate the lovable fanclub, when their Magical Mystery Tour weekend moptops of Yesterday, turn Here,There, and brought them to the Carne/Our Lady’s Island Everywhere searching for the same magic, and area, the native heath of Maurice McCarthy, one Twist and Shout all they like. Now, I Don’t Want to of several Wexford members of the club. Spoil the Party, but they have a Long and Winding Club President Pete Brennan, a dynamic Road before they emulate the Liverpudlian enthusiast of the Fab Four, says that not lullaby lads. alone will the music of Lennon and Yea, Yea, Yea — people can tell the new McCartney and Co. never die, but it is as kids on the block that Baby You’re a popular today as it ever was, and not just Rich Man, but, of course, we know that with ’60s freaks. Money Can’t Buy Me Love (of their music, “We have members as young as three and that is). four in our club,” he says, stressing that Which, apart from being a somewhat they are a non-profit-making organization showy (and, so far, pointless) principally aiming at keeping the Beatles’ introduction to this particular story, is music alive and catering for the group’s also one of the corniest ways of catching diehard fans. the casual reader’s eye (or should that be eyes?). Any money raised at their regular functions, Yes, The Beatles are back, though for true or via the sale of the club’s six-times-a-year devotees, to paraphrase those immortal words, newsletter, goes to Our Lady of Lourdes hospital the Merseyside legends never really went away. in Crumlin, a cause well known to Wexford. They certainly haven’t for the fanatical members Pete himself was aged four when The Beatles of Beatles Ireland, the one and only official visited Dublin on Nov. 7, 1963, playing at the Beatles fan club in this country, and whose old Adelphi Cinema. Among Pete’s treasured hundreds of member include fans as distant as collection of Beatles memorabilia is one of the the Far East. original tickets for that gig, costing seven shillings and six pence (around 33p in today’s currency). Formed in November 1993 and with the motto ‘The Beatles live on,’ it is twinned with ‘Beatles For the Magical Mystery Tour stay in Carne, Pete Scene,’ the fan club in the group’s home city in and his merry band used the local Lighthouse’ Liverpool. Unlike fan clubs in the heyday of the premises as their base. Among their VIP guests Beatles, today’s technology means that, via the was Englishman Jeff Rhind, a classmate of Internet, the Irish Beatles’ section can now be instantly contacted by people all over the world. continued on page 18

16 September/October 1999 The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors The BY MICHAEL POLITICS COLEMAN of From Honduras This Week, SoccerSoccer Tegucigalpa, Honduras t’s never just a game in Navarro, a I Honduras. bank employee who studied in After finishing the Pan the United American Games with the States. country’s first silver medal in history, the Honduran soccer “In the eighties team was something to celebrate it was the — if only for a while. Contras, the nineties it was The hastily assembled team Mitch. There surpassed all expectations are some sailing through pool play and occasions when the semi-finals beating the Honduras is United States, Uruguay, Cuba, looked at as a Jamaica and Canada. Mexico success so our halted the blue and white’s people feel five-game winning streak in the really proud.” finals 3-1 in a emotion-packed everything when the soccer team game. Doubtless the game gave wins,” he said. “If a lot of people Hondurans a sense of pride but “This is something to feel proud got over it maybe this country for some the celebration is of,” said student, Beatriz would think about more already over and it is time to Chirinos. “Because it’s the first important things.” look at real issues. time we’ve won “People swallowed that (the gas something like “For a moment, hike),” added Navarro. “It’s that. People will For a moment, the people of another trancazo.” know about Honduras were Honduras.” the people of Honduras very happy,” said Presidential hopefuls also took Hector Martinez, a advantage of this nationalistic And hopefully not were very happy. translator and fever pumping up their just as a good teacher in campaigns. soccer playing But when we Tegucigalpa. nation. It is The Ricardo Maduro contingent international do well in soccer “But when we do made the connection obvious recognition that is well in soccer the passing out bumper stickers in important for some the government government takes front of the Estadio Nacional on Hondurans advantage of Saturday. Jaime Rosenthal held who think their takes advantage that.” a rally nearby on Sunday. country has been Many, like The Pan American Games in associated with its of that. Martinez, Winnipeg was a historical event, problems, not its wondered if the something to be proud of but accomplishments for too long. four lempira hike in gas prices many Hondurans are asking, “People feel the name of on game day was a coincidence. now what? Honduras is associated with “Hondurans tend to forget negative things,” said Jorge September/October 1999 17 The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors

Beatlemania continued from page 16 Death-row coffee continued from page 19 Lennon and McCartney at Pete Brennan says that the Quarrybank grammar school ‘Wexford connection’ in The Anybody out there agreeing with in the 1950s. Beatles history is something me? the Irish section of the club is Rhind has another, even Well, by George, let it be known. very proud of, and would be more unique distinction: it Send the goop back. This stuff’s delighted to see was he who took the first gotta go. many more from photograph of the Model You can be subtle about it if you The Quarrymen County join the don’t have the guts to be con- group, a famous club. frontational. Say kind things to the snap featuring server like (take your pick): the check- Its next gig is a Beatles shirted Festival Weekend, to • Pardon me, but didn’t you know musicians be held in ‘The the war’s over, I think you’ve mis- playing at a Castle Inn’ upstairs) taken me for the enemy. garden féte in in Vicker Street, Dublin • I know some outfit got sued for Liverpool in 1957, (near Christ Church), spilling hot coffee on someone, but long before they on the weekend of still I’d like some of it. I’ll be extra evolved into the Beatles. Nov. 5-7 next. Guests will careful. Meantime, here’s the hot include Louise Harrison (sister Jeff, Pete and Co. had a ball water back while I’m waiting. of George), former Beatles’ on their visit, with their very • Has this place ever had its well publicist and Mr. Fix-it own musical group belting tested? I presume it’s a water well. Alastair Taylor, and ex-Wings out all the old Beatles guitarist Henry McCullough. • Whatever this is, it’s got an oil numbers. There was also slick on top of it. I can see myself another important aspect of A video of the Magical Mystery in it, but it makes me look the trip, in line with their aim Tour to Co. Wexford of a few overweight. of promoting any Irish angle weeks back will also be to the Beatles Story. screened. • I know this must be a new drink you’re proud of. But let me try a As is well known, former Thirty-three years ago, it was cup of coffee along with it. Beatle George Harrison’s a case of so near-yet-so-far grandfather hailed from Co. from a historic moment for • How much would you charge not Wexford, with Corah, this writer, when living in to give me a refill? Ballycarney, near Aston in Birmingham. The • Does the Environmental Enniscorthy, his ancestral Beatles were at their height in Protection Agency know about this? home. Harrison’s great- early 1966, and I literally grandfather was a member of bumped into thousands of • I just wanted to stay up all night, the Ffrench family, whose son screaming fans surrounding not die. (George’s grandfather) the old ABC television studios A word to offending businesses: emigrated to Liverpool, where in Aston, where The Beatles being that coffee’s a high-profit he worked as a policeman were due to appear. I didn’t item in the first place, isn’t it a bit and taxi-driver. hang around, and missed the sadistic to punish people with it? chance to catch a glimpse of On their return home to popular history. And to coffee-loving customers: Dublin from Carne, The I done all I can, bless your Beatles Ireland party stropped But now I think I’ll Follow the pea-pickin’ hearts. You’re on off at the house which was Sun and dust off my old your own here on out. the original Ffrench home, Beatles record collection: as and presented an inscribed they might say around Jim Sawyer lives in Willard, Mo. This plaque to the present owners Enniscorthy, ‘’Strawberry column was printed in the Bolivar of the property. Fields Forever!’’ Herald-Free Press, Bolivar, Mo., Aug. 18, 1999

18 September/October 1999 The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors

A Curse on our Nation continued from page 15 We cannot sincerely say that poverty will be disastrous in the tell. All I know is that I am university education benefited short run and criminal in the paying more for utilities, food, only the Kofi Annans, the Lade long run. soap and other items. Wosornus, the Konotey-Ahulus. Why does this Government enjoy Perhaps those who have financial the F. K. A, Alloteys and no one swallowing indigestible and bitter cushions and shock absorbers do else. If nothing at all, Ghana lumps from the IMF, the World not feel the jolting effects of the basks in the glory of their Bank and so-called donors? economic bumps but the rest of achievements even if some us do. of them currently work abroad. One condition imposed by these Are we not proud of our heart Western institutions is the severe With the kind of ruinous, IMF- surgeon, Dr. Frimpong Boateng? reduction in real wages. World Bank dictated policies, are Government has achieved that, we surprised about the spate of University education is no luxury with the introduction of the strikes, unemployment even for either, though the devilish current slave wages that, in real people with skills, and the International Monetary Fund, the terms, are worse than what we epidemic of armed robberies and World Bank and other ‘donor’ received previously. murders? countries are doing their dangerous best to convince us The Governor of the Bank of Let me turn one of Ayikwei that it is. Ghana, the Government Armah’s book titles on its head Statistician and others claim that by asking: Why are we so cursed? To reduce funding to the inflation is steadily going down. universities to the point where a Perhaps we need to consult an considerable number of qualified Not being an economist, a oracle to get an answer to that students cannot get in due to banker or statistician, I cannot one.

Ellen Albanese [email protected] Bob & Sandy Horowitz [email protected] Larry Atkinson [email protected] Dr. Seth & Rona Jaffe [email protected] Lisa Atkinson [email protected] Debbie & Scott Kipp [email protected] Roberta Atkinson [email protected] eelleeccttrroonniicc Joyce Klug [email protected] Phoebe Baker [email protected] Dick Lee [email protected] ISWNE Maurine Beasley [email protected] Mary Jo Lee [email protected] Iris Blankman [email protected] Members Anthony Logden & Joyce McKim mail Megan Bolin [email protected] mail [email protected] Don Brod [email protected] Tommy McGraw [email protected] Tony & Alice Richards [email protected] Joanne Cadogen [email protected] Eugene McGee [email protected] Jim Sawyer [email protected] Mike and Kathy Cleveland [email protected] Gail MacNeill [email protected] Nancy Slepicka [email protected] Dickey Drysdale [email protected] Jan MacNeill [email protected] Chad Stebbins [email protected] Bob & MaryLou Estabrook [email protected] Paul MacNeill [email protected] Jane Steinmetz [email protected] Rick & Sybil Friedman [email protected] Shirley MacNeill Elliott Freireich & Marquita Porter [email protected] Robert Trapp Jr. [email protected] [email protected] Frank & Martha Manley [email protected] Tim Waltner [email protected] Frank Garred [email protected] Bruce & Shirley Murray Carolyn Wills [email protected] Sandra George [email protected] [email protected] Clyde Wills [email protected] Amy Harper [email protected] Carol O’Leary [email protected] Richard & Collette Wills [email protected] Bill & Jan Haupt [email protected] Don & Jeanne Pease [email protected] Guy Wood [email protected] Harry & Carol Hix [email protected] Garrett Ray [email protected] Marcia Wood [email protected])

September/October 1999 19 Titanic Remembered in Halifax Jim Sawyer of Missouri, in photo, along with Goodloe Sutton and Tommy McGraw of , didn’t leave ISWNE’s 1999 Halifax conference without visiting Fair Lawn, one of the city’s three cemeteries containing 150 Titanic victims — Fair Lawn the largest with 121. Sawyer wrote a story last year about the connection to the tragedy of a Roman Catholic parish in County Mayo which lost more young people than any other area of Ireland. He traveled to the village of Lahardane to interview relatives. Parts of the story were carried in his weekly column, which appears in the Webster County Citizen in Seymour and in several other Missouri papers. The full story was carried by the Missouri-based Photo by Tommy McGraw Senior Living publication.

BOUT THE Dr. Chad Stebbins A ISWNE Editor & ISWNE Secretary/Treasurer Director, Institute of International Studies The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors (ISWNE) was founded in 1954 at Southern Illinois University Genie Undernehr (SIU) by Howard R. Long, then chair of SIU’s Department of Journalism at Carbondale, and Houstoun Waring, then Associate Editor editor of the Littleton (Colo.) Independent. ISWNE headquarters were at Northern Illinois University at Dekalb from 1976 to 1992, at South Dakota State University in Brookings from 1992 to 1999. Missouri Southern State College in Produced by the Department of Communications and the Joplin became the headquarters in 1999. Institute of International Studies ISWNE’s purpose is to help those involved in the weekly press to improve standards of editorial writing and news Missouri Southern State College reporting and to encourage strong, independent editorial voices. The society seeks to fulfill its purpose by holding 3950 E. Newman Road annual conferences, presenting awards, issuing publications, and encouraging international exchanges. There are Joplin, MO 64801-1595 ISWNE members in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, (417) 625-9736 Japan, and India. There are subscribers to Grassroots Editor, the society’s quarterly journal, in still more countries. (417) 659-4445 FAX

International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors Institute of International Studies Missouri Southern State College Joplin, MO 64801-1595

FIRST CLASS