Society of the Silurians LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS BANQUET The National Arts Club 15 Gramercy Park South Honoring Steve Shepard Wednesday, November 15, 2017 Drinks: 6 P.M. • Dinner: 7:15 P.M. Meet old friends and award winners Published by The Society of The Silurians, Inc., an organization 212-532-0887 of veteran New York City journalists founded in 1924 Members and One Guest $100 each Non-Members $120 NOVEMBER 2017

LifeBY LYNN POVICH with Steve Stephen Shepard, winner of this year’s Silurians’ award for lifetime achievement, for a half century has illuminated the journalist fraternity of New York and the world. For much of that time, he has been married to Lynn Povich, who was the first female Senior Editor of Newsweek, Editor-in-Chief of Working Woman mag- azine and Managing Editor/East Coast of MSNBC.com. Her book, The Good Girls Revolt, was published in 2012. The Si- lurian News asked Povich, who has been by his side for so many of his adventures and accomplishments, to reflect on her journey with Steve.

teve was born to be a journalist. It just took him awhile to realize it. S In third grade, at PS 86 in the Bronx, he fell in love with penmanship, which he conflated with writing, and de- cided he should be a sports writer. But was he too shy to try out for the school newspaper at the Bronx High School of Science. At City College, he majored in engineering, but also took journalism courses with Professor Irving Rosenthal, who became a mentor. Steve soon became the editor of The Vector, which was voted the best college science magazine in the country. Still, Steve wasn’t ready to commit to journalism. He got his masters’ degree at Columbia in engineering and even Continued on Page 2 1980: Steve, as Newsweek National editor, with Reagan, Kay Graham and Nancy. “Mr. Markel” and Times Gone By BY MARTHA WEINMAN LEAR minions never saw as happy as when he have been trying for months to was inflicting torture upon us. think how Lester Markel, the late, Abe Rosenthal—God knows, no I largely unlamented Sunday editor slouch for savagery, but a cupcake next of The New York Times, would have to Markel—was Abe. Markel was Mr. reacted to the paper of July 28, 2017. If Markel to everyone, even top editors who he was, as many who knew him believed, had worked for him for 30-plus years. The an ogre, he was also a prig. I imagine him late Herbert Mitgang recalled an office turning to page A 20. He reads “fucking party when some madcap said, “Hello, paranoid schizophrenic”. He reads “not Lester,” and Markel recoiled as though trying to suck my own cock”. What does slapped.“We were all stunned,” Herb he do? I swear I think he would have said, “because we’d always thought his dropped dead. first name was Mister.” In fact he did just that, 40 years ago, on I was at the Magazine (then called The October 23. The great Tom Wicker gave a Sunday Magazine) in the 1960’s, first as eulogy at his funeral. When I asked why an assistant copy editor, then as a staff he had performed that duty, he said, “I writer. I was young and impressionable, guess because nobody else wanted to. I and Markel liked to impress young felt sorry for the old bastard.” women. He held a daily Magazine Markel was The Sunday Times. It was meeting that was for senior editors only his baby. He changed the very meaning of and I, a newcomer, was as junior as you a Sunday paper, transforming the product could get. Yet he insisted I attend. of a single day over the weekend into a It was a production written, staged, model for newspapers across the country, directed by and above all starring Markel, and ran it as his own fiefdom from 1923 whose point was to dismember the men in Lester Markel takes a stroll through The Times morgue with Marilyn until he was eased out in 1964. He was a attendance (there were no senior women) Monroe in 1959. bully, a brat, a brilliant editor whom we Continued on Page 8 PAGE 2 SILURIAN NEWS NOVEMBER 2017 President’s Report Life with BY BERNARD KIRSCH Steve Dear Silurians, Continued from Page 1 he new Silurian season worked for a year as an engineer. But he was unhappy and unfulfilled. Finally, he is off to a fast start, with applied to the editorial training program Tboth Floyd Abrams and at McGraw-Hill and got a job writing Jim Rutenberg drawing extremely for a trade magazine called Product large crowds to our first two lun- Engineering. Two years later, Steve cheons. Both spoke — how could transferred to BusinessWeek starting his they not — about our favorite stellar career: Star science and tech writer topic: the media and our president. at BusinessWeek; Senior Editor of the And I am delighted to write that Business and National Affairs sections for the last few years, we have at Newsweek; Editor, briefly, ofSaturday been averaging well over 100 Si- Review; and back to BusinessWeek, where lurians and guests per luncheon. he was Editor-in-Chief for 20 years, from We expect the rest of the season 1984 until 2004. Journalism plays to Steve’s strengths to continue to be exciting. We are as a person. His friend Jane Bryant hoping to have Katrina vanden Quinn once said what made Steve a great Heuvel, the editor and publisher journalist was that he was a skeptic who of The Nation, and Dan Rather as wanted to get to the bottom of things. As future guest speakers. Stay tuned. he himself said in his book, Deadlines This month we are celebrating and Disruption, My Turbulent Path from our lifetime achievement winner, Print to Digital, he loves dealing with “a Steve Shepard. Together with his complex situation that required hearing Power couple: Steve and our author. wife, the award-winning journalist all sides, sorting through the arguments Lynn Povich, they were our guest and coming to some analytic conclusion destiny--and it’s been a joyride. We That’s Steve. Quietly, without any speakers in 2012. Following a long about what could be done.” As an edi- complement one another. Steve worries fanfare, creating a great new journalism career in magazine journalism, tor, he values what he calls, “the eternal about the big things, I the small ones. school, one that offers students, much like verities of journalism--colorful, accurate He’s the natty dresser in the family, care- he was, a high-quality education at a frac- Steve served as the founding dean reporting, clear, stylish writing, critical fully laying out his clothes each night for tion of the cost of the private universities. of the Graduate School of Journal- thinking, and on our best days, something the next day. I get dressed and out of the Steve stepped down as Dean at the end ism at the City University of New approaching wisdom.” house in 15 minutes. I love reporting, of 2013 and again, I wondered what he York from 2005 to 2014. Prior to What that means for those of us who Steve loves writing. Steve encouraged would do. I knew he was intellectually CUNY, he was editor-in-chief of live with Steve—our kids growing up, me in my career and is my best editor. He curious. When he was a graduate student Business Week for 20 years, a se- as well as me—is that he is thoughtful, says I’m his best sounding board. I’ve at Columbia in engineering, he took a nior editor at Newsweek, and editor insightful, analytical, humble, a good brought him closer to his Jewish roots; seminar on Virginia Woolf. Now he has of Saturday Review. His memoir listener and open to ideas. He is also he’s challenged me in more intellectual first editions of all her novels. When about journalism, Deadlines and impishly witty. When our children, Sar- endeavors. he bought an original photograph of Disruption, was published in 2012. ah and Ned, were small, Steve was an I was curious about what Steve would Woolf, it inspired him to start collecting To know a bit more about Steve, engaged father, walking them to school do when he retired from BusinessWeek in vintage photographs, which continues read his wife’s riff on Life With every morning and making up stories to 2005. But several months before the end, to this day. tell them at night. He was also the Jewish he received a call from Matthew Gold- Steve has always been interested in Steve that begins on page one of mother in our family, a worrier who in- stein, then Chancellor of the City Uni- 20th century Jewish American writers. this issue of The Silurian News, sisted that most things turned out ok only versity of New York. Matthew wanted He has collected first editions of all their which was put out by its editor, because he worried about them. to start a new J-school, the first publicly works. So, I wasn’t surprised that he David A. Andelman. For those Steve is not a self-promoter. He is supported graduate school of journal- signed up for a course in Isaac Bashe- who don’t know David, he is the extraordinarily modest about his suc- ism in the entire Northeast. Why? To vis Singer at City College and started a editor-emeritus of World Policy cesses and has never forgotten his roots. provide opportunities to good students men’s book group to read classic fiction. Journal, and columnist for CNN He’s proud to be a son of the Bronx, a who couldn’t afford the best private But then Steve started writing again. It Opinion and USA Today after a graduate of CCNY and a fervid Yankee universities. He wanted Steve to be the just came to him naturally. First it was long career at The Times, CBS fan. We still watch many Yankee games first Dean. It appealed to Steve for three thoughts about his family and various re- News, and Forbes. And, much on TV, on mute, with Steve advising the reasons: as a product of public schools, lationships. Then it was about the writers more important, he is the first managers and umpires while the game is he believed in public education; he was a he always loved. Why was he attracted vice-president of our society. in play—and usually right in his calls. New Yorker and cared about the city; and to them? What was it about them that Steve and I met cute—at Newsweek. he was passionate about journalism and spoke to him? Most of our board members We were colleagues first and then a about offering an affordable education to Last month, he finished his next book, have had long and distinguished couple. We were both Senior Editors and underserved students. Today, years later, A Literary Journey to Jewish Identity: careers in journalism, or as writers single but we wanted to keep it quiet. Fat the CUNY Graduate School of Jour- Re-Reading Bellow, Roth, Malamud, — which, of course, is true of most chance. After several months, we went nalism is one of the nation’s top-notch Ozick and Other Great Jewish Writers. of our members. Our most recent on a vacation together to Little Dix Bay J schools, competing with Columbia, That’s Steve: A journalist, a writer, a board member is Clyde Haberman, in the Virgin Islands. At dinner the first NYU and Northwestern—all private. thoughtful, kind person, and a wonderful former foreign correspondent and night, the maitre d’ brought over a bot- And thanks to Steve’s efforts, nearly husband and father. He’s also a man who columnist for The New York Times, tle of wine with a note: “From all your half of its students are immigrants or appreciates his history and feels grateful not to mention proud father of friends at Newsweek.” people of color—bringing much needed for the opportunities he was given. Maggie, whom we read most days We say our meeting was beshert— diversity to our profession. Steve attended his 50th reunion at City on that paper’s front page. College in 2011. As he describes it in The Society of the Silurians is his book, “I had gone there by the same route I had taken every day as a student: in good financial shape, and our the subway to 145th Street, up the hill to membership is growing; we are Convent Avenue, then the walk along the now at 310 or so. And if you know brownstones, past the lot where Alexan- of anyone who qualifies, please der Hamilton’s house once stood, before recruit her or him. Moreover, we catching sight of the vintage neo-Gothic have been doing good things with buildings now so gloriously restored.” our money, as we continue to He watched as students from some award two scholarships to J-school 160 countries received their degrees. students at CUNY and NYU. This Although no longer free (tuition is about year’s recipients are Comice John- $6,000), City College’s mission is still son of CUNY, who’s chronicled the same: giving the city’s poorest stu- her career in this edition of TSN, dents an excellent and affordable edu- and Kat Rendon at NYU. cation. As the commencement ended, he writes, “the sky was still bright, the sun strong. I lingered for a while, took a final All the best, and see you soon, look around, and started walking slowly Bernard to the subway. Somehow it didn’t seem Steve and covers in his first six months as Editor-in-Chief of Business eek.W right to hail a cab.” NOVEMBER 2017 SILURIAN NEWS PAGE 3 Floyd Abrams: Champion of the Press On September 20, the Silurians wel- said we must have a bill of rights carried ruled against us in a broad opinion saying comed to their debut lunch for the Fall the day. there was no protection for confidential season, the man who president Bernard I’ll just itemize for you the gen- sources under the first amendment, and Kirsch described as “the premier first uine dangers to the press right now, the Supreme Court declined to hear the amendment lawyer of our age. In this era The first is a series of verbal thrusts at the case. That was followed by a criminal trial when the president of the United States press by the president, who more than once when the government called Risen to the is not really on speaking terms with the said he wanted to change the libel laws to stand and he refused to answer source-like Constitution, Floyd Abrams is needed make it easier for people like me to bring questions. There was a conviction without more than ever.” Abrams, of the firm Cahill lawsuits against the press and win. I like to any testimony from him. The reality is Gordon & Reindel, described his vital work think that by this time one of his lawyers there is no sure protection for journalists for the past half century and his hopes for has told him there is no federal libel law, who write material based on confidential today and the future. so there is nothing to amend or change. sources under federal law. hen I hear someone say there’s We have 50 state libel laws, all subject to The other area I want to mention is more important news, my breath is the first amendment. He could say I’ll deal diffuse and even more threatening. It’s the Wtaken away as I wonder what with it by changing the personnel of the impact of the daily denigration of the press it is [President Donald Trump] did this morn- Supreme Court and hope I can get then to by the President. He does this as a matter ing. But nothing bad today. When I look do what I want. He has [also] said he wants of course—fake news, a sort of daily artic- around and see a few here I’ve represented, to bar journalists from using confidential ulation of disdain for the press and anger at last one who got out of jail finally, but all sources. He told James Comey he wanted and rejection of it as a good faith body of in a good cause, I can’t help but think of the the FBI to consider putting journalists in Photo credit: —Bill Diehl individuals, organizations trying to gather line that Reuven Frank who headed NBC jail for publishing classified information, issue is if they go after Wikileaks and Julian news and release it. I’ve always thought News in the middle of a case I was doing which has never been viewed as a crime. Assange. The Obama Department of Justice the press, especially the best of the press, for NBC told me. When the other side was He urged Comey to investigate leaks of looked very closely about indicting Assange has not been a very successful advocate arguing that what was in question was not non-classified information. He’s also said and ultimately decided there was no way for its own activities. The press could do investigative journalism, I sent him a note people who burn the American flag ought to prosecute him without also imperiling a much better job publicizing what it does saying give me a definition of investigative to lose their citizenship or spend a year in The New York Times or any journalist who well, especially in circumstances where the journalism. And he wrote back “sunshine is jail. But the Supreme Court has concluded obtains classified information and publishes public has been served. a weather report, a flood is news…period.” that burning the American flag is a form of it. There has never been a prosecution of a A final note. Do we want journalists to So I think of that often when there are press free expression which is protected by the journalist under the Espionage Act. But it’s act in a sense as censors or editors? It comes related cases. first amendment. there, and it remains a risk I think is real. up all the time. It came up after Charlottes- I thought I’d start today first with an I want to talk about three areas where I A second relates to confidential sources. ville. We protect hate speech in America as historical observation. People don’t realize think the dangers are real. One is the Es- We were on the very brink a few years ago a first amendment matter. One of the most how close we came to not having a first pionage Act, which has been on the books of having a new law adopted which would interesting issues that exists right now is amendment at all, or even a bill of rights. now literally a century since in 1917 during have been a federal shield law. There is no what we would like the government to do? When the framers met in Philadelphia in World War I, under President Woodrow federal shield law. States, like New York, The enormously wealthy and powerful 1787, they wrote a constitution to create a Wilson, it became law with some very broad have very broad protection for journalists private media corporations play the role of government. But there was nothing of the language which has allowed prosecution of with respect to confidential sources. But censor. Or you can use the word editor. All sort of revolutionary rhetoric in Jefferson’s individuals in the government who release the area where it comes up most often is these entities have policies against carrying Declaration of Independence, nothing about classified information and it could be argued national security situations. The law at this racist slurs—something the government is freedom of speech or the press. But a lot to allow prosecution of recipients who then moment is not good in terms of whether not allowed to do. I like them to engage of states would not sign on without a Bill in turn make the information public if they the first amendment provides protection for in that limited amount of what I consider of Rights. The chief opponent, Alexander know it is classified. Unfortunately, the journalists who assert their right not to reveal editing—deciding whether they want to Hamilton, before he was a musical comedy language of the Espionage Act talks about confidential sources. My firm represented carry material of this sort. Under existing figure, wrote inThe Federalist, why should information “related to the national defense,” Jim Risen. Confidential sources were sought federal law, they don’t run any risk of libel we begin to list all the things the government which every journalist who covers the de- from him in a criminal trial of someone who simply by carrying without comment and can’t do. If we start listing, we are going to fense department, state department or CIA the government claimed was his source. He without editing the vilest sorts of slurs and leave things out, and people will think that’s writes about in one way or another. The most refused to answer. We argued in District libelous defamatory information. My own all that’s protected. Ultimately, the side that likely way that could become a very public Court that ruled for us, a Court of Appeals view is that’s their problem. Abrams for the Defense BY ANDREW FISHER District Judge Myron Crocker later reduced For more than half a century, Floyd the total award to $5.2 million. Abrams has sprung to the aid of innumera- Then, in the summer of 1990, a Federal ble journalists and others trapped between appeals court in San Francisco overturned the often-inequitable wheels of justice and the award, finding that there was insufficient the desire to present the news freely and evidence to show that Ross and Silverman fairly as the Constitution provides. This is had either deliberately lied or recklessly the experience of one Silurian, rescued by disregarded the truth, the pertinent legal Mr. Abrams, his passion for justice and the standard. The next year, the United States role of a free press. Supreme Court rejected Newton’s request that it review the appeals court’s ruling. n October and November 1980 and The case followed me through the rest of June 1981, NBC News broadcast my 25 years with the NBC organization, but Iinvestigative reports by Brian Ross because of Floyd Abrams’ fine defense work, and producer Ira Silverman, suggesting links it became more of a topic of conversation between entertainer Wayne Newton and or- than a demerit. ganized crime. Newton sued, and NBC was A few years ago, the Columbia University ordered not to make any further mention of Club of Northern New Jersey gathered to the matter. I went to work for NBC Radio at hear Paula Franzese, the Peter W. Rodino the end of 1981, and in one of my newscasts, Professor of Law at Seton Hall, speak on I inadvertently mentioned the suit and was “The Changing Face of the Supreme Court.” added to the case as a defendant. It was a captivating speech, Franzese observ- That was when I first met Floyd Abrams, ing that in one year in the late 19th century, whom NBC had retained to defend it in the court had handed down hundreds of Photo credit: —Las Vegas Sun court. Although a crusading newspaper ed- decisions, while more recently, that number itor for whom I had worked had told me to had dropped to a few dozen. Wayne Newton and his manager say he’s innocent. never fear a libel suit if I knew I was right, I In the question-and-answer session that was terrified. But from the first day, Abrams followed, I suggested that giving more time After graduating from Columbia Uni- closing doors of the subway car, I saw a put me at ease, asserting that the Constitution to fewer, important cases might be wiser, versity Law School at the top of her class, magazine cover on a newsstand: `Wayne was on my side. noting that the Court had declined to review Paula Franzese had begun work with Ca- Newton: Entertainer of the Year.’” Early on, things didn’t look good. In the Wayne Newton case, and I appreciated hill, Gordon, and Reindel, Floyd Abrams’ Case closed. 1986, an eight-week trial in Las Vegas ended that very much. That brought a laugh, but firm. Abrams had assigned her to establish with a jury awarding the entertainer $19.3 when I turned back to Prof. Franzese, there Wayne Newton as a public figure, which Andrew Fisher’s memory of the Newton million, including $5 million in punitive was a look of shock on her face. would change the legal landscape on which case was refreshed for the purposes of this damages. At the time, the award for punitive “That was my first case out of law Newton’s case had been built. “One day,” article by contemporaneous accounts in damages was the largest ever levied against school!” she exclaimed. Floyd Abrams was she recalled, “I was getting on a subway The New York Times and The Los Angeles a news organization in a libel trial. Federal not my only lawyer on the case. train in lower Manhattan, and through the Times. PAGE 4 SILURIAN NEWS NOVEMBER 2017

the notion that one needs to be a pro- suggested that I work half-time at the fessional to accomplish something clinic year and half-time as publisher of The Origins of The Voice in a field as purportedly technical as the new paper for a year to get the new BY EDWIN FANCHER and none of us had even been wounded journalism.,” he wrote. “It was a phil- enterprise off the ground. I agreed, but t Village parties in the 1950s, so we assumed we should be able to do osophical position. We wanted to jam actually ended up working at both jobs people had been talking for anything, even start a new newspaper in the gears of creeping automatism.” Our for 19 years, until both Wolf and I left Ayears about starting a new Greenwich Village in l955 with almost method was to operate an “open news- the Voice in 1974. Greenwich Village newspaper to rival the no money. paper,” welcome to a wide variety of Mailor left after about six months old-fashioned weekly The Villager. They I think it led to a kind of arrogance and would-be writers and artists. when he had a dispute with us over a said there were so many writers, artists, a faith that providence would take care We rented a small office on Green- typo in his column in the Voice. He also and theatrical people living or hanging out of us and preserve our paper. Mailer was wich Avenue, and started calling friends believed the paper was not sufficiently in the Village, who were not represented already a well-known author. Wolf was a to tell them that we were starting a new radical. He described this incident in his by a paper featuring neighborhood gossip free-lance-writer who had contributed to Village paper in the Fall and invited book Advertisements for Myself. Many penned by a cat named Scoopy. At one the one volume Columbia Encyclopedia them to contribute. And when we did years later Mailer said to me that Dan such gathering my good friend Dan Wolf (published by the Columbia University open our doors, they did come. They Wolf and I were right in the way we ran turned to me and said everyone has talked Press) writing mostly on philosophy and had a lot to say, and they found an open the paper, and that he had been wrong. about starting a new paper, but no one has psychology. He had also worked for forum for whatever they wanted to Wolf, himself was an unorthodox done it. Let’s start one. Maybe my friend the Turkish Information Office in New write. Our first issue appeared October editor. He rarely used a red pencil to Norman Mailer will join us. York. I was a psychologist who had 26, 1955. edit copy, but rather edited by talking Indeed Mailer did. I had offered an just finished my internship in clinical Soon we were joined by another to writers about their stories, often chal- investment of $5,000, part of a small in- psychology. World War II vet, a freelance writer, lenging their assumptions and points of heritance from my grandfather. Norman My only journalism experience was Jerry Tallmer who had written for The view. He liked particularly to work with matched it. based on meeting E. F. Jessen when I Nation. In many ways, Jerry might be young writers and preferred English De- So, Norman was in. The three of us was an 18-year-old freshman at the Uni- considered a fourth founder because partment graduates to anyone trained or had decided to start a newspaper with a versity of Alaska in Fairbanks. It was without Jerry there would not have been schooled in journalism. $10,000 budget, or $90,000 in today’s January 1942 and he had just arrived in a Village Voice. He was the only one It is hard to believe that this Village dollars. None of us knew anything about Fairbanks to start a weekly newspaper among us who really knew how to put Voice enterprise has survived for 62 either journalism or business. We must called Jessen’s Weekly [ http://chronicl- out a newspaper. He had been the editor years. Now it is giving up its print identi- have all been mad! I have often wondered ingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024018/ ] of his college paper, the Dartmouth Dai- ty, which makes me sad, but hopeful that how to explain such folly. My conclusion to compete against the local Fairbanks ly. He became Associate Editor and edit- it will continue to be The Village Voice— is that it had a lot to do with our expe- Daily News-Miner. He asked me to ed the “back of the book”, writing about in spirit—just in a new form, onine. rience in the military during World War write a weekly column of news off-Broadway theatre, and founding the I can’t do justice to all the hundreds II. Dan had been a soldier under General about the University of Alaska for his Obies in the spring of 1956. As our first of people who found an outlet for their McArthur in the Pacific from New Guinea paper, which I did during the spring of employee, he was also directly related to creativity by contributing to the Voice to Korea. Norman’s battle experience 1942. Then came the war, and now the the war. He had been my former Squad over the years. I can only thank the was documented in his first novel, The Village Voice. Leader in the 10th Mountain Division many writers and artists who stuck with Naked and the Dead, and I had been in Dan Wolf defined our orientation and had been wounded in our first battle. the Village Voice through hard times, and combat in Italy against the Wehrmacht in to journalism most clearly in his By the time Wolf and I decided to made it the great newspaper that it did the last months of the war. We three had Forward to The Village Voice Reader launch the paper I had just finished an become. I firmly believe that the Voice all lived under the fear of horrible death (1962) which he and I edited. “The Vil- internship in clinical psychology and had an enduring influence on New York or dismemberment in battle, and had sur- lage Voice was originally conceived as had been offered a full time job as psy- journalism as a truly original, unique and vived. The war was over and, were alive, a living breathing attempt to demolish chologist in a mental health clinic. Wolf enduring voice in itself. From the Dish Pit to CUNY Graduate School of Journalism Comice Johnson omice Johnson is the 2017-18 At 22, I had the maturity to make col- recipient of a Silurian schol- lege my focus. I threw myself into my Carship to CUNY Journalism. studies with absolute dedication, always The Silurian News asked her to describe aiming for straight A’s. I also worked at her path to CUNY and her hopes for the restaurants to support myself throughout future. college. During my junior year, I had the “Can you get to those pots please?” good fortune to study abroad in Quito, “Yeah.” I sighed, looking at the moun- Ecuador. To maintain my financial aid, I tain of dirty dishes that surrounded me. had to take five upper division classes, all I was wearing a long black plastic apron taught in Spanish. It was a very demand- that resembled a tarp. Foamy dishwater ing curriculum and it seemed there was dripped off its hem into my foul, sodden barely time to sleep during those months. tennis shoes. I was 18 years old, working I finished the program well-grounded in as a dishwasher and trying to set aside Latin American history and culture, and my minimum wage earnings. Once I had with solid Spanish skills. managed to save several thousand dollars As time went on, I became interested I left my hometown of Eugene, Oregon, in journalism. I have always enjoyed writ- and went on a backpacking trip through ing, and I have always felt intense curiosity Europe with my two best friends. about the lives of people with backgrounds Following my first journey, I spent vastly different from my own. I believe several years alternately working restau- certain stories have the power to change rant jobs and going on trips throughout the world. Of special interest to me are the Southeast Asia and South America. experiences of marginalized groups within Traveling was a truly inspiring educa- our society. In college, I interviewed and tion for me. However, eventually I grew wrote about undocumented immigrants, ready for a different kind of education. I transgender women, strippers, plus-size wanted to learn more about the histories fashion models, and striking brewery and political landscapes of the places I workers among others. had visited. Crafting long emails about In 2014, I graduated summa cum my trips became part of the adventure laude. Excited to start my writing career and I wanted to improve my writing. I moved to New York City with the goal So, in 2010, I enrolled at Portland State of finding internships and other opportu- Comice on a foreign foray in Santiago University. nities. I struggled to navigate the world of freelancing, and eventually decided at CUNY, and I feel incredibly grateful be working very hard to become a skilled that returning to school would be the and excited to be here. Every day is in- reporter. Society of the Silurians best route. teresting and challenging. I am learning I want to thank the Society of the PO Box 1195 Last fall, I applied to CUNY Graduate how to code and create websites; how to Silurians for its generous contribution to Madison Square Station School of Journalism because of its di- find sources and do beat reporting for a my education. The scholarship I received New York, NY 10159 verse and unique students, the affordable specific neighborhood; and I have also is helping me achieve my dreams. When 212.532.0887 tuition, and because it is among the top developed a new-found love of creating I graduate, I hope to find a position as www.silurians.org journalism programs in the nation. news stories for radio. a foreign correspondent covering Latin Now I am well into my first semester During the next year and a half, I will America for a major U.S. news outlet. NOVEMBER 2017 2017 SILURIAN NEWS PAGE 5 The World of Trump Good News, Bad News, Fake News BY ANNE ROIPHE star who has divorced his fourth wife, up by our current President, a nasty it isn’t worth our effort. Even if all we n the world of fake news where we learn something about how vows can suspicion of the media. Fear of a vital can do is stick a finger in the dyke, we’d left is right and wrong is good and be broken. We learn that it is hard to be and energetic press is not a good sign. better be prepared to keep it there as long Igood is bad we are all falling down faithful, movie star or not. We learn that Widespread fear of the truth is really a as history unfolds. Alice’s rabbit hole. And who knows when money and fame do not guarantee a life of terminal problem for a democratic nation. If the public starts to believe that the this bad dream ends. contentment. We also see in the stories we All dictators attempt to discredit and then news is fake, then the liars win. It is a How are we to understand ourselves, hear or read reflections of our own trials silence the press so they can do as they devilish stroke to claim that the press is how are we to create a community of and failures. This can remind us of our own please in the dark. People will whisper lying when the President and his court selves if we cannot know what actually is humanity, of the hard stuff we all struggle things against the state, some will go to are the source of the lie. Dictators lie, happening to our fellow citizens, wives, with. It may make us feel superior or in- jail or into exile, but the public will be presidents only sometimes—when they husbands, children? How can we protect ferior as it lets us see that fidelity is hard numbed and muted and crimes will be really want to start a war, or retain their the vulnerable, learn to trust or not trust won, fame is a two-edged sword. committed and wars will start when not hold on power. This is all too easily done our leaders if we cannot know what is And then there is political news. We even a child dares to stand up to say the by repeatedly accusing others of exactly happening behind closed doors, political need to know far more than we do know. Emperor has no clothes. what he (or she) is guilty of doing. And doors, personal doors? If we cannot talk Who has power? Who are those people? I am sure the child in that story grew it is hard to combat the ruler’s lies while to each other about infidelity, about greed, What matters to them? Are they steady up to be the Woodward and Bernstein of the same ruler is calling us liars. about failures of all kinds, then we will be and moral in their personal relationships his state. Of course, he might also have The one thing we know for sure is that isolated in the platitudes and the empty and in their political ties? Can we rely on become an excellent tailor. our President’s pants are on fire. And it is promises, the pretty words of officialdom, them? Have you heard the story that….? Fake news is what they call real news our job, our lot, to keep pulling the fire the pieties of religion and state. Soon we If the mayor has bought a house in wine they don’t want us to read or hear. Fake alarm, even if we get accused of arson. will become a bamboozled citizenry prone country or the principal of the school news is the reality they want to suppress There is a connection between such to the whims of dictators, tyrants and fools. is driving a Lexus and his computer is in Trumpland. But real news, as we social truths of how we live, marry, raise That is why we have newspapers, storing porn sites, we need to know. If understand the phrase, is our life line to our children, make our living, fight our magazines, television, internet. We who the clergyman who is thundering about greater clarity, to better government, to diseases, worship whatever we worship work in the fourth estate know that we the evils of homosexuality has been seen more nuanced and more compassionate and the reality of how our government are an essential pillar of the democracy leaving a gay bar at two in the morning understanding of our selves—above all, marches across the public space. The we serve. Trump would like to silence we need to know. First because the fact an antidote to or an inoculation against fallibility of the human heart may be writ us. Putin has silenced us. Stalin jailed and affects how we view the clergyman’s propaganda large on the political stage, but is equally exiled us. Hitler destroyed us. But I think Sunday sermon, but also because we need The good news for journalists is that or perhaps more clearly seen in the lives of Trump for all his tweets will not succeed: to understand that human sexuality is we will never come to the end of this ordinary people, hot with their rages, deep not here, not now. We can see clearly that complicated and hard to repress, while project. Generations will trod news- into their loves, mourning whatever they Trump accuses others of exactly what he love and sex are subjects that no one rooms, no matter what form they may mourn, aspiring to whatever they aspire, is guilty of doing. We can call it projec- can simplify or dismiss. When a reporter take. We will never come to the end of lonely or fulfilled. The human experience tion. We can call it slimy politics. But it writes that financial manipulations made our work discovering what is in the hu- is also the journalists’ subject, public or remains a dictator’s useful tool: accuse the a political figure or a member of the coun- man heart—what harms us, what helps private, and if, as we explore our territory opposition of lying just as he spreads the try club wealthy at the expense of other us, what will make our communal lives we become brash and unpopular, we are biggest lies of all. stock holders the community can respond. richer and stronger. Real news allows us still just doing our jobs. Yes, I know all news is not a service to At the same time, you could say embar- to know ourselves as we are, unpleasant The man who calls the truth fake news the reader. Some is just silly and wasteful rassing anyone is not nice, but sometimes sometimes but very real. Simply because is as dangerous as the man who calls out even if enjoyable for some. However, even nice must give way to necessary. the project of understanding human life fire in the darkened movie theater. It is when it is only a story about some movie There is in this country now, drummed on this planet is unending doesn’t mean our job to turn on the lights.

asked about the state of negotiations be- closed it)—was seeking agreement on tween his bargaining team and members $70 million in cost savings, a wage freeze A Tale of the News of the union coalition, the Allied Printing and elimination of 1,500 jobs from a full Trades Council. The talks were going on and part-time workforce of 5,000. But BY OWEN MORITZ who made his fortune in real estate, had just blocks away at Ted Kheel’s Automa- the dealmaker ran into an implacable foe. The New York Daily News has been bowed out of contention after being tion House The unions did not budge, though they sold again…this time for $1 to a news- passed over for Allbritton. His name was “I guess they’re going all right.” he were civil about it and said they wanted paper conglomerate called Tronc—and Donald Trump. said. “But you’ll have to ask the folks to save the paper. for what its arch competitor, The New Sale rumors had an unsettling effect over there.” The Allied unions, counseled by ven- York Post, some gracelessly observed on morale. In the middle of the news- Was his goal the elimination of 1,000 erable labor lawyer and mediator Ted was less than the newsstand price of a room, a mock Kool-Aid stand was set jobs? “Well that’s a big number isn’t it,” Kheel, were in an awkward place. They single copy. Here, Silurian Owen Moritz up, channeling cult leader Jim Jones and he replied coyly. were not just speaking for their own takes for a stroll down memory lane for his doomed followers who drank flavored Then things got hostile. A couple of members, but their counterparts as well another time when his paper was on the water laced with cyanide. What some radio newsmen arrived, as word spread at The Times and Post. This was because, block. And the curious coda about how on the staff consumed that day was a lot that the prospective owner of The News under “me too” clauses in certain labor Chicago has finally taken over New York, stronger than water. The fact is we were was holding an impromtu news con- contracts, any giveback or change in thirty-five years later. bystanders at our own funeral. Finally, the ference. One of them was Joe Bragg, a workplace rules could trigger demands by editors recognized the prospective sale as reporter for WHN (and later an ordained rival publishers for the same concession. ne day in April, 1982, photog- the major news story it was. So Farrell minister in Harlem), whose baritone was On the other hand, lack of an agreement rapher Dan Farrell and I went and I were sent to the elegant and discreet the envy of colleagues could spell the end of the Daily News— Oto the Carlyle Hotel in Manhat- Carlyle where Allbritton was staying. “Mr. Allbritton,” he shouted, “do you if Tribune was true to the words of its tan to track down someone named Joe L. In the eerie quiet of the Carlyle love the Daily News?” president, Stanton R. Cook: “If these Allbritton who was intent on buying our lobby, with its Old Money décor, the Allbritton winced. He looked left down negotiations fail, we see no alternative paper, the Daily News. two of us staked out the elevator bank the carpeted hallway, he looked right. but to cease publication of The News.” It was a strange assignment, as were and hallways. It’s still hard to believe He looked left again to see if maybe the Well, the negotiations failed. Allbrit- the events that followed. Allbritton, a President John Kennedy once had a question was meant for someone else. ton’s 30-day deadline—extended an Texas financier and next-to-last publisher suite on the 34th floor and reputedly He probably wished he gave a more additional five days at the urging of of the defunct Washington Star, had cut a trysted with Marilyn Monroe the night thoughtful answer, one that didn’t cause Mayor Edward Koch—did not come tentative deal to buy The News from the she famously serenaded him with a sul- rollicking laughter in the newsroom. close to producing an agreement. His parent Tribune Company of Chicago. The try “Happy birthday, Mr. President” at “I love my wife,” he stammered, last hope was dashed when the Allied News, at the time, the nation’s top-selling Madison Square Garden. Or to imagine pausing to add. “I like the Daily News.” rejected his plea for a wage freeze. But metropolitan newspaper, with a daily years later that one evening three of the The upshot was that the would-be far from closing the paper or standing by circulation of 1.5 million, was nonethe- world’s great icons—Princess Di, Mi- publisher did not have to choose between its pledge that Allbritton was buyer of last less losing an estimated $12 million a chael Jackson and Steve Jobs—shared investment and family. The Tribune Com- resort, Chicago went looking elsewhere year. Allbritton’s deal was contingent on the same Carlyle elevator. pany simply pulled the rug from under for a deal. What they came up with was reaching an agreement on layoffs and job A nattily-dressed Allbritton and his him after fruitless weeks of negotiations. mildly shocking. cuts with the tabloid’s 11 unions. wife appeared. He was a small fellow Allbritton—who owned the Washington The real drama was going on at He was, he reminded everyone, “the with a cheerful, aw-shucks manner. As Star for three years before selling it in Automation House. Behind their united buyer of last resort.” A previous suitor, Farrell snapped away, Allbritton was 1978 to Time Inc. (which eventually Continued on Page 6 PAGE 6 SILURIAN NEWS NOVEMBER 2017

refugees to remain in Gruber Lives in Miami the U.S. after the war. BY HERBERT HADAD the International Center for Photography She was a personal uth Gruber, awarded the Silu- (ICP) in New York, and are drawn from witness to the famous rians’ Lifetime Achievement Gruber’s private archive. incident of the Exo- Award in 2011 for her daring Appropriately, the exhibition is located dus ship in 1947 and R was allowed by the witness-to-history global coverage over in a former synagogue that housed Mi- 70 years, is being honored at the Jewish ami Beach’s first Jewish congregation. British to enter the Museum of Florida – FIU (Florida In- The museum’s restored 1936 Art Deco ship and photograph ternational University) in Miami Beach building and 1929 original synagogue are the plight of the ref- through January 7. She died at age 105 both on the National Register of Historic ugees, all the while in November 2016. Places. also recording, in “Ms. Gruber called herself a witness, “Ms. Gruber was such an important words, their stirring and in an era of barbarities and war that photojournalist, not only because she was stories. The fact that left countless Jews displaced and state- the first woman to have access to histor- she spoke Yiddish less, she often crossed the line from jour- ical events in the world, but because she allowed her to capture nalist to human rights advocate, reporting was the very first person at all to access as well as shaping events that became certain parts of the world,” said Susan these very first stories the headlines and historical footnotes of Gladsone, director of the museum. “For of the Holocaust sur- the 20th century,” The New York Times example, she was the first correspondent vivors. And she con- observed in her obituary, written by Rob- to fly through Siberia into the Soviet tinued to document ert D. McFadden, a Silurian Governor Arctic in 1935, at the age of 24. She was the history of Jewish Emeritus. “Over seven decades, she was fearless in her quest to capture the images people seeking free- Unidentified Photographer dom well into her a correspondent in Europe and the Middle that now bring to life, for all who view Ruth Gruber, Alaska, 1941-43 East and wrote 19 books, mostly based them, stories of the fight for survival and 70s, when she visited on her own experiences,” McFadden freedom. isolated villages in Ethiopia to document York Herald Tribune, The New York continued. “Specifically regarding Jewish history, the rescue of Ethiopian Jews.” Post and, briefly, The New York Times, In the November 2011 issue of The Ms. Gruber was the first photojournalist Ms. Gruber graduated from Bush- covered the Nuremberg war-crimes trials Silurian News, Ms. Gruber was quoted to interview Holocaust survivors during wick High School at 15 and New York and many events in the history of Israel, on page one observing, “I knew my life her very secret mission accompanying University at 18, by then already fluent including its war for independence. In would be inextricably bound by rescue 1,000 Jewish refugees across the Atlantic, in German. On fellowships, she earned a 1952, she escorted Eleanor Roosevelt and survival.” to Oswego, NY. [The only large group of master’s degree in German at the Univer- on a visit to development sites in Israel. In the Jewish Museum exhibition, a Jews to escape from Nazi-controlled Eu- sity of Wisconsin at 19 and a doctorate She told an audience at Stony Brook selection of Gruber’s vintage prints, never rope.] She was even named a ‘simulated in German literature at the University of University in 2008, she always knew before exhibited, are presented alongside general’ so she could be taken prisoner Cologne at 20, one of the youngest ever how to be in the right place at the right contemporary prints made from her origi- if the ship was attacked. And, she was to achieve that distinction. time. “Whenever I saw that Jews were in nal negatives. The prints are on loan from instrumental in lobbying to allow all the Ms. Gruber, who worked for The New danger,” she said, “I covered that story.”

newspaperman Joseph Medill, was the Allbritton. It did not make a deal with holding company for the two newspapers Murdoch. It did not make a deal with run by their sons—Joseph Medill Pat- Trump, though The Donald seemed to A Tale of the News terson, the former Socialist firebrand believe he was still in the running. He Continued from Page 5 Next, Kheel’s old nemesis, Murdoch, and war hero who founded the tabloid complained about Tribune’s procrasti- front, the craft unions and Newspaper came calling. George McDonald, the News in 1919, and Robert McCormick, nation in searching for a savior, telling Guild were assessing their future in the Mailers Union Local 6 president and head the Chicago Tribune’s self-described The Times, “they lost all the momentum print business. So was Kheel. He knew, of the Allied Printing Trades Council— “Old Right” editor and publisher for 40 Allbritton had given them.” as did many observers, that the Chicago also Kheel’s closest ally—met publicly years. Both papers prospered for decades Tribune did, however, come to an company was in a precarious situation. with Murdoch at Automation House, in their respective home towns and were understanding with the unions. Kheel It had bought the storied Chicago Cubs even as talks were continuing over the one-two nationally in circulation. A year and McDonald, plainly worried about plus Wrigley Field the year before and paper’s future. The Post publisher insisted after Patterson’s death in 1946, News the fate of union jobs after the Allbritton was planning to go public the next year. he wasn’t trying to undercut Allbritton. circulation reached a peak of 2.2 million imbroglio, had communicated though Ditching The News, possibly touching off Nor did he come as an owner who once daily and 4 million Sunday. But the times back channels with Robert M. Hunt, protests that could reverberate on Wall coveted the bigger-selling News and had changed and the Tribune Company that the new News publisher. Hunt, who Street, would be bad news on the eve of proposed a joint operating agreement. supplanted the McCormick-Patterson was Cook’s second-in-command, be- a stock offering. Instead, he said he wanted both the News Trust in ’75 was ostensibly a partnership came News publisher in 1979, the first Morever, Kheel was trying for a come- and Post to survive and told McDonald of Chicago and New York interests. In publisher in 63 years without a history back. At his peak, he’d been the city’s his basic position was whatever relief The fact, the new company not only ended with the paper. Hunt was so eager for a main man for settling municipal and News got, The Post should get it, too. the autonomy of The News, but stacked labor agreement that he offered to send newspaper strikes. Mayor Robert Wagner At a news conference Murdoch kept a decision-making in the Chicago team’s a helicopter to a Catskills convention to called on him to end a crippling 114-day straight face when he said he was “not in favor. fetch McDonald for a sitdown. McDon- newspaper strike in 1962-63 between the any way trying to undo Mr. Allbritton’s The internal warfare between Tribune ald declined the offer, but he and other New York Typographical Union, led by deal. I feel passionately that The News Tower and News officials did not end union leaders did come around to make Bert Powers, and the Publishers Associ- ought to survive and The Post ought to until eight years later when the Tribune critical concessions. “The Tribune ob- ation, which represented seven dailies survive, too.” Company, then headed by the blunt and tained $50 million in givebacks from the in Manhattan and two in Queens. “The aggressive Charles T. Brumback, forced Daily News unions, and made the most 12th resurrection of Humpty Dumpty,” Trump Looking In News management to take a violent five- of these concessions in its prospectus for Kheel joked. month strike in 1990-1991. The unions, the company’s transition to becoming a By the end of the 1960s, only the On the outside looking in was Trump. striking against an out-of-town landlord, publicly held firm.” Richard Vigilante News, Times and Post were standing. The The developer, a year away from the had the support of every major elected wrote in Strike, The Daily News And The settlement has been blamed for the loss opening of Trump Tower, fancied him- official plus the influential archbishop, Future of American Labor. of the Daily Mirror, World-Telegram and self a press lord when he made a bid to John Cardinal O’Connor. Brumback The saga has a kicker. Some time Sun, Journal-American, Herald Tribune, acquire The News around the same time ended up surrendering the paper and later, Jerry Nachman, future editor of and Newhouse’s two Queens-based dai- as Allbritton. Despite the good press he loads of cash to British publisher Robert The Post, but at the time a police re- lies, Long Island Press and Star-Journal. enjoyed as a man about town and devel- Maxwell. porter and columnist, pulled me aside No one blamed Kheel at the time. But oper, he had few fans in the business. Chicago, it’s clear, did not realize the at a social event and playfully needled in the 88-day pressman’s strike in 1978, Told of The Donald’s interest in the enormity of the News labor problems— me that the news stories I and others had Post owner Rupert Murdoch accused paper, columnist Jimmy Breslin wrote: not just the cost of existing contracts and written about the negotiations missed Kheel of colluding with the News and “As this newspaper, the Daily News unfunded pensions, but the millions in the real headline. For strategic reasons, Times to fashion a settlement. Meantime, newspaper, was under the control of payments owed printers and stereotypers Tribune “couldn’t afford to let go of The animosities between Kheel and Koch led hicks from Chicago, a place which raises with guaranteed lifetime contracts, in News,” he explained. “My father-in-law the mayor to force Kheel out as a tran- people who are as stupid as steers, here the event of a newspaper shutdown. In a said they (Tribune) needed the (News) sit arbitrator, further scapegoating him came a young builder named Junior With crazy way, that may have been Trump’s cash flow” even if it was losing money. for generous raises won by municipal a Big Ego, who let it be known that he contribution. Allowed to examine the Father-in-law? Weird as it was, the late workers. was going to buy the newspaper. His News books as a potential buyer, he Nachman knew more about the issues When Tribune first announced plans civic responsibility in the past consisted dispatched Vincent McDonnell, former in the News-Tribune-labor triangle than to sell the paper in late 1981, Kheel of getting tax abatements.” chairman of the state mediation board, anyone at The News, certainly a lot more jumped back into the conversation. He There was furthermore a power who was horrified by what he found. than Allbritton. That’s because he was excitedly proposed the News unions buy struggle for control of the Tribune If the paper closed, he told Trump, the married at the time to Nancy Ann Cook, the newspaper through an ill-fated ESOP, Company following the dissolution liabilities could run to $300 million and the tall, blond daughter of Stanton Cook. an employer stock ownership plan. Most in 1975 of the McCormick-Patterson up. And that was in 1982 dollars—some And this raises a question: Was Allbritton of us thought it glib, impractical and at Trust. The trust, created in the early $755 million today. all along simply the unwitting stalking best a bargaining chip. 1930s by the two daughters of legendary Tribune did not make a deal with horse of Tribune Company? NOVEMBER 2017 SILURIAN NEWS PAGE 7 OBITUARIES Gabe Gabe: A Pressman recollection pioneering newsman who n December 1965, a fright- practically invented street fully cold winter as I recall, reporting on television and I was assigned to NBC whoseA career as a reporter stretched for I News for my one-week off-cam- more than six decades, Gabe Pressman pus internship from the Columbia died on June 23. He was 93, a longtime Graduate School of Journalism. Silurian, and winner of the 1988 Peter One day I spent in the company Kihss Award. An affable man whose of David Brinkley, co-anchor of collegiality toward his fellows extend- “The Huntley-Brinkley Report,” ed even to reporters from rival news who I recall only as being im- organizations, he was ferocious when mensely tall. But my most mem- it came to holding politicians’ feet to orable day was in the company of the fire and relentless where the First Gabe Pressman, then at his height Amendment was concerned. Along the as the best-known and most ac- way, he established a reputation for Gabe gets Marilyn to confess: she’s marrying Arthur Miller 1956 complished local television street honesty and integrity, and a passion reporter of his era, and indeed, as for getting the story and getting it right it would turn out, of many eras. that remains unmatched. Hypocrisy Gabe, as everyone from the most and bully-boys and crooks and pho- obscure doorman or cop on the nies got his juices flowing and he was beat to the mayor, governor and always ready to nail them for it. beyond knew him — intimately, Bill O’Dwyer was the mayor when Pressman started covering City Hall they believed — since he came for the World Telegram & Sun in into their living room every night 1949 and he hasn’t stopped shooting before dinner, was the voice of the questions at all the mayors since then. voiceless, the heart of so many in Some wouldn’t dare start their press this often cold and heartless city. conferences unless he was there. He But I recall particularly his modus moved into radio in 1954 at WRCA operandi. For Gabe would not (now WNBC) as the station’s first content himself with a single story “roving reporter,” and then to tele- on each evening’s newscast. His vision in 1956. With the exception goal was to dominate the broad- of eight years at WNEW-TV in the cast. So, Gabe piled himself into 1970s, he was with NBC ever since. a network crew car, complete with He never retired, but held the title of cameraman, soundman, driver, senior correspondent for WNBC-TV himself and, on this one memora- and kept reporting until he died. ble day, yours truly. Off we went, Reviewing the scope of his cov- tethered to the assignment desk Gabe takes notes April 2, 1956 erage is like reading a history of our at 30 Rock by a two-way radio times: the sinking of the Andrea Doria, nestled next to the police scanner. all the New York City blackouts, the We hit at least four locales that tumultuous Democratic National day—four stories from the Bat- Convention in Chicago in 1968, civil tery to the Bronx. At each spot, strife and transit strikes, riots in New- Gabe shot interviews, scribbled ark and New York, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, endless frantically in his notebook, pol- campaigns for mayor and governor ished off a standupper, just as a and president. In addition, there was motorcycle messenger rolled up all that reporting from Israel and to snatch the rolls of film and roar the specials about the homeless and off back to the office. There, Gabe the hungry and the mentally ill that would wind up every day — ready brought him an avalanche of awards: to script, track and help edit all 11 Emmys, an Edward R. Murrow his contributions that by then had Award, a Peabody Award, a Deadline been “souped” (developed) and Club award and many, many others. were ready to roll. It was a Her- He was the man with the microphone culean task, repeated the very next and, as one of his obituaries said, it day and on and on. An inspiration seemed as though he was always there. indeed to this fledgling hack.

—Mort Sheinman Gabe meets a first lady in Queens September 9, 1999 —David A. Andelman

PETE HERBERT CHARLES RITA HENLEY JENSEN BOWLES DORFMAN Rita Henley Jensen, who founded Women’s eNews, DELAFUENTE an independent news service she launched in 2000, Pete Bowles, a veteran Herbert Dorfman, a tele- Charles DeLaFuente, a vet- died at home in New York on Oct. 18. She was 70. A Newsday reporter and part of a vision news writer, producer eran writer and editor whose law former senior writer for the National Law Journal and team that won a Pulitzer Prize and director, and a veteran degree helped him become an ex- columnist for The New York Times Syndicate, Jensen for Public Service in 1974, died Silurian, died on June 22. He pert in libel law, died on Aug. 18 at guided Women’s eNews to almost 50 journalism awards, including the PASS Award from the National Council on of a heart attack on April 20 at was 88. Following graduation the age of 71. Although he retired Crime and Delinquency and the Rosa Cisneros Award Brooklyn’s Methodist Hospital. from Brooklyn College in 1951, from The New York Times in 2013, from the International Planned Parenthood Federation, He was 79. Bowles was with Dorfman went to Norway on a he continued to write for the paper Western Hemisphere Region. She also was cited by The Newsday from 1968 until 2005, Fulbright Scholarship in jour- until this year. He had joined The New York Daily News as one of the 100 most influential when he retired. He was one of nalism. When he returned to Times as a copy editor in 1998. women in New York and, most recently, was named the the Newsday reporters and edi- the U.S., he worked for several Earlier, he worked at many New 2016 Iconic Thought Leader for the Decade in Media by tors whose 32-part series, “The television organizations. He York newspapers, including The the Women Economic Forum, based in India. Jensen stepped down as editor-in-chief of Women’s eNews Heroin Trail,” won the Pulitzer. was executive producer of the Post, The News and Newsday as in May 2016, when she was accepted as a research The series traced illicit drug Emmy-winning “Channel 2 Eye well as at UPI, the Albany Times- associate at the Five College Women’s Studies traffic from Turkey to France to On” and was a head writer at Union, and The (Troy, N.Y.) Re- Research Center, where she explored racial and gender the New York metropolitan area. ABC’s “Good Morning America.” cord, where he was editor in chief. inequities through her research project, “Jane Crow.” PAGE 8 SILURIAN NEWS NOVEMBER 2017 “Mr. Markel” and Times Gone By Continued from Page 1 until the women’s movement, exploding some point, when yet another Surgeon it soaring over the bullpen, to wild and leave their julienned pieces on the just a few years later, smartened us up. General’s report had come out, he wanted applause. “Unhappily,” he said, “it never floor. For this he needed an audience, But certainly I understood that I had an me to do an article on smoking. I said, worked.” and for reasons that would be numbingly assigned role, and that this was some “Mr. Markel, everyone’s done it.” Big Markel was kicked upstairs in 1964, twopenny Freudian to speculate upon, sort of game. I did a fast review of my mistake. “I don’t care who’s done it,” and finally pushed into deeply reluctant it had to be a female audience. Which position. He might fire me, but I was he screamed. “It hasn’t been done until retirement in 1968. He then took a small was me. single, not responsible for anyone else, we’ve done it.” office at Columbus Circle, where he He abused all the men, but his favorite could afford to be brash. Besides, I He was a superb line editor because he wrote long, inflamed memos to various target was the picture editor, the late Rick wanted to be brash. His behavior had insistently asked all the dumb questions editors and writers about what they were Fredericks, who stuttered. At the first outraged me. that an uninformed reader might ask. doing wrong and how to fix it. Few meeting I attended, Rick presented his “Mr. Markel,” I said, “you were “Explain.” It was his mantra. “What does answered. choice of photos for the stories we were awful.” And saw instantly that, despite it mean? Explain.” If he read a complex I was by then married, living out- working on. myself, I’d hit paydirt. sentence, he would say, “This thing is for of-state and writing on contract for “You call this a picture?” Markel held He pounded his desk and harrumphed. the Partisan Review,” the worst epithet he The Magazine. I think because he so it ostentatiously away from his face, “Why? Why was I awful? What do you could use. He’d keep gnawing on copy, hungered for contacts, and so few were as though it smelled. “It’s the stupidest mean?” But he was beaming. demanding more work, more work, often available to him, he stayed in touch with picture I ever saw.” He grinned around So I gave him the scolding he wanted: forcing the music out of the prose. But me. We would have lunch when I was the table, warming up. “What’s this? how he’d savaged poor Fredericks and usually the piece ended up with greater in town, and he would rage against the What is this? For God’s sake,” checking how terrible it was to treat people so clarity. powers. the date on another photo, “this is last brutally and so on, and he kept nodding All that editing was especially hard Our last meeting was about a year year’s picture!” and saying “Hm? Hm?”, and never on Gilbert Millstein, a staff writer who before his death. He was recovering Rick said, “B-b-but…” stopped beaming. specialized in complex sentences. He from a stroke. He was as meticulously “Don’t but me. Here’s the date. Can’t Our contacts expanded. Sometimes he would appear at my desk and say, “What dressed as ever—dark suit, shirt white you read? And what does it have to do would take me to lunch at Sardi’s, and do you think of this lede?”, and read me enough to blind you and a collar starched with the story?” Silence. “I want you to elicit my lecture du jour. He didn’t try to an essay, an architectural marvel of a sufficiently to choke you—but the left explain to me what this picture has to do hide these meetings—half The Times had sentence, two pages long and not a clause side of his mouth drooped and spittle with the story.” lunch at Sardi’s, effectively the corporate left dangling. Years later, Gil recalled, dripped when he spoke. He carried on “I-I-I…” dining room—and in fact there was “You’d break your ass on a piece. Markel about a columnist to whom he had sent “What do you call yourself? You call nothing to hide. For all the psychological would say, ‘This is no damn good.’ a 16-page memo outlining exactly what yourself a picture editor?” toesies, there was never any sexual You’d do it over and over. Still no good. was wrong with his work, and hadn’t Rick sat twitching. No one else moved. move. Sexual would have been normal. It would end up better, I must say. The even gotten an acknowledgement, the Markel was red and near-apopleptic, This was creepy. But what it did for me miserable bastard was usually right. But nerve of the man….on and on, his voice working his way up to nirvana. “Answer was to make the ogre vulnerable, even what he put you through….You’d want rising, his color too. You tend to get me. You call yourself a picture editor?” pitiable, and I was never able to feel for to kill yourself. You’d want to kill him.” nervous when someone who has had a And he took the pile of glossies, ripped him the unmitigated hatred that many of Millstein tried. Each winter, when stroke turns that color. So, trying to calm them up, and flung the pieces into Rick’s my colleagues felt. Markel flew south for a brief vacation, him, I said, “Now, Mr. Markel…” face. Meeting adjourned. In those days, The Magazine had Gil would check the flight time. At He held up an arm for silence. He Soon his secretary came to my desk. great cachet. It carried the bylines the moment of the airline’s scheduled leaned in close, a ribbon of saliva on “He wants to see you,” she said. of immensely important people who departure, he would whip out a paper his chin. He gripped my wrist. “Call me My neighbors came to attention. In could not necessarily write. It was read plane, set it afire and voodoo-like send Lester,” he said. that bullpen, everyone could see and hear (scanned, at least) by everyone in New everything, and I felt eyes following me York and Washington who wanted to toward Markel’s office. be able to work the room, and it was a He sat at the far end of a ballroom, his bore. (“I made Barbara Ward rewrite New Members desk deftly angled for sunlight to blind that piece three times,” Markel boasted William Borders retired from The New York Times in 2006 after a 46-year career as a approaching visitors. I blinked my way to an editor of the daily paper, who said, foreign correspondent and a senior editor. His overseas stations included London, New Del- toward him. He peered at me through “Yes, and you ran all three.”) It was not hi, Montreal, and Lagos, Nigeria. He was also an editor on various desks, including deputy foreign editor, senior news editor, and editor of The Week in Review, a section since renamed his steel-rimmed specs. Finally he spoke: much fun but it was good for you, and Sunday Review. “Well? How was I?” this was because Lester Markel had one “I beg your pardon?” true mission in life: to educate the reader Lynn Brenner has been writing about business and personal finance in Newsday for more than 25 years. Her weekly “Family Finance” column bowed in 1990 and since 2009, she’s “In the meeting. How was I? What did as to the meaning of events. The daily been writing the weekly “Ask the Expert” column on personal finance. She is also a Reuters you think?” should merely report the news, he said; contributor and a contributing editor to AARP magazine. I do not know if I understood back then the Sunday should explain it. And when Jerry Edgerton writes the Cars and Money blog for CBS’s MoneyWatch.com. His career what my assigned role was. Many young the daily showed the chutzpah to run an goes back to the early 1960s, when he was hired by The Associated Press and then by Newsday. women in journalism, as elsewhere, were interpretative piece, he raised hell. In 1969, he joined the Washington bureau of BusinessWeek magazine, leaving in 1975, when in certain ways dumb about gender things Other publications didn’t matter. At he was named a senior writer at Time Inc.’s Money Magazine. He remained at Money Maga- zine until 2001, then became a freelance until joining the CBS MoneyWatch website in 2011. Adelaide Perry Farah is the former editor-in-chief of Beauty Fashion magazine. Prior to that she was special projects editor at Health magazine. She is currently a freelance editor. Society of the Silurians Officers 2017-2018 OFFICERS: COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSONS: Ari L. Goldman was a reporter at The New York Times, where he focused on writing President about religion, but also covered New York State politics, transportation and education. He BERNARD KIRSCH Advisory: joined The Times as a copy boy in 1973, becoming a reporter two years later. He left in 1993 BETSY ASHTON to join the faculty of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, where he is First Vice-President a professor of journalism and director of the Scripps Howard Program in Religion, Journalism DAVID A. ANDELMAN Awards: MICHAEL SERRILL and the Spiritual Life. Second Vice-President Katherine Heires is a freelance reporter who for more than 20 years has focused on risk MICHAEL SERRILL Constitution and Bylaws: ALLAN DODDS FRANK topics and emerging technologies and their impact on corporations, financial institutions, professional investors and individuals. Secretary LINDA AMSTER Dinner: Joanna Hernandez is a former reporter and editor who is currently Director of Diversity WENDY SCLIGHT Initiatives at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. She has held various editing and Treasurer Futures: reporting positions at such news organizations as The New York Times, The Washington KAREN BEDROSIAN Post, The Record, and Newsday. RICHARDSON ALLAN DODDS FRANK Sissel McCarthy is Director of the Journalism Program and a Distinguished Lecturer at BOARD OF GOVERNORS: Membership: MORT SHEINMAN Hunter College. Earlier, she was part of the journalism departments at NYU and at Emery JACK DEACY University. Before entering the fields of academe, she spent 1992 to 2004 reporting business BILL DIEHL GERALD ESKENAZI Nominating: news from New York, London and Atlanta. BEN PATRUSKY ALLAN DODDS FRANK Susan Mulcahy started as a copygirl at The New York Post and went on to become the TONY GUIDA editor of its Page Six column. She also worked at N.Y. Newsday and was editor-in-chief of MYRON KANDEL Silurian News VALERIE S. KOMOR DAVID A. ANDELMAN, Editor Avenue magazine before switching to digital media, as vice president of Starwave, Paul Allen’s CAROL LAWSON early web content company. As a freelancer, she’s been widely published. BEN PATRUSKY Website: Yvette Romero of Bloomberg News has served as a reporter and researcher, and as editor ANNE ROIPHE BEN PATRUSKY, of the company’s Rankings Team, an internal resource that analyzes, organizes and illustrates MYRON RUSHETZKY MORT SHEINMAN, Co-editors data in categories ranging from business, economics and politics to lifestyle. WENDY SCLIGHT MORT SHEINMAN Webmaster: Spencer Rumsey, now a freelance writer and editor, was with New York Newsday, where FRED HERZOG he was assistant news editor from 1987 to 2008, and The Long Island Press, where he was a GOVERNORS EMERITI: senior editor from 2010 to this year, writing extensively about politics and policy in his blog, Social Media: GARY PAUL GATES “Rumsey Punch.” BILL DIEHL HERBERT HADAD Irena Choi Stern is an educator/journalist. From 2004 to 2014, she was the Assistant GARY PAUL GATES Dean of Alumni Relations at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism as well LINDA GOETZ HOLMES SILURIAN CONTINGENCY FUND ROBERT D. McFADDEN BOARD OF TRUSTEES: as managing editor of the school’s alumni publications. She’s also been a contributing writer LEO MEINDL STEVEN MARCUS, CHAIR for the Westchester section of The New York Times.