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Michigan Political History Society • PO Box 4684 • East Lansing, MI 48826-4684 www.miphs.com Summer 2008 Mark Your Calendars! PLEASE JOIN MPHS FOR A TRIBUTE TO GovernorGovernor WilliamWilliam G.G. MillikenMilliken TUESDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 18---LAUREL MANOR, LIVONIA. WE WILL BE SENDING INVITATIONS VERY SOON! Michigan Political History Society Page 2 MPHS looks at Capital Press Corps history By Sheila O’Brien Schimpf The Michigan Political History Society hosted a panel discussion on The History of the Michigan Capital Press Corps in the 1950’s-60’s June 16 at the Michigan Chamber of Commerce. The panel was the first of three events examining the history of Michigan’s capital press corps. Future panels will look at the press corps in the seventies through the nineties. Four journalists who worked in the Michigan Capital Press Corps during the 1950’s and 60’s em- phasized just how different life in the Capitol was then but most recalled it as a good time in their ca- Marcia Van Ness responds to a question from the audience. reer. Roberta Stanley, MPHS Board Member and for- mer Gongwer News reporter, was the moderator for the event. She introduced the panel by saying the reporters started at small town dailies in Michi- gan communities -- Mt. Pleasant, Albion, Ypsilanti, Coldwater -- and went on to work for wire services, both AP and UPI, and bigger newspapers. “Every single one of us went to Michigan State University, most of us attending the Journalism School,” she said. “It was an honor and a professional measure of success to be named to a slot in the Capital Press Corps.” Dick Milliman, MPHS President David Murley, Panel Moderator The panelists included: Roberta Stanley, Pat McCarthy, Marcia Van Ness, Dale Arnold. • Dick Milliman (Lansing State Journal; Press Secretary for George Romney) gan spent $46.1 billion during fiscal year 2007, ac- • Pat McCarthy (Lansing State Journal) cording to the state web site.) • Marcia Van Ness (Lansing State Journal) Broadcast reporters began to arrive in the 1960s, • Dale Arnold (United Press International) Milliman said, bringing with them a few built-in Dick Milliman began the discussion by noting conflicts with the print reporters who had always how different the capital of the 1950’s was from thought of the capital as their beat. the capital of today. “There were two state gov- Government may have been smaller but it still ernment buildings and the Capitol. That was state had the need to communicate with the press. Mil- government, period,” Milliman, who covered the liman, who became Gov. George Romney’s press capital for the Lansing State Journal in the 1950s, secretary after his election in 1962, said Gov. G. remembered. Even the Supreme Court was in the Mennen Williams had two press conferences a day Capitol Building then. Reporters could walk into -- one for papers with morning deadlines and one state offices in the Capitol and interview legislators for papers with afternoon deadlines. Newspapers and agency heads in person, according to Milliman. had more space for capital news back then, Milli- Legislators had few staff members. man noted, and the public paid closer attention. As Michigan Government was not only smaller and state government grew larger and more important its political officials more accessible, but the Mich- to people’s lives, the capital press corps also grew igan Legislature met on a part-time basis. This al- larger. It numbered about 17 people in 1953-54, in- lowed reporters to use the off-season to do research creased to 20 people in 1959-60, until, according to and write detailed stories on other aspects of gov- Marcia Van Ness, it reached 44 people (29 print and ernment. For example, Milliman thought that track- 15 broadcast members) by 1971-72. Today, noted ing the budget would be a smart thing for a reporter audience member and AP bureau chief Kathy Barks to do, and in the early 1950s, he wrote a series on Hoffman, only 11 reporters for six companies, plus the Michigan budget called “A Billion Dollar Busi- ness.” (To put that number in perspective, Michi- (See Capital Press, Page 3) Michigan Political History Society Page 3 Capital Press from Page 2 the Gongwer and MIRS reporters, are capital regu- dumped on a table in the Capitol. Weeks went to get lars. the ruling and Arnold stayed in the press room that Marcia Van Ness, who began covering the Capital was off the Senate chamber. “George read enough in 1969, was one of few women reporters assigned to know it was a ‘no,’” Arnold said. “George was in to the Capitol, and was regarded as something of the balcony.” a novelty. “Legislators would address everyone as Arnold was supposed to watch for Weeks’ signal ‘gentlemen,’” she remembered. Many assumed she -- thumb up or down-- and send the already-written was not a reporter; for example, sometimes people story over the teletype machine, minutes ahead of would ask Bill Baird, the Lansing State Journal AP. Weeks wanted to make sure Arnold saw the bureau chief, whether Van Ness was his assistant. thumbs down and leaned over the railing. “I thought “Bill Baird was an outstanding gentleman in every he was going to fall over,’’ Arnold said. They beat way,’’ Van Ness said. “He would say, ‘No, she’s my the AP. colleague.’” Pat McCarthy, who was a reporter for the Lan- While Van Ness was one of the few women sing State Journal for 25 years including two five- capitol reporters during her time, she could never year stints on the Capital Beat, said covering the claim to be the first. That distinction belonged to Capital was fun. a pioneering woman reporter in the 1940s, Roberta “There was a certain sense of competition,’’ he Applegate, whose name was sometimes changed by said. “Some people would go around hiding things copy editors to “Robert.” so you couldn’t see them.’’ Access to elected officials was much different Sometimes legislators would run ideas past re- back then, Van Ness noted. For example, if she porters as a test balloon, McCarthy said, and some- stood outside the governor’s office on the second times at Christmas, a bottle of whiskey showed up floor in the Capitol, she could sometimes see him with a reporter’s name on it, a gift from a lobbyists at work at his desk, a feat security has made impos- that ethics codes today do not allow. “That was a sible today. “That was a different era,’’ she said. nice little unreported payment for the job,’’ McCar- One interesting phenomenon Van Ness dis- thy joked. cussed was the conflict that arose between “tradi- Committee meetings were sometimes held in se- tional” print media and “modern” television media. cret, McCarthy said, behind locked doors. “One day One area of conflict was competition for space. we took a picture of the Ways & Means Committee Van Ness remembered huge cameras showing up at through a window and ran it. The next day they had press conferences that were usually held in small a newspaper up over the window.” spaces. “It would be a solid wall of cameras,’’ Van McCarthy said when interest in capital news be- Ness said, “and we were behind them and we were gan to wane, it was hurried by an attitude among there first. That was the beginning of ‘how are we editors, attributed to Al Neuharth, that “Govern- going to work this out.’” ment is boring.” Print reporters routinely covered a meeting or a “That type of thinking did permeate down story until the end. As they were leaving a commit- through the system,’’ McCarthy said. tee hearing or a session, broadcast media would just McCarthy covered the state’s Constitutional be coming in. “And they would say, what went on Convention in the early 1960s. He discussed Rom- in there?” Van Ness said. ney’s role as chief advocate for the convention and Dale Arnold, United Press reporter, remembered noted that some legislators were nervous not only that state government was so small, one secretary because of the complete overhaul in the Constitu- worked for four or five legislators. Still it was a tion (including new legislative apportionment and thrill to be assigned to Lansing, he said. As Arnold, election cycles), but also because each member of who came to Lansing as a United Press reporter the constitutional delegation represented competi- from Albion in the 1950s, put it, “Coming to the tion for their seats. capital was really a big deal for me.” After the program concluded, former Attorney Arnold, a United Press reporter, said his bureau General Frank Kelley agreed with the journalists wanted to beat the Associated Press on every story. that things today are much different from when he “I worked with George Weeks for two years about took office in 1962. “If you called a press confer- ’58,” Arnold said. Once when the state Supreme ence, you had it in your office, set up six or eight Court was expected to hand down an important chairs,” Kelley said. The reporters who came were opinion, Arnold and Weeks wrote two leads, one all male, and no television or radio reporters came. upholding the lower court ruling and one overturn- “And,” he said, “you got much more space in the ing it. In those days Supreme Court opinions were papers.” Michigan Political History Society Page 4 Frankenmuth’sFrankenmuth’s hiddenhidden gemgem When you mention Frankenmuth to most people in Michigan, certain destinations come to mind. For those who love fine German food, they think of Bavarian Inn or Zehnder’s.

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