Society of the Silurians LIFETIMESilurians Press Club EXCELLENCEACHIEVEMENT IN AWARDJOURNALISMBILL WHITAKER DINNER “60 Minutes” HonoringAWARDS Steve GALA Kroft The Nationalcorrespondent Arts Club The15 Gramercy National ParkArts SouthClub 15 Gramercyto keynote Park South Wednesday,Wednesday, October May 15,16, 2019 Drinks:Awards 6 P.M. Ceremony Dinner: 7:15 P.M. Drinks: 6 P.M. • Dinner: 7:15 P.M. PublishedPublishedPublished by by byThe TheThe Society SilurianSilurians of Pressthe Press Silurians., Club, Club, an an anorganization organization organization Meet old friendsJune16,• and 2021 award winners [email protected] by Eventbrite or with; ofofof veteranveteran veteran NewNew New York YorkYork CityCity journalistsjournalists foundedfounded inin 19241924 [email protected] p.m. online

NOVEMBERMARCHJUNE 2021 2019 2019 ReportingTwilight of the Feminism:And Chappaquiddickthe Awards Go To ... BY JACK DEACY to contain the contamination. This series BYcompetitions. ANTHONY (An MARRO article about Dwyer and Irish-American AWARDS CHAIR and Newsday’s prior coverage of the is- colleagues Pete Hamill and Jimmy Breslin sue helped to forge a $406 million state appears on thishen page.) Newsday moved out of Columnist? NowA remarkable research and and reporting plan in which Northrup Grumman and the The awardits winnersMelville will plant be honored back in at effort by three New York Times journalists U.S. Navy agreed for the first time in four a virtual ceremonyAugust, moston Wednesday, of the pictures June BY WENDELL JAMIESON which gave the world its first in-depth look decades to end the massive groundwater 16W at 7 pm on Zoom and YouTube. “Sixty on the walls were put up for grabs. Rita at President Trump’s tax returns, and a pollution and remove its sources. The re- Ciolli,Minutes” the editorialcorrespondent page editor, Bill Whitakergrabbed I have before me, spread out on the Thennine-month investigation into a monumental markable series honors the proud history of andwill sent deliver me one the thatkeynote showed address. me and A link Bob to kitchen table and far bigger than I re- toxic plume on Long Island, both captured Greene and others standing on the bridge member it, the final edition of New York at Chappaquiddick a few days after Sen. Newsday. It’s a wide, floppy sheet, as President‘s Choice awards, the top prizes Ted Kennedy had driven into the tidal the tabs once were, and on this date, July pond, a July 1969 accident that resulted 16, 1995, its wood proclaims — “Our in the Silurians Press Club’s 76th annual in the death of his passenger, Mary Jo Ko- Best to You.” Excellence in Journal- pechne. It shows that, like most reporters The hed is a joke – that’s the one- ism Awards. on the job back then, I was wearing a suit time slogan of the cereal company President Donald and a tie. A few nights later I was back whose former chief exec closed the Trump’s refusal to on the bridge again, but this time wearing 10-year-old paper. But that’s a subject release his tax returns only my underwear. for another day. Instead, let’s open up to made them a holy I dove into the pond and touched bot- page two, and then to pages five and six. grail for prosecutors, tom, which wasn’t difficult because the Here are six columnists writing congressional Dem- water seemed to be only about ten feet about New York and the death of their ocrats and, of course, deep. I came up and then dove down again newspaper. Four men and two women, reporters. Trump and while ancestry fought subpoena af- four or five times. Kennedy had said that is complex, espe- ter subpoena, but even he had tried to rescue Kopechne, but that as he lost and lost cially when many A WOODSTOCKthe current had been too strong. Greene, again, he won delays who headed Newsday’s investigations who came to these that seemed certain to shores in past cen- team, wanted to know just how strong the keep his financial se- current was. But as a man with a Sydney turies did not do crets hidden through so voluntarily, it’s the end of his presi- MEMOIRGreenstreet sort of bulk, he didn’t think interesting to note he was the right person to test it. dency. A Newsday team won BYthe MedallionJACK DEACY for Breaking News Photographybridge for theiron Chappaquiddick coverage of summer Island demon and- that all of the col- But three Times It was such a dark night that I kept Marro, left, and photographer Ken Spencer in front of thestrations Harbor and View marches Inn at protesting Martha’s Vineyardthe murder in of 1969. George Floyd. killed Mary Joe Kopeckne. During that umnists have Irish reporters did what n the sunny morning of memorable year, theContinued Vietnam Waron Page raged 6 names. others could not, first obtaining and then decoding more than two investigativeFriday reporting Aug. that 15, has 1969, uncovered motel on,the Nixonceremony was will sworn be madein and available Sy Hersh on Duggan is one. owner Jack Besterman and broke the My Lai massacre story. The And Collins. And decades of Trump’s tax records through environmentalO carnage masked by corporate the Silurians Press Club website at www. I walked up the driveway of the Pine Black Panthers brought a militant new JIM DWYER McCarthy. And 2018. In a series of articles titled “The deception. silurians.org. Recalling the ClatteringPresident’s Taxes,” the trio, Russ Buettner,of theMotelThe in Times KeysWhite led Lake, this year’s New winnersYork where with phaseThe to Siluriansthe Civil RightsPress Club, movement, formed the in then Dwyer. And, it meets Route 17B. What we saw Manson murders shook Los Angeles, Susanne Craigand and started Mike usingMcIntire, a computer spot- tosix write Medallions his newscasts. and nine Merit (runner-up) 1924 as The Society of the Silurians, is an BYon BILL page DIEHL2 because it was his regular lighted Trump’s chronic business losses awardsamazed with us. As Newsday far as our close eyes behind could see,with Neworganization York’s Stonewall of more than riots 300 started veteran a Newgay day, Breslin. and grand-scale taxRecently avoidance I took and an revealed informal pollsixthe Medallions roadwayof some of was and my afourfellow vast Merit sea ofawards. cars. AllThe revolution,York journalists. and the Early Beatles members broke included up. 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York ROIPHE Newsday,For some, theYorkresearch typewrit University. was- painstaking, She is the involving author of months The alsoall walking won by Theslowly Record/northjersey.com, west of technical study even before analysis and er tellingitself becamea small knot a crucial of twenty-something part of the writing Morning process, After: couldn’t Sex, Fear, handle and Feminism,it. He wouldn’t Fortune,toward go near Thetheir a computer City, destination the Journaland News/lohud.before,” he said to me. “All this reporting couldwould even begin.dictate his columns to hiscom, secretary, Chalkbeat, who NBC would News, WABC TV andreporters manyilurian were like mereluctantAnne how Roiphe newspapers to give was it up onewill when The computer Violet Hour , and the forthcoming The five miles away: the The otherthen winner, type Newsday’sthem into the “The computer. and WINS Radio. for a concert? Who’s playing, word-processingalwaysof break the most your arrived powerfulheart. in the andearly best- 1980s.Power Notebooks. She has also written Woodstock Music and OneThe reluctant columnists convert on was pages longtime five printand reporterGrumman and Plume: When Decades WNEW of Deceit” Radio by passed “Weinto havehistory, all beenveteran through a terrible known feminist writers of the forPaul The LaRocco New York and Times, David Harper’s, M. Schwartz Slate, yearArt Fair.like no In other,” this pastoral said Silurians President Frank Sinatra?” CBSsixS commentatorall talk about Andy their Rooney. sadness “I at like the being The a Paris writer Review, WNEW and otherreporter publications. Mike Eisgrau landed a job as Com- last century. 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I would fightingthe Sixties. on behalf of those men and wom- Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater on MARTYthink it’s BARONright.” inother bitthe ofnewsroompublications. dark humor: and a youcomputer can read was moreon his desknever instead dream of asking for more money en Andwho hadwhat been a year wrongfully 1969 was imprisoned. for news. Revival,The winning Jimi NewsdayHendrix, photographayCrosby Stills Another writer, Frances Whyatt, says the typewriter of aboutaKatie typewriter, Joao is the and he director Pinto, tossed he theof tell machinethe us, Cultural in future into a wastebasketand I am sorry to say that I probably DwyerAmerican was alsoastronauts the 1999 walked recipient on of thethe Nashteam includedand Young, J. Conrad The Band,Williams, Janis Jr., and walked out. Collins was suspended. 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Continued from Page 1 of New York City’s Recycling Failure,” a SILURIANS Excellence in the and Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck. deeply researched expose detailing New In addition to sponsoring the Excellence York’s chronic failure to recycle and its JOURNALISM AWARDS in Journalism awards annually since 1945, exporting of the vast bulk of its garbage to 2021 - JUDGES Time of Covid the Silurians also provide educational grants landfills and incinerators outside the city. Dear Silurians: for local journalism students, provide relief The other Medallion went to Newsday’s for journalists in financial trouble, and host David Olson for his “Horror, Hope and Jack Deacy ( chair), Joyce It has been a confusing and daunt- monthly luncheons featuring prominent Courage: Inside the Red Zone at Mount Wadler (co-chair), ing year since our world was cast into speakers. Sinai South Nassau Hospital,” his report Ben Long (technical In the Breaking on several harrowing days inside a Long a whirlwind of disease and death by consultant), Michael Covid-19. Journalists everywhere were News Reporting cate- Island hospital sent home and forced to work in their gory, Times reporters under severe Serrill, Clyde Haberman, home offices, even if they didn’t have one. Michael Rothfeld, So- Police Didn’t pandemic siege Tony Mancini, David mini Sengupta, Joseph and the strug- Margolick, Allan Dodds Suddenly there were no in-person Goldstein and Brian gles and inge- meetings, either with colleagues or M. Rosenthal won the Crack This Case. nuity of front- Frank, David Andelman, sources. Zoom stopped being just the Medallion for their line health care Myron Kandel, Kevin way you made the type bigger on your impressive explora- Women Did workers in giv- Noblet, Ben Patrusky, monitor and became the be-all and end- tion of 13 coronavirus ing gravely ill deaths that took place The Medallion winner for feature news patients a shot Bernard Kirsch, Fred all of post-pandemic communication. told of how a group of women stopped a across 24 hours on to survive. serial killer who had been haunting urban Herzog, Carol Lawson, March 25th last year Newsday’s Yet the time of Covid also produced New Jersey. The judges felt the article Aileen Jacobsen, Linda at Elmhurst Hospital reporting team a fount of news that moved so fast you read like a true crime novel. Here is an in Queens. The judg- of Jim Baum- Amster, Tony Guida, Mort could barely keep up—from the craziness excerpt: of Trumpworld, to the demonstrations ing panel said that in bach, Matt Sheinman, Betsy Ashton, She woke up. She felt his weight Clark, Paul La- protesting the death of George Floyd, focusing on that one pinning her to the back seat of the car. Scotti Williston, Bill Diehl. Rocco, Sandra to the near-collapse of the economy to hospital their arti- She felt his arm tight against her throat, the Biden election and the beginning of cle “brought home Peddie and David squeezing. Felt her wrists in handcu Robert Cassidy, Raychel Brightman and recovery. the devastation that ffs be- M. Schwartz cap- hind her back. Duct tape stretched around Jeffrey Basinger took home the Medallion afflicted medical her head, covering her nose and mouth. tured the Medal- What is remarkable is that despite all teams across New lion for Editori- for People Profiles for their multimedia Tiffany Taylor was being raped. the hardship—including, in some cases, York City during als, Commentary four-part documentary “Sonny.” It focused He spoke. Don’t worry, he said. He on the life of notorious mob boss John the death of parents and grandparents the coronavirus had done this before. When he finished, and Pubic Service due to Covid—the community of report- surge.” for “Cold Spring “Sonny” Franzese who died last year at he would carry her body to the trunk of age 103. Based on numerous interviews ers and editors produced some of the The team of the car. She cried. She bit her tongue, and Hills,” which best journalism in years. Christopher Maag, chronicles how with Franzese, his family, friends and it bled. Her tears and blood loosened the enemies, the saga encompassed murder, Julia Martin, Tom tape. She screamed. Don’t kill me. Please. two Long Island You get a glimpse of some of it in this Nobile, Keldy families parlayed betrayal, family ties, Marilyn Monroe and Don’t kill me. I’m pregnant. other elements that could easily be used in issue of Silurian News, as we celebrate Ortiz, Chris Pe- said. I know, he politics and lavish the winners of our annual Excellence in dota and Svetla- campaign contri- fictional movies. The judging panel agreed In the summer and fall of 2016, a serial that “Sonny is mesmerizing.” Journalism awards. na Shkolnikova killer stalked the streets of urban New Jer bution to enable at The Record/ - them to weather The medallion for Minority Affairs sey. He attacked four women in 84 days. Reporting went to David Gonzalez of If you haven’t already done so, I urge northjersey.com He killed three . . . For the women a critical government you to use your Google to look up and captured the Me- ffect- and court rulings The Times for “Forgotten Communities,” ed by these crimes, hope wasn’t good a story about how the pandemic affected read The New York Times exploration of dallion for Feature enough. And for Ti and avoid criminal ffany Taylor, waiting disenfranchised city youth. whose summer the finances of the Trump family, News- News Reporting wasn’t an option. Police didn’t crack this liability. The judg- employment program had been canceled. day’s disclosure of the toxic plume that for their story of case. Women did. ing panel said “the poisons the water beneath Long Island, a serial rapist and Newsday team un- The judging panel said the multimedia piece and the many stories and photographs we killer who preyed masked this grim “allowed us to see up close the efforts of honor on the response to the pandemic on young women practice and provid- suddenly unemployed Latino street vendors and the demonstrations confirming that in North Jersey ed a public service to to support each other and how city youths Black Lives Matter. in 2016 and the women who the powerless.” came up with productive activities for their gathered the evidence to stop him when Times cultural reporters Michael Paul- suddenly sullen summer.” The Times stories, by Suzanne Craig, police refused to investigate. “It is not son, Graham Bowley, Elizabeth A. Harris In the Sports Reporting and Commen- Russ Buettner and Mike McIntire, were only a brilliantly written true crime series, and Jessie Wender won the Arts and Culture tary category, Ali Watkins of The New York a tour de force of forensic journalism, as it’s a meticulously reported social justice Reporting Medallion for their “One Last Times won the Medallion for “How New the three reporters scrubbed the thou- story which throws a spotlight on police Weekend”, a meticulously reported and York City Lost Boxing,” a tale in which she sands of pages of Trump tax returns indifference in a case in which the victims gracefully written chronicle of the cultural followed an amateur boxer as he trained in they had obtained for information on were African-American sex workers,” the events that went missing due to the pan- the city’s disappearing gym scene. Along how rich the former president actually judging panel wrote. demic shutdown during a single weekend the way she revealed why New York City is and where his money came from. The An Associated Press team of reporters in September last year. The judges wrote was no longer at the center of the fight game. answer was that most of his money was — Bernard Condon, Jim Mustian, Jennifer that “it also explored the costs — economic, Newsday photographers J. Conrad Wil- given to him by his father, and that he Peltz, Matthew Sedensky and Meghan Hoy- cultural and emotional — to individuals, liams, Jr., Alejandra Villa Loarca, Thomas then squandered it in bad business deals. er — won the Medallion for Investigative institutions and life in New York, present A. Ferrara, Steve Pfost and Charlies Eckert They pushed our anger button when they Reporting for “Deadly Truth: Probing Nurs- and future.” Continued on Page 3 disclosed that in the year he took office ing Homes In Crisis.” They methodically Newsday’s Sandra Peddie, Trump paid just $750 in federal taxes. uncovered the truth about the transfer of elderly Covid-19 hospital patients in New The Newsday stories, by Paul LaRoc- York State to nursing homes following an co and David M. Schwartz, are startling, order from Governor Andrew Cuomo at revealing that a cabal of local officials, the height of the pandemic. Refusing to U.S. Navy brass and executives at Grum- accept Cuomo’s assertions without hard When the Work TheWas People ProfilesMurder Medallion went to -a man, allowed toxic waste to be dumped facts, the AP team surveyed nursing homes Newsday team for “Sonny,” a profile pf leg into the residential water supply, then and hospitals to find that at least 4,500 pa- endary mobster Sonny Franzese, in which were able to conceal the massive pollu- tients had been moved in an alleged effort he cooperated. Here is an excerpt: tion from the public for decades. This to minimize hospital deaths, exposing the John (Sonny) Franzese wanted to secure kind of deep, research-based investigative residents already there to the virus. The the royalties from a hit song for a friend’s journalism has become part of Newsday’s governor attacked their report as part of a record company in the ’60s, he recalled normal fare and we admire the newspa- “blame game” but the AP and its reporters recently, so he hung the songwriter out the per for it. stood firm and finally got access to records window of the Brill Building in Manhattan that showed the Cuomo administration had by his legs until the man said, “You got it.” Finally, we Silurians have suffered an also undercounted the number of Covid-19 Around the same time, Franzese moved unusual number of deaths of our mem- patient fatalities at nursing homes. in on a Long Island trucking company, bers in the last year, including Charles - Maria Aspan’s investigation for For- sending four men to attack the owner with Strum, Jack Schwartz and Carl Spielvogel tune into the biases that allowed so many of The New York Times, Bill Condie of - high-profile female founders of startups baseball bats, said Gerald Shur, a former official in the U.S. Justice Depart the New York Post, Jane Furse of the Post to be pushed out of the businesses they ment . . . . Some years later, Franzese’s youngest son, John Jr., remembers, and Daily News, Ray Brady of CBS, Mike helped create garnered the Medallion for he was driving his father along the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn when Franz Santangelo of the Daily News and Fox - Business and Financial Reporting. Aspan’s ese gestured as if he were putting a gun in his belt and grunted, “Over here, News, and Rosalind Massow of Parade son.” magazine. Look inside this issue to read research uncovered bias by investors, other entrepreneurs, some journalists and even At first, John Jr. didn’t understand. “I’ve got to explain to you every appreciations of these fine thing!” he recalled his father yelling. “That’s why you’ll never be like me! journalists. the start-ups own boards. The judging panel in the Science, Health Around here, there was some work done, and now let’s go.” “Work” is a Mafia euphemism for murder. Stay safe. and Environmental Reporting category is- Michael Serrill sued two Medallions. One went to Politico’s Sally Goldenberg and Danielle Muoio for their “Wasted Potential: The Consequences JUNE 2021 SILURIAN NEWS PAGE 3

Newsday photographer J. Conrad Williams, Jr. won the Medallion for Sports Photography for his inventive shot of Yankees pitchers working out during spring training in Tampa just before part of the 2020 season was cancelled by the coronavirus pandemic.

Hospitals in Crisis During Pandemic What follows is an excerpt from the New York Times article on the Covid-19 pan- demic’s impact on hospitals. It won the Silurians Press Club’s Medallion for Breaking News: Workers at several hospitals, including the Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, said employees such as obstetrician-gynecologists and radiologists have been called to work in emergency wards. At a branch of the Montefiore Medical Center, also in the Bronx, there have been one or two coronavirus-related deaths a day, or more, said Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez, a nurse. There are not always enough gurneys, so some patients sit in chairs. One patient on Sunday had been without a bed for 36 hours, she said. At the Mount Sinai Health System, some hospital workers in Manhattan have posted photos on social media showing nurses using trash bags as protective gear. A system spokesman said she was not aware of that happening and noted the nurses had other gear below the bags. “The safety of our staff and patients has never been of greater importance and we are taking every precaution possible to protect everyone,” she said. With ventilators in short supply, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, one of the city’s Philip Montgomery won the Medallion for Feature Photography for a largest systems, has begun using one machine to help multiple patients at a time, a series of photographs that ran in The New York Times Magazine of a virtually unheard-of move, a spokeswoman said. hospital grappling with the victims of the Covid-19 at the Pandemic’s crest. In this photograph, Dr. Barry Todd Smith and colleagues perform an intubation on a patient in the emergency department. Dirty Little Secret in Silicon Valley AND THE AWARDS GO TO ... The Medallion winner in business reporting went to Fortune magazine’s Continued from Page 1 Team walked off with the Medallion for Maria Aspan for an article about the resignation or firing of so many female teamed up to win the Medallion for Break- their coverage of last June’s peaceful founders or CEO’s of American companies. The following is an excerpt ing News Photography for their coverage protests after the murder of George Floyd of summer demonstrations and marches as well as the looting of stores in lower To many in Silicon Valley, the toppling of so many of the industry’s most protesting the murder of George Floyd. Manhattan. The judges said that “the com- prominent female founders signals something much bigger and more discon Newsday’s J. Conrad Williams, Jr. also prehensive reporting was distinguished by certing than the usual game of startup musical chairs . . . Many in the startup- took home the Medallion for Sports Photog- its effort to draw a clear distinction between ecosystem blame reporters for building up young, photogenic female founders raphy for photos of Yankees pitchers at last the peaceful protesting and the looting.” only to eventually tear them down. year’s spring training workout just before News 12 New Jersey’s Walt Kane was Away CEO Steph Korey hit back on Instagram: “The incentive isn’t to report the pandemic hit. the winner of the Medallion for Feature what’s happening. It’s to write things that will be shared on social media,” she Photographer Philip Montgomery won News Television Reporting for his “Out- wrote. “Why are women being targeted specifically? Because readers find their the Feature News Photography Medallion break at the Veterans Home.” His pieces takedowns even juicier?” for his two extraordinary photo essays for included moving interviews with relatives But many startup insiders argue that male leaders get away with similar The New York Times Magazine. The first of veterans who died of Covid-19, raising demanding behavior — or worse — all the time. “The dirty secret is that being essay included unforgettable images of the questions about safety and medical care at in a growth-stage company, it’s not for everyone. And a lot of these companies chaos inside New York City public hospitals the New Jersey Veterans Memorial Home have problematic cultures,” says Leslie Feinzaig as health care workers toiled to keep ahead at Menlo Park, N.J. ers Alliance, a startup community. , founder of the Female Found - of the fast moving coronavirus. For his The team coverage by WCBS Radio Instead, the rare women who secure significant VC money — whether they second photo essay, he went inside the 880 captured the Medallion for Break- opt to lean in to the idea or not — are inevitably put on what All Raise’s Kostka Farenga Brothers Funeral Home in the ing News Radio Reporting for its 24- calls “the perfection pedestal,” closely scrutinized by media, workers, and inves Bronx as it struggled to handle in dignified hour coverage of protests following the tors. With that spotlight comes the visceral fear that they could be next. - fashion the growing number of Covid-19 George Floyd murder and the looting bodies. that broke out in Soho. The judging panel For television Breaking News Report- described it as “radio journalism at its ing, the WABC-TV Eyewitness News best.” PAGE 4 SILURIAN NEWS JANUARY 2021 SocietyLIFETIME of the Silurians EXCELLENCEACHIEVEMENT IN AWARDJOURNALISM DINNER HonoringAWARDS Steve GALA Kroft The National Arts Club The15 Gramercy National ParkArts SouthClub 15 Gramercy Park South Wednesday,Wednesday, October May 15,16, 2019 Drinks: 6 P.M. Dinner: 7:15 P.M. Drinks: 6 P.M. • Dinner: 7:15 P.M. PublishedPublishedilurians by by The The Society Silurian of Pressthe Silurians., Club, an anorganization organizationress Meet old friends• and award winners P CReserve by Eventbrite or with; [email protected] 2021 SILURIAN MEDALLION AND MERIT AWARD WINNERS ofof veteranveteran NewNew YorkYork CityCity journalistsjournalists foundedfounded inin 19241924 [email protected] PRESIDENT’SNOVEMBER CHOICEMARCH AWARD 2019 2019: “The President’s Taxes” The New York Times, Russ Buettner, Susanne Craig & Mike McIntire ReportingPRESIDENT’S CHOICE AWARD:Feminism: “The Grumman Chappaquiddick Plume: Decades of Deceit,” Newsday, Paul LaRocco and David M. Schwartz BY ANTHONY MARRO

hen Newsday moved out of EXCELLENCE IN JOURNALISM SPECIALNow AWARD: Jim and Dwyer,1957 – 2020; Newsday - Daily News - New York Times;its Melville A Crusader plant back Against in Injustice WAugust, most of the pictures on the walls were put up for grabs. Rita Ciolli, the editorial page editor, grabbed BREAKINGThen NEWS REPORTING : (Newspapers, Wire Services, Online, Magazines)and sent me one that showed me and Bob Greene and others standing on the bridge Medallion: “13 Deaths In A Day; Coronavirus Surge At New York City Hospital,”at Chappaquiddick a few days after Sen. Ted Kennedy had driven into the tidal New York Times, By Michael Rothfeld, Somini Sengupta, Joseph Goldstein, Brianpond, M. a July Rosenthal 1969 accident that resulted in the death of his passenger, Mary Jo Ko- Merit: “Chalkbeat: New York City Schools Shutdown,” pechne. It shows that, like most reporters on the job back then, I was wearing a suit By Alex Zimmerman, Christina Veiga and Reema Amin and a tie. A few nights later I was back on the bridge again, but this time wearing only my underwear. I dove into the pond and touched bot- : (Newspapers, Wire Services, Online, Magazines)tom, which wasn’t difficult because the FEATURE NEWS REPORTING water seemed to be only about ten feet Medallion: “How They Stopped A Serial Killer,” The Record/northjersey.com, By Christopher Maag, Julia Martin, Tom Nobile,deep. IKeldy came up Ortiz, and then Chris dove downPedota again and Svetlana Shkolnikova. four or five times. Kennedy had said that Merit: “The Epicenter,” New York Times, By Dan Barry and Annie Correalhe had tried to rescue Kopechne, but that A WOODSTOCKthe current had been too strong. Greene, Photos by Todd Heisler who headed Newsday’s investigations team, wanted to know just how strong the current was. But as a man with a Sydney MEMOIRGreenstreet sort of bulk, he didn’t think : (Newspapers, Wire Services, Online, Magazines)he was the right person to test it. INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING BY JACK DEACY bridgeIt was on such Chappaquiddick a dark night thatIsland I keptand Marro, left, and photographer Ken Spencer in front of the Harbor View Inn at Martha’s Vineyard in 1969. killed Mary Joe Kopeckne. During that Medallion: “Deadly Truth: Probing Nursing Homesn the in sunnyCrisis,” morning Associated of memorable Press, year, theContinued Vietnam Waron Page raged 6 Friday Aug. 15, 1969, motel on, Nixon was sworn in and Sy Hersh By Bernard Condon, Jim Mustian, Jennifer Peltz,O Matthewowner Jack Sedensky Besterman and and Meghanbroke the Hoyer My Lai massacre story. The I walked up the driveway of the Pine Black Panthers brought a militant new Merit: “How NewRecalling York City Bungled the Purchasethe Clattering of Life-Saving Medical Suppliesof the MotelDuring in KeysWhitethe Covid-19 Lake, New YorkPandemic,” where phase The to City,” the Civil By Rights Greg movement, B. Smith the and Gabriel Sandoval it meets Route 17B. What we saw Manson murders shook Los Angeles, BY BILL DIEHLMerit: “New Jersey Nursing Homes,”and started Theusing Record/NorthJersey.com, a computer toamazed write hisus. newscasts.As far as our By eyes Scott could Fallon see, Newand York’s Lindy Stonewall Washburn riots started a gay Recently I took an informal pollthe roadwayof some of was my a fellow vast sea of cars. All revolution, and the Beatles broke up. o many of us Silurians, it is a familiar mem- Silurians about their typewriterabandoned. memories. The Here only are things a moving on And on August 15 upwards of few of the responses. ory: the clackingAnne Roipheof 100, or (inset) 500, typewriters, and Katie Roiphe the road were the drivers Tas reporters and BUSINESSeditors worked ANDtoward FINANCIAL their Bert Shanas,REPORTING who worked: (Newspapers, andat the passengersNew York Wire Dailywho Services, Online, Magazines) deadlines in open newsrooms. The sometimes deafening News for many years, recalled thathad whenabandoned the paper madethem, “I never seen nothing like this the switch from typewriters to computers, Jimmy Breslin noiseBY ANNE could beAND almost KATIE soothing. ROIPHE For some, theMedallion:York typewrit University.- “Female She is the authorFounders of The Under all walking Fire,” slowlyFortune, west By Maria Aspan er itself became a crucial part of the writingMorning process, After: couldn’t Sex, Fear, handle and Feminism,it. He wouldn’t toward go near their a computer destination and before,” he said to me. “All this would dictate his columns to his secretary, who would and manyilurian were reluctantAnne Roiphe to give was it up one when The computer Violet Hour , and the forthcoming The five miles away: the Merit: “PPP Loans on LI: Law, CPAthen Firms type them Got into More the computer.than Other Business Sectors,”for Newsday, a concert? By James Who’s T. playing,Madore word-processingof the most arrived powerful in the andearly best- 1980s.Power Notebooks. She has also written Woodstock Music and When WNEW Radio passed into history, veteran One reluctantknown feministconvert was writers longtime of theprint reporterforMerit: The andNew “Small York Times, Businesses Harper’s, Slate, Battle Artfor Fair.Survival In this Amid pastoral the Pandemic,”Frank Sinatra?” CBSS commentator Andy Rooney. “I like beingThe a Paris writer Review, WNEW and otherreporter publications. Mike Eisgrau landed a job as Com- last century. Her daughter Katie Roiphe setting, for at least a few munications Director at the Javits Center, which was butis one I also of thelike most writing,” prominent Rooney of wrotethis one. in his 2002 book days, the human foot THE CITY, By Rachelusing a computer Holliday system. Smith, Mike Yoav says Goen, he was Gregable to David and Ann Choi. CommonSilurian ‘Non’News Sense.editor “MichaelThe only Serrilltime I feel inKatie control Roiphe: would overtake the combustion engine. 400,000 young people descended rescue an IBM electric typewriter from the storeroom ofasked my lifethem is to when have I aam conversation sitting at my about typewriter—com I wrote -a piece for The Guardian on Besterman, an elderly Jewish on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm for the and used it throughout his tenure at Javits. “I did use puterwhat now—typing.”has become known as the MeToo finding out that my male colleagues man who once ran a grocery store Woodstock festival. The country seemed the Javits computer system, but never mastered the me- movement, Like Rooney a vigorous and many debate of aboutus of athe certain were age, paid we more than me. When they got in Brooklyn, kept staring at the to be spinning out of control. But it was chanics very well, so I used the IBM to type addresses grewdiscrimination up with typewriters.SCIENCE, and sexual In harassment HEALTHhigh school ANDItheir needed job ENVIRONMENTAL anoffers from the university REPORTING they monumental: (Newspapers, scene. “I never Wire seenServices, a newspaper Online, reporter’s Magazines) dream. on envelopes,” he says. extrathat continues credit to graduate to plague and society took herea “touch and typing”negotiated class, and asked for more money nothing like this before,” he said to me. At the time I was writing a Daily News Silurian Clyde Haberman sent me an article from Medallion:soaround it was theme “Wasted andworld. 30 young The Potential: format women. is AsKatie The the years Consequencesand went when by I got mine of myNew instinct York wasCity’s “All Recycling this for a concert?Failure,” Who’s Politico, playing, By columnSally Goldenbergthree times a week and that Danielle covered Muoio 1999 that he wrote for The New York Times. A few andinterviewing I became herpart mother of some about big broadcasting how things newsrooms,just to say thank you. Since then I have Frank Sinatra?” music, politics, sports, government and excerpts: “Bit by bit—byte by byte?—computers have Medallion: “Horror, thatHopehave, typing and and haven’t, course Courage: becamechanged. Insideimportant. the I didn’tRedresolved haveZone to atask Mount for more Sinai money South for my NassauSo beganHospital,” my five-dayNewsday, odyssey by David city characters.Olson, Photographs I was 25 years oldand and video by Jeffrey Basinger pushed typewriters to the same musty shelf where you’ll produceAnne, my a former copy memberby the “hunt of the and Silurian peck” methodwork. Havelike you ever asked for more covering the 1969 Woodstock Festival my cup runneth over. find buggy whips, bottles of cod-liver oil and, any day manyBoard of of my Governors, colleagues. is the I too author joined of theUp computermoney forbri -yourMerit: work? Do“Fertility you think Inc.,” this Fortune,for the New By York Beth Daily Kowitt News. I had In late May I began receiving releases now, New York City subway tokens,” he wrote. gade—notthe Sandbox, exactly 1185 parkkicking Avenue, and screaming, Epilogue butis a with feminist the issue? come to cover a music festival. But and materials from promoters of a three- Why do some diehards even to this day cling to an realizationand 15 other that Inovels had better and learn non-fiction computer Merit: skills or“Breathing my Life into Fresh Kills:it Landfill’swould morph Long into anRoad absolutely to Renewal,” day concert in upstate New York. It was obviously outdated technology? Haberman quoted Lois jobbooks. would She behas in written jeopardy. for New York Mag- Anne Roiphe: incredible weekend and one of the going to feature some of the biggest Gould, who said, “the perfection I see on the computer azine,Yet whenThe Newcomputers York Times,were introduced Ms., Elle, at CBS I Radio,do think this is Newa feminist York issue Times, or majorBy Robert stories Sullivannot only of 1969 but of names in rock and folk music: the screen I find dangerous. It looks good, therefore you correspondentVogue, Cosmopolitan Reid Collins and rebelled. a variety The of dayat he least arrived a problem for feminists. I would the Sixties. Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater think it’s right.” inother the newsroompublications. and a computer was on his desknever instead dream of asking for more money And what a year 1969 was for news. Revival, Jimi Hendrix, Crosby Stills Another writer, Frances Whyatt, says the typewriter of aKatie typewriter, is the he director tossed theof machinethe Cultural into a wastebasketand I am sorry to say that I probably American astronauts walked on the Nash and Young, The Band, Janis and walked out. Collins was suspended. A short time “slows you down enough to make you better.” Reporting and CriticismEDITORIALS, program at New COMMENTARY Continued & onPUBLIC Page 5 SERVICE:moon, (Newspapers, Ted Kennedy ran Wire his carServices, off a Online,Continued Magazines) on Page 3 later he went to CNN, where he later gave up his protest Continued on Page 7 CBS’s Andy Rooney at his beloved machine. Medallion: “Cold Spring Hills,” Newsday, by Jim Baumbach, Matt Clark, Paul LaRocco, Sandra Peddie and David M. Schwartz Merit: “Lives of New York,” NY Times, by Alex Vadukul

ARTS & CULTURE REPORTING: (Newspapers, News Services, Online, Magazines) Medallion: “One Lost Weekend,” New York Times, By Michael Paulson, Graham Bowley, Elizabeth A. Harris, Jessie Wender Merit: “New York Love Story: The Submarine Officer and the Beatles Cover Band,” New York Times, By Alex Vadukul Merit: “The Strange Lives of Objects in the Coronavirus Era,” New York Times By Sophie Haigney, Illustrations By Peter Arkle Merit: ‘I Couldn’t Do Anything’: The Virus and an E.R. Doctor’s Suicide,” New York Times, By Corina Knoll, Ali Watkins and Michael Rothfeld

PROFILES: (Newspapers, News Services, Online Media, Magazines) Medallion: “Sonny,” Newsday, By Sandra Peddie, Robert Cassidy, Raychel Brightman and Jeffrey Basinger Merit: “When Black Models Were the Toast of Paris: Shailah Edmonds on a Lost Fashion Era,’ New York Times, By Alex Vadukul Merit: “13 Hours, 22 Bodies: The Long, Lonesome Shift of a Crematory Worker in the Heat of Covid-19,” NBC News, By Rich Schapiro

MINORITY AFFAIRS REPORTING: (Newspapers, Wire Services, Online, Magazines) Medallion: “Forgotten Communities,” New York Times, By David Gonzalez Photos By Juan Arredondo, Gabriela Bhaskar & Benjamin Norman Merit: “From the African Table,” The Record, northjersey.com./ USA Today Network, By Jim Beckerman and Shaylah Brown Merit: “Fight or Flee: Black Families Weigh Their Choices While a Once-Proud School District Struggles to Come Back,” Journal News/lohud.com, By Thomas Zambito

SPORTS REPORTING AND COMMENTARY: (Newspapers, Wire Services, Online, Magazines) Medallion: “How New York City Lost Boxing,” New York Times, By Ali Watkins, Photos by Chris Lee Merit: “Tom Seaver, 1944-2020: For Generations of Mets Fans, He Was Simply ‘The Franchise,’’” New York Times, By Bruce Weber

BREAKING NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY: (Newspapers, Wire Services, Online Media, Magazines) Medallion: “Summerlong Coverage of Racial Justice Demonstrations,” Newsday, J. Conrad Williams, Jr., Alejandra Villa Loarca, Thomas A. Ferrara, Steve Pfost and Charles Eckert Merit: “Portrait of a Protester in Tears,” Journal News/ lohud.com, Seth Harrison Merit: “Racial Justice Demonstrations,” THE CITY, Ben Fractenberg

FEATURE NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY: (Newspapers, Wire Services, Online, Magazines) Medallion: “Photo Essays On The Pandemic,” New York Times Magazine, Philip Montgomery Merit: “The New York City of Our Imagination,” New York Times, Todd Heisler Merit: “The Other Side of the Curve,” Newsday, Jeffrey Basinger Merit: “The Madonna Funeral Home,” The Record/northjersey.com, Amy Newman

SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY: (Newspapers, News Wire Services, Online Media, Magazines) Medallion: “Fleet Footed,” Newsday, J. Conrad Williams, Jr. Merit: “Face Off,” Newsday, J. Conrad Williams, Jr.

BROADCAST JOURNALISM: ( Television: Breaking News) Medallion: “Racial Injustice and the Road to Reopening,” WABC TV, Eyewitness News Team Merit: “Living Through the Pandemic,” WABC TV, Eyewitness News Team

BROADCAST JOURNALISM: (Television: Feature News) Medallion: “Outbreak at the Veterans Home,” News 12 New Jersey, Walt Kane, Produced by Karen Attonito . BROADCAST JOURNALISM: (Radio: Breaking News) Medallion: “Racial Justice Protests and Soho Looting: June 1 & 2,” WCBS Radio, Newsradio 880 News Team Merit: “Coverage of Racial Justice Demonstrations and Soho Looting” WINS Radio, 1010 WINS Radio News Team JANUARY 2021 SILURIAN NEWS PAGE 5 Marty Baron Unbound at Silurian Talk BY DAVID MARGOLICK operated with them, spilling to Bob Wood- robust, uninhibited, and uncensored. “We troversies, to tell ward among others. At work, he theorized, had no special access,” he said. “We gave you the truth,” he Rather than “that crummy actor [Liev] were both exhibitionism and vanity. “I think him no special treatment.” demurred. “I’ve Schreiber,” Michael Serrill asked Marty he assumed he would persuade Bob that The same thing, he said, has always gone had plenty of Baron during his virtual visit with the Siluri- he was doing a great job or something like for coverage of Amazon: “He has never my own to deal ans on May 19th, didn’t the much-esteemed, that,” he said. “God knows.” quashed a story or suggested a story or any- with.” recently-retired editor of the Washington It’s thanks largely to Trump, he added, thing like that,” Baron said. During many of For all the inves- Post think he should have played Marty Bar- that the paper now has three million digi- his visits to Washington, Bezos didn’t even tigations he’s shep- on in “Spotlight”? tal subscribers — a goal which Jeff Bezos, drop into the Post to say hello. herded, Baron “No, I don’t, actually,” replied Baron, the Amazon mogul who’d bought the Post The Post is once again profitable, and said, the “Spot- whose eleven years atop the Boston Globe nine months into Baron’s tenure, champi- Bezos is reinvesting those profits. “Obvi- light” probe included the landmark expose of pedophilia oned. With its storied name, headquarters in ously, he doesn’t need the dividends,” Bar- was his most by Catholic priests and a cover-up of the a world capital, and reputation for “shining on said. When he took the reins, 580 people personally abuse by the Boston archdiocese depicted in a light into dark corners,” as Bezos himself worked in the Post newsroom; soon there’ll meaningful, “simply because it had such a the Oscar-winning 2015 film. Schreiber “did liked to say, he envisions a paper which one be nearly twice that. Hundreds vie for open- direct impact on ordinary people, people a great job,” Baron insisted, though Holly- day will have ten, or even a hundred, million ings there, but with formerly great papers in who had no power whatsoever, who were wood’s version of Marty Baron, he conced- digital subscribers. other cities stripped bare, Baron observed, unable to grab the attention of law enforce- ed, was short on charm and had precious “He’s the first person I’ve ever heard talk certain positions — political reporters, for- ment authorities, politicians, and the press. little to say. The Marty Baron speaking via about what we’re going to be in 20 years,” eign correspondents — are hard to fill. “We all know that journalists are sup- Zoom from the Berkshires was considerably Baron said. “When I first heard him say ‘20 He called the plight of smaller newspa- posed to be investigating government and more visible, voluble, and witty. years’ I practically fell to the floor. I’ve nev- pers “the biggest crisis in American jour- politics,” he said, “but it’s really important His talk provided an outline of sorts for er heard the term ‘20 years.’ I was used to nalism,” one to which he plans to devote that we also investigate other powerful in- his memoir-to-be: a boy raised by Israeli im- hearing ‘next quarter,’ ‘next year.’ some of his retirement time. “I don’t think stitutions in our society, and the Catholic migrants to whom news mattered; who ed- “He’s a very unconventional thinker,” we can lose hope,” he said, noting that, not Church was then the most powerful insti- ited his Florida high school and college pa- he continued. “That’s how he came up with too long ago, the Post and New York Times tution in Boston and in New England and pers; who got himself an MBA “just in case Amazon. If he had thought conventionally faced equally dire predictions. With the right one of the most powerful institutions in the the journalism thing didn’t work out.” Work he would have been Barnes & Noble.” formula or investor, he said, the troubled world.” out it did, and then some: in his illustrious Baron said he initially spoke to Bezos ev- New York Daily News might also rebound. Friends of Baron’s told him that “Spot- career the 66-year-old Baron led three ma- ery other week, mostly via teleconference, “There’s certainly room for a good strong light” failed to capture his wit, though he jor dailies (the Miami Herald was the third), mostly about technology and marketing, New York news organization, which the confessed he hadn’t felt very funny at the and held major posts at the Los Angeles though the frequency of their chats eventu- New York Times isn’t,” he said. time. “I was a newcomer to the Globe and to Times and New York Times before reaching ally trailed off to maybe once a month. “He He declined an invitation to comment Boston, I was called an outsider, I was treat- the Post, where he presided from December was fairly preoccupied by some other things on the stormy departures of Times editori- ed like one, and I felt like one,” he recalled. 2012 until his retirement last February. at one point, you may recall,” Baron noted. al page editor James Bennet and reporter It has all the makings of a sequel. This time, At his insistence, there was no speech: He said the paper’s coverage of those “other Donald McNeil. “Oh, God. I’m not sure I Baron could play himself. And give himself he’s giving enough of those these days. In- things” — i.e. Bezos’s costly divorce — was want to get into the New York Times’s con- some better lines. stead, he took questions, the first several of which, predictably, concerned Donald Trump and his four-year campaign to sully the press. To a considerable extent, said Bar- Ben Smith Spotlights the Substack Insurgency on, he succeeded. BY NADINE BROZAN With some writers drawing tens of thousands of readers, Substack “In many ways, that might be his single offers the opportunity to reap the kind of wealth not ordinarily biggest achievement, if you can call it that,” The newest topic of talk and speculation among journalists is offered by a salary. he said. “Look, we were a convenient ene- the phenomenon known as Substack, Ben Smith, media colum- “Journalists have left newspapers to start them,” Smith said. my. He always needed an enemy. Otherwise nist for The New York Times, told a Silurian virtual luncheon in “Newsletters are money. Money is made because there are thou- you’d judge him on his own merits.” But April. sands of fans paying.” at the same time, Baron noted, Trump had Speaking through Zoom, Smith, the founding editor-in-chief Among the writers forgoing mainstream publications for Sub- actually been good for both journalism and of BuzzFeed, described several components of the digital revolu- stack, Smith reported, are prominent journalists who have lost journalists: people who’d taken the press for tion in journalism to members of the Silurians Press Club, many jobs at mainstream outlets like Andrew Sullivan (New York mag- granted came to cherish it, while the report- of whom spent most of their careers writing their stories on type- azine) and Bari Weiss (the Times). ers covering him became ever more “un- writers and transmitting them by pay phone. “There is no better career path than getting yourself canceled flinching.” Substack was Smith’s Exhibit A. The startup digital platform and it is easy for stars to quit,” Smith said. And Trump had been good to and for the allows name-brand journalists and other writers who have a large Substack is flourishing, he said, because. “No one trusts the Post: while denouncing its correspondents following, to e-mail periodic newsletters that their loyal readers media anymore and the media landscape is so polarized. That cre- and denying them credentials, he’d also co- pay a subscription fee — as low as $5 a month — to receive. ates the opportunity to give information to smaller groups.” Donald McNeil Reviews Pandemic Coverage BY ROBERT BAZELL I saw that I realized ‘This isn’t SARS’. It’s rected the 2019 Peru incident. The article the Times summoned him back to New York a coronavirus but not SARS. 10,000 cases prompted 150 Times employees to sign a from Africa , he would accept only on the Donald McNeil, Jr., a science writer for in that much time and a two per cent fatality letter demanding a new investigation of the condition that he covered global health for The New York Times and one of the best- rate. That’s 1918 all over again.” Peru incident and an apology from McNeil. the science section. I was often jealous he known journalists covering the Covid-19 When McNeil pitched the story, he said, In the aftermath, top editors told McNeil he could get stories into the Times that NBC pandemic, spoke by Zoom to a Silurians his editors asked for 12 sources. “So, I got had lost the support of the newsroom and would never air because poor people and lunch session in January, and recalled how a scorecard and talked to 12 experts. Eight urged him to resign. Since McNeil was not their medical problems seldom make for difficult it was in the pandemic’s early days to thought it would become a pandemic. Two accused of using the slur in an aggressively sexy stories. I know that McNeil played a persuade his editors how dire the threat was. thought it would not and two were non-com- hateful fashion, many veteran reporters and critical role in the battle to get HIV/AIDS “The first Stage was January to April mittal. But one of the eight was Tony Fauci, younger colleagues saw the Times’ decision drugs to poor people, an effort that has saved where I was regarded as a crazy man be- who was on his way to the White House, so as an unwarranted surrender to an emerg- more than 20 million lives. cause I was saying ‘The sky is falling! The they went with the story,” which he pointed ing “cancel culture.” Several days later, At the Silurians talk McNeil said, “I nev- sky is falling! Take me seriously!’” out landed on page A12 although there was The Times announced that McNeil would er believed the virus escaped from a lab or Then, he said, as some of the troubles a dispatch from Wuhan on page 1 be leaving and issued a statement in which that the WHO [World Health Organization] he had warned about began to come true “it Silurians president Michael Serrill joked he apologized for repeating the slur. But he did a bad job. I had been covering the WHO moved into a second period that lasted from that “it used to be you only needed three went on to write a 40,000 word online essay for 20 years and I watched how they botched May to December where I was considered sources.” McNeil responded, “I guess for a disputing the students’ account and criticiz- it on Ebola.” But he is still “alarmed and an- this weird dark prophet” who was asked by pandemic you need a dozen, and they throw ing the Times for the way it handled the in- gry” at the Trump administration’s response. his editors to write stories predicting the in an egg roll.” cident. He discussed his appearance on Christiane course of the pandemic in the coming weeks. Three weeks after his talk, McNeil was It was a sour ending to a distinguished Amanpour’s CNN program in May 2020 Now he said he feels like he has become forced to resign from The Times. The trig- 40-year-career. After graduating from the when he said that Robert Redfield, Trump’s “a bit like a Confederate statue where people gering incident­ did not stem from his re- University of California, Berkeley in 1975 head of the Centers for Disease Control, are getting a little sick of me and looking for porting but from his comments during a with a degree in rhetoric, McNeil joined “should resign” because the agency was be- reasons why I can be trampled on and pulled Times-sponsored trip for high school stu­ the Times as a copy boy, leaving in 1979 to ing “incompetently led.” This led to a warn- down.” dents to Peru in the summer of 2019. Af­ teach at the Columbia School of Journalism ing about “editorializing” from the Times “Now,” he added, “Everybody on the terwards, some parents complained that Mc- and study history, but returning a few years Human Resources Department and a tempo- staff is covering the pandemic and lots of Neil had made inappropriate comments, in later as a copy editor. From 1995 to 2002 rary suspension from appearing on live TV. great reporters doing it. So, I feel that what particular repeating a racist­ slur in response he was a Times overseas correspondent in At the Silurians luncheon there were no I know is a little bit less useful.” to a student’s question about whether a France and then South Africa. He developed signs in the audience of any objections to He told the Silurians he was able to pre- classmate deserved to be punished for using an intense interest in global health – a field McNeil’s views. Retired Times publisher dict in January 2020 the new coronavirus the slur years before. The Times investigated that studies diseases that affect mostly poor Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. closed the session by would become a deadly pandemic on the and decided that McNeil showed bad judg- people and thus gets little attention from saying “thanks for doing this and stay safe.” order of the so-called Spanish flu of 1918 ment but did not use the term in a malicious U.S. media. A Times website described Mc- because of the results of a test China had or hateful fashion and simply put a letter of Neil as “a science and health reporter spe- Robert Bazell spent 38 years chief sci- developed not long after the virus appeared. reprimand in his employee file. cializing in plagues and pestilences.” ence and health correspondent at NBC “They went from 50 cases with no dead to Then on January 28, after McNeil had I got to know McNeil and his work well News. He is now an adjunct professor of a week later 500 cases with ten dead then become widely-known because of his when I was chief science and health corre- molecular, cellular and developmental biol- 10,000 cases with 200 dead and the minute Covid-19 reporting, the Daily Beast resur­ spondent for NBC. He told me that when ogy at Yale. PAGE 6 SILURIAN NEWS JUNE 2021 Obituaries Chuck Strum, Newsroom Mainstay BY RALPH BLUMENTHAL in charge. Chuck’s vision was to leave the newsroom reminis- daily back and forth largely to the tabloids cences. There were ew York Times religion reporter while we would compile periodic newsy heartbreakingly long Laurie Goodstein was covering a takeouts. They culminated in the revelation silences from his end. Nstory in the Vatican when she had a from our sources, backed up by secret grand Richard Sandomir question for her editor. It was 4 a.m. in New jury documents somehow obtained by gave Chuck a sweet York but she emailed Chuck Strum anyway. Farber, that the seeming attack was self-in- sendoff in the obit He answered by 4:15. flicted by Tawana and her mother as a cover pages. Colleagues “He’s there for you 24-7,” Goodstein story to protect the girl from her father’s offered scores of marveled to Dan Barry, who wove it into anger at staying out too late. The debacle their own affection- his newsroom toast shortly before Chuck ended up tarnishing almost everyone. Under ate tributes in social wrote “-30-” to a storied 35-year Times Chuck’s masterful editing and McFadden’s media posts, remem- career on Dec. 31, 2014. writing craft, we expanded the tale in the bering his seeksucker After stints at the Hudson Dispatch, The 1990 book, “Outrage: The Story Behind the suit, flawless internal Record, and Newsday, he had joined the Tawana Brawley Hoax.” radar, and, apropos of paper in 1979, climbing the ladder from Like many of his friends, I called nothing, goofy non assistant metro editor to New Jersey bureau Chuck in his final weeks to cheer him with sequiturs. Chuck Strum backfielding Times reporter Esther B. Fein chief and New Jersey section editor, deputy national editor, obits editor, and associate through the executive ranks, Spielvogel managing editor. Carl Spielvogel became Interpublic’s vice chairman, Charles Laurence Strum (as no one resigning from the company in 1979 when actually called him) died of brain cancer he was passed over for the job of chairman. April 27 at 73, leaving behind his wife Advertising Legend What followed was the extraordinary Becky, four children and legions of Times partnership between Spielvogel and a BY MORT SHEINMAN School before taking courses at night at staffers grateful for his wise journalistic former colleague named Bill Backer, who the City College School of Business, now judgments, calm steadiness under pressure, had recently resigned as vice chairman of arl Spielvogel, who rose from known as the Baruch School of Business. fierce support and nutty sense of humor. McCann-Erickson, Interpublic’s largest humble beginnings in Brooklyn He was hired as a copy boy by The Times Where a conversation with Chuck might agency and one of Spielvogel’s employers to forge formidable careers first in 1950, was awarded his bachelor of lead was anyone’s guess, but it often began C early in his career. in journalism as the author of a six-day- business administration degree in 1953, with one of his favorite segues...“apropos Backer & Spielvogel was something new a-week column at The New York Times, then left The Times for the U.S. Army. of nothing...” It could be something about in the ad game: a superagency, big in talent then in advertising as chairman and chief Following his discharge in 1955, bluefish oil from Eugene O’Neill’s “Ah, but small in scale. It went on to achieve executive officer of Backer Spielvogel Spielvogel returned to The Times as a Wilderness,” as Dan Barry remembered. Or stunning success with blue-chip clients such Bates Worldwide, which grew into the financial news reporter and two years later an urgent summons to colleagues: “Some- as Miller beer, Coca-Cola and Campbell’s world’s third largest agency, died on April he was named advertising columnist, a one brought in double-stuffed Oreos. The Soup and it became legendary on Madison 21 at a hospital in Manhattan. He was 92. position that made his work must-reading in golden variety. Hurry.” Avenue for among other successes, its In addition to his business the advertising and marketing business and Sometimes he swept busily through the catchy slogans like “Things Go better accomplishments, Spielvogel served turned Spielvogel into a media celebrity. newsroom, volunteering, apropos of noth- with Coke” and “It’s Miller Time.” It was for eight months in 2000 and 2001 In 1960, Spielvogel followed a path ing, “Can’t talk right now.” eventually sold to Saatchi & Saatchi in as ambassador to Slovakia during the taken by many journalists, leaving his In 1987, Chuck became our editor on 1986 for more than $100 million. Clinton Administration. At the time of columns and The Times for the world of the disturbing case of Tawana Brawley, the In 1987, it merged with Ted Bates his appointment, he was running his own public relations. He was hired as a PR man Black teenager found in upstate Wapping- Worldwide. Spielvogel became chairman global investment and marketing company, by Marion Harper Jr., a well-known ad man ers Falls daubed with feces and a scrawled and chief executive of the new firm, Backer Carl Spielvogel Enterprises, which he who was president of McCann-Erickson racial epithet. The Rev. Al Sharpton and Spielvogel Bates Worldwide, serving from launched in 1997 and ran until 2009. and who later built Interpublic, McCann’s fellow activists C. Vernon Mason and 1987 to 1994. Alton Maddox quickly blamed local white A reserved but amiable man, Spielvogel parent company. In 1972, after rising supremacists, with Gov. Mario Cuomo and kept himself fit and was an avid tennis Attorney General Robert Abrams as sup- player into his 80s, often displaying the posed abettors. same kind of competitive fire on the court Stephen Stoneburn, I was assigned to the story, along with that he showed in board rooms. Bob McFadden, Myron Farber, E.R. Shipp, The son of a chemical company owner, and Craig Wolff. In the ensuing media cir- he attended public schools in Brooklyn, Fairchild Manager cus, Metro editor John Darnton put Chuck graduating with honors from Boys High Stephen Stoneburn, who took on a vari- He started Sportstyle, a Fairchild publica- ety of managerial roles for almost 20 years tion focusing on sporting goods. And he with Fairchild Publications before launch- spearheaded the launch of W magazine in ing a multimedia company now known as Europe. Frontline Medical Communications, died After leaving Fairchild and returning to The Silurians Press Club Jan. 11 of esophageal cancer. He was 77. the U.S., he worked for Miller Freeman, Andy Fisher using his ancient manual to mock FEMA. A native New Yorker and a graduate of then a publisher of trade magazines, and Officers 2020-2021 New York University, Stoneburn was a re- founded Quadrant Media as president and President COMMITTEE porter and editor who became a senior vice chief executive officer in 1996. By 2012, MICHAEL S. SERRILL CHAIRPERSONS: president at Fairchild, his employer from Quadrant had become Frontline Medical First Vice-President 1970 to 1989. He headed Fairchild’s Paris Communications, a multimedia company Awards: JOSEPH BERGER bureau; overseeing Daily News Record, a whose scores of publications and digital JACK DEACY publication covering the men’s wear indus- newsletters reach millions of readers in Second Vice-President Constitution and Bylaws: try. He ran Fairchild News Service, then the healthcare industry. Stoneburn was its DAVID MARGOLICK ALLAN DODDS FRANK a global network of business journalists. chairman and CEO. Secretary CAROL LAWSON Awards Dinner: AILEEN JACOBSON Treasurer Ray Brady, KAREN BEDROSIAN Futures: RICHARDSON ALLAN DODDS FRANK CBS News Correspondent BOARD OF GOVERNORS: Membership: LINDA AMSTER SCOTTI WILLISTON ay Brady, a prize-winning CBS recession. Shortly before he retired in 2000, DAVID ANDELMAN News correspondent, died Jan. 12 Brady served as interim host for PBS’s BETSY ASHTON Nominating: at his home in Manhattan after a “Wall Street Week.”. JACK DEACY BEN PATRUSKY R BILL DIEHL lengthy illness. He was 94. Upon Brady’s retirement, Andrew Hey- ALLAN DODDS FRANK Silurian News Brady began his 28-year career with the ward, then president of CBS News, hailed TONY GUIDA JOSEPH BERGER, Editor network when he joined CBS Radio in 1972 him for “his powerful sense of integrity, his MYRON KANDEL to host its “Today in Business” segment. In genuine interest in the people he met along BERNARD KIRSCH Website: 1977, he became a familiar face on televi- the way, and his unflagging passion for the AILEEN JACOBSON MORT SHEINMAN, Editor BEN PATRUSKY sion as a correspondent for “CBS Evening next story.” MYRON RUSHETZKY News.” Brady was a frequent presence at Siluri- MORT SHEINMAN Webmaster: Brady covered such major news devel- an lunches and dinners along with his wife, FRED HERZOG SCOTTI WILLISTON opments as the 1987 stock market crash in Mary, who died in 2018. the U.S. and the crises created by the mix He was born in Philadelphia and raised GOVERNORS EMERITI: Social Media: BILL DIEHL of oil and politics in the Middle East. He in New Jersey. He served in the Navy GERALD ESKENAZI also wrote for CBS News’ “MarketWatch” during World War II and graduated from GARY PAUL GATES HERBERT HADAD SILURIAN CONTINGENCY FUND financial website and was a contributor Fordham University in 1948 before joining ROBERT D. McFADDEN BOARD OF TRUSTEES: to “CBS Sunday Morning.” He earned an New Jersey’s Long Branch Daily Record STEVEN MARCUS, PRESIDENT Emmy in 1982 for a series of “Evening newspaper. He worked at Forbes, Barron’s News” reports on unemployment amid the and Dun’s Review then joined CBS News. JUNE 2021 SILURIAN NEWS PAGE 7 A Trifecta of Silurian Scholarships BY ALLAN DODDS FRANK immigration and fam- His most recent proj- provide much broader coverage as the pan- ily problems. “I enjoy ect at CUNY has him demic ebbs. The newest winners of the Silurians talking to people and riding the New York sub- At James Madison, Kelly was the man- Press Club’s $2,000 scholarships are three asking questions.” ways with a camera to in- aging editor of the school paper, “The outstanding students at graduate schools in Still, he says, “I knew terview riders about their Breeze”, a winner of Virginia Press Asso- journalism who are eager to report on under- something was miss- fears about the pandemic ciation awards. As a graduate student this served communities. ing.” So, during the and other anxieties. year at Columbia, she has worked on digital Roberto Bolanos Pinella of the Craig pandemic last year, Scholarship winners Roberto While still an under- journalism covering the pandemic for NYC Newmark School of Journalism at the City a Google search led Bolanos Pinella, Shanna Colleen graduate at James Mad- Reopens and devoted her master’s thesis to University of New York always thought he him to the bilingual Kelly and Emily Fjelstad. ison University, Shanna an examination of the immigration flow be- wanted to be a journalist, a goal sparked by studies program at Colleen Kelly from the tween Venezuela and Argentina. his intense interest in Ecuadorian politics CUNY’s Craig New- Columbia University Emily Fjelstad of New York University’s as a high school student in Guayaquil. mark School where he is pursuing his Graduate School of Journalism founded Arthur L. Carter Institute of Journalism, be- However, attending Hunter College he dream of becoming a commentator on poli- a website called “Seven Mile Satellite” to gan her career as an undergraduate studying realized his command of English was weak tics on a Spanish-speaking network. provide local news to beachgoers in Avalon linguistics at NYU then focused in graduate so he switched his major from journalism Now, 31, Bolanos is studying broadcast- and Stone Harbor, N.J., the two towns on a school on cultural criticism. to history with a minor in political science. ing and working for a Latino service jour- seven-mile-long island that previously had A transgender writer, she has upcoming After getting his B.A. in 2017, Bolanos nalism website called DocumentedNY. He been a “news desert.” pieces in Softpunk Magazine and Laid Off began working as a paralegal at the Hellenic also produces and narrates documentaries, Last summer, Kelly devoted much of NYC. During this school year, she has re- American Neighborhood Action Commit- including one on the politics and cultures her coverage to the pandemic, but this ported on Covid-19 from Prospect Park, tee, a non-profit in Astoria, Queens where of Latino musicians who pop up around summer, thanks to her Silurian award, she written essays on the psychology of reclu- he still works fulltime helping people with town in itinerant rock bands. hopes to hire some freelance contributors to siveness and penned poems on “transness.” Twilight of the Irish-American Columnist? Continued from Page 1 space-aged, Internet future that sadness, or celebrating the joy of Are they from Mali? Let them dignity and respect. Like the New York Newsday was neither of us would ever have life where other’s lament death, tell the story of our ever-evolv- portrayal of Joao and Pinto. closing. Its Long Island big imagined. He took me under his such as when your beloved ing but never-changing city, as Speaking of those colum- brother was not. How could we arm as an intern and kept me newspaper is shot out from under only those who do all the hard nists… read about these guys if we were there for 30 years. you by a former cereal mogul. work can. I did a little linguistic sleight- not on the streets of the big city? Dwyer was scrupulous, as It allows one to infuse per- He, she or they can still bris- of-hand when I first introduced Now Breslin is gone. enthusiastic as a cub for a good sonality traits and emotion tle at authority. them, because while they all had And Hamill. story, as insecure in the strength where others see inanimate ob- He, she or they can write a Irish names, one wasn’t partic- And just last October — of each of his sentences as any jects, like a newspaper that will beautiful description of an ugly ularly Irish – Sheryl McCarthy, almost too painfully for me to great writer. He nailed the break your heart. day. who is African-American. even contemplate – Jim Dwyer, facts, the quotes, and nailed And with so little, so few He, she or they can be abso- The other day I asked her friend and mentor and hero, he them again. Then he got really possessions, sometimes words lutely scrupulous in the report- about her name. She said she’d who most personified that long- worried. So he nailed them one were the only true com- dead newspaper’s mix of brain more time. modity. And oh, how the smarts, reporting smarts and Another New York Newsday Irish love their words, to street smarts. veteran, Gail Collins, remains speak them, to sing them, And so too, it would seem, much in evidence on the Times and to write them. the era of the big city Irish col- op ed page, skewering on a This love of language umnist is gone. national scale, and asking us to yielded countless colorful What have we lost? laugh along with her. And be- ways to express a virulent In that column, Breslin never yond New York Newsday alum- dislike of deadlines, all described Joao and Pinto’s race, ni, the Times has the inimitable of which as Times Metro but it would seem they were wry voice of Maureen Dowd. editor I heard from Dwyer. not Irish. More than 100 years I had two grandfathers pref- (My ears are still ringing.) ago they would have been. aced with varying numbers of Then we would make Irish immigrants did a lot of the “greats” who came from Ireland, up over a glass of red (him) sweaty work in those days, and or at least stopped there for a and an Old Fashioned (me). struggled for respect and decent time on their way from Scotland. It’s all gone now. wages. They found homes in It was a cheap reporting trick As far as I can tell, The JIMMY BRESLIN the police department and in of mine to announce “Jamie- New York Times has only the newspapers. Speaking the son, like the whiskey,” when I one Metro columnist. Even in his ing, and sweat every syllable. never researched her lineage, but language, of course, didn’t hurt. called police precincts, though last year, Dwyer seemed much He, she or they can unearth while there were certainly slaves They could write their own it worked more often than not. less in evidence in its pages. The the glaring imbalances and who were their Irish owners’ stories. (Yes, yes – the spelling is dif- “About New York” column most inequalities that always seem offspring, there were also many “Tell it to Sweeney,” was The ferent; mine is correct.) I only recently penned by him and by ready to tip New York on its cases of Black and Irish mating Daily News’ mission described say this because now I’m going the incomparably Irish-Ameri- side, but never quite do. And toss “the old-fashioned way” because by its founders – tell it to the to make some generalizations can Dan Barry seems to be on in some sly humor and subtle poverty so often put them in workers of the city, those smash- about the Irish character that hiatus. winks at the same time. And he, close quarters. ing the asphalt with pickaxes, may explain the distinctive voice But let’s not lament. Let’s she or they can wrap the English “Perhaps because I have an the Irish. of the Irish-American columnist celebrate. Let’s bring back the language around a thought, an Irish name I was always in- I’d first worked with Breslin and its prevalence, and if I acci- Irish columnist. Of course, he or image, and idea, in a way that trigued by the Irish,” she said. when I was an intern at New dentally offend, please remem- she is no longer Irish. Who are is eloquent and touching and “Scarlett O’Hara was one of my York Newsday. One Saturday ber that I have at least a little of the Irish of today’s New York? simple, simple enough for Swee- heroines, and I always wondered he handed me a typed copy of that blood in my veins. Are they Bangladeshi cabbies, ney. about the great friction that exist- his first column and asked me if There is, to begin with, the or kitchen workers from Fujian There have certainly been ed between African-Americans it was ok. Did I mention that I rather serious distrust of authori- province? Are they Dominican? times when the Irish, having and the Irish. I learned that it was an intern? And that this was ty, especially when that authority managed to ascend a single had everything to do with both Jimmy Breslin? I told him, well, is British or has British origins, rung on the ladder of society, groups being at the bottom of the um, yes, it’s ok. like in a city named New York. have been cruel to those on the social hierarchy and vying for Breslin worked hard at his Perhaps those immigrants who rung beneath them: the draft who would not be at the absolute words. I’m not quite sure how to believed in some manner of or- riots during the Civil War jump bottom.” say this, but the honest truth is der joined the police department, to mind. But their heritage of Then she said: “I admire that I’m not confident that all of while the rascals who wanted to adversity has also given them the Irish – I figure if they could his reporting (or all of Hamill’s) mix it up became reporters. an undeniable kinship with other survive the Brits, the Catholic would stand up to today’s rigor- Utter destitution via famine groups that have fought from Church and the famine, and still ous, Google-driven fact-check- and other hardships brought so below. have a sense of humor, then they ing. They just wrote too many many Irish immigrants here, I think back to all those col- have a lot going for them.” columns, filled with too many but also gave rise to a national umnists at New York Newsday. good quotes. trait of being able to see beauty They had a fine eye and ear, Wendell Jamieson began his Not so Dwyer, with whom where others see ugliness, like indeed, for the struggles of the journalism career as a lobster I travelled from Newsday to in the asphalt dust on Columbus city’s strivers, no matter their shift copy boy at The New York The Daily News to The Times, Avenue on a broiling day. backgrounds or colors. But it Post in 1986 and ended it as a journey that felt like it began It also gave rise to the ability PETE HAMMIL was not a pitying eye. It was a Metro editor of The New York in the 1920s and ended in some to see humor in moments of deep portrayal always infused with Times in 2018. PAGE 8 SILURIAN NEWS JUNE 2021 Obituaries Jack Schwartz, Quintessential Mensch BY JOSEPH BERGER perched glasses, his cheerful presence,” were delighted. Why? Perhaps it was his Todd Purdum recalled. honoring the advice he got from a Newsday ack Schwartz spent a half century at Joining the Times in 1973, Jack was a colleague, Stan Asimov, known as Azzy, seven New York tabloids and broad- linchpin on several editing staffs — the which Jack recalled in his vivid memoir, Jsheets, working mostly as an editor in Week in Review, Sunday Magazine and “The Fine Print: My Life as a Deskman.” the bygone days of spikes, paste pots, type- Arts & Leisure sections and the Culture and “From Azzy I learned to absorb abuse writers, linotypes and newsrooms peopled Metro desks. Sam Freedman, who worked from above without inflicting it on those by a collection of inimitable characters. for him as a cultural reporter during the below.” His erudition and recall were striking. 1980s, said Jack and Marv Siegel “trans- Jack, who was 82, grew up in the north He could quote chapter and verse when dis- lated the inspired chaos of Arthur Gelb’s Bronx. At City College, he joined The Cam- endary. They had been to Paris and Rome. cussing the French Revolution, the Spanish million ideas a day and flappy pterodactyl pus newspaper, where he found himself They drank good scotch. It took us a while Inquisition, the Reconstruction Era, James arms into a must-read daily report.” among a precocious crew of undergraduate to find out they had grown up in the same Joyce or the Bible. In 1988 Newsday recruited him as its journalists — students like Ed Kosner, Bob plebeian Bronx precincts as we had. Yet after he died Feb. 16 of Covid-19 book editor and he enhanced the section Mayer, Vic Ziegel — who would go on to Yet even in that crowd Jack stood complications what scores of his colleagues with reviews by leading writers and intel- fashion stellar newspaper careers. out, and not just because of his shock of at the Times and Newsday most praised him lectuals like Irving Howe, Lucy Davido- Jack produced a scoop that might have burnt-orange hair. He was curious about for on Facebook was his kindheartedness, wicz, and Philip Gourevitch. It may have reverberated far beyond the college — one where you came from, your family, what gentleness and sweet humor. been the job he was always meant to have. that hinted at how fixed were the enormous- your plans were. His responses were hu- “The quintessential mensch,” Lonnie When Times Mirror folded the section, ly popular quiz shows of the 1950s. For mane and generous. Through the years, he Schlein wrote. “A beautiful spirit,” Chester he returned to the Times to work on the weeks the nation was riveted by Herb Stem- became something of a mentor, shepherding Higgins said. “That shock of red hair, the culture and weekend desks, where reporters pel, a City College night student, who ap- me and many others into and through the pearing in a rumpled suit and sweaty, pale journalism game. face that underscored his working-class As the age difference mattered less and Mike Santangelo, bona fides, correctly answered questions on less, he became a cherished friend and NBC’s “Twenty-One.” lunchtime companion. When we resorted to Jack was assigned a profile and was told shop talk, he had a shrewd and wry eye for Wordsmith of the Fox News Zipper by Stempel’s wife that she didn’t under- the personalities we worked with, but never spoke about anyone with meanness. What BY MORT SHEINMAN ists might envy was that he had no editor. stand why her husband was forced to wear the same baggy suit every week. With a always touched me was he asked about my Another was that he was the sole arbiter of family, my health, my plans. If I confessed Mike Santangelo, who worked for Fox which items made it to The Big Zipper. dramatic flourish, she opened a closet to re- veal a rack of crisply pressed suits, adding: some problem or other, I too felt his radiant News for 25 years and had one of the most As befits a fellow who favored loud ties, kindness. unusual writing assignments in the news Hush Puppies and linen suits, Santangelo’s “My father’s in the garment business and Herb has plenty of suits.” I was so pleased that after a career of business, died on April 12 after suffering nomadic news items were often preceded enhancing other people’s articles Jack, who complications from a fall. He was 80 and by lead-ins that were as clever and catchy When Jack’s story was published, NBC threatened to sue, and Jack’s editors, fearful retired at age 67, wrote sparkling essays died at NYU Langone Hospital-Long Island as headlines splashed across a tabloid’s for websites like Daily Beast and the Times in Mineola. front page. News of a volatile day on Wall of another suspension after their suspension the year before for a notorious April Fool’s of Israel. Thousands of others could now Santangelo’s words — summaries of the Street, for example, might be headlined relish his quicksilver mind. Being the per- day’s top stories — appeared on an LED “Dow But Not Out.” The lead-in to a story issue, printed a dishonest retraction, to their eternal regret. son he was, he was most proud not of those display he called The Big Zipper. At 163 of a four-star general who was fired: “Ain’t articles but of the woman he married — Dr. feet in length and 28 inches high, it runs That a Kick in the Brass.” I met Jack when I was a City College freshman in 1962. He had graduated three Nella Shapiro, his children, Max and Molly, across the facade of Fox News headquarters Before joining Fox in 1996, Santangelo and his two grandchildren, Luca and Hugo. at 1211 Sixth Avenue, a 45-story building practiced more conventional forms of jour- years before but would come with other former editors to the newspaper’s parties. He considered himself lucky to have lived at the corner of 48th Street. Each item nalism. He was a reporter at The New York the life he had. Santangelo wrote was roughly no more than Daily News for 20 years, leaving in 1990 as To novices like us, these alumni were leg- 50 words — or, as described in a New York a casualty of a newspaper strike. Times profile in 2005, no longer than it For the next six years, he worked for might take someone to walk a city Reuters, UPI and Newsday, where he was Bill Condie, block. Santangelo turned out about 35 items part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for a day. its coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800 One aspect of his job many journal- off Long Island. Editor with a Head for Heds BY MYRON RUSHETZKY York Post and then the New York Daily News. Jane Friedman Furse, eing the newspaperman that he was, “I had a bond with Bill,” said fel- Bill Condie, a longtime editor at the low Silurian Warren Hoge, “that lasted a Tabloids’ Rewrite Pro BNew York Post and the New York lifetime even though it was forged 40 plus Daily News who died Dec. 3 in West Palm years ago staying up all night together on Jane Friedman Furse, whose Texas legendary crime reporter Mike Pearl, but Beach, Florida, wrote his own wait-for-or- the NY Post lobster shift on South Street. twang, sophisticated style and abundant handled stories about many other subjects, ders obituary. One of his daughters found it Bill would signal our work was done each energy made her a distinctive presence in from airplane disasters to such oddball while going through his documents. It was morning by opening up a tin of kippers and the newsrooms of the New York Post and events as the National Chihuahua Race. In called “Bill’s Obituary for Bill by Bill.” have them for breakfast while the rest of the Daily News, died on April 25 of ovarian 1995, she left the Post and joined the News, William Condie, known as Bill or Jock, us gagged on the smell. So fitting that his cancer. She was 64. where she spent the rest of her career. was born on February 28,1934 in the in- funeral should feature pipes. He was a great As part of the rewrite desks of two of the Furse was born in Houston and raised dustrial lowlands of Scotland though after Scot.” nation’s best-known tabloids, Furse, known on her family’s ranch in Bay City, Tex., a year the family moved to Glasgow. He Former New York Post reporter and now as Janie, was admired by colleagues for the about 80 miles away. She attended Welles- was five when World War II broke out, and author Charles Carillo remembered his speed, accuracy and calmness with which ley College, graduating in 1979 with a BA he was one of tens of thousands of children knack for headlines. “The story,” Carillo she treated their reports from the field. She in historiography, the study of historical evacuated to safer ground to protect them recalled, “was about a gangster who’d just took phone calls from reporters and asked writing. from German bombing raids. He and his purchased a mansion in some exclusive sub- them questions about what they had seen or Friends and family described her as older sister Barbara went to live with their urb, and Bill’s headline was THERE GOES heard, her Texas drawl a clear counterpoint “feisty, hilarious,” a woman with “unre- grandparents in Armadale, a small town THE NEIGHBOR HOOD. Beautiful.” to the grittier urban accents of her col- lenting energy.” Even after cancer surgery surrounded by farms. “I’ve many fond — and often raucous leagues. She would dig for further details that lasted eight hours, her humor remained By 1942, the Germans confined their — memories of working with the Great and weave everything into a single cohe- intact, greeting her husband John in the raids to England’s south and he returned Scot,” said former New York Post news ed- sive article — often in the face of looming recovery room with a smile on her face. home. After the war, a school trip to Brit- itor Bill Feis. “Bill was the one who opened deadlines. “Thank God! I must not be in heaven if tany in the northwest of France “launched a the door for me at The Post and for that I At the Post, she frequently worked with you’re here!” love of languages,” Bill wrote , and among am forever grateful. My fave Condie wood others he studied were German and Rus- — BOUNCING CZECHS. I remember that sian. But he never lost his Scottish accent. we in the trenches loved it but those in the Rosalind Massow, His first newspaper job was as a report- glass houses not so much. I think he caught er in Glasgow, Scotland starting in 1955 a lot of grief for it but Bill being Bill he Parade Editor where he learned the arts of reporting, copy soldiered on to tackle the next day. Rosalind Massow, who began her pro- Soviet Union. She was the women’s editor editing, headline writing, newspaper design Bill moved to Florida in 1991, where fessional life in the 1950s as a copy girl at at Parade from 1963 until 1970. and layout. he rejoined the relocated National Enquir- the New York Journal-American and went While there, she was president of the In 1961 he went to Argentina for er, until semi-retiring in 1995. Pre-pandem- on to become an award-winning reporter, an Newswomen’s Club from 1964 to 1966. three years as night editor for the English ic, Bill would often schedule his visits to editor of Parade magazine and president of That club is now also 99 years old. language Buenos Aires Herald. He spent a New York City to coincide with lunches the Newswomen’s Club of New York, died A native New Yorker, Massow was a year working in London before coming to given by the Silurians. on May 5 in Manhattan. She was 99. graduate of Hunter College High School the United States in 1965 as an editor at the He was married twice, Bill wrote in As a reporter at the Journal-American, and Hunter College. National Enquirer, a job he held for three his obituary, and both wives predeceased she won several Front Page Awards from She also wrote two travel guides, in- years. him. But he had eight children and they are the Newswomen’s Club, including one in cluding in 1985 “Travel Easy: The Practical Over approximately the next 23 years, spread out among Scotland, England and 1960 for a series on anti-Semitism in the Guide for People over Fifty.” he held various editing positions at the New the United States.