Society of the Silurians EXCELLENCE IN JOURNALISM AWARDS DINNER The Players Club 16 Gramercy Park South Thursday, May 15, 2014 Drinks: 6 p.m. Dinner: 7:15 p.m. Meet Old Friends and Award Winners Published by The Society of The Silurians, Inc., an organization (212) 532-0887 of veteran New York City journalists founded in 1924 Please Save the Date. Reservation forms will be mailed soon. MARCH 2014 From Print to Digital: My Turbulent Path

BY STEPHEN B. SHEPARD FROM TO sometimes with great reluctance, I came hen I first considered taking to see the value of the new technologies. on the role of founding dean I slowly realized that digital technology Wof a brand-new journalism would enrich journalism, creating an in- school, I initially thought of it as a per- teractive, multimedia form of storytelling sonal capstone, the culmination of a life- that invited community participation, that time in journalism. Having been a senior could be personalized, that could be de- editor at Newsweek, editor of the Satur- livered on a vast array of mobile devices, day Review, and editor-in-chief of that could be consumed globally, that BusinessWeek for more than 20 years, I could be distributed using social media. saw my new posting as a chance to pass And so, I finally managed to embrace the on my experience to the next generation. changes necessary to create a new Boy, was I wrong. As the journalism world school for a new age. Stephen B. Shepard became the founding dean of the Graduate School of changed in content and delivery, I was My personal passage is, of course, a Journalism at the City University of New York in March 2005. He helped build the one who became a student. microcosm of the larger struggle within the school into one of the nation’s best, creating an 18-month M.A. program To be perfectly candid, the new world the journalism profession to come to terms that features a fully converged curriculum, paid summer internships for all stu- seemed upside down to me. In the tradi- with the digital reckoning. Though many dents, and a diverse student body. More than 90 percent of its graduates are tional world I knew best, journalists de- mainstream media companies have been now working in journalism – for newspapers, magazines, broadcast stations, fined what was newsworthy and decided hollowed out by all those layoffs, a paral- web sites, and new media startups. On January 1, Shepard stepped down as when and how to cover it for essentially lel universe is slowly growing in journal- dean, turning over the post to Sarah Bartlett, a distinguished journalist (at The passive consumers who occasionally ism. Everywhere you look, new digital New York Times and Business Week), who has been with the school since it wrote a letter to the editor. It was a one- outlets are springing up that offer prom- opened. Here, Shepard reflects on his experience of building a new school for way street. ising alternatives – from Politico and a new era. The Internet changed all that. “The ProPublica to the Texas Tribune and people formerly known as the audience,” BuzzFeed, to say nothing of blogs, web as NYU’s Jay Rosen memorably de- at any time. dia critic A.J. Liebling’s famous apho- sites, and hyperlocal ventures. This year, scribed them, could now talk back. In All this meant a massive loss of con- rism was now officially wrong: freedom something called Inside Climate News fact, anyone could now be a journalist – trol for traditional journalists. Those of us of the press was no longer limited to won a Pulitzer Prize for National Report- or at least commit an act of journalism on who took pride in acting as trustworthy those who owned one. ing, and a blog named California Watch their blogs or web sites. Pretty soon we gatekeepers, who filtered the news for As journalism became decentralized, was a Pulitzer finalist for Public Service. had to embrace the even more radical rise you, who sifted through the glut of infor- we professionals were dethroned. It was There is more journalism produced today of social media, starting with YouTube, mation to tell you what was important and a psychic shock, a loss of esteem as well by more people on more platforms than Facebook and Twitter and now including why, were now criticized as elitists, dis- as a loss of livelihood for many people. ever before. And much of it is reaching Instagram and Pinterest. News was fast guising our own unspoken biases in a cloak Not surprisingly, my instinct was to be new audiences through social media, cre- becoming a conversation – a process of so-called professionalism. In the defensive – to protect the world I knew ating new communities of like-minded rather than a product. The long-standing emerging world, news-gathering and dis- and treasured. readers. model of one journalistic outlet speaking tribution would be decentralized and thus But I was no Luddite. I understood No, the real problem is not journalism to many people on a fixed schedule, like more democratic. The journalistic judg- full well that there was no going back to per se. The defining issue is now finan- an ageless Walter Cronkite, was replaced ment of the pros would be pre-empted by the old ways. The technological tide was cial: The traditional business model that by many voices speaking to many people the wisdom of the crowd. In effect, me- simply too powerful. Gradually, and Continued from Page 4 When Socolow Talked, Cronkite Listened 1964 when he was covering the Vietnam A SILURIAN PROFILE war. “He was the guy who kept every- body on the straight and narrow path. When you heard from him in the field, you BY CARL D. SPIELVOGEL would receive congratulatory ‘grams’ anford Socolow spent 32 years when things went right — and not such at CBS News, most of them in nice notes when they didn’t.” Shigh-profile posts, including six “I’m happy to say I didn’t get many of years as executive producer of the the criticisms,” Safer noted. “CBS Evening News With Walter When asked about Sandy’s manage- Cronkite.” But his career in journalism ment style, reputedly a lot more vocal and goes much farther back, all the way at a higher decibel level in the newsroom to the Stuyvesant High School than the soft-spoken, sometimes laconic Spectator; then as the editor-in-chief of Sandy we now know, Safer replied: “There the City College newspaper The Cam- was no soft and gentle back then. We had pus; a copy boy at The New York Times, a job to do, and everybody was a ‘hollerer’ and as a war correspondent in Korea. — and somehow it worked.” The lad who started school at a one-room Little wonder that Sandy bristled at a schoolhouse in northeastern Connecticut comment at a recent Silurian luncheon became the epitome of integrity in broad- about the lack of attention to accuracy in cast journalism. some aspects of journalism these days. ‘’Sandy was the conscience of the “Socolow was the ultimate fact- CBS newsroom, the go-to guy for every- checker,” Safer said. “He would make thing,” said Morley Safer, now of 60 Min- double- and triple-checks to make sure Sanford Socolow had a long association with Walter Kronkite, including utes, but who first worked for Sandy in Continued on Page 2 being the executive producer of “CBS News With Walter Cronkite.” PAGE 2 SILURIAN NEWS MARCH 2014

President’s Letter When Socolow Talked, Cronkite Listened Continued from Page 1 Africa and the Middle East. He then be- ing Commissioner). They were married BY ALLAN DODDS FRANK everything was correct.” came executive producer of “CBS News in 1960 and produced those three accom- n our 90th year, the Society of That view helped contribute to mak- With Walter Cronkite,” the most-watched plished offspring. They were divorced in the Silurians remains relevant ing Cronkite known as “the most trusted news program in TV history. When 1975. Iand robust, with nearly 300 mem- man in America.” Sandy was the man Cronkite retired, he stayed on to super- In a recent discussion about “the new bers and an average of 100 attending behind the scene. vise the transition to Dan Rather. media,” Sandy had some sharp words for each of our invigorating monthly lun- Sandy and I first met in 1948 at Baruch Sandy, now 85, retired from CBS in cable TV (he doesn’t use Facebook, cheon speeches. College, where he attempted to fulfill, 1988 and became founding executive pro- Twitter, Instagram – or J-Date). “I can’t First Vice President Betsy Ashton without success, his parents’ dream that ducer of “World Monitor,” an acclaimed understand the willingness of cable news has successfully transferred much of he become an accountant. He soon real- but rather short-lived daily TV news maga- to repeatedly broadcast news that has not the reservations process online to ized that wasn’t to be, and he transferred zine owned by the Christian Science Moni- been properly researched or vetted, as EventBrite and, so far at least, most to CCNY uptown, where he majored in tor. Then back with Walter, as executive they race to be the first with their so- members seem to be happy with that history, but spent most of his time report- producer of “The Cronkite Report,” a se- called ‘breaking news’,” he said. convenience. Thanks to Betsy and ing for and then editing The Campus. ries of 12 one-hour, single-subject reports Commenting on what author Mark In 1950, our professional careers be- Treasurer Karen Bedrosian for the Discovery Channel. Leibovich calls the rotating TV talking gan together as earnest copy boys at The Richardson and to the staff of The So where did this exotic odyssey, this heads who are “citizens of the green Times under the tyrannical reign of the romance with journalism begin? Sandy room,” Sandy says, “I often find myself Players, our lunches seem to be run- legendary “king of copy boys,” the disci- was born on Dec. 10, 1928, to a mother talking with outrage to the television ning more smoothly than ever. plinarian-in-chief, Sammy Solovitz. Sandy who had emigrated from Ukraine and a screen with such phrases as ‘I can’t be- Our line-up of speakers has been was graduated from CCNY on the very father who came from Kiev, via Argen- lieve my ears. This person doesn’t know dazzling, and for those of you who have day the Korean War began, and a year tina. They met in the Bronx. Soon after what he or she is talking about.’” missed a lunch or two, most talks by later he entered the Army at Uncle Sam’s Sandy’s birth, the family moved to North Asked to identify his favorite assign- journalists were video-taped and may invitation. He was assigned to an artil- Franklin, Conn., where his father and uncle ments, he said, “First was the job at INS. be seen on our web site. Check out lery battalion, but then was transferred by marriage became partners in a dairy I was young, without any responsibilities, Ben Smith of BuzzFeed and Walt to Officers Candidate School, emerged farm, with little or no previous farming including a family, and I was free to roam Bogdanich of The New York Times as a second lieutenant and was posted to experience. Both families shared the around a part of the world that fascinated and Seymour Topping’s recollections Tokyo, which became a seminal circum- farmhouse. It was Sandy’s chore to round me in search of good stories. Second on Siliurians.org. U.S. Attorney Preet stance in his life. up the cows and herd them into the barn would be my job as head of the CBS Bharara proved to be sensationally In Tokyo, he was put in charge of for the evening milking. That was after Washington Bureau. I spent a good deal funny, entertaining and informative, V.U.N.C. (Voice of the United Nations attending school in a one-room school- of time at the White House. It was also even though he decided he was too Command), whose role it was to produce house, half a mile away, to which he the time of the spillover from the Nixon camera shy to have his remarks im- propaganda programs broadcast in Korean walked daily. resignation.” mortalized on videotape on our web and Chinese to those countries. In 1953, When he was 10, the family moved Statesmen, politicians. Academicians, site. You just have to ask somebody to while anticipating his Army discharge, back to New York, to West 91st Street actors, athletes, celebrities of every stripe tell you about his talk. And we look Sandy telexed Robert Garst, then the City between Riverside Drive and West End – Sandy has covered them all. But when forward to our next speaker, Steve Editor of The Times, applying for a ru- Ave., actually only six streets from where asked who among them would he most Coll, the dean of the Columbia Jour- mored opening of a job as a reporter in the he lives now, together with his eldest son like to have dinner with alone, he replied nalism School, who will be with us on Tokyo bureau. Garst responded: “No to Jonathan, who returned from Moscow to without hesitation: “Walter Cronkite. He Monday, April 14. Tokyo. However, we have protected your Manhattan a few years ago after serving had a wealth of information, and he was copy boy job. Come home.” Editor Bernard Kirsch has re-ener- there as a lawyer with expertise in Rus- willing to share it with people he trusted.” Feeling rejected, he made the best of sian petroleum matters. Sandy’s daughter gized the Silurian News and cajoled And now, as Sandy says somewhat it and took a job with International News Elisabeth, a former investment banker in inscrutably at the end of every telephone some terrific stories from our mem- Service (which later became the “I” in Singapore, is now based in Kuala Lumpur, conversation I have with him, indicating bers. Please keep them coming and UPI) and served as a war correspondent Malaysia, with the U.S. State Department. either concurring agreement or more pitch Bernie. The benefits are cascad- in Korea and also roved throughout His youngest son Michael is a professor later, “Right on.” Either interpretation ing over to the web site, where Fred Southeast Asia and Australia. He returned of communications at the University of would suit me for a long, long time. Herzog has been a stalwart posting to New York in 1956 and became a writer Maine in Bangor. breaking news and messages to inform for Mike Wallace, then on the DuMont When Sandy returned to New York in and entertain all of us. Board member network. 1957, I introduced him to a charming Carl D. Spielvogel was a financial re- Bill Diehl is also going to help identify Later that year he joined CBS News, young woman I had met at a dinner party. porter and columnist for The New York news that Silurians should know. As where he remained for 32 years in vari- Her name was Nan Krulewitch (the Times from 1950 to 1960; the head of always, my appreciation of the mem- ous capacities, including bureau chief in daughter of Melvin Krulewitch, the first several major advertising agencies, and bership recruitment efforts by former London and Washington. In London, he Jewish general in the U.S. Marine Corps U.S. Ambassador to Slovakia under Presi- Presidents Myron Kandel and Mort had supervisory responsibility for Europe, who later became New York State Box- dent Clinton. Sheinman is unbounded, as is my re- gard for our many dedicated board members. But one sad note. Another past New Members president, Dave Pitt, a class act all the Kathleen Campion, a financial journalist whose and a freelance writer and consultant for such clients as Post as sports editor and remained there until 1993, way, died in February. He’ll be missed. career includes 20 years with Bloomberg News. AOL, Fox Digital Media, Media magazine and eMarketer, when he left to become a public relations executive The contingency fund affiliated with She began as a financial reporter and in 1983 be- where she is currently senior digital strategist. for the National Hockey League as well as a sports the Silurians and led by Larry Fried- came a television correspondent for Business media consultant. Since February 2013, he has been man continues its silent yet important Week’s Satellite News Channel. A year later, she Martin Gottlieb is the editor of The assistant commissioner, communications, for the became host of “Smart Money” on the Lifetime Bergen Record and the Herald News New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, work of helping fellow journalists in Network, and then did a three-year stint as an of North Jersey. His career began at and is the author of “New York Giants Pride: The need. If you know of any Silurian who anchor and correspondent for “The Wall Street The Record in 1971 as a reporter. Amazing Story of the New York Giants Road to Vic- might appreciate some anonymous Journal Report,” a weekly magazine show. In Since then, he has filled top editorial tory in Super Bowl XLII.” assistance, please contact me or an- 1989, she moved to CNBC as an anchor, and in slots at The New York Times, the other board member. 1992 she joined Bloomberg News as a manager. Daily News and the Village Voice, be- Mary Beth Pfeiffer, a staff writer for the More recently, she has focused on producing and fore returning to The Record as edi- Poughkeepsie Journal since 1982. Her reporting has For the first time, our annual awards anchoring a two-hour weekly show on the arts. tor in January 2012. He was a re- Martin prompted the indictment of corrupt politicians, ex- contest is being administered online, porter and editor at the News from Gottlieb posed government impotence and incompetence, and and the process seems to be going Joseph Connolly, a veteran of radio news, has 1974-82, returning to the paper in championed the disenfranchised. She began her ca- smoothly, to the satisfaction of both been with CBS Radio/Wall Street Journal since 1992. 1993 as managing editor. He started at The Times as reer at the Staten Island Advance in 1976, where entrants and judges. Officially, he works for The Wall Street Journal, a metro reporter in 1983, later becoming editor-in- she won awards for environmental reporting. From where his primary job is to provide business re- chief of the Village Voice. In 2008, he returned to The 1989 to 1992, she freelanced for the Village Voice Our Annual Awards dinner, Thurs- ports for WCBS Newsradio 880. He has been a Times, where he was global editions editor, oversee- and was awarded two Henry J. Kaiser Family Foun- day May 15th at The Players, will in- WCBS news anchor, a sports reporter, and a press ing the editorial operations of the Paris- and Hong dation fellowships in the 1990s to report on public clude presenting the Peter Kihss secretary to Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecti- Kong-based International Herald Tribune. He helped health issues. She has been honored by the Scripps Award to Jim Fitzgerald, an Associ- cut. Before joining the Journal, he was managing guide the redesign of the paper as well as the merger Howard Foundation, National Headliner Awards, Na- ated Press veteran of 43 years who editor of the RKO Radio Network and managing of its web site with nytimes.com. Earlier, he was an tional Council on Crime and Delinquency, New York editor of WTOP Newsradio in Washington. associate managing editor in charge of the Times’s State Associated Press Association, New York Pub- has consistently been an unheralded newsroom on weekends. lishers Association, National Mental Health Associa- help to generations of younger report- Tobi Elkin, a journalist since 1990, writes largely tion, Inter America Press Association, the Gannett ers, editors and photographers. Please about consumer technology brands and digital media. Karin Lipson was a writer and editor for Newsday and Company, and New York City Deadline Club. Her join us to honor the award winners for She started as a stringer for the Pittsburgh Post- New York Newsday from 1986 to 2006. Since then, reporting on New York State prisons won a dozen best journalism of 2013, starting with Gazette and went on to a variety of reporting and she has freelanced on the arts for publications that state and national awards from 2001 to 2006. In cocktails at 6 pm. $100 for members editing posts, including Associated Press staffer in include The New York Times and Promenade Magazine. 2013, her eight-part series on Lyme disease, “No Charleston, W.Va., and Albany, N.Y. She was a se- Small Thing,” won the Silurians’ Excellence in Jour- & one guest. Non-members, $120. nior editor at North American Publishing Co., cover- Arthur Pincus was with The New York Times from nalism Award for Community Service and was nomi- I am counting on our streak of win- ing technology marketers and retailers. Also was an 1969 to 1987, serving as a deputy sports editor. He nated for a Pulitzer Prize. She is the author of “Crazy ning speakers to continue and I hope editor and reporter at Advertising Age; executive then founded Sports Inc. Magazine, which covered the in America: The Hidden Tragedy of Our Criminalized you join us to enjoy them. editor at OnlineMedia Daily, an e-mail newsletter; business of sports. In 1990, he joined The Washington Mentally Ill,” published in 2007 MARCH 2014 SILURIAN NEWS PAGE 3 This Time, Breathing A Lot Easier on Stage BY MAGEE HICKEY Trying to play the flute again has he last time I put my flute to my something to do with a bucket list, lips on a concert stage it was an getting older, realizing time is running Tutter disaster. Barely a sound out and trying to succeed at some- came out. thing I’d always loved before it’s too It was the summer of 1972. I was 17 late. and studying classical flute at one of the It also has to do with losing both most famous conservatories in the world, my wonderful parents in the last few the Fontainebleau School of Music out- years. Neither could read music, but side Paris. Aaron Copland and Leonard they required that their four children Bernstein had studied with my same take music lessons starting at age 5 teacher, Nadia Boulanger. and we dutifully did. And they sent I was way out of my league and I me to France that summer of 72 not knew it. because I was so talented, but be- Only two things separated me from all cause they wanted me to believe in the other music students studying at the myself and my dreams. conservatory: talent and discipline. Somehow, going back to music So when I tried to play the Siciliano school at age 57 and really trying to movement from the Bach Sonata for practice at least an hour a day (some- Unaccompanied Flute in the end of the thing I’d never done before) brought summer recital, my entire body was shak- me back to my childhood. And my ing. I couldn’t take a deep breath. And parents. that, sadly, is the key to playing the flute. In my quest to relive those happy You need to breathe. You need lots of air years taking Dalcroze classes, I for a beautiful, rich tone, subtle, lyrical stumbled upon a fantastic chamber phrasing and pitch-perfect intonation. I music program at the Lucy Moses had none of that. The sound coming from Community Music School on the my flute that night was atrocious. A croak- Upper West Side, directed by a won- ing frog with laryngitis would be a kind derful flutist, Diane Taublieb. I was analogy. incredibly nervous at the placement audition, sounding once again like that Fast forward 41 years. laryngitic frog. But the flute teacher Dec. 21, 2013. Weill Recital Hall at saw something in me; maybe it was Carnegie Hall. 7:30 p.m. desperation or maybe she just felt I am once again putting my flute to my sorry for me. I remember she ac- Magee Hickey on the concert stage at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. lips in public after a hiatus of more than knowledged that she knew I was a four decades. TV reporter that she’d seen many risk, stepping out of my comfort zone. said that they had heard enough. I thought Why, oh why. was I trying this again? times over the past three decades. I Luckily for me, I found the right flute we were toast and slinked off the stage, Wasn’t failing once at it enough? think she sensed I was taking a big teacher. Diane is exactly my age and is also dejected and sad. But at least we tried, I a married mother of two girls who had lost said to myself and others. her own father the same week I had lost mine So we waited and waited and waited in 2011. In short, Diane just got me. She un- for word of our rejection or selection. Fi- derstood I didn’t expect to be the next Jean- nally we got an email saying that we had Pierre Rampal or James Galway. I just been chosen, one of nine chamber music wanted to play the flute better, make music groups to perform at Carnegie in Decem- and have some fun. And get over my anxiety ber. of playing on a concert stage. And now the real panic set in. Diane placed me with two other musicians So many people have asked me how way above my skill set. Like in tennis, it’s can I be on television reporting the news always a good idea to play with people better night after night for more than 30 years than you. Sarah Monte, 38, a jewelry and and seem so calm and in control, but ask stained-glass designer by profession, is a su- me to play the flute in public and I fall perb clarinetist. Danielle Errico, 30, a gradu- apart? The dirty little secret is I used to ate of the Manhattan School of Music, plays get extremely nervous reporting on air, piano like a dream. We began to work on doing live shots and anchoring. There Gabriel Faure’s Dolly Suite, originally for pi- are some old videos of me announcing ano four hands, transcribed now for flute, courtroom verdicts that I would be mor- clarinet and piano. We became fast friends. tified to see again. I was so anxious, We really enjoyed making music together so hyperventilating and gasping for air. We we called our trio Les Trois Amies. even had viewers call and ask “why is Everything was humming along musically that redheaded reporter having a heart last spring. We would meet once a week for attack on the air?” But over time, I gained a two-hour coaching session with Diane, with confidence that I knew what I was doing an informal recital at the school in June. And and that confidence showed on the air. then clarinetist Sarah got the bright idea, “Hey As more than one news director told me, girls, why don’t we audition for a chance to “If you put the attention on the work, how play our piece at Carnegie Hall in Decem- to cover the story the best way you can, ber?” she cheerfully chirped. Sarah had heard and not on your own on-air performance, about this great group called the Amateur there’s no reason to be nervous.” Classical Musicians Association founded by Just do the work and everything else Alberto De Salas to encourage people just will fall into place. like us to play on a big-time concert stage. That was my mantra for the six months I immediately started to hyperventilate, leading up to Carnegie. Sarah, Danielle thinking of my 1972 fiasco in France. “There and I practiced like crazy. And whenever is no way I can play at Carnegie Hall, even if anyone asked me to emcee a fundraiser, it is just the Weill Recital Hall,” I told my fel- like the ArchCare Gala for the Archdio- low musicians, “I will just be too nervous,.” cese or the Woodhull Hospital fundraiser, Shallow breathing, heart palpitation, dry I would ask if my classical music trio could mouth. Frog-like croaking. All that anxiety play. I wanted to play as much as pos- came flooding back to me. sible in public to get over nerves. But my two comrades coaxed me into at Finally, the big day, our Carnegie debut least the audition for the ACMA “Passion arrived. Dec. 21. I was the most nervous Through Performance” concert. Time to face I had ever been in my life. More nervous my fear, I told myself. And my heart was than my wedding day. More nervous than clearly in my throat. We played for just 60 when I first went into labor with the first A lesson from the best: James Galway with Magee Hickey. seconds of the allotted 90, before the judges Continued on Page 4 PAGE 4 SILURIAN NEWS MARCH 2014 2013 From David Pitt, Breathing A Lot Easier Continued from Page 3 Always the Right Word of our two daughters. More nervous than the first time I solo anchored a newscast BY JOY COOK that allowed me to be passionate,” she in Providence, Rhode Island. encing shaped him: grace, sharp said. “Yet he was always the nicest, gentle And I just kept calmly telling myself to wit, and perseverance against person.” breathe deeply and play the best I can. No F challenges. So did two decades He took pride in his twins, seeing them one is expecting Jean-Pierre Rampal or as a scuba diver. David Emmett Pitt, a graduate, Katharine at Yale, James at James Galway up on that stage. We are former president of the Society of the Harvard. amateurs who love classical music. Silurians who died Feb. 24, was best “David had an early affinity for I thought of my parents who always known as a passionate professional. Beethoven, Bach and the Beach Boys,” believed in me. I thought of my husband, He was an editor and foreign correspon- said his brother, Timothy. “It was a broad Rick, who’d been loyally by my side for dent for The New York Times, and then love of music that kept expanding. He and 31 years. He’d married a TV reporter, moved on to help Unicef – the United Arlo Guthrie were friends and classmates but now had also gotten an amateur flut- Nations Children’s Fund — rivet global at Stockbridge School in Massachusetts ist who’d been practicing some pretty David Pitt attention on the Sudan/Darfur genocide, and folk music and bluegrass soon became screechy high notes sometimes two and and the fates of women and children favorites too.” in Arlo’s famous tribute “Alice’s Restau- three hours a day for the last year,. I trapped in other wars. David died upstate David was a stickler for research, sci- rant.” There were also the classic dives: thought of my two daughters, ages 22 and five days after his 67th birthday and a de- entifically identifying dinosaur bones and Mutchie’s, essential after the lobster shift 26 in the audience, who’d be so proud if I cade-long fight with a degenerative illness. fossils excavated near their home in at the New York Post on South Street, and succeeded, but would be mortified if I fell “David loved words and history and Hastings-on-Hudson, where the boys and Gough’s on W. 43rd where Times’s press- apart on stage, and of my two sisters, my seeing where it all fit,” said Barbara a sister, Debra, grew up. men, reporters and editors rubbed elbows. two oldest friends from kindergarten, vari- Crossette, who was a New York Times “He was a tamale fanatic,” said Tim, a He was an editor at the Post from 1975- ous teachers, friends and supporters who foreign correspondent when he was an magazine copy editor in Manhattan. This 78, then at the Times, as a Metro Desk came to cheer me on. assistant foreign editor. “He was our was a legacy from their Texan father, reporter, winning an award for contribu- So what happened? tether when we were in difficult places, James, along with the requisite bourbon tions to black law enforcement. I played respectably. I could have been our frontline editor who was extremely and branch-water. The senior Pitt, a Time Abroad, he extensively covered much better. I could have been a disaster. literate, naturally curious, and had a Inc. executive who died in 2011, was a Panama’s notorious dictator/druglord, Gen. My two daughters told me they looked strong sense of the world.” genteel fixture at Silurians dinners and lun- Manuel Noriega, in 1989-90. over at their father when I was playing He worked at the Times from 1978- cheons for years. His diving expertise helped him report and he had tears streaming down his 94, as a correspondent filing from South David was president of the Silurians on deep-sea pollution, coral- reef damage cheeks. My husband, more than anyone Korea, Japan and Central America. from 2006 to 2008. Among his recruits to and other environmental threats but shin- else, knew how much this moment meant Crossette, a Silurians Lifetime Achieve- membership was from the UN, Salim Lone ing through was the pure pleasure. to me. ment honoree, was the Times’s UN bu- of Kenya, who remembered him as a “bril- In a 1989 Times travel report on scuba After our Faure trio with Les Trois reau chief by the time David went to join liant writer who cared for the world.” An- diving in the Caribbean, he shared the Amies was over, we received thunder- the Children’s Fund as principal other Kenyan, Omondi Nyangla, said exhilaration of “that first plunge into the ous applause because we’d packed the speechwriter for its chief, Carol Bellamy, David mentored foreign journalists and blue-green water… soaring weightless house with so many friends and family. I from 1997 to 2006. was “an enduring and patient heart in and silent over a coral reef alive with fish.” even played an encore (pre-rehearsed, of “David was the one to trust,” Bellamy moments of crisis.” And the rewards of traveling further, “div- course) with a jazz trio. The piece was told the Silurian News. “He not only ‘got’ David was nationally ranked in U.S. ing a seldom-visited coral wall, or of swim- called Baroque and Blue from Claude my voice. He was respected. He had a fencing, but hung up his epées and foils ming goggle-eyed past a school of pelagic Bolling’s Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano, a quick grasp of our harrowing, but very some six years ago. His style was psy- sharks.” favorite of mine made famous by Jean- complex issues. chological, seeming casual, before zoom- Pierre Rampal in the 1970’s. “He focused us and found the words ing in for the win. At Brandeis University, The Pitt family is maintaining a And the best news of all is I have been he captained the varsity fencers and ed- site until April 2015 for friends invited back to play again at Carnegie’s ited the student newspaper, graduating to share condolences on http:// Weill Recital Hall on April 5. Another Society of the Silurians with a history major in 1969. In 1971, he www.legacy.com/guestbooks/ ACMA Passion Through Performance earned a master’s degree at the Colum- nytimes/david-pitt-condolences/ concert. Another Claude Bolling selection Officers 2014-2015 bia Graduate School of Journalism, and 169951641?page=2#sthash.uDyWDDvi.dpbs. called Vagabonde. President later was a strong mentor to students as A memorial service will be So I have little time to conquer those ALLAN DODDS FRANK an adjunct there. announced later. nerves, breathe deeply and toot that flute! First Vice-President His friendships and colleagues were BETSY ASHTON interwoven. “David was a pioneer in ra- Second Vice-President JOE VECCHIONE dio in the early 70’s, at WGRG 110 in Pittsfield, Mass. We were the first (and Treasurer From Print to Digital: KAREN BEDROSIAN- only) AM station doing that new mix of RICHARDSON music, news, culture and politics otherwise Secretary only found on FM,” said Stephen Rose. LINDA AMSTER “Decades later, after he knew my wife My Turbulent Path Board of Governors Kathy as an editor on the Times’s foreign IRA BERKOW Continued from Page 1 In this new era, and whatever the new JACK DEACY desk, David helped me find work at sustained journalism, based largely on a formats, I think we must keep techno- BILL DIEHL Unicef. GERALD ESKENAZI lucrative stream of advertising revenue, logical change in perspective. The new RICKI FULMAN “We were colleagues through so many has seriously eroded. Consider the plight technologies, as dazzling as they seem, TONY GUIDA crises. Sudan/Darfur was probably the LINDA GOETZ HOLMES of newspapers, still the source of most are but a means to an overriding end. And BERNARD KIRSCH most traumatic, when Carol went in per- original reporting in the U.S. Between 2005 that end is journalism. ENID NEMY son; but we also had extreme hunger, child- BEN PATRUSKY and 2012, newspapers lost 60 percent of I mean a special kind of journalism – ANNE ROIPHE soldiers, so many tragedies.” their print advertising revenue – a decline a journalism that is vitally needed in this MORT SHEINMAN From 1994-97 at the UN, David was of more than $28 billion. And new digital era of media fragmentation and informa- Governors Emeritus spokesman for a World Summit for So- revenue on newspaper web sites hasn’t tion overload. I’m talking about in-depth GARY PAUL GATES reporting, community engagement, analy- HERBERT HADAD cial Development and wrote a landmark come close to making up the difference, ROBERT McFADDEN report on the status of women. largely because of hyper-low advertising sis, deep understanding – and, on our best

Committee Chairpersons The film critic Judith Crist, a Silurian rates on the web. days, something approaching wisdom. Advisory who taught for 50 years at the Columbia I am not a futurist. I do not claim to This is the stuff of great journalism. MYRON KANDEL J-School, made no secret that he was her know how the public will consume media Yes, our children will get this wisdom Dinner prize student. In a fond obituary in the Si- 10 years from now or what the next Twit- delivered in new ways, perhaps even via BILL DIEHL lurian News in 2012, he said they bonded ter will be. But I do believe that we will a wireless appliance implanted in their Legal find new revenue streams for quality jour- brains. So be it. But I believe, in the KEN FISHER because, at age 5, he was whisked out of Radio City Music Hall when he “became nalism in the digital age. Readers are now smithy of my soul, that even if the me- Membership MORT SHEINMAN unhinged while watching the poisoned starting to pay for content, advertisers are dium ultimately changes – and it will – developing new ways to target digital the intellectual need, the human need, for Nominating apple scene” in Disney’s “Snow White.” BEN PATRUSKY Fast-forward decades later, Crist ex- readers, and publishers are learning to use thoughtful journalism will never, ever go Silurian Contingency Fund Trustees plained in a column that “the witch is sup- e-commerce. Some publishers are even away. LARRY FRIEDMAN, CHAIR posed to give you the screaming meemies becoming more than just newspapers and NAT BRANDT JOY COOK and figure in your future analysis.” magazines; they are learning to be infor- MARK LIEBERMAN David was fluent in Spanish, music and mation platforms, building deeper relation- Stephen B. Shepard is the author of MARTIN J. STEADMAN spicy food, whether it was the barrios of ships with their communities – whether Deadlines and Disruption: My Turbu- Silurian News BERNARD KIRSCH, EDITOR Panama or the “Berkshire chic” hangout those communities are geographic or de- lent Path From Print to Digital, a mem- with his friend Alice Brock, memorialized mographic. oir published by McGraw-Hill in 2012. MARCH 2014 SILURIAN NEWS PAGE 5 My Life in Show Business BY BILL DIEHL REAKING NEWS! I killed Bob Hope, but he wasn’t dead! B It happened June 5, 1998. My prerecorded Hope obituary, along with clips of Hope’s comedy routines, were sent out on an ABC Radio Network news- cast after Arizona Congressman Robert Stump announced, on the House floor, Hope’s passing. A staffer told Stump he saw the news on a wire service. Luckily, a phone call to Hope’s publicist, Ward Grant, quashed the story. “Bob Hope is alive,” he said. “He’s home, having his breakfast.” We were able to correct the error be- fore the newscast ended, but the damage was done and the Drudge Report didn’t let us forget it. I had interviewed Bob Hope a number of times over the years and in 1981, when I interviewed him at West Point, he told me he was going to have a talk with his old friend President Reagan about gun Diehl covering the Academy Award control. “I think the violence today is a ceremonies for ABC Radio. concern of every citizen,” Hope said. “I ABC News don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t when ABC sent me to the Pussycat Cin- Bill Diehl interviewing the King of the Cowboys, Roy Rogers, for his radio show. have gun control. It doesn’t mean hunt- ema in Times Square to interview Marilyn ers are going to have their guns taken Chambers, the star of the now-classic away from them—they’re just registered. porn film Behind the Green Door. Proc- What’s wrong with that?” His words went tor & Gamble had just discovered that the out on all the wires for challenging Reagan pretty, fresh-faced young model featured and taking on the powerful gun lobby. on its Ivory Snow detergent box (99 & It was always a thrill to talk to this 44/100% pure) was a porn star — and great entertainer whom I had idolized not at all ashamed of it. growing up in the 1950s in Corning, N.Y., Indeed, when I entered the theater to where I listened to him on the radio and nab my interview with Chambers, she was watched him on TV. totally naked as she signed autographs. A In the basement of our home I had a Reuters photographer took a picture of tiny transmitter microphone that could us and gave me a copy. When I later broadcast my voice for several blocks in showed the photo to my wife, she said my neighborhood and I fantasized about that I looked a bit like a deer in the head- working as a network broadcaster one lights! Several years later, fully dressed, day. That dream came true in 1971 when Chambers signed the photo. I arrived at ABC and it has been a wild One of my favorite interviews was in ride for four decades. Fun, fanciful and 1980 with Dallas TV star Linda Gray (Sue frustrating at times, but always exhila- Ellen Ewing). When I innocently men- rating! tioned that she had recently turned 40 and Even though I was originally hired as congratulated her on reaching such a mile- a news correspondent, show biz was on stone she glared at me and shot back, my radar and the network let me do oc- “I’m 27, not a day over 27!” Her son, at casional interviews with such big stars as the time was 18. Gray returned last Feb- ABC News Jack Nicholson, Jerry Lewis, Mel Brooks, ruary for her third season in the new Did the microphone really frighten Mel Books? No way. Jane Fonda and Roy Rogers. Here are Dallas, airing now on cable. Perhaps she some brief reminiscences. was just 27, after all. added, “People practice on getting old. cial inequality and it celebrates and casti- Roy Rogers was born Leonard Franklin In 1997, I interviewed Milton Berle, They have a tendency to fall in love with gates our human eternal behavior.” I asked Slye. Although he didn’t say anything and it was almost a disaster. When he their bed. Jack Benny once told me, ‘I him to pick a time in history that he would about the Leonard Franklin part, he said arrived at my studio it was clear he wasn’t didn’t sleep last night.’ I said, ‘How did want to live in and he replied: “It would he changed his last name because Re- in a good mood. Thank goodness it wasn’t you sleep the night before?’ He said he be the French Revolution, and I would be public Studios said “Slye” didn’t sound live. Berle, still feisty at 89 shouted into ‘slept great.’ So I said, ‘sleep every other the King of France [It’s good to be the western enough. He wasn’t an easy “get,” my microphone, “You guys are cheap, night.’” king!], to have my way with women and but he was doing publicity at our TV stu- cheap, (f*#*#ing) cheap. You didn’t even I interviewed Mia Farrow during the with dwarfs and do anything that my fan- dios a few blocks away and I managed to send a car for me; I had to come in a time she was embroiled in the nasty fight tasies would allow me to do. I would have convince his manager that my radio in- taxi.” I explained to Berle that this was with Woody Allen. She had agreed to talk loved it right up to when they marched terview would be worth his while. He radio and a car service wasn’t in our bud- about her latest film (not one of Woody’s), the king up to the guillotine and chopped agreed and so off we went, with me lead- get and, besides, he was here to promote called “Widow’s Peak.” Just before I his head off.” ing the “King of the Cowboys” in his full his new Las Vegas magazine called turned my tape recorder on, her publicist, When I told Jack Nicholson in a 1982 cowboy regalia along Columbus Avenue Milton. His wife, Lorna, tried to calm him Lois Smith, said, “Bill, if you mention interview that he might be up for an and then down Broadway to our studios. down and we eventually got a decent in- Woody, she’ll walk!” Near the end of Academy Award, he said, “All honors No Trigger, but our journey sure gave terview. But when he walked through the the interview I took a chance and said, are suspect.” But then he added, “At the passersby quite a show. newsroom to leave our studio he couldn’t “Mia, you’ve been going through a rough same time, it’s a promotional device and In the early 1980’s I was sent to Los resist shouting, “This company is cheap; year. It hasn’t been easy. How are you an honor. It’s a peer-group award and Angeles to cover the Academy Awards. they didn’t even give me a bicycle!” holding up?” Smith glared but Mia gave they do a pretty good job of representing It was quite a heady experience. There I Peter O’Toole, the great actor who died me a minute. She said, “You know, I just every point of view about acting. I like was, standing on the fabled red carpet, late last year, was most famous for his don’t know what to do about that. This glamour in the movie business, nothing interviewing some of the biggest names role in “Lawrence of Arabia,” but he also has been my life and I don’t have the grim about it. It’s the greatest job you in film. ABC even hired an artist to draw starred in “Caligula,” and was quoted in objectivity to say whether it would have can get.” a caricature of me in a tux. various media for slamming the film as been better another way. Whether your I’m with Nicholson about a great job. Early on, before budgets got tight, ABC “boring rubbish.” In my interview, how- life has been easier than mine or mine What I’ve been doing all these years cov- assigned a photographer to accompany ever, O’Toole said, “I am in no way may be easier because of this. I’ve had a ering the world of show biz has truly been me whenever I had a big guest star. Even ashamed of one scrap of what I did in good life. My children have given me im- the greatest job you can get. so, I almost always brought my own cam- “Caligula” because I fought like a tiger to measurable satisfaction. I’d be a fool to era along and most of my interviewees make sure that my character Tiberius complain.” were fine when I took photos of them. wasn’t besmirched.” During one of my several interviews Bill Diehl was ABC News Radio’s Not so, though, with Raquel Welch: She I met George Burns when he was a with Mel Brooks, he told me: “Comedy longtime chief entertainment correspon- didn’t want a photo released that she could lively 87 and promoting his new book, is one of the most durable products dent when he retired in the fall of 2007. not approve. Case solved when her hus- “How to Live to be 100 or More.” “Do known to man. It has more immortality In 2008 he was called back to band whipped out his Polaroid camera and you want to live to be a hundred?” I asked. in it, the diamond-hard immortality that freelance for the network, producing she liked what she saw. “Why not,” he said. “I’ve got all kinds of drama will never have, because it sani- and voicing celebrity features for ABC’s But I didn’t have my camera in 1973 old jokes and I’ve got to use them.” Burns tizes the world, it points a finger at so- magazine show “Perspective.” PAGE 6 SILURIAN NEWS MARCH 2014 Thank You, Mr. Bigart, Thank You BY BEN PATRUSKY

What would Homer Bigart do?

hat would become my lifelong mantra and thanks to it, and the Tlegendary reporter and war cor- respondent who inspired it, I found the courage to pursue a career in science journalism. I really don’t think I would have done so without having Mr. Bigart (it was always Mister Bigart to me) watching my back. Let me stipulate that I never met the man, never talked to him and really had no idea what he looked like. Only long after I made my decision to go the sci- ence reporting/writing route did I actually see a photograph of the bespectacled Mr. B. But I knew his byline. Knew of his two Pulitzers (won during his years at the New York Herald Tribune before joining The New York Times). And I had read him, of course. Avidly. I loved his dis- patches. Who didn’t? His prose was lean, muscular, crisp, unadorned and alto- gether beautiful. And he was brave and unflinching. And I admired him, all the more when I heard that he wrote slowly, writing and rewriting, right up until dead- Homer Bigart at his desk at The New York Times. line. Like me. And that, like me, he had a profound I blocked and stammered as fiercely as I I returned to school to complete my stud- stance occurred early in my tenure run- stutter. feared I might? Would he think I was ies with a promise to my parents that I’d ning the annual New Horizons in Science It was early in my in college days in making fun of him? Could we even con- forget journalism and pursue a far more briefing for journalists. Sponsored by the the mid-fifties, when I discovered that duct a conversation? I hung up. promising and lucrative career as an en- not-for-profit Council for the Advance- about him. Reporting excited me, but, But then an idea sprang to mind. What gineer. Two weeks before semester’s ment of Science Writing, this briefing gives given the burden of my stuttering, I if I were to visualize him, literally conjure end, as I weighed engineering job offers, science reporters a heads-up on seminal doubted I could hack it. I screwed up up an image of the man I was never to the magazine called to tell me that the developments that are likely to make news enough courage to give it a try and did meet, and imagine being in his shoes (or news editor had left, the slot was open in the coming months and years, as re- succeed in making the editorial staff of he in mine) when discomforting circum- and it was mine to fill if I wished it. I did ported by front-line scientists. My job was The Campus, one of the two competing stances demanded it? and did. And not too long after that, an to unearth those scientists, as many as 20 CCNY newspapers. But much as I loved unexpected, last-minute proffer of a fel- to 25, for each of the 30 years I did it. seeing my stories in print, I worried my- What would Mr. Bigart do? lowship to a new science writing program Needless to say it involved, in addition to self sick with each new assignment. at the Columbia University Journalism hours of library research, countless phone The phone calls that had to be made – I knew the answer and got my chance School sealed the deal. I still had my stut- calls and interviews. merely the need to introduce myself, to to act on it. Not very long after my aborted tering to contend with, big time, but I also In this case, I was in pursuit of a re- say my name – was harrowing unto it- attempt to reach him, I was offered, had Mr. Bigart. nowned cosmologist with some major self. I had the misfortune of having two thanks to the influence of a well-connected And I continued to draw lessons from news in the offing, despite my having plosives sounds – b’s and p’s – to the start relative, and accepted a high-paying sum- him. I had heard him to be a man of saucy been told repeatedly that there was no of my name, each of which gave me pro- mer engineering internship with a major wit with a gift for sparkling zingers who chance of getting him; he was known to nounced difficulty, both giant obstacles to electronics company in southern Califor- never seemed to worry about stumbling deny virtually all requests for interviews be hurdled. I thought of name-changing, nia that all but guaranteed a full-time job over and blowing a line. Like the story and talks. I made the call anyway. He but that didn’t really make sense. Beyond upon my graduation six months later. A about his fiercely competitive NY Herald answered, we chatted and to my amaze- that there were the face-to-face inter- few weeks before my scheduled depar- Tribune colleague, Marguerite Higgins, ment, he accepted my invitation. When views, the need to pose questions, lots of ture, I happened to run into the dean of with whom he shared (along with three I finally met him at the briefing, I could them, often in a halting, stumbling fash- the E. E. department. He knew my work others) a 1951 Pulitzer for coverage of not resist asking why he had agreed to ion, me red-faced and struggling, spittle from the college paper and told me of an the Korean War, and who he, apparently come. He said: “Ben, I heard your stut- flying, doing all that all I could to untie my opening for an editorial internship at Elec- had many good reasons to dislike. When ter. I stutter too. I admired your cour- knotted tongue. Simply the thought of it tronic Design, a new-to-the-scene, New informed that Higgins had had a baby, Mr. age. I couldn’t say no.” And thus was was enough to cause me boundless grief York-based trade magazine. (To this day, Bigart was purported to say, “W-w-ho’s his longstanding reluctance to speak to and shame. I think this alert to me was not so much the m-m-m-mother?” Or, this, also about reporters explained. I hung on for two years. After too many because he sensed where my true inter- Higgins: “I’m going to l-l-l-ight a match Over the years, the severity of my stut- sleepless nights, I succumbed to my dread est lay, but more a matter of self-interest. to her tampon and b-b-b-blow her up?” tering has eased, a case of studied and asked off general assignment and fea- I suspect he was doing what he could to Those who recounted these stories always dodgery or aging or maybe both. There tures to become the paper’s drama re- dissuade me from pursuing an engineer- mimicked the stammer, making it central are those who are surprised to find that viewer, a far less verbally demanding gig. ing career for fear of the harm I might to the telling and funnier for listeners. I do stutter. (At one point I was even I also realized that I had better start pay- bring to his department’s and CCNY’s Funnier, yes, but for me also cringe-in- asked to sign on as science correspon- ing a lot more attention to my grades as reputation.) ducing, as was, for me, all stutter-depen- dent for a local TV news show.) And I an electrical engineering major, a line of In any event, he arranged for an inter- dent humor. A truly valiant man, Mr. do, of necessity, some public speaking work that represented a secure harbor for view. I met with the editors at the Bigart, thought I, doing something I’d now and again. That said, and despite a stutterer like me. magazine’s headquarters, a beautiful hardly ever dare chance were there even all the tricks, evasive ploys and disguises But I couldn’t quite give up on the idea townhouse on Manhattan’s east side, now the barest hint that a punch line might give I developed over time in hopes of avoid- of journalism and never ceased to won- transformed into a chaotic, scrappy hive me trouble. That too would change. ing detection, I remain a stutterer — der how Mr. Bigart had the guts to do filled with the buzz, energy and charge I I was surprised to learn, too, that stut- never really sure, never free of its what he did, become the globe-trotting felt when I first entered Campus head- tering actually gained him some advan- dreaded advent. My name’s the same, “reporter’s reporter” that he was, stam- quarters. To my surprise, I was offered tage from time to time. Richard Phelps, after all, and it, if nothing else, continues mering notwithstanding. the internship and, with Mr. Bigart very in his 2009 memoir “God and the Editor: to loom large as a source of trouble. Nor One day, spur of the moment during much on my mind, I accepted. There was My Search for Meaning at the New York has the shame of stuttering ever abated, my senior year, I decided to reach out to a price to pay, of course. It meant fore- Times,” writes: “Bigart was known for no matter how many times I’ve been told, him to ask directly how he had allowed going a summer out west at a stipend far stuttering while asking questions. Sym- and tell myself, that it really doesn’t mat- himself to get on with it. I placed a call to in excess of what I would earn at the pathizing with him, sources would go to ter. the New York Times switchboard. Asked magazine. Which meant living at home. great lengths to talk, reaching out to fill But when those moments arrive, as they whom I wanted to speak to, I had a go at My abrupt about-face also incurred the the gaps, often revealing more than they inevitably do, I have my mantra to lean uttering his name; the confounding “b” in wrath of an unforgiving cousin, who had desired.” on. Practicing Bigart-ry, I call it, torpe- Bigart didn’t make it any easier. In the gone to great lengths to land me the prized I discovered stuttering’s potential value does be damned. moments of struggle that ensued, I engineering internship. for myself but, rest assured, always inad- Homer Bigart died in 1991. I never got thought: what if I actually reached him and An exciting but difficult summer over, vertently. One especially memorable in- to thank him. MARCH 2014 SILURIAN NEWS PAGE 7 Meeting Mr. Audubon an excerpt from an unpublished novel by veteran New York illustrator Robert Grossman. It is 1835. Richard Locke, the editor of the fledgling New York Sun, has a story he wants to run. He brings it to Benjamin Day, the owner and publisher of The Sun. PAGE 8 SILURIAN NEWS MARCH 2014 The Press A Web Site That’s Purring Along On last Dec. 17, Ben Smith stopped And the by the Players Club to talk about why hard news and cat videos, and other cute stuff, can co-exist in the same place. And Prosecutor that place being BuzzFeed, the Web site He was introduced as “the most im- where he is the editor-in-chief. It is also portant prosecutor in the country” by the Web site that has received more than Silurians’ president Allen Dodds Frank. 100 million hits a month, he told a packed And Preet Bharara, the United States At- house of Silurians and their guests. torney for the Southern District of New One of its formulas for success? “You York, repeatedly spoke of the necessary do provocative things to get people to talk synergy between the press and his of- about you,” he said. You get “traffic by fice. attacking, criticizing someone,” someone First, though, Bharara, referring to a like Nat Silver, and copying the link, and widely reported case involving an Indian Mort Sheinman then you hope, he said, that he gets at- Jan. 14: Preet Bharara diplomat, quipped, “Before I start, I do tacked back, and a link is attached, and want one housekeeping thing that I feel cover in 2012 with the headline, “This Man on and on and on. is necessary based on recent events. Just Is Busting Wall Street.” His office has Mr. Smith, now 37, joined BuzzFeed a show of hands if you could let me know more than 200 assistant attorneys, and said in 2012, after moving from a reporting job Mort Sheinman if you believe that you have diplomatic he is understaffed and is laboring under a at the Baltic Times in Latvia, to The New Jan. 14: Ben Smith immunity — I’d appreciate it.” budget freeze. York Observer, where he started New Speaking at the Jan. 14 luncheon at Bharara did not discuss individual cases York City’s first political blog, to The Daily life out of political reporting, political the Players Club, Bharara said he is an but reiterated his contention that the press News, and then to Politico, where he was blogs,” he added. avid newspaper reader among the dozen and the prosecutor should work in tandem the senior political writer. The internet has changed more in the publications he regularly reads. He - “the press can bring bad conduct to our He said that political blogs became the last three or four years than it has in the quoted a speech by President Kennedy attention.” He did admonish journalists in place where the 2008 election was played previous 10, he noted. And probably, you and said that journalism “is the only busi- general in one area: too much attention, he out. But 2008, and blogs, were such a ain’t seen nothing yet, I said. ness protected in America” by the Con- claimed, is wasted on breaking stories on long time ago. Now, “twitter sucked the - Bernard Kirsch stitution. cases that are about to come out of his “Unlike many other Government of- office, rather than “ferreting out” leads that fices, we don’t shrink from the press,” could uncover criminal activity. he said. “Many people call journalists instead A Night Bharara was appearing just after an- of the F.B.I.,” he said, in speaking of the other one of his high-profile cases had trust many journalists hold with the pub- made Page One news—he indicted an lic. Of Honors Indian diplomat living in New York, Despite Bharara’s repeated twinning charged with visa fraud and crimes of justice and journalism, he was asked For Topping against a domestic worker. The State some tough questions about how govern- Department intervened on diplomatic ment investigators operate. One ques- He has been a witness—and some- grounds and had her return to India. tioner wanted to know why journalists are times a player—to history for almost 70 Bharara, born in India, conceded he sometimes subpoenaed to leak names of years, and Seymour Topping shared many had undergone bitter criticism by some in sources. of those dramatic moments when he was the Indian press: “That I targeted some- “I don’t—and I can’t speak for oth- honored with the Silurians Lifetime one from India,” and that he had brought ers,” said Bharara. Achievement Award. the charges to his “white masters.” But Another questioner suggested that Obviously touched by the honor, Top, Bahara brought laughter from the some people seemed to be “too big to in- as he is universally known, kissed the Silurians when he added that those so- dict,” to which Bharara objected. plaque on the dais of the Players Club at called white masters were “Eric Holder “We do not care how big you are,” he the annual fall dinner on Nov. 14. and Barack Obama.” said. “We don’t bring cases to bring And then the 91-year-old started tell- Ironically, he was named 2011’s “Per- money in. We want the world to see what ing stories about a career that began as a Mort Sheinman son of the Year” by the publication India they have done.” correspondent in Asia in 1946 and that Nov. 14, 2013: Abroad. He made a Time magazine — Gerald Eskenazi eventually brought him to The New York Audrey & Seymour Topping Times in1959. During his 33 years at The Times he was chief correspondent in both He was the first to tell the world Nanking The Wit and Wisdom of Walt Bogdanich Moscow and Southeast Asia; foreign edi- had fallen to the Communists. tor; managing editor, and director of edi- A knock on his hotel-room door in The tall, slim, bespectacled gentleman torial development. Along the way, he Saigon in 1951. It was a young Congress- in jeans looked out at some 100 Silurian recalled: man, John F. Kennedy, and he was tour- newsmen and newswomen at the Febru- The Philippines and 1946 and talking ing Asia and wanted to know what Top ary luncheon and uttered, “It’s an intimi- his way—for $50 a month—into a job as thought about the future of Vietnam. Top dating group here.” a stringer for International News Service. believes that had JFK lived, he might have Chalk it up to Walt Bogdanich’s sense Sitting with Mao Tse-Tung’s chief mili- reached out to Ho Chi Minh and averted of humor. He is an investigative reporter tary officer in 1949 and learning exclu- the conflagration that followed. with three Pulitzers to his credit, as well sively that talks had broken off with One of Topping’s five daughters, Robin, as four George Polk Awards and two Chiang Kai-shek and the United States. described her father as a “good soul,” and Overseas Press Club Awards. remembered how they discovered a lis- He said his brand of reporting is not tening device in a bedroom light in Mos- for the timid. “I was named in a $10 bil- cow. She suggested that the KGB might lion libel suit – Philip Morris,” he said. In Memoriam have heard “interesting pillow talk.” She “Fortunately I had a trust fund of $11 bil- spoke proudly of the fact that he also has David Pitt, 67, former reporter and edi- lion.” He found that the company was written four novels. tor for The New York Times, and presi- manipulating nicotine in its products. “The Mort Sheinman His wife of 63 years, Audrey, re- Feb. 18: Walt Bogdanich dent of the Silurians (2006-2008), died cigarette companies paid out over $200 in February. membered their first 1947 meeting in billion. I ended up not paying a penny.” ratories, for corporate cover-ups of fatal China and how, the next day, he had ro- But he added solemnly that his father had accidents at railway crossings and, with Jon Anderson, 77, retired in 2006 from manced her with “a rickshaw full of roses. died of smoking. colleague Jake Hooker, for reporting on the Chicago Tribune, where his enor- We went out and have been dating ever In introducing Walt, Silurians president toxic substances in products imported mously popular “City Watch” column since.” Allan Dodds Frank said he “has a high from China. had appeared since 1995. Before join- Asked about his thoughts on the fu- rate of indignation and a sustained loyalty He said his best stories have evolved ing the Tribune, he’d been a bureau chief ture, Top ended the evening by saying: to fact.” when “you follow what you’re curious for Time magazine. He died in January. “Have faith. I do, and I think we’re all Bogdanich responded: “I’ve been an about,” adding with a sense of playful going to come out well.” investigative reporter for 35 years. Do you menace, “I don’t dig dry holes.” Jerry Sherman, 83, was a financial — Gerald Eskenazi know how it feels to be indignant for 35 Other Walt Wisdoms: writer at the New York Journal of Com- years? I like a cold martini when I get “There are no sure things when you merce, who became a columnist, as- sociate editor and foreign correspon- home at night.” begin a project.” Society of the Silurians Walt, now an investigative editor at The “Sitting at a desk and not going out is dent, and later went into public relations. PO Box 1195 New York Times and formerly of The Wall bad for your health and bad for report- He died in Nov. 2013. Madison Square Station ing.” Street Journal, The Cleveland Press and Stan Brooks, 86, long-time voice of New York, NY 10159 The Plain Dealer, “60 Minutes” and ABC “Papers not doing investigative report- 1010 WINS, winner of the Peter Kihss 212.532.0887 News, won his Pulitzers for revealing ing are going to die.” Award in 2006, died in Dec. 2013. www.silurians.org faulty testing in American medical labo- - Herbert Hadad