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Home , 1974 Pulitzer Prize, Chicago Daily News, Don Bolles, Myrta Pulliam, The Arizona Project, Victor Riesel

Not in Vengeance, But to Inform

Item Type text; Pamphlet

Authors Greene, Robert W.

Publisher The University of Press (Tucson, AZ)

Rights Copyright © Arizona Board of Regents

Download date 09/10/2021 18:14:01

Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/583147 72v=sn5nnnsnnnnkt

THE JOHN PETER ZENGER AWARD FOR FREEDOM OF THE PRESS AND THE PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO KNOW

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NOT IN VENGEANCE, BUT TO INFORM

An Address by ROBERT W. GREENE

,A.n.v...;gnan;gn'annag:,5=gan THE JOHN PETER ZENGER AWARD FOR FREEDOM OF THE PRESS AND THE PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO KNOW

1977

NOT IN VENGEANCE BUT TO INFORM

An Address by ROBERT W. GREENE

THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA PRESS Tucson, Arizona PREVIOUSLY HONORED

1976 Donald F. Bolles, Arizona Republic 1975 Seymour M. Hersh, The Times 1974 Thomas E. Gish, Editor and Publisher, The Mountain Eagle 1973 Katharine Graham, Publisher, 1972 Dan Hicks, Jr., Editor, Monroe County Democrat 1971 A.M. Rosenthal, Managing Editor, 1970 Erwin D. Canham, Editor in Chief, The Christian Science Monitor 1969 J. Edward Murray, Managing Editor, 1968 Wes Gallagher, The 1967 John S. Knight, Knight , Inc. 1966 Arthur Krock, The New York Times 1965 Eugene C. Pulliam, Publisher, Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette 1964 John Netherland Heiskell, Publisher, 1963 James B. Reston, Chief, Washington Bureau, The New York Times 1962 John H. Colburn, Managing Editor, Richmond (Va.) Times -Dispatch 1961 Clark R. Mollenhoff, Washington, Cowles Publications 1960 Virgil M. Newton, Jr., Managing Editor, Tampa (Fla.) Tribune 1959 Herbert Brucker, Editor, Hartford Courant 1958 John E. Moss, Chairman of House Government Information subcommittee 1957 James R. Wiggnins, Vice -President, Executive Editor of the Washington (D.C.) Post and Times Herald 1956 James S. Pope, Executive Editor, Louisville Courier -Journal 1955 Basil L. Walters, Executive Editor, Daily and Knight Newspapers 1954 Palmer Hoyt, Editor and Publisher, Denver Post FOREWORD

The IRE team came from many directions, and we at the universities in Arizona are proud to have played a part through our students. Students from the University of Arizona and Arizona State University were full members of the team. I would like to recognize them now. From Arizona State University: Nina Bondarook, Carol Jackson, Mike Padgett, Mike Tulumello. From the University of Arizona: Rob Wilson, Jody Schreiber (now Mrs. Rob Wilson), Bob Rast, Paul Wattles, Captain Eugene McKinney.

It was Allen H. Neuharth, president of Gannett Co., who said that John Peter Zenger "won for all America the right to know the truth -even the unpleasant truth." This is the 24th time that we have gathered to give this award to someone who has followed in the footsteps of the Colonial printer and patriot. Robert W. Greene and his IRE team told it like it was, and sometimes it was unpleasant. I am reminded of the words of a non -, Harry Truman, who was asked by a reporter in 1948: "Did you really give 'em hell on that last campaign trip, Harry ?" "Nope," replied Mr. Truman. "I simply told the truth. They think it's hell." Greene was elected a member of the Board of Directors of the Investigative Reporters and Editors Group (IRE) in June 1976 and has served as president since March 1977. At the request of the IRE, he put together an investigative team composed of 36 reporters representing 24 newspapers, CBS Radio and KGUN -TV of Tucson, to go to Arizona to prepare a series of stories on the background of the state in which , the investigative reporter for the Arizona Republic, was assassinated. Reporters from the , Detroit News, Denver Post, and Milwaukee Journal worked alongside re-

[5] THE JOHN PETER ZENGER AWARD -1977

porters from the Arizona Daily Star, Elyria (Ohio) Chronicle and the We- natchee (Wash.) World. Under Greene's direction in Arizona, team members worked seven -day weeks, 14 -hour days starting Sept. 24, 1976, and ending March 1, 1977. Greene forged the chain. It proved unbreakable. was a unique experiment in American journalism resulting in a 23 -part series carried widely throughout the U.S. Greene became Suffolk editor of in 1973 after serving as senior editor in charge of Newsday's prize- winning investigative team. He origi- nated and refined the concept of a permanent investigative team in 1967 and since then had functioned as the chief of the team's daily operations in ad- dition to reporting and writing with fellow team members. From 1969 -1975, this team won more recognized professional awards, including the 1970 and 1974 Gold Medals for Distinguished Public Service, than any other similar unit in the history of American journalism. Greene began his journalistic career in 1949 as a reporter for the Jersey Journal in Jersey City. From 1950 until 1955, he served as senior staff inves- tigator with the Anti -Crime Committee specializing in or- ganized crime. In 1957, at the request of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, Greene took a one -year leave of absence from Newsday and served on the staff of the U.S. Senate Labor Rackets Committee, heading a staff of inves- tigators working on the ties between the Teamsters and in the New York City area. In 1969, Greene led an investigative reporting team that won for Newsday a Pulitzer Prize for its three -year investigation and exposure of secret land deals in eastern Long Island, which led to a series of criminal convictions, discharges and resignations among public and political officeholders in the area. Again, in 1974, Newsday won another Pulitzer gold medal for public service for the work of another investigating team under Greene's direction. This award was for "The Heroin Trail," a 32 -part series published in 1973, which traced the drug from Turkish poppy fields to French processors to dealers in New York City and Long Island. In all, since its inception in 1967, the investigative team during Greene's tenure won 20 top journalistic honors. Not all of Greene's assignments for Newsday have been in the investigative field. He covered the Presidential campaigns of 1964, 1968 and 1972, the Democratic national conventions of 1960, 1964 and 1968 and the Republican national convention of 1968. In 1969, Greene was in Los Angeles for 110 days covering the trial of Sirhan Sirhan for the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy. And in mid -1969

[6] FOREWORD

he headed up a reporting team seeking details of the fatal accident in Chap - paquiddick, involving Sen. Edward Kennedy. He was born July 12, 1929, in New York City and attended Fordham University. He is married and the father of two children. Mr. Greene, it is my pleasure, and the honor of the University of Arizona, to present to you the 1977 John Peter Zenger Award for outstanding service in support of press freedom and the people's right to know.

George W. Ridge, Jr. January 21, 1978

[7] NOT IN VENGEANCE, BUT TO INFORM

An Address by ROBERT W. GREENE

My name is Greene. I am a reporter and an editor. I am here to speak about the tradition of public service reporting. The responsible exercise of this tradition has earned the communications media its memorable moments of greatness. Callous disregard of this tradition has occasionally exposed us as venal, craven and manipulated. Public service reporting is reporting that goes beyond appearance and penetrates to reality. Much of public service reporting is not investigative reporting, although that is part of it. Public service reporting is also what, in America's myriad city rooms, we used to call hard -nosed reporting: asking the impolite question, demanding to see a certain government file instead of having it read to us, refusing to accept words and platitudes as a substitute for facts, checking the veracity of statements and claims before we commit them to print. Public service reporting is also depth reporting: careful collection of all available facts which are then placed in the context of history and current mores so as to present a penetrating look at particular problems and events. Public service reporting is also investigative reporting: the uncovering of facts which people or groups are consciously trying to keep secret. All forms of public service reporting are difficult and frequently unpopular. Investigative reporting is often dangerous as well. At best the investigative reporter toils along an uphill path strewn with legal obstacles and packed with hidden traps. The investigative reporter can afford few friends, constantly worries his or her editors, and is a frequent source of social embarrassment to his or her publisher. Most of these uphill paths lead nowhere and must be laboriously reclimbed to other turnings. And all too often when the investiga- tive reporter reaches the top, his or her reward is a minefield of spurious law suits, judicial demands for the betrayal of sources, the threat of imprisonment, and occasionally, assassination. Don Bolles of Arizona is not the only member of our media to die because he sought to find and report the truth.

[9] THE JOHN PETER ZENGER AWARD -1977

There was Socrates, the preeminent commentator on his times, who sipped from the bowl of hemlock rather than retract the truth as he had reported it. There was Christ, The Man, the ultimate teacher and commentator on the raison d'etre of existence, who chose death by crucifixion rather than renounce His truth. There was, in our own nation, Elijah Parish Lovejoy of , the editor, who persisted in telling the truth about the horrors of slavery and was shot to death at his presses by an angry, pro -slavery mob. There was George Polk, the network correspondent, who was mysteriously murdered in post World War II Greece when he dug too deep and went too far in reporting on the real nature of that internal war and the real nature of the involvement of other nations in the conflict. And, there was Don Bolles. Others have also suffered rather than deviate from the path of truth or surrender their Constitutional rights. There were John Peter Zenger in New York, the Sacramento Four, a still -blinded Victor Riesel. The work of these men, and the like work of many other men and women in the media who have paid a lesser price, represents the high water mark of our greatness. It was, I am sure, people like these and the media owners and editors who encouraged them, that our forefathers had in mind when they framed the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment singles out the press for special privilege when it comes to legal interpretations of freedom. This unique caveat was a succinct way of saying that the press -now our entire communications media -was of vital importance in our scheme of democratic government and that any tam- pering with its freedom to report could effectually thwart the very essence of the Constitutional design. No other craft or profession, even the law, has such specific Constitutional guarantee of freedom. The debate surrounding the adoption of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights clearly demonstrates the thinking of the Constitutional framers. Giants, such as Thomas Jefferson, perceived the people as the government. The people were the substance. The actual structure of government and the holders of office were merely the form. If the people were to govern wisely they must be made aware of the continuing nature of law, economics, foreign affairs, domestic policies. They must also be accurately informed as to the activities, performance and probity of those acting as their representatives in government. The only practical way in which the people could gain this knowledge was and is through the press. The more the press ignored the form of what it was reporting and concentrated on substance, the more wisely the people could govern. Hopefully, the press would report not just what others proclaimed to be the truth, but also the truth itself.

[10] NOT IN VENGEANCE

As Emerson so aptly phrased it: "Truth is the summit of being. Justice is the application of it to affairs." But it is the nature of government to be self -perpetuating, eventually ar- rogant and imbued with a sense of self-preservation. If the press were to fulfill its role in truthfully reporting to the people, it was inevitable that the press would occasionally pose a threat to government and those in similar positions of power. It is also natural to assume that a government threatened by the press would seek to interdict the press. And it was precisely because of that eventuality that the freedom of the press was emphasized by specificity in the Bill of Rights. For, as Franklin D. Roosevelt remarked: "Truth is found when men are free to pursue it." Freedom of the press, our forefathers were convinced, was quintessential to government by the people. So, in the pursuit of truth and in the performance of public service, we have produced our honor role of heroes and organizations. It is a list studded with familiar names and situations: Pulitzer, Steffens, Watergate, Tarbell, Mollenhoff, Hersh, , Newsday, The Chicago Tribune, Fred Friendly and Edward R. Murrow, Radio Station KOY- Phoenix, Horace Greeley, and . Large and small, all have had their moments. When the founders of our government chose to emphasize freedom of the press, there was a non -articulated but clearly expressed faith that our press would be worthy of that freedom and would accept the enormous responsibil- ity that it entailed. This responsibility was noted by the late Zechariah Chaf- fee, Jr., a prominent Boston lawyer and Harvard professor. Said Chaffee: "Freedom from something is not enough. It should also be freedom for something. Freedom is not safety, but opportunity. Freedom ought to be a means to enable the press to serve the proper functions of communications in a free society." Despite our honor roll, have we merited this unique freedom? In balance, I would think not. In an age when more and more of our newspapers are being purchased by corporate conglomerates in the name of viability, our value is judged not on editorial excellence, but in multiples of annual earnings. And, in pursuit of those earnings, we put increased emphasis on what the public wants to know instead of what it ought to know. On the corporate reward scale increased circulation figures, jumps in Nielson ratings and surges in ad lineage over- shadow Pulitzer prizes and Peabody awards. It is no wonder, in these cir- cumstances, that S.I. Newhouse, and Roone Arledge play powerful roles in the industry. In what is inaccurately known as the age of investigative journalism, few newspapers, radio and TV networks employ investigative reporters, much THE JOHN PETER ZENGER AWARD -1977 less investigative teams, and few even give competent reporters the time or financial support to responsibly pursue stories of an investigative nature. Some of this is deliberate. Depth reporting and investigative reporting have been known to enrage some advertisers, lead to circulation boycotts, precipi- tate expensive libel suits. On their scale of priorities, too many publishers and editors place avoidance of all three high above the chance to render public service. There is also the less deliberate avoidance. Many publishers earning sub- stantial profits for themselves or their stockholders squeeze out extra dollars by keeping their editorial staffs undermanned. Harried city editors and as- signment editors, faced with short staff and gaping daily news holes, are forced to opt for the less time -consuming story -the form, but not the sub- stance. And, in this rather general broadside, I do not excuse the editorial craft unions which, having performed a much needed job, now encourage mediocrity and punish reporters who wish to devote their own time to developing sources and improving their own knowledgeability. How many papers are there like the Boston Globe or the Chicago Tribune that sometimes field as many as three investigative teams simultaneously in their incessant battle to scourge corruption from the local body politic? Or like Newsday, that will spend in excess of $50,000 a year, every year, to bring its readers a special voter's guide, or eight months and close to $200,000 to learn the source of heroin coming to Long Island? How many networks are there like CBS that dare to bring you the Murrow reports on Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the Boston bookie exposé and the Arizona Project? Very few. Recently, I had the honor to address a group of some 500 students at Boston University. Fired by Watergate and a vision of the communications media as it was seen by the framers of our Constitution, more than 300 of those students stated that they intended to become investigative reporters. Similar situations have been reported from journalism schools throughout the nation. What a tragedy. What cynicism we will breed in this incoming generation when it learns that the vast bulk of the communications media offers them little encouragement or opportunity to become even perceptive reporters! I would submit that we have had our moments of greatness and we will have them again. But at this moment in time, most of our industry is no more deserving of special Constitutional preference than General Motors, Lock- heed Aviation or the Ideal Toy Company. Our ability to present the news in form if not substance, is unparalleled. But our inability to comprehend our public service responsibilities would lead a current -day Otto von Bismarck to repeat his observation that "A writer is someone who has failed in his calling."

[12] NOT IN VENGEANCE

So bitter is our intermural competition for advertising and circulation dol- lars that we give only lip service -if that -to the defense of our colleagues when they are subjected to attacks upon their First Amendment rights. How many newspapers and broadcasting networks filed in support of The Washington Post and The New York Times when the government sought to prevent the publication of the Pentagon Papers? And where is the outraged voice of the print media in the face of continued government insistence that it has jurisdiction over the type and quality of news programs presented by radio and TV? Why else do we care so little? It cannot be ignorance of the fact that only massive collective response in the face of all First Amendment threats will keep us from being individually but systematically deprived of our freedom. The Don Bolles assassination is a case in point. The killing of Don Bolles was the ultimate deprivation of his First Amendment rights. He was murdered because of what he wrote and because he might write more of the same. Bolles was one of a kind in Arizona. His newspaper, hopelessly co -opted by the reigning power structure, cracked his shield and blunted his sword. But he was still capable of an occasional thrust. With the death of Bolles, a powerful voice was stilled. Even if his murderers were apprehended, the assassination had served its purpose. And this success- ful method could hardly escape the notice of other power brokers in other parts of the country faced with similar exposure problems at the hands of the press. They are only too well aware that pawns are readily expendable in pursuit of a king. The inherent threat involved was more quickly perceived by the reporters of this nation than by its publishers and network presidents. And it was a reporters' organization, the Investigative Reporters and Editors Group, that decided that the time had come for a collective response. The plan was to establish an investigative reporting team, broadly representative of the com- munications media, which would go into Arizona to expand upon and con- clude Bolles' work . Vengeance was not the motive . The team would not and did not work on the Bolles murder. It was an attempt to show that the solidarity of the American communications media is such that it is ready and willing to finish a reporter's work anytime and anywhere to demonstrate that assassination is an ineffective weapon against our First Amendment rights. A nationwide call was made for volunteers. And from this whole nation, 21 publishers, one local radio station (CBS- Boston) and one small TV station agreed to supply reporters and pay their expenses for periods ranging from eight days to six months. The volunteers were highly predictable: The Boston Globe, Newsday, The , The Detroit News, The Kansas City

[13] THE JOHN PETER ZENGER AWARD -1977

Star, , The Chicago Tribune, The Denver Post, The Eugene Register- Guard, The Arizona Daily Star and other, smaller papers with a long tradition of public service. The IRE Arizona project was unique in that it represented a collective response from the American media-the first such collective response in our nation's history. Critics of the project argued that it would be far more efficient to have come to Arizona with an experienced team from a single newspaper. They are correct. But they miss the point between efficiency and effectiveness. Our purpose was to demonstrate the solidarity of the American media in the face of an obscene threat to our First Amendment rights. There is no such thing as unilateral solidarity. Our effectiveness lay in the fact that we represented radio, TV and a vast cross -section of the big and little papers in America. It was also our judgment that any such effort must have equally broad representation from the state of Arizona. If we were to be effective, we could not be mere outsiders pointing the finger of judgment. It was important that Arizona reporters and Arizona journalism students-the future reporters of Arizona -play a vital part in the project. They did. It was Bill Woestendiek, editor of the Arizona Star, who first called for the Arizona Project. It was Bob Early, then city editor of the Arizona Republic, who gave us vital support and guidance at every step of the way. And it was reporters Alex Drehsler and John Rawlinson of the Star and John Winters of the Republic who prepared some of our most important stories. None of us will ever forget the talent of the students from the University of Arizona and Arizona State University who worked during every day and every weekend and the enthusiasm they brought to the monotony of cross - indexing and the drudgery of endless record searches. Nor can we ever forget the unstinting financial support of the Arizona Association of Industries and the kindness, hospitality and cooperation of the people of Arizona. When I first met with the journalism students who were to work with the project, I promised them that they would become a part of journalistic history. They are. We had a dual purpose: to memorialize Don Bolles with the weapons of his own craft in the arena where he fought and died; and to demonstrate for all time that the killing of a reporter will never stop his or her story from being told. Don Bolles was certainly killed by people; but even more, he was killed by a society. When we came to Arizona we found a vibrant people, but people who are only vaguely informed of the problems besetting their state. We found honest law enforcement agencies, morale in disarray because of courts and pro-

[14] NOT IN VENGEANCE secutors that were inept or worse; we found a legislature more interested in political gamesmanship than the good of Arizona and her people; we found too many lawyers willing to sacrifice ethics for advantage; we found too many newspapers and TV and radio stations viewing this state through the rose - colored glasses of boosterism, co -opted by vested interests and ready to lie down and play dead at the merest whisper of lawsuit; and we found a sorry succession of state agencies ill- staffed and ill- financed to serve the people of Arizona in the 20th Century. But above all, we found Arizona dominated by an elite in the fields of money, politics and crime, an elite that had firmly established that who you are and what you are transcends law, ethics, and public morality. Many of these people and members of their families have been so acting for many years without fear of retribution. And it was with that assurance that some members of this elite apparently plotted and ordered the murder of Don Bolles as well as the Attorney General of Arizona. Our purpose here was not to indict and prosecute, nor do we measure our success in these terms. Our purpose was to inform the people of Arizona and in so doing to fulfil our basic mandate under the Constitution of the . We are convinced that the people of Arizona, once informed, are entirely capable of handling their own affairs. Despite the occasional critic, we did our job. The people of Arizona are informed. And in that process, the media of Arizona in large part showed huge courage. The Arizona Star, the Scottsdale Progress, Radio Station KOY and many other papers in this state stood fast against threat and friendship. They kept their trust with the Constitution of the United States. TV tried. The Arizona Republic must carry the burden of its shame forever. Our facts have withstood the crucible of the courtrooms. The Columbia Journalism Review, the ultimate critic of our media, has pronounced the Arizona Project a success. Through this award, our peers have pronounced their judgment. If the Arizona Project can stimulate increased interest in public service reporting and broader participation in such reporting by the American com- munications industry, the tragic death of Don Bolles will have become mean- ingful. And on that day, when we all embrace our responsibilities to truly and courageously inform the people, we will be deserving of the First Amendment to our Bill of Rights.

[15] PARTICIPANTS IN IRE INVESTIGATION © 1977 Investigative Reporters and Editors

Team leader: Robert W. Greene Assistant team leader: Richard Cady Team story editor: Anthony Insolia Reporters and writers: Ross Becker Dick Johnson Phil O'Connor Ed Rooney Ron Koziol Dave Offer Bob Teuscher Don Devereux Larry Kraftowitz Dave Overton Norm Udevitz Alex Drehsler Doug Kramer Myrta Pulliam Jerry Uhrhammer Jack Driscoll Dick Levitan John Rawlinson Bob Weaver Dave Freed Dick Lyneis Torn Renner Mike Wendland Bill Hume Ken Matthews Mike Satchell Steve Wick Susan Irby Jack McFarren Ray Schrick Jack Wimer Harry Jones Bill Montalbano Other team members: Steve Goldin, Dan Noyes, George Weisz Contributors: Asst. Prof. James Johnson (Arizona State University) Prof. Don Carson (University of Arizona) Prof. George Ridge (University of Arizona) Visiting Instructor Bruce Dobler (University of Arizona) Legal counsel: Andrew L. Hughes, Townley and Updike, New York City, N.Y. Edward O. DeLaney, Barnes, Hickman, Pantzer and Boyd, Indianapolis. Organizations: Albuquerque Journal Newsday Riverside (Calif.) Press Arizona Daily Star Gulfport (Miss.) Herald St. Louis Globe - Democrat Boston Globe Idaho Statesman Seers Rio Grande Weekly CBS /WEEI Boston Indianapolis Star Tulsa Tribune Chicago Tribune Jack Anderson Associates Urban Policy Research Colorado Springs Sun Kansas City Star Institute (Calif.) Denver Post KGUN -TV Tucson Washington Star Detroit News Miami Herald Wenatchee (Wash.) World Elyria (Ohio) Chronicle Milwaukee Journal Eugene (Ore.) Register -Guard Reno Newspapers

Students: Arizona -Gene McKinney ASU -Nina Bondarook Bob Rast Carol Jackson Jody Schreiber Mike Padgett Paul Wattles Mike Tulumello Rob Wilson Office staff: Marge Cashel Jackie Foley Nadia Moore Mary Cuzzocrea Diane Hayes Kay Nash Betty Farrer Flo Hogan