A Room with a Loo (bathroom) An American Hack on Fleet Street The story of a fish out of water who made his own pond… …and still nearly drowned Dan Ehrlich 1 A Room with a Loo An American Hack on Fleet Street By Dan Ehrlich Contents Preface Introduction Forward Chapter 1 Pinch Me...Is It Real? Chapter 2 Where It Really Began Chapter 3 Road Trip Chapter 4 What a Shame, You Missed the War Chapter 5 Homeward Bound—Almost Chapter 6 Work, Love and More Bad Choices Chapter 7 How to Keep a Good Man Down Chapter 8 Nothing Ever Seems to Last Chapter 9 The Most Idiotic Thing I Ever Did Chapter 10 Back on Track, Back on the Road Chapter 11 From Sensationalism to Heartbreak Chapter 12 Now the Heartbreak Part Chapter 13 Self Motivation Chapter 14 Bonding Chapter 15 Perks and Freelancing Chapter 16 It Just Gets Better Chapter 17 Luck and Exclusives Chapter 18 My Favorite Year Chapter 19 Money and Marriage Chapter 20 Brotherly Love Chapter 21 Out of Work, In Love 2 Chapter 22 Deja’vu? Not Quite Chapter 23 Home Sweet Home Chapter 24 Great News Amidst a Big Winter Chapter 25 And Baby Makes Four Chapter 26 A New Pal and a Double Tragedy Chapter 27 Chasing Rainbows Chapter 28 Who Would Have Dreamed Chapter 29 New World Order Chapter 30 A New Direction Chapter 31 Bipolar Period Chapter 32 It's Never Too Late Chapter 33 Road Trip Chapter 34 Will I Ever Learn? Chapter 35 At Last a Lucky Break Chapter 36 Lucky Break Part 2: CNN Chapter 37 Back on the Road Chapter 38 Back and Forth Chapter 39 Old Man River Chapter 40 The Homestretch Chapter 41 Moving On Chapter 42 Is That It? Chapter 43 What Did I Get Myself Into? Chapter 44 The Room Became Brighter Appendix 3 Preface by Colin Dangaard Noted Journalist and Businessman Dan Ehrlich is an enduring sailor in a sea of change for journalism – where the internet did a tsunami on the beach of traditional news work. Never again would wordsmiths do such a free and lucrative exchange of journalism for money. Print is being buried under a digital avalanche, but only people like Dan Ehrlich can appreciate the enormity of this change. Journalists everywhere are indebted to Dan for chronicling the obvious --- journalism has not vanished, but it sure got different in a rush. In his clear and entertaining way, Dan tells how it was, and how it is now. He was there then, and he’s here now. He has navigated the change with a spirit that is both endearing and inspiring to writers everywhere. He tells it like it was and is. At times you will be elated, and other times your heart will go out to him. He is warm and honest, one of a kind. When I first met Dan I was the Hollywood bureau chief for the National Star, a Publication I helped launch for Rupert Murdoch. It was 1974. My office was on Sunset Boulevard, in Los Angeles. We had caused such outrage amongst the stuffy traditional press – and the elite Hollywood PR machine – that in those days we answered the phone by merely saying: “hello.” Dan filled my door, blowing past the secretary, and greeted me with such enthusiasm I thought he was addressing somebody across the street. He showed me a story he had written on Oliver Reed. I gave it a speed read, and asked him what he needed. He said he would be happy with $400. I pulled out my personal check book and wrote him a check for $500. We did that kind of things in those days. Rupert never argued with my monthly expenses. He was concerned only with what I produced. 4 Besides, Dan had mentioned car problems, and I sure wanted him to fill my door again, with another story in hand. The next day he was back again, and so began a relationship which has now extended three decades. I liked many things about Dan the journalist, but most of all, if he said they said it, they said it. Dan Ehrlich is the ultimate working journalist. He has reported from many countries in the world. He has met the rich and the famous, and infamous, and he was intimidated by none of them. This book should be required reading for anybody pursuing journalism. =========================================== 5 Introduction The British have long ribbed Americans about their land being an extension of the mother country, a former colony that never achieved its parent’s level of civility. But, when it comes to the contemporary UK media from broadcasting to newspapers, the USA has been the driving force of modern journalism for the entire English-speaking world. Today's radio and television news shows, from the BBC to Channel 4 in London, with their popular magazine formats came from America. And so did the modern newspaper...from the balance layout banner head adorned broadsheets to the sensational mass-market tabloids known as the popular press. The key to the vibrant, often rabid cutthroat nature of the UK national press in the 20th Century was, and still is, competition between multiple publications. At the time I am writing this, 2011, there are eight national daily newspapers in the UK, four quality sheets and four tabloids. Yet, in pre WW2 America, there were once that many papers alone in New York City. When they and others across the land died, America’s competitive and accountable press went with them. The first U.S. newspaper, Publick Occurrences: Both Foreign and Domestick, published on September 25, 1690 lasted only one day before it was suppressed by British colonial authorities. This is why America built its press first and foremost on the Constitutional guarantee of press freedom. This is something other nations didn’t have. For the United States it opened the door to the mid 19th Century Penny Press Era sparked by the New York Sun selling for just one cent. Then there were just 715 papers in the US and many were revolutionary in the use sensational banner headlines for news on the front page instead ads and announcements, which had been common front page practice. By 1870 number papers had mushroomed to 5,091. All major cities had multiple daily sheets. As late as my childhood in the 1940s and 50s I recall in Los Angeles there was the L.A. Times, Mirror, Herald Express, Examiner and Citizen News. Of those, only the Times survived. Today there are about 2,000 daily and Sunday 6 newspapers, most owned by multi media conglomerates. Yet the US still has the largest number of papers of any country. There was little glamour to journalism pre WW2. It was a rough and coarse career field populated at one time by hard drinking, foul mouthed reporters and editor's with tempers as fierce as Kansas tornadoes. It had long been argued such an atmosphere was no place for "the ladies." "We can swear just as good as men," was the feminist reply in the early 60s. And the women's movement was born, along with the notion that swearing was only one small measure of their equality. Women were out to prove they could equal or better men at most things long considered macho preserves, including the press. Yet, as the American media was undergoing its own revolution, with editors demanding journalists have college educations, over in Britain the old ways were hanging on. Novice reporters continued to learn through the school of hard knocks on apprenticeship schemes at local publications or at low paying news agencies. “Journalism school, what’s that?” the Brit editor would ask sarcastically. Ironically, such negative comments were once made by editors now teaching at British journalism schools. Yes, the Motherland has followed America down the road of having educated news people working in modern and clean, tobacco free office blocks where being the right sort of employee often became more important than what work her or she produced. The Printed Press Historical Timeline * 59 B.C.: Acta Diurna the first newspaper is published in Rome. * 1556: First monthly newspaper Notizie Scritte published in Venice. * 1605: First printed newspaper published weekly in Antwerp called Relation. - 1622: First regularly published British newspaper Weekly News *1690: The first newspaper is published in America, Publick Occurrences. *1702:The first English language daily newspaper is published called the Daily Courant. The Courant was first published in 1621. * 1803: First newspapers published in Australia, the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser. * 1830: Number of newspapers published in the U.S. is 715. * 1833: The New York Sun newspaper costs one cent - the beginning of the penny press. * 1851: The Post Office starts offering a special cheap newspaper rate. 7 * 1856: The first full-page newspaper ad is published in the New York Ledger. Large type newspaper ads are made popular by photographer Mathew Brady. Machines now mechanically fold newspapers. * 1864: William James Carlton of J. Walter Thompson Company begins selling advertising space in newspapers. The J. Walter Thompson Company is the longist running American advertising agency. * 1867: The first double column advertising appears for the department store Lord & Taylor. * 1870: Number of newspapers published in the U.S. is 5,091. * 1871: First newspaper published in Japan - the daily Yokohama Mainichi Shimbun. Famous newspaper interview with explorer Stanley Livingston published. * 1873: First illustrated daily newspaper published in New York. * 1877: First weather report with map published in Australia. The Washington Post first publishes with a circulation of 10,000 and a cost of 3 cents per paper.