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Home , Betsy Wade, Gloria Emerson, Harry Gilmer, Judith Crist, Katherine Lanpher, Mary Thom

Society of the Silurians LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD BANQUET The Players Club 16 Gramercy Park South Tuesday, December 4, 2012 In Honor of Drinks: 6 p.m. Dinner: 7:15 p.m. Meet old friends Published by The Society of The Silurians, Inc., an organization Reservations: (212) 532-0887 of veteran City journalists founded in 1924 Members and One Guest $100 Each Non-Members $120 DECEMBER 2012 GLORIA STEINEM: A LIFETIME OF ACHIEVEMENT

Nina Zacuto for the Journalism & Women Symposium Gloria Steinem was the keynote speaker at the Journalism & Women Symposium in Albuquerque in October. By Betsy Wade Media Center. She looked at her watch, cabby said. “I know you, Gloria Steinem. Steinem to the short list of journalists hon- abandoned her chowder and mustered col- I’ve driven you a lot back home.” ored by one of the oldest press clubs in n October, Gloria Steinem flew leagues for a dash to the airport to pick Just one more proof that Gloria the . west to keep a long-postponed up Gloria. Humming south on I-25, their Steinem, recipient this year of the But as Silurians get to learn again at I date. She had been on the cam- auto was attacked by a huge ball of loose Silurians’ Lifetime Achievement Award, the Award dinner, Steinem is a major paign trail nonstop most of the month, ar- rope, which tangled around the drive shaft. is one of the most recognizable people voice on big issues not just because she guing for women’s issues, most recently The Thom team cell-phoned Steinem at in the world. Like Eleanor Roosevelt, is recognizable. She is brainy and in Florida for a week. the airport with a message — “Take a who popped up everyplace, Steinem is thoughtful. She is tenacious. She mus- It was now 10 days before Election taxi.” driven by the same hopes and has like- ters her journalism and speaking skills – Day, and Steinem, who lives in New Then O. Henry got into the act. wise become iconic. For 40 years she with dozens of one-liners — and her York, was due in Albuquerque, N.M., to Steinem reported she grabbed a cab has materialized regularly in the center leadership and her determination, for speak to more than 200 at the annual con- and asked to go to the Hyatt Tamaya of news photos as she travels the globe issues that matter: women should be vention of the Journalism & Women Resort. with a message of equal rights, equal safeguarded in childhood, be educated Symposium. “Lots of women going out there,” the treatment. in youth and get equal access to good Everyone was geared up. I was sit- cabby said. And 40 years is no random number; tools for accomplishment. ting next to Mary Thom, one of Steinem’s “Journalists,” Steinem said. “Women she and her colleagues published the first She leans forward, always. Don’t for- inner circle and an original staff member who are journalists.” issue of Ms. magazine in 1972, which get she backed the Brooklyn Represen- at Ms. and now editor at the Women’s “Well, I’m from New York,” the makes this the perfect year to add Continued on Page 4 A Woman Correspondent in Vietnam: Fictionalized Truth By Theasa Tuohy ered no place for a woman. The Times so-called evening shifts, and quite a bit sent Gloria Emerson in 1970. The AP first on the lobster roll. ar correspondents don’t assigned a woman, Edie Lederer, to its And having spent my young years in seem inclined to write fic- Saigon bureau in late 1972. The AP had the 1960’s trenches of daily journalism W tion, and I’m sure I’ve figured sent Kelly Smith Tunney in 1967 for spe- where women were not all that welcome, out why – it isn’t that easy to make stuff cial feature assignments, one of which, I understood only too well the setting, up. And why bother? When the facts are according to , embarrassed the working situation. Those gigs included horrific enough, they speak for them- General Westmoreland into giving up his the (Yonkers) Herald Statesman, the selves. So I had no idea what I was get- tennis membership at the posh Cercle (Newark) Star-Ledger and the Detroit ting into when I started out many long Sportif. Figures aren’t exact, but 70 or Free Press. years ago to write “The Five O’Clock Fol- so working female journalists seem to So getting this all right should have lies,” a fictionalized but historically accu- have been accredited in Vietnam during been a piece of cake, no? The rejection rate account of what life was like for a the 14 years from 1961-1975. During the letters were all the same: The setting, the reporter in 1968 Vietnam. The “Follies,” much shorter period of WWII, the num- characters, the feel of the place was so as many of us remember, is how the ber of accredited women was 127. The vivid, so real, my experiences were so Saigon press corps derisively referred to whys and wherefores of that disparity are compelling, why didn’t I just write this as government briefings. interesting, but that’s another story. non-fiction? They didn’t want to publish My main character is a woman who For me, even pre-Google, the report- it, they said, because the story didn’t work. goes there freelance and has one heck of ing for my novel was easy – I just Huh? I didn’t get it. How could they say a time establishing herself until Tet comes haunted the History/Vietnam section of they loved it and it was compelling, but along. There were some women in Viet- the Mid- Library on my days the “story” didn’t work? nam in those days, but few were sent by off, and when I say days, I’m serious. It The question people ask me most about major news organizations. It was consid- seems I spent more than half my life on Continued on Page 4 Follies cover President’s Letter PAGE 2 SILURIAN NEWS DECEMBER 2012 I’m pleased to report that the Society of Silurians is in excellent shape. Financially, we’re in good condition, after sev- eral years of teetering on the edge. We’re con- tinuing a strong run of speakers, with good turn- outs for both our lunches and dinners. And we have a strong lineup of officers and board mem- bers ready and able to step up to keep our Soci- ety running successfully well into the future. (We won’t have to call upon a retread like me to serve as president again.) I was willing to do it be- cause I am — like so many of you — committed to what our organization stands for, in terms of comaraderie, encouraging quality journalism and helping colleagues in need. We’re back at The Players, and they’re taking good care of us. My goal this year is to strengthen the frame- work of the Society. In that regard, we’re establishing backups for every major position, ranging from officerships to heads of commit- tees. As a result, there will be someone ready to step up to fill any vacancy that might occur. The one area that needs improvement is membership. While we have added some terrific people recently, we are lagging behind last year’s rate. There’s always some attrition, through deaths, relocations and resignations, so we need to add members to stay even. I’d like us to add even more in order to grow. Everyone of us must know a present or former journalist with at least 12 years of experience who would enjoy and treasure being a Silurian. So find an application blank on our web site, and sign them up. The work we do isn’t possible without major efforts by some of our members. To make ev- eryone better acquainted with our officers and Page 1 of the September 30, 2012, New York Times. governors, we’re providing thumbnail sketches of their professional careers in this issue. Tony Guida, our immediate past president, doesn’t need the emphasis on Punch’s role in boldly much of an introduction. But I want to note the How to Write Your Boss’s Obit publishing the Pentagon Papers and yeoman work he did over the last two years, keeping the paper thriving with new particularly in rounding up some great speakers. By Joseph Berger glimpsed Lyons passing behind him. He It’s a challenge for me to try to match that, but I hen he was asked to write thought he had seen a ghost. The sugges- lifestyle, science and weekend sections think the new lunch season got off to a strong the advance obituary of tion was that writing an advance obit can while other New York papers folded. start, with the threesome of Marlene Sanders, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, feel like presiding at a funeral. All the while, he said. “My biggest con- Gary Gates and Sandy Socolow sharing their W cern was that Punch would die while I early experiences working with Mike Wallace; Clyde Haberman decided he needed to in- Clyde said that he wrote the first draft then Clyde Haberman recounting how he re- terview him while still alive — as Clyde of the Sulzberger obituary 14 years ago, was still writing, and my second biggest searched and wrote The Times’s obit of Punch pointed out you can’t interview obituary sub- after Punch’s retirement as chairman of concern was that he would die after me,” Sulzberger, and finally, last month, the wife-and- jects after they’re dead. So he arranged The Times board was announced. Joe Clyde said. husband duo of Lynn Povich and Steve Punch, ill with Parkinson’s disease and Shepard talking about their new books. We have a meeting with the longtime Times publisher Lelyveld, then executive editor, assigned a good lineup pending for the coming year as and opened by saying: “I just want to say him. “I confess to having a New York other ailments, lived on until September, well. And, of course, there’s the Lifetime Achieve- how uncomfortable this makes me feel.” Times sensibility,” Clyde said, by way of so the advance obituary weighed on Clyde ment Award dinner honoring Gloria Steinem. And Punch responded: “You!” explanation as to why he of all the chosen for a good chunk of his career. Clyde never But in talking about major efforts, one of our went on vacation without alerting the obits members stands head and shoulders above the That glimpse into Punch’s puckish wit people was chosen. He said he interviewed rest of us. That’s Mort Sheinman, who — after and affability was one of the back-story Punch two or three times but also spoke to desk of his whereabouts in case some last serving as president — took on the task of trea- vignettes that Clyde, with characteristic two of Punch’s sisters and several editors minute changes were necessary. surer, even while remaining as membership wry, dry, sly wit, regaled a luncheon of the and business-side executives who had Clyde said he was pleased with the re- chairman and running our lunches and dinners. ception the obituary received even if one He’s been the bulwark of our organization. We Silurians on October 18 at the Players Club worked for Punch and read several books all owe Mort a huge vote of thanks. as he spoke of how he went about writing about Punch’s era like “The Trust” by Alex blog commentator described it as Keep in mind, also, that our Silurian Contin- the elegant three-page obituary of his former Jones and Susan Tifft. (Alex happened to hagiography. On the contrary, Clyde said, gency Fund stands ready to assist members in he felt it was “a fair portrait of the guy,” a financial need. Anyone who receives such help boss that appeared Sept. 29 and 30. be sitting at a front table.) is guaranteed anonymity. Only members of the Clyde began by recalling that the After the advance obituary was com- sentiment more than shared by the Silurians fund committee, which is chaired by Larry Fried- Sulzberger send-off was the second advance pleted, it was occasionally reviewed over audience. The obituary recounted many man, know the names of those requesting help. obit he had ever done. He wrote the first as the years by various editors but, Clyde said, of his warts—Sulzberger’s lack of busi- As we move ahead on new Silurian activi- ness preparedness for taking over the ties, I promise to keep everyone up to date, a reporter at The New York Post and it was lightly dealt with. It was also looked over through e-mails, the Silurian News and our of the popular Post columnist Leonard Lyons by the paper’s current publisher, Arthur publisher’s job, his battles with unions and refurbished web site — silurians.org. Keep (this was before Clyde learned a thing or Sulzberger Jr., who had worked for Clyde female reporters who charged discrimina- an eye on it. It’s got good stuff. two about writing columns). While The at City Hall while apprenticing in the tion, his “hopelessness” as reporter. This is the first issue of the Silurian News in Cluyde even included Sulzberger’s visit many years that has not been edited by Eve Times has 1,500 advance obituaries on file, newspaper business—one of what Clyde Berliner. She has left that post, as well as the The Post usually had rewrite people write called Arthur Jr.’s 14 Stations of the Cross. during his apprenticeship to an automobile chairmanship of the Awards Committee. Eve obituaries at the last minute, but Lyons, a The younger Sulzberger asked that the obit race at LeMans, France, in which he failed deserves a great deal of thanks for all her to notify The Times that 82 spectators work on behalf of the Silurians over the years, tabloid monument, was a sensitive subject have a greater emphasis on Punch’s busi- and we wish her well. and Clyde was sworn to secrecy by Paul ness decisions. Clyde agreed to get more had been killed during a horrifying crash. Best wishes for a happy, successful and Sann, the Post’s editor-in-chief. Some time of that detail up in the top— “it’s his news- “Can you imagine one of his news healthy New Year. organizations using that line with Rupert Myron (Mike) Kandel after he completed it, Clyde was in the paper and his father,” Clyde explained. bathroom and, looking in the mirror, But Clyde said doing so did not weaken Murdoch,” Clyde said. BOARD BIOGRAPHIES

Do you know the backgrounds of all the people Allan Dodds Frank is a longtime print, radio, televi- New York Times; did PR for Sesame Street, Philip Morris and The New Yorkers column, edited Metropolitan Diary and who are officers and governors of the Society of sion and internet investigative reporter who worked for Muskie for President, and has been a freelance writer traveled with President Reagan in Europe and China. the Silurians? Here are some brief bios: The Anchorage Daily News, The Washington Star, Forbes, and teacher. Currently press officer for U.S. Department of ABC News, CNN and Bloomberg news. Former president Justice. Max Nichols started as a part-time sportswriter for The Linda Amster was director of News Research at The New Overseas Press Club of America. Current contributor to Daily Oklahoman while in college. He went to Columbia J- York Times, overseeing the library, morgue, photo library Fortune.com and NewsweekDailyBeast.com. Linda Goetz Holmes, like Allan Dodds Frank and Fred School, then The Minneapolis Star, where he moved up to and news research staffs; solo researcher of the Pentagon Ferguson, is a second-generation Silurian. Their fathers sports editor, then to The Journal Record business daily in Papers team; wrote the Saturday News Quiz for 16 Larry Friedman worked at The Associated Press while knew one another as members. Linda has been a Pacific War Oklahoma City as editor, and later to the Oklahoma Historical years; editor of four Times cookbooks and post-retirement at Brooklyn College. He reported for the AP until 1968 historian for more than 25 years, writing three books about Society as public relations director. He retired in 2003. consultant to The Times on various projects and freelance in New York, Oklahoma City and Cleveland. He was press POWs of the Japanese in WW II. She edited a fourth, just researcher. spokesman for ’s comptroller during the out, titled: “Captured: The Forgotten Men of Guam.” Ben Patrusky, award-winning science writer, was research fiscal crisis and also worked for Lt. Gov. Mario Cuomo, as reporter for the American Heart Association, then became a Betsy Ashton started as a freelancer covering the emerg- well as for Life, and Hill and Knowlton. freelancer in 1975. He contributed a weekly health column to ing women’s movement for Mutual Radio, then became Emmy- Myron Kandel was copy boy, copy editor and finan- Newsday for four years and a monthly health/science column to award-winning radio and TV reporter and anchor in Ricki Fulman started out covering “women’s” subjects cial reporter at 1951-63; financial Signature for eight. He is executive director of the Council for Washington. In 1982 she became consumer correspondent such as fashion and food for trade magazines and later for editor, Washington Star, and the Advancement of Science Writing. for WCBS-TV in New York and CBS Morning News. Later, she was The New York Daily News, where she worked for 26 years, New York Post, and editor, New York Law Journal 1963- the host of Moneytalks on FNN. In retirement, she paints. and graduated to reporting on such other issues as alco- 79, and founding financial editor and economic commen- Karen Pedrosian Richardson was chief financial of- holism, , daycare, health, education, consumerism, tator CNN 1980-2005. ficer of Spanish International Communications Corporation Ira Berkow was a sports columnist and features writer politics and business. She retired in 2004. (now called Univision, the Spanish-language television and for The New York Times for 26 years. Previously, he wrote for Bernard Kirsch started as copy boy at The New York cable network). She now runs her late husband’s broker- Newspaper Enterprise Association and was a sportswriter Gary Paul Gates worked for UPI in Detroit and Times. Sports reporter at Newsday; sports editor, Interna- age, which specializes in expatriate health insurance and and book reviewer for The Minneapolis Tribune. His 21st New York, then became a freelance magazine writer. From tional Herald Tribune in ; copy editor at The Times kidnap and ransom insurance. book, “Summers at Shea: Tom Seaver Loses His Overcoat 1969 to 2000 he was a TV news writer and producer at from 1982 till 2003. After retirement, received a certificate and Other Sports Stories,” will be published in the spring. CBS and ABC News, with various gigs at CBS Sports & from N.Y.U. in video post-production, which he now does Mort Sheinman started as copy boy and sports tabu- ESPN. Author or co-author of five books (with Dan on a freelance basis. lator at The Daily News, then to Women’s Wear Daily for 40 Bill Diehl, a correspondent at ABC News Radio, continues Rather, Mike Wallace and Bob Schieffer) on politics and/ years, first as a business reporter and feature writer, later to contribute entertainment features and obituaries of the or media. Robert D. McFadden was a Midwest reporter before as long-time managing editor. Also first managing editor of rich and famous. He officially retired in 2007 after more than covering metropolitan, national and international news for W magazine. Now a freelance writer and book editor. 35 years at ABC News, but then was brought back to the Tony Guida began his career as television reporter 51 years at The New York Times. Pulitzer Prize for spot news network in a freelance capacity. and anchorman in Savannah, Ga., late in the Kennedy reporting and more than 30 other awards. Co-author “No Joan Siegel joined the Long Island Press while a stu- administration. He persisted in both roles for nearly Hiding Place,” on Iranian hostage crisis, and “Outrage: the dent at N.Y.U, working in the morgue and then reporting Gerald Eskenazi began as a sports copy boy and 40 years at various local stations, including WCBS and Story Behind the Tawana Brawley Hoax”. for and editing the society pages. She then taught English spent 44 years at The New York Times, where he generated WNBC, the Today show, CNN and CNNfn. Currently he is at Eli Whitney High School in Brooklyn. 8,000 bylines — among the highest in the paper’s history. a freelancer for the CBS Evening News. Enid Nemy started her journalism career with The Cana- He is the author of 16 books. He is a co-winner of a Deadline dian Press in Canada and went on to more than 40 years as Joe Vecchione spent 41 years at The New York Times, Club award and a member of two halls of fame. He lectures Herbert Hadad was a copy boy on the Boston Globe; a a reporter, feature writer and columnist with The New York starting as a copy boy and then in various editing capacities, regularly on the news media and sports, on land and at sea. reporter for the Keene (N.H.) Sentinel, New York Post and Times. She covered many beats, including Broadway; wrote including sports editor from 1980 to 1990. He retired in 2001. DECEMBER 2012 SILURIAN NEWS PAGE 3 Judith Crist: Critic, Teacher, Mentor By David E. Pitt

t was years after I took her memo rable course that I finally figured Iout how it was that Judith Crist, who died in August at 90, was as great a teacher as she was a film critic. The answer is that she cared passion- ately — and in equal measure — about both. Whether in her classroom at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journal- ism (where she taught continuously for over 50 years, a J-School longevity record), she always had high expectations that the films she watched and the stu- dents she taught would live up to their full potential, come what may. “I am of the Agee-an school of criti- cism,” Crist wrote of her hero, James Agee, the consummate screenwriter, nov- elist, poet and journalist who began re- viewing films in the early 1940s. “I have subscribed to the James Agee premise that film criticism is a conversa- tion between movie-goers,” Crist declared in her volume of collected reviews, “The Private Eye, the Cowboy and the Very For half a century, Judith Crist taught at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Naked Girl.” “If,” she said, “I can prod a person or ing bad films, not for the pleasure of Unfortunately there were only 12 slots. red-faced giveaways. two into just thinking for himself, let alone skewering them, but to exhort filmmak- I have a vague recollection that applicants Professor Crist pressed for brutally organizing his thought into opinion form, ers to do better because, as trashy and had to provide some sort of biographical frank assessments – which were inter- let alone even articulating that opinion – exploitative and subversive as movies writing sample, and there may have been spersed with her own views, which typi- critical mission practically accomplished.” could be, she agreed with Agee’s con- an interview. I thought I had a shot. I loved cally ranged from withering to effusive. For those of us lucky enough to have viction that film is one of our greatest art movies, worshipped James Agee, and had Class ended with distribution of our ef- been students of Judith Crist, there was forms – at least intermittently. written movie reviews over two summers forts, which in those days consisted of no more precise description of the inter- “The camera seems to me the central for The Berkshire Eagle – but the com- yellow copy paper interspersed with her section between her livelihood as a critic instrument of our time,“ Agee wrote, call- petition was for- and her calling as a teacher. ing film a medium for truth telling as pow- midable. “I am, I suppose, a teacher and a erful as the most sophisticated micro- Somehow I preacher at heart,” she wrote. “I speak scope. got in. I figured I for the movie-lover rather than the Crist, like Agee, was forever trolling was golden un- cineaste, for the audience rather than the for the perfect film, like astronomers less Professor industry.” searching the heavens for new galaxies. Crist – who as a Crist, like Agee, saw value in review- Both suffered with each disappointment, child routinely cut she said, while “exalting in the rare real- classes to go to ization of the dream of perfection.” the movies – Society of the Silurians Critics who truly love films, she wrote, somehow Officers 2012-2013 watch them “like parents – we carp and learned that my President criticize and pick away at the flaws; like first movie expe- MYRON KANDEL lovers, we go to passionate heights and rience, at the age First Vice-President depths in our reactions; like true friends, of 5, was being ALAN DODDS FRANK we know our relationship must be based whisked out of Ms. Crist, in 1982 Second Vice-President BETSY ASHTON on honesty.” Radio City Music Both had a special place in their hearts Hall by my father after I became unhinged detailed comments, in tiny pencil script. Treasurer MORT SHEINMAN for comedy, especially if it embodied the while watching the apple-poisoning scene Even my best efforts had flaws.

Secretary techniques and routines of the classic in “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” “An excellent piece,” she wrote on the LINDA AMSTER silents like Chaplin’s 1925 masterpiece, (Decades later, Crist wrote a column margin, “except that the nut paragraph Board of Governors “,” the first film Crist re- about sadism and violence in films that would land in the overset. 100 words IRA BERKOW members seeing as a child. convinced me that there was nothing means 100 words” [triple underlining.] BILL DIEHL GERALD ESKENAZI Agee devised an original way to mea- unique about my experience. “When I In a review of a satirical film about RICKI FULMAN sure comic moxie. “In the language of was young and movie-going,” she wrote, American teenagers in the 60’s, I took is- LINDA GOETZ HOLMES BERNARD KIRSCH screen comedians four of the main grades “the witch in ‘Snow White’ was supposed sue with some scenes, writing that it was ENID NEMY of laugh are the titter, the yowl, the belly to give you the screaming meemies and obvious that the young Czech director MAX NICHOLS BEN PATRUSKY laugh and the boffo,” Agee wrote in figure in your future analysis.” ) Footnote: lacked an adequate “level of comprehen- KAREN BEDROSIAN- “Comedy’s Greatest Era,” a dazzling ar- I have yet to see the rest of the movie. sion” about American culture to have made RICHARDSON JOAN SIEGEL ticle in the Sept. 3, 1949 issue of Life Professor Crist‘s teaching methods such a movie. JOSEPH J. VECCHIONE magazine. “The titter is just a titter. The were a revelation. Although the term had “This phrasing,” Crist wrote. “is more Governors Emeritus yowl is a runaway titter. Anyone who has yet to be invented, we were effectively derogatory than you intend & therefore GARY PAUL GATES HERBERT HADAD ever had the pleasure knows all about a embedded with her for one day a week. unfair.” ROBERT D. McFADDEN belly laugh. The boffo is the laugh that Class consisted of meeting her at that day’s On a passing reference to the director’s LEO MEINDL kills.” midtown screening venue, which invari- recognized talents, she pointed out that “you Committee Chairpersons But whatever category of film was on ably had perfect views, incredibly com- haven’t underlined these for the layman.” Advisory the screen, there was always one con- fortable seats and no popcorn on the floor. And when I questioned whether it was TONY GUIDA stant: “The joy of criticism is in wanting At the screening’s end, in the fashion of realistic to depict Ike and Tina Turner per- Dinner to share discovered pleasures,” Crist ex- Professor Crist, we rushed back to our forming in an “adult night club,” Professor MORT SHEINMAN plained in “Take 22,” her anthology of typewriters to write our reviews, which Crist pointed out that as a matter of fact, Legal KEN FISHER conversations with moviemakers. were to be delivered on deadline to her “they have appeared at Grossinger’s, the For those who wanted to share in dis- sprawling Riverside Drive apartment. Concord, etc.” Membership MORT SHEINMAN covered pleasures first hand, just getting Woe to you if your copy was late. In May 1971, Professor Crist loosed us through Professor Crist’s door was a Phase 2 of her course was white- upon the world, many of us determined to Nominating BEN PATRUSKY challenge. Her perches at TV Guide, knuckle time. Gathered in a small semi- uphold the uncompromising standards she

Silurian Contingency Fund Trustees New York magazine, the Herald Tribune nar room a week later, we awaited the promoted as a self-described “severe” LARRY FRIEDMAN, CHAIR and the Today show had elevated her to verdicts on our efforts. The sessions usu- critic. “Severe,” she once explained, “is the NAT BRANDT JOY COOK rock star status at a time when the likes ally began with some peer interaction, with polite word that has been applied to me; MARK LIEBERMAN of Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris and randomly chosen students reading, out acerbic is the usual one, and a triple-S rat- MARTIN J. STEADMAN Bosley Crowther had made film criticism loud, portions of the best and the less-than- ing, as a ‘snide, sarcastic supercilious Silurian News a blood sport – and naturally lots of us J- best leads. Identities were usually pre- bitch,’ is the most glorious epithet I’ve got- BERNARD KIRSCH, EDITOR School strivers wanted in. served, although there were occasional ten from an industry man.” PAGE 4 SILURIAN NEWS DECEMBER 2012 A Lifetime of Achievement Continued from Page 1 ing, Steinem is quoted as saying that when tative Shirley Chisholm in her run for it comes to suffering in wartime, “we do president back in 1972 when no one took not need a competition of tears.” seriously the campaign of the first black In her campaigning this year, Steinem woman to be elected to Congress. This gave top position to equal pay for equiva- collaboration led to the creation of the lent work. The “greatest stimulus our National Women’s Political Caucus. economy could ever get,” she said, would When she looks back — which is not of- be to raise the pay of women to match ten — Steinem speaks of her “long men’s pay for jobs of comparable worth. memory” but doesn’t force anyone to do Those bumps in women’s paychecks subtraction: I’m 78 years old, she says, would not go to a bank in the Bahamas, then, “It’s a form of coming out to tell she says, but for groceries, medical care your age, isn’t it?” and tuition. Building families, building jobs. Right now, Steinem is finishing yet an- When she is asked where will the money other book, this one called “Road to the come from, she says, “Companies’ out- Heart: America as if Everyone Mat- rageous profits.” tered.” It’s an account of Steinem’s trav- She grows blunt and angry when she els to get the equality message out, a con- hears the welfare of “the female half” of tinuation of more than 50 years of jour- the United States described as a social nalism and activism. issue; it is a prime economic issue, she A 1956 honors graduate from Smith, says. Steinem burst on the national scene in When she got to Albuquerque in Octo- 1963 the same way Nellie Bly did in The ber and stood before a room full of jour- New York World 76 years earlier: she nalists texting, taking photos, writing notes went undercover. Bly got herself com- on laptops and notebooks, she opened her mitted to the asylum on Blackwell’s Is- arms and proclaimed, “Life is just one big land; Steinem got a job as a bunny editorial meeting!” for Show magazine. No need to belabor The meeting she was addressing, the the parallels, but in both cases, the ac- Journalism & Women Symposium, or counts brought changes in the lives of JAWS, was organized in 1985 and is near- women in the places they investigated. ing its 30th anniversary. Some of its mem- In 1968, Steinem helped found New bers, like me, go back a way. But the York magazine, holding a job as political meeting brought an upsurge of young columnist and also writing features. Be- women clamoring to learn and find men- yond that, as Prof. Carolyn G. Heilbrun tors and connections among experienced shows in her biography, “The Education generations of journalists. Steinem thrives of a Woman,” Steinem was a fountain of in this youthful grove, urging older Joan Roth for the Ms. Foundation for Education and Communication ideas: assignments, names for depart- women to ask questions of the young — Gloria Steinem and the author, Betsy Wade, at Ms. magazine’s 40th anniversary party ments, covers – the works. When Ms. for example, “What’s unfair in your life?” on Nov. 7 in New York. Ms. Steinem was a founding editor of the magazine. began, she held the job of editor for 15 — and then listen. Her description of years. Her innovations are too many to results brought some material that might complained of having to give blow jobs be 3 – 10, 12.” list: “ Take Our Daughters to Work Day” startle editors. to boyfriends who considered this a form At an informal evening session, is one example. For example, Linda Deutsch, the long- of contraception. Steinem said that she Katherine Lanpher, a broadcast journal- Her current journalism “home” is the time court reporter for the AP in Los An- asked the young women if they had ist now living in Brooklyn, assumed the Women’s Media Center, which she cre- geles, asked from the floor: “Why do thought of asking their companions to re- role of a “Jewish mother,” asking if ated in 2005 with Jane Fonda and Robin these young Hollywood women dress like turn the favor. Steinem was “seeing anybody” lately. Morgan. It has a Web site and dozens of sluts?” “They said, ‘Ugh, gross!’ then they Steinem laughed, pausing to interject that continuing projects. “She Source,” for “It’s all right to look like sluts if we thought and said, ‘hummmm.’ ” her mother was not Jewish though her example, is an electronic Rolodex. like,” Steinem replied, referring to the At meetings of , father was. (Steinem married David Bale Julie Burton, the center’s president, “slutwalk” in the movie “Legally the contention “there are two sides to in 2000. He died three years later.) Her says the organization’s far-flung leaders Blonde.” She said she herself had some- every question” does not usually pass response was perfect Steinem: “All of are steadily hands-on, with weekly Skype times been labeled a slut. Her tombstone, unchallenged. It frequently sends discus- those brain cells that were occupied with meetings keeping everyone in the loop. she said, should read: “Here lies a slut sion into the matter of the “war con- sex are suddenly free for other things.” In 2010, Burton says, Steinem, gripped by from East Toledo.” struct” in telling a story: black vs. white, She added: “I am healthy. I am doing a book she had read, “Sexual Violence Media, Steinem said, describing a con- left vs. right — a paragraph for the truth, what I love. I am struggling with trying Against Jewish Women During the Ho- ference on halting the trafficking of a paragraph for the lie. Steinem will not not to think that I am immortal.” Asked locaust,” started a new W.M.C. project, women, is “our collective campfire,” a let the road to fairness be boiled down to to whom she would pass the torch, she “Women Under Siege,” to assess this type place to open up questions and find solu- male vs. female. She said the time would said: “I am not giving up my torch. I am of warfare. In an article about whether tions. She reported on a conversation come when we understand “there are using my torch to light everyone else’s.” wartime rape was increasing or decreas- with a small group of young women who not two sides to every issue — there may For which, many thanks, Ms. Steinem. A Woman Correspondent in Vietnam: Fictionalized Truth Continued from Page 1 detail in the two-volume set. In any event, the AP, and privy to how that large and writing the book is “Why Vietnam?” Not that was my starting point. I’ve still got a grand organization operates and how in- sure. I think the idea of the difficulties of copy of the map from that book that de- credibly different a second-to-second a woman in the news business blossomed tailed every spot of any importance to his deadline is from a daily one. This insight while working at The Detroit News as story: , The Times, AP, UPI, the was critical to comprehending 1968 an assistant city editor assigned to zone Embassy, CBS, NBC, AFP, the Caravelle Saigon. pages (read that burbs). I had in my Hotel, the Continental, and, the setting for Ultimately, I didn’t end up changing much charge all the restless Young Turks who the Follies, JUSPAO. When I travelled of the structure of the novel or my idea of were trying to work their way to the years later to Vietnam to double check what the story was. It was really more a “main” paper. After a few years of herd- my research, a guide pointed out to me question of bringing things back around, ref- ing reporters covering over 80 suburban what he said was the Opera House. With- erencing the signposts that keep the reader school districts, Down River auto plant out thinking how rude it sounded, I snapped in familiar territory. And after all these years, disruptions, and a yearly Floatable Boat- back: “That’s not the Opera House, it’s the I’ve finally gotten the hang of it. I’ve re- able contest in the northern reaches, it’s National Assembly Building.” Knowing my cently completed another novel and begun no wonder that I chose a more exciting mission, he took it in stride. “It probably was a third. It’s wonderful to have a second venue to set my fictional riff. And, Viet- in 1968,” he replied, “but I’m too young to career, and to be able to use to great ad- nam was big on our minds at the time. remember.” Over the years, I would peri- vantage all the skills I learned in the first – Later, working in the Viewpoints sec- odically drag out the rejected manuscript, to get it right, be accurate and vivid with tion at Newsday, I ran across a book in and haul myself off to a fiction-writing work- details, and tell the truth as best one can. the slush pile titled “Big Story” by Peter shop. I began slowly to develop the notion Hemingway, in a 1934 piece in Esquire Braestrup. It was an immense, 529-page that reporting is linear and fiction is circular; titled “Old Newsman Writes,” said: “All minute-by-minute analysis of press cov- began to understand what people mean by good books are alike in that they are truer erage of the Tet Offensive. I didn’t real- “Chekhov’s gun”: If there is a loaded rifle than if they had really happened ... the ize until later that I was reading the in the first act, it needs to be fired in the people and the places and how the abridged version. I can only imagine the second. By this time I was working for Theasa Tuohy weather was.” DECEMBER 2012 SILURIAN NEWS PAGE 5

Shepard and Povich: Two for the Show Appearing at times like one of those couples on an old-time radio show - trading bits of dialog, reminiscing and taking questions from the audience - the husband-and-wife team of Steve Shepard and Lynn Povich en- tertained a crowd of almost 80 Silurians and their guests at The Players as the featured attraction at the Nov. 15 lunch. They talked about their careers and their new books, touching on such topics as the current state of journalism, the future of print media, and the decades-old struggle for gender equality in news organizations, as well as about their 33 years of marriage. Shepard, the founding dean of the Gradu- ate School of Journalism at CUNY and the editor-in-chief of Business Week for two de- cades, is the author of “Deadlines and Dis- ruption: My Turbulent Path From Print to Digi- tal.” Povich, who rose from a secretarial po- sition at Newsweek to become the magazine’s first female senior editor, has chronicled that story in “The Good Girls Re- volt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued Their Bosses and Changed the Workplace.” They stayed long after lunch to sign copies of both books, which were snapped up (at Mort Sheinman special Silurian discounts). Steve Shepard and Lynn Povich spoke about their new books at the Nov. 15 Silurians lunch. The Education of a Timesman By Ralph Blumenthal paper strike of 1962-3. With the paper shut down, management was reduced to put- he New York Times’s wise and ting carbon copies [note to self: explain to jovial Richard F. Shepard – he younger generation] of correspondents’s Twho never ate lunch at his desk raw dispatches in wire baskets in the lobby – caught me one morning tearing across of 229 West 43d Street for anyone to pick Broadway at 43d Street. I was late for up. Which I did. Then as editor-in-chief work. Dick stopped me and shook his of the City College Campus, the school’s head disapprovingly. “Ralph, why are proud paper of record since 1907, I edited you running?” he chided. “It’s not your and cut the stories for space and ran them own business.” in The Campus. They took quite a bit of Oh, but I felt it was. Since being hired trimming, too, as our pages were consid- as a Times news clerk, basically a lowly erably smaller than The Times’s. Oops, copy boy, out of Columbia Journalism sorry about your kicker, Scotty. School in the summer of 1964, I was ea- But now as I started as a clerk in the ger to make my mark in a hurry. I had newsroom, I was just a minion. How green already apprenticed as the City College became clear my first day when I stringer, phoning in all the news fit to print stopped to answer a ringing phone at a from Harlem Heights, at 50 cents a col- small desk where proofs of editorials umn-inch. And for a brief but glorious were checked beside the tiny elevator In 1962, Ralph Blumenthal was editor-in-chief of the City College newspaper, The Campus. time, I had shamelessly capitalized on the to the fourth-floor composing room. was an awkward pause, I realized the caller in a trash bin. misfortune of others to publish bits of my “Ralph?” said a voice. How nice, I was looking for another Ralph – Ralph I wanted to make sure I had heard own daily New York Times. thought, they already knew my name. Chodes, it turned out, the editorial page that right. Scoop up the copies that other It was during the ruinous 114-day news- But when I answered yes, and there assistant. people kept putting there, take them out OK, I said, who was calling? of sight and dump them? “It’s Punch,” the caller said. Exactly, I was told. I cupped my hand over the mouthpiece But why? I asked. and shouted if anyone knew where Ralph Ah, I was informed, if anyone saw you was, some guy named Punch was look- dump the copies, they might no longer put ing for him. them there. Ten people dived for the phone, apolo- Of course. This, after all, was the pa- gizing profusely. That’s when I learned per of innumerable unfathomable rules. No the nickname of our publisher, Arthur matter how many stories you wrote for Ochs Sulzberger. that day’s paper, you could get only one It was a quirky place, the old New York byline. If you wrote a Page One story and Times. One of my first jobs, it was care- an analysis piece, known as a Q-hed, as fully explained to me, was to make peri- much as you wanted the front page glory, odic passes of the WQXR desk, where the byline had to go on the Q-hed. If two news was written for the Times-owned reporters collaborated on a story, only one radio station, and scoop out the carbon cop- could get the byline – and no credit line ies of stories, known as blacks, left in a for the other, either. Until, one day, those wire basket. [OK, kiddies, before Xerox strictures were suddenly lifted. The Times machines, you made a copy by inserting a was, indeed, the paper of permanent, in- thin sheet of black carbon paper between flexible, ever-changing rules. two sheets of typing paper; at The Times, Our harsh taskmaster was the sassy, reporters wrote on 10-part books of pre- dwarfish Sammy Solovitz, a onetime West- sandwiched typing paper and carbon ern Union delivery boy who had showed sheets, so there was always the original up at The Times during the war with a tele- for the desk, a copy for the writer and gram, and with the shortage of manpower, eight other copies for various editors. was quickly hired for the newsroom. He Now, a typewriter – oh, never mind!] corralled us copy boys with tyrannical glee, Anyway, my job was to grab a sheaf once looking over our privileged ranks and of the carbon copies out of WQXR’s in- fastening on one particular preppy recruit. basket and take them around the corner “And what country does your father own, In1970, the author was a correspondent for The New York Times in its Saigon bureau. and, when no one was looking, dump them Continued on Page 6 PAGE 6 SILURIAN NEWS DECEMBER 2012 2012 2012 “I was never much of a saver, but I did A Gift That I Kept On Kicking save those old pads,” Gilmer continued. “Now, I had made many moves after my By Ira Berkow for two years, before Gilmer decided to playing days, but I always took those pads retire. He went on to become an assis- wherever I went. One day I got a call from rying to mind my own business tant coach in the pros and head coach at Dick McCann, who was then with the Pro – but, as a reporter is wont, Detroit. Football Hall of Fame in Canton – Dick Tminding others’ as well — I was I asked Gilmer, then 58, six feet tall and was an executive with the Redskins when having coffee in the press room before a looking as trim as in his 170-pound play- I played there – and he asked if he could Giants-Cardinals football game in St. Louis ing days, if he had ever received a foot- get those pads for the Hall of Fame. when my ears perked up. It was Dec. 9, ball for Christmas. He said no, that his fam- “I was never the kind of player to be 1984, a time when the holidays and gift ily, living in Birmingham, Ala., during the elected to the Hall of Fame. But my shoul- giving are in the air, or on the credit card. Depression, had been too poor. But he re- der pads were – I thought that was great. I was there to write a Sports of the Times called that once he did receive a pair of old I told Dick, Sure, I’ll look for them. But I column and, as it happened, I soon found shoulder pads. They were given to him by couldn’t find them. I guess they had got- myself in conversation with two other an assistant coach at Alabama, when ten lost in one of my moves” sportswriters and a third man. The third Gilmer was a freshman there in 1944. Perhaps somewhere in this favored man wore a cowboy hat and a genial “The two of us had gone down into a land, in the bottom of some pile, lie old manner, and was introduced to me. “Like storage room under the athletic building to shoulder pads with one flap off and the you to meet Harry Gilmer,” said one of get something,” recalled Gilmer, “and I saw name “Herkey Mosley” on them, and the sportswriters. I didn’t have to ask these old little bitty pads in a corner of a nestled alongside an old football with the “Who?” dirt floor under a pile of rubbish. I never bladder showing signed “Harry Gilmer.” Harry Gilmer was then a scout for the Harry Gilmer saw pads so small. They interested me. POSTSCRIPT: Harry Gilmer was in- Cardinals, but that wasn’t the “Who” I kicked it, played touch football with “A always wants light pads ducted into the Hall of knew. I hesitated for a moment or so. But friends in nearby Independence Park and in order to throw better. I brought them Fame in 1993, and now lives in O’Fallon, when one of the sportswriters mentioned on the street. One afternoon, when a into the light. The only inscription on the Mo., a suburb west of St. Louis He has something about growing up with two sis- number of cars tooled by suspending the pads was the name ‘Herky Mosley.’ four children, eight grandchildren and 10 ters, I said: “Well, I grew up with a Harry game momentarily, one of our players Herkey had played for Alabama about 10 great grandchildren. He is 86 years old and Gilmer football. I got it as a present for shouted in annoyance at a driver, “What years before. His brother, Monk Mosley, “is doing fine,” said his daughter, Connie, the holidays when I was nine years old.” is this, a boulevard?” At some point, the played with me there. Anyway, who knows by telephone. Now, Gilmer, who had played prima- hide began to tear and the bladder to peep how old those shoulder pads were before rily as a backup quarterback for nine sea- through, and it was soon curtains for my Herky put his name on them? sons in the in beloved Harry Gilmer football. “I asked the assistant coach if I could New Members the 1940’s and 1950’s, and I had never When Gilmer came out of the Univer- have them. He said, `Sure, but I don’t know Jacqueline Adams, former Emmy-winning met. Gilmer smiled at me and said, “Did sity of Alabama as an all-America quar- what you’re gonna do with ‘em.’ There correspondent for CBS News, now head of J. Adams the football make you ill?” terback and a Rose Bowl MVP and the was a leather flap missing on the right side, Strategic Communications, a consultancy. “Uh, no,” I replied, “why?” first-round draft choice of the Washing- and I asked the equipment manager if he’d Neil Amdur, former sportswriter and sports editor of “Because it made the manufacturer ill.” ton Redskins in 1948, George Marshall, sew on a new flap. The New York Times, now head of Amdur Productions, The football didn’t do much for Bobby the owner of the team, made a deal with “I used those pads for all four years at multi-media. Drain’s health either. Bobby lived across Dubow, a sports equipment company Alabama and for all nine years in the pros. Jean A. Briggs, who was a reporter, writer and editor Springfield Avenue from me on the west based in Chicago, for a line of football And every year I had an equipment man- at Forbes magazine from 1972 until retiring as side of Chicago. On that quiet, crisp holi- paraphernalia with Gilmer’s signature. ager repair them and renovate them. Guys assistant managing editor in 2007. day morning in 1949 (probably Hanuk- “The idea was,” said Gilmer, “that if I were shocked at how small they were, and Joan M. Burke, who started at CBS News in 1969, kah, but I’d sometimes get a bonus at would make it big, we’d make a lot of were always joking about throwing them was a writer and producer, and later joined NBC News, Christmas – perhaps in honor of a song money.” He smiled, and added: “It never in the garbage, but I loved them.” Near where she was an executive producer. Since 2000, my father enjoyed, “White Christmas,” quite panned out. I think the stuff was on the end of Gilmer’s playing career, a De- she’s been writing plays. written by the Jewish Irving Berlin), I took the market for one season.” troit defensive back named Jack Charles K. Coates, former reporter, writer and the football into the snowy street and be- Gilmer was supposed to have replaced Christiansen broke his arm, and Coach producer at NBC News; also taught journalism at gan to kick it. The thump of foot meeting the great at quarterback. said to Gilmer: “I want you University of New Mexico. ball and the boom of ball bouncing off “But,” said Gilmer, “Sammy played five to play in Jack’s place against the 49ers. Karen A. Frenkel, freelance science and technology parked cars roused Bobby from his sleep. more years.” But you can’t wear those old pads.” writer and editor, and author. It was early and Bobby, then in his 20’s, Meanwhile, Gilmer played some in the Gilmer reluctantly put on new pads, and Doug Hearle, who started at the New York had probably been out celebrating late the defensive backfield, and in 1952, when it happened that Carroll Hardy, a 49er re- Journal-American as a copy boy in the 1950’s and night before. He didn’t look so good as Charlie (Choo Choo) Justice broke his ceiver, got behind him and caught a touch- became night city editor. he hung out the window he had opened arm Gilmer was used at running back and down pass. “Parker yanked me,” said Judith Hole, former producer at CBS News for more and hollered, “Get that damn football outta led the Redskins in number of rushes. He Gilmer, “and brought in Christiansen, bro- than 50 years, working on shows ranging from “CBS here!” made the team that year, but ken arm and all.” Reports” and “’s Universe” to “CBS Calendar pages had fallen away, and it for his entire pro career he never played When I mentioned to Gilmer that maybe This Morning” and, most recently, “Sunday Morning.” Retired in September. was odd but enjoyable now to run into the first-string quarterback. the new pads had been too heavy for him man who autographed the sports present In 1955, he was traded to the Detroit to lift his arms to block the pass, he smiled Helen Jonsen, former reporter at Channels 5 and 11, I received 35 years before. And what Lions, for whom he was the backup for, and said, “Gee, hadn’t thought of that ex- starting in 1977; senior editor and exec producer at Forbes.com Video; director of digital media at Working pleasure it had given me. I kicked it and yes, the great . This lasted cuse.” Mother Media; now editor-in-chief of Howdini.com and VP of Content at its parent, Touchstorm LLC. blurted, “When? For how long?” Somehow, I ended up with a Bloody Phillip Kasofsky, formerly with Time Inc., as editor of medical articles, and author of numerous freelance Timesman “About two years,” Gelb said – and Mary, maybe two. Not a great idea if you’re pieces on medicine and finance for Wall Street Continued from Page 5 he was gone. trying to stay focused at a crucial lunch. Journal, Investors Business Daily, Medical World News sonny?” Sammy asked. I ran after him, pleading. I was single. Gelb bored in. This assignment, he in- and other publications. At night, as other New York papers I loved it in Manhattan. I didn’t want to sisted, required a rare maturity. I was a very Dr. Judith Kuriansky, former feature reporter at were hitting the stands, Sammy would dis- move to the suburbs. Why Westchester? mature young man, mature beyond my years. WABC-TV, WCBS-TV and CNBC, as well as contributor patch us, asking who among us had bach- Couldn’t we at least discuss it? I was young, yes, but I had this maturity... to CBS News’s Morning Show and Lifetime. Print, radio and TV commentator about mental health issues elors degrees. Many hands would go up. Ok, he agreed, he’d take me to lunch I flailed to get out of this. I couldn’t – I relative to the news. And who among us, Sammy would ask, at Sardi’s tomorrow. could not – bear exile to the suburbs. “But had masters degrees? Some fewer hands. I was wary of Gelb. Metro editor Abe Arthur,” I protested, “what if I get stuck “Awwwwright,” he would growl, Rosenthal’s brilliant but sometimes erratic up there?” “youse with the bachelors degrees go deputy, he was renowned for his outsize He brought his fist down on the table, In Memoriam down to the corner and pick up 15 Daily enthusiasms and wild impulses. He had sending my Bloody Mary jumping. “That Newses. And youse with the masters, once invited me into his cubicle-size of- just shows how immature you are!” he said. Terry Mayer pick up 20 Herald Tribs.” fice by the newsroom mailboxes for a chat. Of course, I went to Westchester for Evan Frances Agnew I survived Sammy and made the report- I was nervous. two years. Clearly, I had a lot to learn. Judith Crist ing staff. One day in 1966, I was ham- “Ralph,” he began casually, “you know mering away on deadline, the newsroom what the guys say about me...” Ralph Blumenthal retired from The Times William Wallace a familiar miasma of tobacco smoke, I chuckled. “Oh sure.” Everyone joked in 2009 after 45 years as a metro reporter, Lee Silver snapping typewriters, freely poured liba- about ol’ Artie. But maybe that came off foreign correspondent in Germany and Arthur Ochs (Punch) Sulzberger tions and the imprecations of pinochle play- a little too glib. Gelb seemed suddenly Vietnam, investigative reporter, arts writer ers in the back, when Arthur Gelb, the taken aback. and national bureau chief in Texas and the “What?” he demanded. Southwest. He led the team covering the 1993 gangling, frenetic assistant metro editor bombing of the World Trade Center, which Society of the Silurians came loping down the aisle. He stopped I did a lot of fast backpeddling. won The Times a Pulitzer Prize for spot re- at my desk and, as if struck by a sudden So I was on my guard at Sardi’s. I had porting. A Guggenheim fellow and author of PO Box 1195, thought, said, “Ralph, we want to send rehearsed it all in my mind well in advance. Madison Square Station five non-fiction books, he is currently a New York, NY 10159 you to Westchester.” I’d give him all the reasons this was a bad Distinguished Lecturer teaching journalism 212.532.0887 My concentration shattered, and idea. I was doing well on the city beat. and public administration at Baruch College www.silurians.org shocked by the suddenness of the offer, I This wasn’t the assignment for me. of the City University of New York.