March 2020 Issue

SocietyDon’t of missthe Silurians the EXCELLENCEKIHSS AWARD IN JOURNALISMLuncheon AWARDShonoring a journalist GALA Thewho National has been Artsa mentor Club 15to Gramercy young reporters. Park South Wednesday, May 15, 2019 The National Arts Club Drinks: 6 P.M. • Dinner: 7:15 P.M. PublishedPublished by by The The Society Silurians of thePress Silurians., Club, an an organization organization Meet15 oldGramercy friends and Park award South winners ofof veteranveteran NewNew YorkYork CityCity journalistsjournalists foundedfounded inin 19241924 Wednesday,[email protected] April 15, 12 noon MARCHMARCH 20202019 Bayeux Memorial Honors Journalists ‘Gone Missing’ BY AILEEN JACOBSON Feminism: e saw the rows upon rows of gleaming white tomb- Wstones for the very young Now and men who died in Normandy during World War II. We clambered over bunkers and around artillery from the D-Day landings on Then the beaches along France’s northern coast. We watched a somber flag ceremo- ny for the American dead at the cemetery near Omaha Beach. And now my hus- band and I, both of us journalists since high school, were ERNIE PYLE searching for the memorial for reporters who died in the line of duty. We had read it was located in Bayeux. We were staying in that historic Normandy town—also known for its extraordinary A WOODSTOCK tapestry depicting battles that took place in 1066—as part of an October vacation in France. Bayeux, the first town in France to be liberated from the Nazi occupation, on June 7, 1944, MEMOIR is a good base for exploring Normandy. BY JACK DEACY bridge on Chappaquiddick Island and At first, we couldn’t find the jour- killed Mary Joe Kopeckne. During that Continued on Page 6 Slain journalists are listed by yearn the on stelessunny scatteredmorning throughof memorable a lush year,garden. the Vietnam War raged Friday Aug. 15, 1969, motel on, Nixon was sworn in and Sy Hersh Oowner Jack Besterman and broke the My Lai massacre story. The I walked up the driveway of the Pine Black Panthers brought a militant new Motel in White Lake, New York where phase to the Civil Rights movement, the Memoriesit meets Route 17B. of What weCovering saw Manson murders shook Losthe Angeles, amazed us. As far as our eyes could see, New York’s Stonewall riots started a gay the roadway was a vast sea of cars. All revolution, and the Beatles broke up. Teamstersabandoned. The only things and moving on theAnd on August Mob 15 upwards of the road were the drivers Anne Roiphe (inset) and Katie Roiphe BY ALLAN DODDS FRANK Peter is black, and I had curly ist Lewis Dischner and Charlie and passengers who shoulder-length Afro hippy hair, Edwardsen Jr., an Eskimo from had abandoned them, “I never seen nothing like this he murder was fresh so we stood out in the tomato & Barrow who spearheaded the York University. She is the author of The all walking slowly west BY ANNE AND KATIE ROIPHE from the front pages in red sauce crowd at Mulberry & Arctic Slope Native Association. Morning After: Sex, Fear, and Feminism, toward their destination before,” he said to me. “All this New York in 1972 as I Hester. “You could still see the I knew them from covering ilurian Anne Roiphe was one The Violet Hour, and the forthcomingT The five miles away: the deplaned from Juneau, where I bullet holes,” Peterfor remembers. a concert? Dischner’s Who’s guidance playing, of the Power Notebooks. She has also written Woodstock Music and of the most powerful and best- was Bureau Chief of the Anchor- “I thought they were going to kill Teamsters’ campaign to gain for The New York Times, Harper’s, Slate, Art Fair. In this pastoral known feminist writers of the age Daily News, for my annual us because we were askingFrank ques- jurisdiction Sinatra?” over construction S The Paris Review, and other publications. setting, for at least a few last century. Her daughter Katie Roiphe visit to The Lower 48. Nearly 50 tions. I think they didn’t because of the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline days, the human foot is one of the most prominent of this one. years later, I still remember how they thought we were two dumb and Edwardsen’s firebrand civil Katie Roiphe: would overtake the combustion engine. 400,000 young people descended Silurian News editor Michael Serrill I terrified Peter Francis, a room- rookie detectives.” rights leadership, which helped I wrote a piece for The Guardian on Besterman, an elderly Jewish on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm for the asked them to have a conversation about mate from Columbia Journalism Back in Alaska, thanks to force passage of the Alaska Na- finding out that my male colleagues man who once ran a grocery store Woodstock festival. The country seemed what has become known as the MeToo School, by dragging him and a the flying fists of a Teamsters tive Land Claims Act. (In 1989, were paid more than me. When they got in Brooklyn, kept staring at the to be spinning out of control. But it was movement, a vigorous debate about the girlfriend to dine, gawk and ask lobbyist and an Eskimo activist, Dischner and a colleague were their job offers from the university they monumental scene. “I never seen a newspaper reporter’s dream. discrimination and sexual harassment questions at Umberto’s Clam I had just survived a cinematic convicted of defrauding the Es- negotiated and asked for more money nothing like this before,” he said to me. At the time I was writing a Daily News that continues to plague society here and House, the Little Italy restaurant late-night brawl at a disco called kimo government on the North and when I got mine my instinct was “All this for a concert? Who’s playing, column three times a week that covered around the world. The format is Katie where mobster Joey Gallo had Dreamland. We were part of a Slope of more than $70 million.) just to say thank you. Since then I have Frank Sinatra?” music, politics, sports, government and interviewing her mother about how things just been whacked. rowdy, drunken bunch of legis- By the late 1970s, when I resolved to ask for more money for my So began my five-day odyssey city characters. I was 25 years old and have, and haven’t, changed. The memory was one of many lators, Native Land Claim activ- was covering federal courts and work. Have you ever asked for more covering the 1969 Woodstock Festival my cup runneth over. Anne, a former member of the Silurian about covering organized crime ists, oil, gas and labor lobbyists the Justice Department for The money for your work? Do you think this for the New York Daily News. I had In late May I began receiving releases Board of Governors, is the author of Up and the Teamsters that bubbled enjoying ourselves when a fight Washington Star, I had become is a feminist issue? come to cover a music festival. But and materials from promoters of a three- the Sandbox, 1185 park Avenue, Epilogue up watching “The Irishman,” between two women that started well-versed in the nation’s or- it would morph into an absolutely day concert in upstate New York. It was and 15 other novels and non-fiction Martin Scorsese’s movie about on the dance floor engulfed the ganized crime families’ grip Anne Roiphe: incredible weekend and one of the going to feature some of the biggest books. She has written for New York Mag- Teamsters hit man Frank Sheer- establishment. on organized labor. So when I do think this is a feminist issue or major stories not only of 1969 but of names in rock and folk music: the azine, The New York Times, Ms., Elle, an. Scorsese, with fidelity to After being tossed and som- in 1978 Silurian News Editor at least a problem for feminists. I would the Sixties. Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Vogue, Cosmopolitan and a variety of detail, reproduced Umberto’s ersaulting through the mob, I Michael Serrill was editing never dream of asking for more money And what a year 1969 was for news. Revival, Jimi Hendrix, Crosby Stills other publications. and the Gallo hit, a deed claimed ended up in a defensive triangle Police, a magazine about law and I am sorry to say that I probably American astronauts walked on the Nash and Young, The Band, Janis Katie is the director of the Cultural by Sheeran, but which is often with my back being protected enforcement funded by the Ford Continued on Page 5 moon, Ted Kennedy ran his car off a Continued on Page 3 Reporting and Criticism programJackie Presserat New attributed to others. by Teamsters tough guy lobby- Continued on Page 5 PAGE 2 SILURIAN NEWS MARCH 2020 President’s Report The Times Morgue is Very Much Alive Onward! reetings, Silurians. Hard to believe, but just two more GPresident’s letters left before I turn over the gavel, and my quill pen, to my worthy successor, Michael Serrill. My plan is to go out with a flourish, however, so stay tuned for our forthcoming events. They hold enormous promise. Our first cartoonist in a donkey’s years is on tap for February. You would not want to be on the wrong side of Jeff Danziger’ s brush (as so many of the wealthy and powerful have been). We’re planning a fabulous recip- ient for the Peter Kihss Award in April, but since he doesn’t know it yet, it must stay in pectore.

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