july/august 2010

AT SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY CARBONDALE

“Obsession”takesphotographerto

thetop

byRi

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Jul / Aug 2010Vol 40 Number 318$4.00

Sinquefield proves politicians can be bought

FormerSt. LouisanRandy Olson

sjreview.org

SJR MOVES TO SIU-C

SJR Jul-Aug 2010:z-Issue Template 7/28/10 10:28 AM

FEATURES9 Whistleblower’s slog to get wiretap story into the media /

Margie Burns

12 Call to end St. Louis Earnings Tax shows one millionaire’spolitical reach / Jessica Bellomo

13 Sinquefield Profile / Jessica Bellomo

14 A top National Geographic photographer’s serendipitouscareer: Randy Olson / Rick Stoff

20 A potpourri / C.C. Stelzer

21 Wall Street Journal plays up the quirky / D.J. Wilson

22 Adventures in small-town newspapering / Avis Meyer

24 Parking (porking) at Grand Center / Joe Pollack

COLUMNS3 Letters

Let’s hear it for LPs / John HuxholdA scam to boost subscriptions? / Terry Beckmeyer

3 Off the record

Daily Circulation

The power of journalism / Media Gaggle

Newspapers get a windfall / Missouri State Treasurer

Meme: Obama as foreigner / Art Silverblatt

A kid discovers the power of radio / Frank Absher

Lou Rose—one of a kind / Roy Malone

KTVI in race with KSDK, KMOV for viewers / Katy Bachman

The day the music died / Roy Malone

Is this our Perfect Knight?

Copy desk winners and losers

8 SJR finds a new home / Charles L. Klotzer

11 Flawed reporting on health care polls / Terry Jones

18 Greed drives college grid expansion / Joe Pollack

19 Playing the Blues on R&B radio / Frank Absher

26 Media NotesMedia, Media Awards, Ad/PR, Ad/PR Awards/ Books /In Memoriam

28 Sources Say. . .Lee hits five-year mark with Post-Dispatch / Roy Malone

Editor-in-ChiefWilliam A. Babcock

St. Louis EditorRoy Malone

Editor/Publisher EmeritusCharles L. Klotzer

IllustratorSteve Edwards

DesignerFrank Roth

CartoonistTom Engelhardt

Media/PoliticsTerry Jones

Art/Sports/MediaJoe Pollack

Ad/PRRick Stoff

Radio HistoryFrank Absher

Board of Editorial AdvisersFrank Absher Jim KirchherrLisa Bedian Roy MaloneEd Bishop Tammy MerrettDavid Cohen Avis MeyerDon Corrigan Michael MurrayRita Csapo-Sweet Steve PerronEileen Duggan Joe PollackTom Engelhardt Michael D. SorkinDavid P. Garino Rick StoffTed Gest Fred SweetWilliam Greenblatt Lynn VenhausDaniel Hellinger

Board of DirectorsRobert A. Cohn Michael E. KahnDon Corrigan Charles L. KlotzerJohn P. Dubinsky Roy MaloneGerald Early Paul SchoomerDavid P. Garino Dr. Moisy ShopperRay Hartmann Ken Solomon

The St. Louis Journalism Review8380 Olive Blvd

St. Louis, Mo. 63132-2814Phone: (314) 991-1699 • Fax: (314) 997-1898

e-mail: [email protected]

www.sjreview.org

JULY / AUGUST 2010 Volume 40 Number 318

SJR The St. Louis Journalism Review (USPS 738-450 ISSN: 0036-2972) ispublished bi-monthly, by SJR St. Louis Journalism Review Inc., a non-profitcorporation. The office of publication is 8380 Olive Blvd., St. Louis, MO63132-2814. Subscription rates: $25 (6 issues), $44 (12 issues) $62 (18issues), $80 (24 issues), $98 (30 issues),. Foreign subscriptions higherdepending upon country.Periodical postage paid at Washington, Missouri and additional mailingoffices. Please enclose stamped, self-addressed envelope with manu-script.Copyright © 2010 by SJR St. Louis Journalism Review. No portion of thisjournal may be reproduced without the express permission of the pub-lisher. Indexed in the Alternative Press Index. Allow one month for addresschanges. Postmaster: Send address changes toThe St. Louis Journalism Review8380 Olive Blvd.St. Louis, Mo. 63132.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 73-85160

JULY/AUGUST 2010 SJR ST LOUIS JOURNALISM REVIEW | 2

At Southern Illinois University Carbondale


Let’s hear it for LPsI enjoyed Jian Leng's pieceon “The Future of Ink onPaper.” I was especiallystruck by the last para-graph which, with the

change of a few words if I may, re-minds me of another related senti-ment:“Even if LPs eventually give way to

downloads or digital discs, LPs willcontinue to be loved for many yearsto come. LPs may become much

more expensive or hard to find, butthe physicality of an LP is a muchmore beautiful information-storagedevice than an iPod or digital player,and provides a dimension of pleasureunequalled by the digital alternative.”

John HuxholdManchester, MO.

A scam to boost subscriptions?In order to lure subscribers,the Suburban Journals andtheir parent company the

Post-Dispatch, have entered into anintentional scam to defraud the pub-lic. A small scam by most measures,but I always believed the PD was inthe business of representing thetruth. The SJ offered a $29 subscrip-tion with two FREE Cardinals tickets,and they have their regular subscrip-tion at $19. When I called the sub-scription desk at the SJ, I was toldthat the tickets were not really freethat it was just a gimmick. I e-mailedthe SJ and the PD but without a suc-cessful resolution to this deception.

Terry BeckmeyerSt. Louis

Daily circulationThe June edition of Edi-tor & Publisher reportsthat the Audit Bureau ofCirculation figures showthat the Wall Street Jour-nal had the top daily cir-

culation with 2,092,523 that showeda gain of 0.5 percent. The ChicagoTribune was listed in 9th place witha circulation of 452,145.The St. Louis Post-Dispatch was

not listed for daily circulation amongthe top 25 newspapers.The Post was listed 14th among

the top 25 for Sunday circulation. Ithad a circulation of 400,042. TheKansas City Star had a Sunday circu-lation of 314,449 and was listed inthe 25th place. The Chicago Tribunewith a Sunday circulation of 794,350was listed in 4th place.

The power of journalismEnter Roy Gutman, whoexposed a network of con-centration camps run byBosnian Serbs, whereMuslims were beaten,starved and often mur-

dered. Some 5,000 to 6,000 liveswere saved, after Gutman’s PulitzerPrize-winning reporting in Newsday.In ghastly scenes mirroring

Hitler’s concentration camps, im-ages of desperate civilians clingingto life shocked the world. Whole vil-lages were deported and thousandsof Bosnian women were systemati-cally raped by Bosnian Serbs from1992–1995.It’s heartbreaking to imagine what

would have happened today if areporter asked editors if he couldspend six months chasing a story inBosnia with an interpreter and pho-tographer. Those death camps prob-

commentary

3 | JULY/AUGUST 2010 SJR ST LOUIS JOURNALISM REVIEW

off the record

letters

letters


ably would have gone uncovered—like much of the world.Newsday has closed all of its for-

eign bureaus, and most major mediaoutlets have abandoned foreignposts. Vast corners of the world havebeen deserted by the American pressat a time when there has never beena greater need for investigative re-porting.It took Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herze-

govina leaders 17 years to belatedlyshine the spotlight on Gutman, 66,one of America’s finest foreign corre-spondents. On the 65th anniversaryof the city’s liberation after WorldWar II, Gutman quietly took thestage recently in Sarajevo and washanded the keys to the city andmadean honorary citizen.“I’m walking on air,” said Gutman

in an interview with Media Gaggle.“It’s a terrific honor. It’s ironic get-ting a key from a city that has nogates and could never be surroundedby a wall because it is in the valley.”Gutman’s stories helped mobilize

the United Nations and other West-ern governments to establish theInternational Criminal Tribunal forformer Yugoslavia in 1993. Sincethen dozens of war criminals havebeen convicted and jailed.In the golden age of the American

media’s coverage of the world, for-eign correspondents were at the cut-ting-edge of history. Within the pastdecade, hundreds of foreign corre-spondents have been forced out ofwork as cash-strapped media opera-tions tightened budgets. Gutman’sold employer, Newsday, once had sixcorrespondents all over the worldand now there isn’t a single bureau.By 2006 Gutman, then Newsday’s

last foreign editor, left the newspa-per with a heavy heart.“I was totally distressed. It’s a ter-

rible setback for the media industryand the general public. Now there isa very limited selection of news fromplaces that matter. There is aninability to go out there and dothings nobody else is doing,” Gut-man said.

Media Gaggle

Newspapers get ad windfallNewspapers in Missourigot $632,000 in revenuerecently when State Trea-surer Clint Zweifel placedseveral days of ads listing

more than 2.5 million accounts ofpeople who can claim assets—mostly unclaimed cash—that the

state is holding.The St. Louis Post-Dispatch got

$265,000 for running dozens ofpages of ads in June and July, saidJon Galloway, the treasurer'sspokesman.It was the first time ads were

placed in newspapers to help alertowners of unclaimed funds. Thecosts for the newspaper advertisingis taken from the unclaimed assetsfund, Galloway said.The treasurer's office is holding

over $600 million that it has receivedfrom a variety of unclaimed assetssuch as bank accounts, stocks,bonds, insurance proceeds, govern-ment refunds, utility deposits, wagesfrompast jobs and safe deposit boxes.State law requires financial insti-

tutions, insurance companies, pub-lic agencies and other business enti-ties to turn over unclaimed assets tothe state if the customer, client,employee or other owner has madeno transactions or contact for fiveyears.The assets remain with the trea-

surer indefinitely so rightful ownerscan make a claim in the future. Mis-sourians can visit www.ShowMeMoney.com to check for unclaimedassets.Zweifel said a record $35 million

was returned to 92,000 accountholders during fiscal 2010; the aver-age return was $365. However, oneunnamed St. Louis man got $1.6 mil-lion belonging to him from stocksand dividends.“This money is not the govern-

ment's, and we are returning it fasterthan ever before. I look forward tobreaking more records in fiscal year2011,” Zweifel said.The treasurer's office is also hold-

ing more than 100 unclaimed mili-tary medals, but no other personalproperty.The St. Louis region has more

than $186 million in unclaimedmoney in over 1.1 million accounts.The Kansas City region has $87 mil-lion in over 665,000 accounts.

Missouri State Treasurer

Meme: Obama as foreignerA meme is a story or ele-ment that is transmittedthroughout a culture. Theterm “meme” was originallyused to describe a certain

kind of biological system. Over time,it has been applied to transmissionof cultural information through thechannels of mass communication.Often, memes are what makes

certain stories “stick” in the media.They reflect particular areas of cul-tural concern. In general, memes areclearly identifiable in that the identi-cal story is repeated through the var-ious media. In addition, there arethematic memes or stories that, onthe surface, do not appear to berelated. However, these stories maybe aspects of a single theme.To illustrate, a number of appar-

ently unrelated stories involvingPresident Barack Obama, appear inthe media:– Obama is Muslim– Obama is not a U.S. Citizen– Obama is a Socialist– Obama is GayAlthough the specifics of these

stories differ, they share a thematicnarrative, stressing that Obama is aforeigner.Seeing these disparate stories as

a derivation of the same memereveals that most Americans associ-ate the idea of “American” withwhite skin. New York Times colum-nist Nicholas Kristof observes:“One study found that although

people realize that (Chinese-Ameri-can actress) Lucy Liu is Americanand that Kate Winslet is British,their minds automatically processan Asian face as foreign and a whiteface as American—hence this title inan academic journal: ‘Is KateWinslet More American Than LucyLiu?’ (Nicholas D. Kristof, “What?Me Biased?”)This social bias is common to the

human species—even among groupsthat are targets of racial discrimina-tion, such as Latinos and Asian-Americans. Kristof explains:

“Some scholars link racial atti-tudes to a benefit in evolutionarytimes from an ability to form snapjudgments about who is a likelyfriend and foe. There may have beenan evolutionary advantage in recog-nizing instantaneously whether astranger was from one’s own tribe orfrom an enemy tribe. There’s someevidence that the amygdala, a centerin the brain for emotions, flashes athreat warning when it perceivespeople who look ‘different’… .“It’s not that any of them actually

believed Mr. Obama to be foreign.But the implicit association test thatmeasured the way the unconsciousmind works, and in following in-structions to sort images rapidly,the mind balked at accepting a blackcandidate as fully American.”Using the implicit association

test, researchers found that sub-jects subconsciously considered

off the record



Barack Obama less American thaneither Hillary Clinton or JohnMcCain.Thus, the recurrence ofthese thematic memes, that Obamais Muslim, an illegal alien, or asocialist, are tied to racial attitudesin which people who are perceivedas different—even when they belongto the same culture—are regarded asoutsiders.

Art SilverblattWebster University

A kid discovers the power of radioSometimes in the inno-cence of youth, a windowto the future opens.But because we’re so

young, we don’t realizewhat has happened.I grew up in a small farming town

of 2,400. It was during the dayswhen AM radio was really the onlychoice. We were about 55 miles out-side of St. Louis, so we were able toreceive most of the stations with nodifficulty. Among my summer mem-ories are walks down the town’sstreets during the early evening. Noone had air conditioning. You couldliterally follow the progress of theCardinal ballgames, as related byHarry Caray, as the sounds driftedout each screen door on the block.All the kids in town listened to

KXOK. There was never a question.That’s just the way it was. And sinceair conditioning wasn’t present incars back then, you’d hear thesound of KXOK coming out of everyteen's car as they drove past.My favorite uncle, a bachelor from

Chicago, had a knack for coming upwith unique gifts that no one else inmy town had seen. For my tenthbirthday, he gave me a Knight Kittransmitter.This was a giftthat hadn’t evenappeared on mypersonal radarscreen, butthere it was,ready to assem-ble. All I neededwere a few tools,a soldering iron and patience.I’d never soldered before, but

despite my sloppiness, I managed toassemble a working transmitter thathad a range of about 500 feet. Thegreat part about this little electroniccontraption was that you could tuneto whatever AM frequency youwanted. That was all I needed.I absconded with the microphone

to my dad’s reel-to-reel tape re-

corder and cutoff the old jack,soldering onone that wouldfit my littletransmitter.Then I turnedon my clockradio whichwas, of course,tuned to KXOK.A few lighttwists of thescrewdriver

finally achieved the wonderful whis-tle of feedback and I knew I wasready.Grabbing every extension cord in

the house, I ran the power sourceout the front door, across the porchand down into the evergreens thathad grown to form a semi-protectivewall in front of our house. I pluggedin my contraption, sat, and waited.I told you this was a small town. It

was so small that we knew everyone,and we knew the kinds of cars theydrove, so my plot was easy enoughto carry out.I waited in the bushes until one of

the town’s teens drove past. Then Ishouted out to them in my micro-phone: “Hey, Bobby!” “Hey, Richie!”The flash of brake lights was

immediate, followed by lookingaround and fiddling with the car’sradio, but by the time they couldreact to hearing a kid’s voice greet-ing them on KXOK, they were wellpast my house. One can only imag-ine their conversations later, astheir friends shook their heads inpity at their delusional peers.It was fun, but my interest waned

after a couple months and I wentafter new discoveries, eventuallypassing my toy on to my youngerbrother. But at the age of ten I haddiscovered the power of radio. I hadalso seen how people reacted whenradio talked to them, not as an audi-ence but as individuals. �

Frank AbsherSt. Louis

Lou Rose—one of a kindRetired Post-Dispatchinvestigative reporter LouRose, who died April 14,was the butt of jokesabout his rumpled

clothes and idiosyncratic behavior(like Lt. Columbo). Despite hisdisheveled manner and disregard fordeadlines, he was respected byother reporters and editors. He wasgood at developing sources but his

best skill was ferreting out publicrecords to expose public or privatewrongdoers, and he was never sued.On display at his funeral visitation

were some brief writings from Lousumming up what he said he tried todo as a reporter. Here are some:Fidelity—In any investigation the

facts are what counts. One must notdistort or ignore facts that do not fitour preconceived notions or theo-ries. We may sense something iswrong or improper—all our instinctsand research may suggest this is thecase. But unless we can adequatelydocument and prove it, we have noright to bend or force our findings tosuit our own ends or possible preju-dices.Keeping One's Word—The need

to nurture and respect the trust of areliable source goes beyond legalis-tic arguments, in my view. Constitu-tional issues aside, there is a morepersonal truth at stake. It is thekeeping of one's word. A promisenot to reveal the identity of a sourceis just that—a promise. It is an act offaith between two persons. Violate itand you surrender an important partof yourself.Honor Your Editors—But not at

the cost of your integrity or bestjudgment. Never be afraid of beingfired, dying, or having a brokenheart. �

Roy MaloneGlendale

KTVI in race with KSDK,KMOV for viewers

Until Nielsen turned onlocal people meters in St.Louis in January 2009, itwas a two-station TV newsrace between Belo’s CBS

affiliate KMOV and Gannett’s NBCaffiliate KSDK-TV.Since then, ratings have com-

pressed, creating a tighter three-wayrace among the two leaders andKTVI, local TV’s Fox affiliate.KTVI, which shares operations,

programming and other serviceswith Tribune’s CW affiliate KPLR,has tried to step up its news game.Already leading in morning ratings,the station recently added an hourof local news at 9 a.m. Two years agowhen the stations teamed up, news-casts were rescheduled so thatKPLR wouldn’t compete with KTVI.KPLR airs the market’s only news-cast at 7 p.m. KSDK—the early newsleader both at 5 and 6 p.m. in adults25–54—added to its local news afterthe Olympics wrapped, becoming

off the record


Frank Absher

Knight Kit



the first station in the market tobegin morning news at 4:30 a.m.In early news, KTVI is closing in

on KSDK at 5 p.m., while KTVI andKMOV are in a close race for No. 2 at6 p.m. KMOV is the late-news winnerat 10 p.m., followed by KSDK andKTVI, which also airs a 9 p.m. news-cast. Conspicuously out of the newsrace is KDNL, the ABC affiliateowned by Sinclair Broadcast Group,which airs no news.KMOV, which used to carry the

call letters KMOX, partners withKMOX-AM radio owned by CBSRadio, for a 10 a.m. local news pro-gram, Great Day St. Louis. The sta-tion also partners with the St. LouisPost-Dispatch on a Saturday morn-ing program.The St. Louis radio market

slipped one place in rank to No. 21,overtaken by faster growing Denver.Sports is big in St. Louis, which sup-ports three radio sports outlets.There’s a lot of buzz over which sta-tion will become the Cardinals flag-ship in 2011. St. Louis SportsRadio’s KTRS-AM is now in its fifthyear of carrying the games, but theteam could be heading back to big-ger-signal KMOX, the longtimehome of the Cardinals. The hockeyBlues have decided to keep theirbroadcasts on KMOX where theyhave been the last three seasons.St. Louis is the headquarters of

Charter Communications, thefourth largest cable operator, whichemerged last November from Chap-ter 11 bankruptcy under a pre-arranged reorganization. The cablesystem has new competition for cus-tomers from AT&T U-Verse, whichhas made some headway in the mar-ket since its launch in 2007. �

Katy BachmanMediaWeek

The day the music diedJuly 7 was the day lovers ofclassical music in the St.Louis area could hear it nomore at 99.1 on their FMradio dial, as they had for 35

years.KFUO-FM Classic 99 stopped

broadcasting classical and instead,under new ownership, began playingChristian contemporary pop music.The station was bought from the

Lutheran Church-Missouri Synodby Gateway Creative Broadcastingand the station is now called Joy-FM. The $18 million deal wasapproved by the Federal Communi-cations Commission in May, despite

complaints from enraged listenersof the classical music.Joy-FM is listener supported and

two prominent givers—the Cardi-nals Albert Pujols and ex-Cardinalpitcher Andy Benes—made largedonations to help finance the sale.(Their dollar amounts were notreported).The impending sale was in the

news steadily since it becameknown last October. Letters-to-the-editor by dismayed listeners werecountered by supporters of theChristian programs. “Just changethe station if you don't want to hearthe word of God,” wrote one woman.Some suggested that the classical

lovers find their music elsewhere,like on some other station. KWMU-FM said it would play classical, buton an HD channel that few listenerscould get.Sarah Bryan Miller, classical

music critic of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote on May 21 that theRadio Arts Foundation had given upits hunt for a replacement station, atleast for now. “Currently, there is noappropriate station available tobuy,” said a statement from theFoundation. It said it was placingthe hunt for another station on holduntil one becomes available.The Foundation had originally

tried to buy KFUO from the LutheranChurch-Missouri Synod but was toldthe church preferred selling to aChristian enterprise, Miller report-ed. �

Roy MaloneGlendale

Is this our Perfect Knight?A lot of Stan Musial fansthink the bronze statueof him in front of BuschStadium is—well theysay it doesn't look any-

thing like their beloved Cardinalslugger who had a unique battingstance. Post-Dispatch sports colum-nist Bryan Burwell called it “atro-cious” in a June 30 column with aheadline of, “Musial Statue MustGo.”In 1978, another Post columnist,

the late Bob Broeg, had called it a“monstrosity” and said “it stinks.”Burwell said the Cardinals shouldreplace it with “something morepleasing and worthy of Musial'sgreatness.” He said the “hat looksgoofy,” the legs are too thick, thehead is too small, the bat too tiny,and Stan is “grossly out of propor-tion.”

Burwell said the 42-year-oldstatue, the second most noticeablelandmark downtown, was sculptedby the late Carl Mose, a WashingtonUniversity fine arts professor, whogot the job funneled to him by afriend, then-Mayor Raymond Tuck-er. Burwell said Musial never liked itand told the Post-Dispatch in 2004:“He made me all bulky. I tried to gethim to change it, but he just neverwould... . He never did get it right.”Even so, KTVI-TV reporter John

Auble, after seing Burwell's column,interviewed Stan and his wife Lillianand they said they now liked thestatue. “I've signed many weddingpictures taken in front of thatstatue,” said Stan, ever the gentle-man. �

off the record

Photo by Dawn Majors,St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

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winnersdesk

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It has been, and still is,exciting, often frantic,but always deeply sat-

isfying for Rose, my wife,and me living with the St.Louis Journalism Review(SJR) over these manyyears. In a way, it kept ussane, not going off thedeep end in the pursuit ofunobtainable goals. Wewere just too busy.Some of our senior

readers will rememberFOCUS/Midwest that wepublished between 1962and 1983, a sociopoliti-cal journal concernedwith happenings in Mis-souri and Illinois. Anarray of commentariesand battles kept thejournal relevant to itstime. Battles foughtthen are not unlikethose making headlinestoday.After SJR was

founded, we decided to merge the twodeficit publications into one, makingSJR the survivor.SJR had its ups and downs. To give it

a more solid base we moved SJR, thenunder the editorship of Ed Bishop, toWebster University in 1995, which gra-ciously subsidized it for the next tenyears. When this association was dis-solved, the rumor mill wondered howlong SJR would survive.Our readers and supporters refused

to give in. For the first time in the his-tory of SJR, a fundraising appeal waslaunched to which hundreds of readers

responded. They keptSJR alive.This issue introduces

a new chapter in the 40-year history of the St.Louis Journalism Re-view (SJR). Thanks tothe labors of Gary Kolb,dean of the College ofMass Communicationsand Media Arts. WilliamFreivogel, professor anddirector of the School ofJournalism, and WilliamBabcock, professor ofmedia ethics, all ofSouthern Illinois Univer-sity Carbondale, SJRhas found a new home atthe university, whichpromises to add signifi-cantly to the servicesthat SJR provides.Babcock has assumed

the editorship of SJR.Roy Malone will con-tinue as editor coveringthe St. Louis region,

which will remain at the core of SJR’scoverage.We could not have achieved this

point assuring not only the survival, butalso the expansion of SJR without thededication for many years by the editor,cartoonists and designers, the labors ofwriters, columnists, the board of editor-ial advisors and the board of directorsas well as the contributions by its read-ers that were cited in the last issue asthe true media elite in our community.The turnover required some adjust-

SJRfinds

anew

home

When SJR’sassociation withWebster Universitywas dissolved, therumor millwondered howlong SJR wouldsurvive.Our readers andsupporters refusedto give in.

Charles L. Klotzeris the editor/publisher

emeritus of SJR.

CharlesL.Klotzer

The transfer of SJR to SIUC was announced at a media ethics conference sponsored by SIUC.Attending the conference were (from right) William Freivogel, William Babcock, Gary Kolband Charles Klotzer.

continued on next page


Retired AT&T techni-cian Mark Klein blewthe whistle on

National Security Agencywiretaps of individuals’phone calls in 2006 and stillhas information to share.How major news outletsblocked Klein’s disclosuresin an election year is a storyin itself.Klein filed an affidavit in federal

court in San Francisco in early April,2006, revealing that the NSA had con-structed a secret room in an AT&Tfacility to monitor telephone and In-ternet communications. The affidavitsupported a class action lawsuitagainst AT&T brought in January bythe Electronic Frontier Foundation,alleging that AT&T violated the lawby cooperating with the govern-ment's warrantless wiretapping.

Klein had worked for AT&T as atechnician for more than 22 years.He worked as a computer networkassociate in AT&T’s facility onGeary Street in San Francisco. In2002, he said in his affidavit, anAT&T superior told Klein to expect avisit from an NSA agent, to interviewa colleague for a “special job.”In 2003, Klein was transferred to

AT&T's Folsom Street facility, alarge phone and Internet hub. He

became aware that the NSAhad set up a secure roomthere, later known as the“SG3 Secure Room.” He saida “splitter cabinet” had beeninstalled where the public'sphone calls were routed andwere being diverted to the“SG3 Secure Room.” Kleinalso heard that secret roomswere constructed at AT&T

facilities in San Diego, San Jose,Seattle, and Los Angeles.Klein’s disclosure was first

reported on April 7, 2006. Wire ser-vices carried the story, it was on theInternet, and CNN did a few seg-ments. Most print periodicals, how-ever, did not pick it up. Aside fromtech publications, it showed upmainly in California papers—the


ments about which we informed oursubscribers. SJR will be publishedsix times per year instead of ten.Since all subscriptions are enteredby issue number (this one is No.318), all subscriptions entered sofar will receive ten issues as adver-tised. As of July 2010, subscriptionsand renewals will be entered for sixissues.

* * *The idea for forming SJR was an

outgrowth of the turmoil of the1960s and what happened at the1968 Chicago Democratic Conven-tion. When the Chicago mediadescribed the unrest as a studentriot, Chicago journalists knew bytheir own observations that it was apolice riot.They decided to publish the

Chicago Journalism Review (CJR) toreport on what they observed. In1970, upon learning of CJR, a groupof journalists from the St. LouisGlobe-Democrat and the St. LouisPost-Dispatch agreed that the St.Louis community deserved a similarwatchdog.The concept of journalism

reviews spread throughout thecountry. In the early ’70s, close to30 local reviews were founded usu-ally by journalists. These volunteerefforts gradually folded within a fewyears, so that today SJR is the onlylocal journalism review being pub-lished.

Both print and broadcast journal-ists have been instrumental in edit-ing and writing for SJR from the veryfirst issue. Since its first issue,interested journalists, academicsand others involved in media havemet once a month to critique thepast issue and plan for the nextissue. For a few hours, these editor-ial advisors shed their professionalidentity and become SJR addicts.Aside from those listed in the mast-head, SJR benefited from the advicefrom many others, who prefer not tobe listed.Over the years, SJR has been

edited by a number of distinguishedjournalists and hundreds of writershave appeared in its pages. Since itsfounding, SJR has been honoredwith 28 major national and localawards.

* * *The direction of SJR was estab-

lished in the first issue. For the firsttime the public (and editors) learnedabout the Joint Operating Agencyunder which the Globe and the Posthad joined their business opera-tions.Other ground-breaking stories

revealed that a Post reporter spiedfor the police; years later a studentreporter at the University of Mis-souri–Columbia committed thesame ethical breach; a St. LouisAfrican-American publisher plantedstories supplied by the FBI; the lackof minority hiring by the St. Louismedia was a frequent topic; mediaicon George Seldes, 94 years of age,revealed that Gen. Pershing once

sentenced him to death for inter-viewing Hindenburg; coverage of thedemise of the Globe, when its circu-lation was larger than that of theweekday Post, caused a national stirin the media; Tobacco and its col-laboration with the media since the1940s; TV backpack journalism andits mixed review; the late economistHyman Minsky, now internationallyhailed as a prophet, was a regularcolumnist; the growing, destructiveinfluence on the media by conglom-erates; features on those in thenews business; the list goes on andon.While the month-by-month cover-

age was solid, SJR’s shortcomingswere always obvious. Editors neverhad the resources to assign one ofour contributing writers to follow alead months on end. With someexceptions, SJR could not plan formore than one or two issues ahead.Lack of resources made SJR’s cov-erage of the television industry,alternative media and the virtualworld spotty with little follow-up.

* * *With the help of resources at

SIUC, SJR’s Web site will become aninteractive vital source of informa-tion for its readers. This and otherplans for expansion in coverage,both geographically and in depth,promise to uphold SJR’s primarywatchdog function to become to theregular newspapers, radio and tele-vision stations and other mediawhat those media are to governmentand other institutions. �

Whistleblower's slogto get wiretap story

into the mediaBy Margie Burns

continued on next page

Continued from previous page

KLOTZER


San Francisco Chronicle, and espe-cially the San Jose Mercury News.The New York Times ran one articleas did the National Journal.Unlike the newspapers, the Bush

administration watched the lawsuitclosely, soon initiating a “statesecrets” claim to stop it. The BushJustice Department's countermovegenerated further news coverage—again rather modest, given the alle-gation that AT&T had illegally fun-neled millions of private communi-cations to the NSA.USA Today joined the story in

May 2006 with a story headlined,“NSA has massive database of Amer-icans’ phone calls.” Its reporting onthe NSA database sparked outragein the public and in Congress.Perhaps the level of outrage

scared off some corporate mediaoutlets, either because of politics orbecause the telecoms were majoradvertisers. In any case, the Wash-ington Post did not mention Kleinuntil May 18, in a short piece fromBloomberg News reporting that afederal judge had allowed the EFFlawsuit against AT&T to go forward.Indeed, the Post did not run anyoriginal reporting on Klein’s affi-davit until August 14, 2007.On May 22, 2006 Wired News pub-

lished the NSA-AT&T documents, 29pages of evidence linked on numer-ous blogs. Salon.com covered theAT&T story—and followed up inJune with a detailed piece on an-other NSA secret room at an AT&Tfacility in St. Louis—but dailies stilltended to give it a miss, except whendefending the NSA and AT&T orpooh-poohing the class action.News articles during summer

2006 mainly tracked the lawsuit,reporting when 17 lawsuits filednationwide against the telecomswere consolidated in the DistrictCourt case in San Francisco andreporting when the state secretsclaim was rebuffed in court. Again,any news articles ran mainly in Cal-ifornia papers, in Slate andSalon.com, or in tech publications.National press coverage of the NSA-AT&T matter lulled from summer2006 to February or March 2007.Ironically, considering that EFF filedthe lawsuit based largely on someinitial reporting in the LA Times, inDecember 2005, the paper droppedthe story.Klein, interviewed by telephone,

said he tried to bring out the story inJanuary 2006 and a reporter for theLos Angeles Times “was planning abig story,” but nothing was used. Hebelieves someone “spoke to the gov-ernment” and to then-NSA DirectorMichael V. Hayden, “who told themnot to run it.”

“This kept happening”

Klein then went to the New YorkTimes but in March 2006 the paper“stopped calling me.” Finally, hesays, in April the story broke whenEFF asked Klein to be a witness intheir lawsuit against AT&T: “The gov-ernment stepped in, and said we wantto see the documents [non-classifiedengineering documents, retained byKlein when he retired from AT&T]... .Suddenly the media started calling;then the New York Times called meback” and ran articles,” Klein said,adding that the Times “showed the[internal] documents to four experts,who all agreed on them. . . . that washelpful.” Still, the story died downagain: “The media were conflicted,”Klein says, “Quiet, silent. ... this kepthappening.”Klein thought he was making

headway when he taped an interviewwith 60 Minutes in September 2006with Steve Croft. “It was to be anexclusive—I couldn’t talk to any-body else.” But the interview neveraired. Klein points out the timing:“Throughout the 2006 electionperiod, my mouth was taped shut. Icouldn’t say anything when peoplecalled me up.”“Then in 2007,” Klein says, “I was

interviewed by ABC, then on PBSFrontline. Both did a good job.” PBSinterviewed him for a documentaryon NSA spying which aired May 16,2007. But Klein refers to the 60 Min-utes experience as a “blackout. Ihave to think that was political.Somebody higher up put a politicalkibosh on it.”Klein came to Washington in

November 2007 to oppose legisla-tion giving the telecoms immunityfrom litigation. He held a Washing-ton news conference; National Pub-lic Radio and Keith Olbermann onMSNBC's Countdown interviewedhim. The Washington Post ran anarticle by Ellen Nakashima.The Bush administration won the

telecoms immunity battle in 2008,against the backdrop of a presiden-tial primary season and little signifi-cant coverage of the AT&T contro-

versy. On July 8, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch did run an op-ed co-authored by Klein and Babak Pas-dar, who came forward with similarclaims about another wireless car-rier. On the telecom immunity legis-lation, the op-ed piece said “Today'svote could legalize past illegal gov-ernment spying.”Klein says the main cases were

dismissed in June 2009, a year afterthe immunity legislation passed.The Electronic Frontier Foundationsuit against NSA just got dismissedrecently.No major papers ran articles

about Klein in 2009 or have runthem in 2010. Olbermann included asegment on MSNBC on April 8, 2009.Klein brought out his book, “WiringUp The Big Brother Machine,” inJuly 2009.“Warrants, according to the

Fourth Amendment, have to be veryspecific. A splitter is not specific. Itsweeps up everything. It’s inher-ently illegal by virtue of the appara-tus. . . . obviously they wanted to getdomestic calls as well as foreigncalls,” Klein said.He favors repealing immunity for

the telecoms. “The only way to stopthis [surveillance] is physically torip this equipment out. . . . The gov-ernment will use it as long as it’sthere,” Klein says.All of the Electronic Frontier

Foundation lawsuits have been dis-missed in the courts except one, Al-Haramain v. Bush, in which plain-tiffs used a government document toshow that the government had usedillegal eavesdropping. San Fran-cisco's federal court allowed the Al-Haramain case to go forward withthe condition that the actual docu-ment not be used. Defendants in-clude FBI Director Robert Mueller.On July 19, 2010, the Washington

Post began a three-part series called“Top Secret America,” on the hiddenworld of 1,271 governments organi-zations and 1,931 private companiesworking in secret intelligence pro-grams in 10,000 locations acrossthe United States. A political memeroutinely favored by media outlets in2010 opposes investigation andprosecution of Bush officials infavor of “moving forward.” But if theMark Klein story teaches us any-thing, it is that secrecy and conceal-ment are moving backward. �

Margie Burns is a freelance journalist inWashington, D.C., and teaches

college English.


continued from previous page



What does thepublic thinkabout health

care reform? Difficult tosay without a lengthysurvey but that doesnot keep the media andthe public polls fromtrying. The results,however, can often bemisleading.The desire for a eas-

ily interpretable storyline (“Public divided onhealth care reform”)and the interviewingcost constraints (“wecan only afford a fewquestions”) creates ashaky data base forpotentially meaty con-clusions.Take, for example,

USA Today’s front-pagestory (March 24) threedays after the Househad passed the healthcare measure. Based ona one-night Gallup pollconducted on March22, the lead sentencewas “More Americansnow favor than opposethe health care over-haul that PresidentObama signed into law Tuesday…anotable turnaround from surveys beforethe vote that showed a plurality againstthe legislation.”But the Gallup question buttressing

this finding was one the firm had neverpreviously used. The March 22 wordingwas, “As you may know, yesterday theU.S. House of Representatives passed abill that restructures the health caresystem—all in all, do you think it is agood thing or a bad thing that Congresspassed this bill?” “Good” won out over“bad” by 49 percent to 40 percent.In its pre-vote survey, conducted

March 4 through 7, Gallup’s wordingwas, “Thinking about health care legis-lation now being considered by Con-gress, would you advise your member ofCongress to vote for or against a health-care bill this year, or do you not have anopinion?” “Against” narrowly finishedahead of “For” by 48 percent to 45 per-cent.Was it a real turnaround or an inap-

propriate comparison between tworelated but essentially different ques-tions? A respondent might answer“good” to the March 24 question, forexample, because the Congress finallystopped a debate that seemingly wouldnever end and finally made a decision.The interpretation that the March 24

result was partially generated by amorn-ing-after sense of relief is reinforced by a

March 26–28 Galluppoll when “bad” pulledahead of “good” by 50percent to 47 percent.Another complicat-

ing factor for measuringpublic opinion is cap-turing a complex set ofpolicy changes in a sin-gle phrase (“health careoverhaul” or “healthcare bill”). The KaiserFamily Foundation hasbeen conducting de-tailed monthly surveyson health reform sinceJune 2009. The Marchpoll, conducted theweek before the Housevote, found only 27 per-cent of the public saysit knows “a lot” about“how the health carereform proposals beingdiscussed in Congresswould affect you andyour family personally,”a share only three per-centage points higherthan June 2009.Even that self-re-

ported familiarity prob-ably overestimates pub-lic understanding. Alsoon the same survey,

Kaiser asked whether the “independentCongressional Budget Office which ana-lyzes the cost of legislation said thehealth reform legislation currently be-ing discussed in Congress will increasethe federal budget deficit over the nextten years, decrease the deficit over thenext ten years, or is it not expected tohave much impact on the deficit?” Theincrease/decrease options were rotatedto guard against bias created by whichone was mentioned first. The correctanswer is “decrease” but only 15 per-cent chose it. The majority, 55 percent,replied “increase” and just 10 percentvolunteered that they did not know.That’s far from the only example of

misinformation found by the Kaiser sur-veys. In mid-March, 41 percent thoughtthe health care bill approved March 21would require “most people who cur-rently get health insurance coveragethrough their employer” would berequired “to change their existing healthinsurance arrangement.”Public opinion on health care re-

structuring currently is largely impres-sionistic, more driven by broad ideology(e.g., role of government), inflammatoryrhetoric (e.g., “death panels”), and fearof change. Until the policy becomes realand familiar (think Social Security orMedicare), a process that will take up toa decade with this reform, it would pre-mature to draw firm conclusions. �

Public opinion onhealth carerestructuringcurrently is largelyimpressionistic,more driven bybroad ideology,inflammatoryrhetoric, and fearof change.

Terry Jones isprofessor of political

science atUM-St. Louis

Flawedreporting

onhealthcarepolls

politics&media/TerryJones



By Jessica Bellomo

Millionaire and retired invest-ment banker Rex Sinquefieldis currently in the process of

single-handedly spear-heading thecause to end the one-percent earn-ings tax that provides about a thirdof St. Louis City’s total revenue, orapproximately the cost of runningthe entire St. Louis Police Depart-ment. Kansas City, the only othercity in Missouri with an earningstax, would also lose about the sameamount.Limited media coverage has sug-

gested that Sinquefield’s successfulgathering of 200,000 signatures insupport of a state vote to remove thetax is good for democracy, whilemedia outlets such as St. Louis Pub-lic Radio and the St. Louis BusinessJournal, have called Sinquefieldhimself a “philanthropist” and“benefactor.”What Sinquefield has in fact

accomplished is the curtailing of therules in the attempt to fit as manypoliticians into his silk-lined pock-ets as possible. His actions arecounter to democracy in that he isattempting to drown out opposingvoices by throwing 100 times morethan the legal limit in financial con-tributions into political campaignsthat side in his favor. As a countyresident who has businesses in thecity, Sinquefield’s personal agenda

to avoid a one-percent city tax hasbecome a public issue that couldnegatively affect the hundreds ofthousands of citizens living andworking in St. Louis City.Sinquefield has circumvented the

laws regarding howmuch an individ-ual can contribute to a cause orpolitician by creating 100 politicalaction committees (PACs) and thenmaking himself the president of allof them and using them to makelarge donations. The Missouri Citi-zen Education Fund published tworeports, one in October 2007 andone in June 2008, detailing thepolitical contributions of Sinque-field.The Fund found that “Rex Sin-

quefield created 100 new [PACs] inSeptember 2007. The formation ofthese PACs allows him to legallycontribute 100 times the legal limitto the candidate or officials of hischoice. Sinquefield…acknowledgesthat he is skirting Missouri’s cam-paign donations limits by setting up100 [PACs] so each can donate themaximum to favored candidates.”

His money buys support

Sinquefield has shown his politi-cal sway by forcing the measure toend the earnings tax in Kansas Cityand St. Louis onto the state ballot.According to KTVI-FOX2 reporterCharles Jaco, Sinquefield has “do-

nated heavily to politicians likeMayor Slay and Senator Kit Bond.”Mayor Slay, who told the St. Louis

Post-Dispatch on January 18, 2010that “Getting rid of the tax withoutfinding another source of revenuewould be devastating,” is nowspeaking out against the tax thatwill make or break his city.According to reporter Dave

Helling at the Kansas City Star, Sin-quefield has personally spent $1.75million on the petition drive so far.Let Voters Decide, the organizationheading up the petition to removethe tax and founded by Sinquefield,paid a private company more than$575,000 to gather the petition sig-natures.The “experts” fighting for Sinque-

field’s cause, such as Joseph Haslagof the Show-Me Institute, and MarkEllinger of Let Voters Decide, workdirectly for him, but it appears asthough these supposed experts arecoming from independent organiza-tions because it is not mentionedthat Sinquefield is founder and pres-ident of these organizations.Columnist David Nicklaus of the

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, in his arti-cle entitled “City Earnings TaxDebate Helps Region” pits two sup-posed experts against each other asthough they both have credible, rel-atively objective arguments; how-ever, the debate is between Dr. JackStrauss, economist and Director of

$ $$

$ $

$$

$$ $$

$$ $$

$

Call

To end St. Louis Earnings Tax

Shows

One millionaire’s political reach



the Simon Center for Regional Fore-casting at St. Louis University, ver-sus Joseph Haslag, who works forthe Show-Me Institute, of which Sin-quefield is president.

No plan to replace funds

If this tax is abandoned, the infra-structure of St. Louis and KansasCity will suffer greatly, but no one isseriously proposing any way toreplace the money. Instead, a vagueacknowledgement that the tax willhave to be replaced somehow ismentioned as an afterthought. MarkEllinger, a spokesperson for Let Vot-ers Decide, told Paul Schankman ofFOX2 News that, “If they choose todiscontinue [the earnings tax] thenthere certainly needs to be a plan.City leadership, with all due respect,can come up with a plan.”In other words, it is not Let Vot-

ers Decide’s problem; it is the “cityleadership’s” problem. These samecity leaders will have little or no sayin whether the earnings tax will beabandoned since this measure willbe put to a state vote rather than acity vote.Some ideas that Sinquefield’s

representatives have off-handedlythrown around to replace the earn-ings tax are either a large increase insales taxes or in property taxes. Anincrease in the sales tax to as muchas 12 percent is not going to con-vince new businesses to move to thecity; furthermore, flat taxes areharder on the poor since the per-centage is disproportionate to eachperson’s earnings.Property taxes are also a bad idea.

The reason St. Louis City originallybegan collecting earnings taxes isbecause there is such a large num-ber of people who work in St. LouisCity but live in the county, so all ofthe money they make in the citygoes to the county in the form ofcounty property taxes.There have been no media reports

featuring any St. Louis businessesspeaking out against the tax, andstudies show that new businessescare much more that a city has ahealthy infrastructure than if theyhave a one-percent earnings tax foremployees. There is abundant evi-dence suggesting that businesseschoose their locations based on thefollowing criteria, in order of impor-tance:

1. Skilled workforce2. Limited bureaucracy3. Infrastructure4. Quality of life factors (e.g.crime and climate)

5. Cost of doing business (e.g.housing, utilities, taxes)

The infrastructure of St. Louis isalready shaky, and the eliminationof one third of the city’s fundingcould help destroy it. St. Louis isalready one of the most dangerouscities in the country, and such a dra-matic reduction in funding willsurely affect the number of policeofficers and fire fighters available.Surely businesses would rather payone-percent in taxes for the sake ofa safer environment in which towork.St. Louis City and Kansas City are

both in grave danger as a result ofthis one man’s actions, yet localmedia outlets have seemed uncon-cerned at best and completely dupedat worst. No one stops to wonder, forexample, why the mayor of St. Louiswould suddenly become opposed toan uncontroversial tax about whichbusinesses have not complained andwhich he claimed was necessaryonly four months earlier.No one considers who is behind

organizations like Let Voters Decideand the Show-Me Institute, or whythis particular measure has such aflood of funding when so many oth-

ers like it fall by the wayside due toa lack of finances. No one stops toenvision what a St. Louis with athird less funding would look andfeel like.Interestingly, Kansas City re-

porters such as those mentionedabove seem to have developed amore balanced and researched opin-ion of Sinquefield and the measureto end the tax. Mayor Mark Funk-houser of Kansas City has spokenout against ending the tax, while St.Louis reporters and politicians alikeremain either mute on the subject orin support of the “philanthropist’s”contributions.Sinquefield has not spurred a

healthy debate, as many of the lim-ited articles on the subject seem tosuggest, but is simply using hismoney to control as many people aspossible. With the media’s combina-tion of underreporting and misre-porting, the story of the earnings taxhas become nothing more than freePR for Sinquefield. And the lastthing this guy needs is a hand-out. �

Jessica Bellomo is Director of the Inter-national Visitor Leadership Program for the

World Affairs Council. She wrote this article fora graduate course at Webster University,

Sinquefield ProfilePolitical writer Virginia Young of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch did a long-overdue profile of Rex Sinquefield on June 27 saying he's become ahousehold name in Missouri by plowing millions into state and localcandidates and causes. Here's some of the information she gathered onSinquefield, 65.He became rich through his firm in California that managed institu-

tional investment funds. He is described as having a free-market philos-ophy with more individual freedom from government regulation.After retiring in 2005, he came back to St. Louis, where he was raised

(spent six years in an orphanage). He's spent nearly $12 million on stateand local political contributions, more than half of that on his campaignto have statewide voters scrap the earnings taxes in St. Louis and KansasCity. He believes this will improve the business climate.He has a phalanx of lobbyists, public relations staffers and his favorite

think tank or academic experts. With no limit on campaign contribu-tions he writes checks of $25,000 to $50,000 to state and local politi-cians, such as Mayor Francis Slay. Wining and dining lawmakers is partof his program. His public relations effort is headed by Laura Slay, acousin of the mayor.Sinquefield's scheme to bypass the legislature and go straight to the

voters in the Nov. 2 election will no doubt be certified by the secretary ofstate because of the excess signatures on his petitions. If voters approve,the earnings taxes would be phased out over 11 years and could not bereinstated.He has off-handedly suggested replacement of the earnings tax revenue

by increasing sales and property taxes and perhaps selling the city-ownedLambert Airport. “They've got almost 11 years to figure this out,” he wasquoted.Sinquefield has also been pushing legislators to eliminate the Mis-

souri income tax and possibly replacing the revenue with a broader salestax. He also favors having the state provide education tax credits to par-ents who send their children to private schools.



By Rick Stoff

At great trouble and expense,photographer Randy Olson hadarranged for a private plane to travelto Sinop, Turkey, where he plannedto get an aerial view at sunset of thepeninsula on the Black Sea.“I am circling around Sinop and

finally everything is alright. I takeone frame and the street lights arematching the little peninsula,”Olson said. “We take a circlearound. By the time we get to whereI am going to photograph, the entiretown blinks out. It's a power outage,which is pretty normal in thoseareas. If you don’t have patience,you can’t really do this job.”The “job” is getting photographs

for The National Geographic maga-zine. It's highly challenging andOlson is at the top of his profession,trekking the world with his camerato tell stories of places, cultures andpeople.Olson grew up in Webster Groves,

the son of now-retired St. LouisPost-Dispatch book editor ClarenceOlson and his mother Arielle North.He decided at a young age that hewanted to be a photographer. He hasbeen a contributing photographer toNational Geographic magazine for18 years.He was named the Newspaper

Photographer of the Year in 1992,when he worked at the PittsburghPress. In 2003, he became the Maga-zine Photographer of the Year in thePictures of the Year International(POYi) competition. He is one of twophotographers who have won theaward in both categories.His wife, Melissa Farlow, is also a

contributing photographer for Na-tional Geographic. They live in Pitts-

burgh, where they both hadworked for the Pittsburgh Press,but also have residential propertynear Portland, Ore.

Started with toy camera

Olson was barely walking whenhe discovered photographythrough his father. “He was a pho-tographer and that was a coolthing to do,” he said of his dad.“He did a lot of different jobs atnewspapers, but I could alwaystell that being a photographer wasone he really liked.” Randy wasless than two when his parents gothim a toy camera and his obses-sion began.Olson's career goal took shape as

he worked on his high school news-paper. “A camera lets you fit in. Highschool is an interesting socializa-tion period and that’s kind of how Isocialized, through the camera,” hesaid.After earning a bachelor’s degree

in journalism at the University ofKansas, Olson became a newspaperphotographer. That eventually tookhim to the Pittsburgh Press, wherehe earned his Newspaper Photogra-pher of the Year honors. Farlowworked there, too, but both wouldsoon face the loss of their jobs.While working for National Geo-

graphic is the dream of many pho-tographers, Olson said it is not arealistic goal to pursue. Out of thou-sands of professional newspaperand magazine photographers,“There are only between 20 and 40photographers who work regularlyfor National Geographic. Many ofthem are highly specialized. Thereare three levels of underwaterguys—one just holds his breath

underneath whales. There is a bugguy, an artifacts guy. There arereally only a few social documentarypeople like Melissa and me.”The National Geographic spends

millions on photography but doesn'tkeep photographers on staff, in-stead using contributors, or free-lancers. The shooters, depending onthe number of assignments, canmake more than newspaper photog-raphers, though they have expenseslike any freelancer. But it's the sat-isfaction of getting good pictures onfar-flung assignments that drawsthem to the work.“They don’t hire out much work.

They are not going to respond topeople who are coming at them.They are going to respond to peoplewho are doing work that they thinkis intriguing. You have to concen-trate on making good photographstomorrow, and then the next day andthe next day.”

They get a call

Olson had built an impressive

A TOPNATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

PHOTOGRAPHER’SSERENDIPITOUSCAREER

RANDY OLSON



body of work when a call came fromNational Geographicwith assign-ments for both he and Farlow.“They called both of us around

the time our newspaper was dyingout from under us. We both had woninternational competitions and weredoing social documentary in a waythat got the attention of the editors.They needed to beef up their human-based social documentary photogra-

phy at a time when weneeded jobs, so wewere pretty lucky—serendipitous.”Patience is a neces-

sity in shootingNational Geographic-caliber photography,Olson said. It may takedays to get one imagethat delivers the richcolor, dramatic mood,artistic composition,stylized motion or infi-nite focus that charac-terize work publishedin one of the world’stop photographic pub-lications.A National Geo-

graphic assignmentmay take Olson, 52, onlocation for two to fourmonths, but that timegoes by in a rush. “Two

months maybe seems like a lot oftime, but there has to be 40 pho-tographs that are publishable at thelevel of National Geographic,” hesaid in a telephone interview fromhis home in Oregon where he wasmaking preparations to continue anassignment that would take him toten countries.While feeling rushed, he must

push himself to take time for thebest shot to appear, he said.“Serendipity rules, and you justcan’t fight it. If you try to fight it, youend up getting frustrated and angryand no good comes of it. There arepeople who are cheerful and patientand all that—I don’t think that ishow I come naturally, but in respectto photography you don’t have anoption.”Farlow, Olson’s wife of 23 years,

was part of a team that won the 1976Pulitzer Prize for feature photogra-phy at the Louisville Courier Jour-nal and Louisville Times. The teamcovered the tense events thataccompanied court-ordered busingand desegregation of public schools.

Her photos also have won awards inthe POYi judging.She is from Paoli, Indiana, and

received her bachelor’s degree injournalism at Indiana University.She and her husband also receivedmaster of arts degrees at the Univer-sity of Missouri, where they taughtphotojournalism.They first met at an awards cere-

mony at Mizzou; the second timewas when he stayed at her house atthe invitation of her then-boyfriend.“She still didn't remember me,”Olson said. The third time was whenhe picked her up at an airport. “Thattime she remembers,” he said.Farlow’s recent work for National

Geographic has included featureson wild mustang horses and theKentucky Derby. This summer,through the Make-A-Wish Founda-tion of America, Farlow was a rolemodel for a teen-ager who has cysticfibrosis, but wonders if she canbecome a photographer for NationalGeographic. They took a ride in asmall plane on the Pacific coast andFarlow showed her how to take aer-ial photos.

Talent for story-telling

Olson has photographed theimportance of salmon to the remoteKamchatka Peninsula of Russia andthe struggles of the Kara Tribe thatlives along the Omo River inEthiopia.Story-telling, more than technical

skill, is the central element ofNational Geographic photojournal-ism, Olson said.“What I do, what Melissa and the

other folks out on these stories do,is to think about it as a storyboard.It is a constantly challenging puzzle.You can never put it together per-fectly, so it is a challenge that justdoesn’t go away.”He describes social documentary

photography as the portrayal of peo-ple and cultures, from the KaraTribe to the growing “comfort class”of China. “In social documentaryphotography there is a continuum.On one side there are photographersthat want you to know how cleverthey are. When you see their pho-tographs you see how talented theyare with their color palette, layers,light, that kind of thing, and oftensubjects are just another element inthe composition,” Olson said. “Onthe other side of the continuum are

photographers that want you to lookat one of their photographs and seewhat the subject is thinking andfeeling. The latter part is what drewme to photography and still inter-ests me today.”In a press release announcing an

exhibit of the couple’s work last win-ter in Pittsburgh, Farlow stated,“We photograph real people—unex-posed—and try to show them as theyreally are. Our hope is that a viewerwill take from it the things we havein common with others that mayseem so different, or to show realitywith the viewer being the judge.”Olson prefers to travel light, with

just a minimum of equipment. “Idon’t take very much, a roll-aboardwith a few cameras and a few lenses,a strobe. I like to be unencumberedand allow things to happen in frontof me that don’t happen when youare coming at something with a lotof equipment.”He figures he was only the second

National Geographic photographerto go digital. In the film days, he car-ried 35mm Nikon and Leica equip-ment and sometimes a medium-for-mat Hasselblad or Mamiya. TheNational Geographic photographersused to number each roll of film andship back the odd and even rolls inseparate packages. “If a shipmentwas lost, the other half would have achance of surviving.” He now travelswith three digital Canons and aLeica M9.

Adjusting to different cultures

Being as low-key as possible isone of the keys to photographingpeople in their natural state, he said.“Every culture is different. Some arevery welcoming to photographers,some are very isolated. The family isa private place, not a place where aphotographer comes in. You have toadjust to whatever you are throwninto.“When I am photographing pyg-

mies, (it's like) I have got a signacross my forehead that says ‘I amfrom Mars.’ They cannot stop look-ing at the camera, they cannot stoplooking at me. That kind of cultureyou cannot work the same way youcan work a goldsmith in India. Hejust thinks, ‘I am doing my job andhe is doing his job,’ and he goesabout what he is doing.”

continued on page 16

C



National Geographic photogra-phers hire assistants to guide themthrough foreign lands. “You have tohire not just a translator but some-one who can make things work. Wecall them fixers,” Olson said. “Thatperson may be allied with a govern-ment or have good connections inthe media, or something. Fixers”often are hired upon the recommen-dations of other National Geo-graphic photographers who haveworked in the same regions.National Geographic journalists

may not be the bush-whackingexplorers the public may imagine,Olson said. “I go to places that are asremote as anywhere, way back in theCongo or remote parts of Sudan orSiberia, but there are only a fewassignments where I am the onlyone who has been in this place.Where someone is thinking theywould never go, there are oftenmany people there. There are NGOs(non-governmental organizations)and there are a couple of Mormonkids with white shirts and black tiesriding bicycles and trying to prosely-tize. There are just a few areas thatare remote enough that there is nosupport and where you have to bringin all your food and guides.”These destinations usually do

not feature luxury accommodations.“It is long days, it is hard travel, it istiring,” he said. “There are medicalthings you have to be carefulabout—malaria and lung infectionsand that kind of stuff.”Olson’s magazine work takes him

away from his homes in Oregon and

Pittsburgh for four or more monthseach year. One year he was on theroad for 11 months, but some of thattime was spent with his wife as shehandled a National Geographicassignment in the Alps.Being married to an international

photojournalist has been a plus forhis marriage, Olson said. “The oldergeneration of National Geographicphotographers were mostly men whowould stick some beautiful womanin a cabin out in the woods and go foraway for a year then wonder why shewas mad when he got back. I think itis better to be married to someonewho understands what you do ratherthan someone who is in a very differ-ent kind of job who doesn’t under-stand why you are doing this.”

Assigning stories

National Geographic editors aremore likely to assign their own storyideas but sometimes accept pitchesfrom contributors, he said. “But theassignment can simply be, ‘China'sMiddle Class,’ and we (writer andphotog) have to figure out the rest.”Some stories repeat every decade ortwo and “there are different onesthat pertain to specific events thatcultures are going through, new dis-coveries, those kind of things.“One of the reasons they spend

so much money on these assign-ments is that we are trying to dothings you can’t find on the Internet.We are trying to be an originalsource. That fits with the mission ofthe (National Geographic) Society.”A close-range, underwater image

of a fishing grizzly bear is one of the

things you don’t see everywhereelse. One of Olson’s most memo-rable photos appeared in NationalGeographic’s August 2009 issue inthe feature, “Where the SalmonRule.” It was picked as one of themagazine’s ten best shots of theyear; the ten photos were featuredon a PBS special in March.Part of life on Russia’s Kam-

chatka Peninsula are the bears whosurvive by eating the salmon thatalso support the human population.Olson spent hours on the bank of alake waiting for a chance to catch abear at close range. After all thattime, he was able to shoot only twoframes.“I shot it with a remote underwa-

ter camera that was underwater forthree or four days. The bear had tobe two or three feet from the camerato register in that water because itwas kind of murky. Because of thelimitations of how the camera wastethered, it was only six or sevenfeet away from me.“You couldn’t really be down

there firing the camera yourselfbecause of the way these grizzlybears fish. They come boundingthrough the water where they thinkthe fish may be. Once they step onsomething that feels squishy like afish, they immediately go down andbite its head off. They didn’t look atme as a food source, but if you weredown there and the bear stepped onyou and you felt squishy, it wouldnot be good.” �

Rick Stoff, a former St. LouisGlobe-Democrat reporter and editor,

now practices public relations at hisown firm, Stoff Communications.

Photographer with Pygmy boys in the Congo. Camel beauty pageant by Randy Olson.Continued from page 15


When Clarence Olson’s smallson Randy saw his dad witha camera he wanted one too.

Randy soon got his own camera,though it was just a toy.At the time, Clarence was a pho-

tographer for the Capital Times inMadison, WI. He later joined the St.Louis Post-Dispatch and spent 31years there, two-thirds of that timeas the book editor.Randy’s attachment to his cam-

era didn’t fade. He stuck with pho-tography during his grade and highschool years in Webster Groves andat the University of Kansas. Hebecame a newspaper photographerand now, at 52, he is one of the topphotographers for National Geo-graphic. So is his wife, Melissa Far-low.The Olsons—Clarence and his

wife Arielle, and two other grownchildren—follow Randy’s travelsaround the world and take pride inhis accomplishments. But the wholefamily is accomplished.Arielle North, which is her profes-

sional name, has long reviewed chil-dren’s books and five of her ownhave been published. Middle childChristy Kennedy, has four childrenand lives in Lawrence, KS, were sheis a free-lance editorial layoutdesigner. Youngest son Jens hasthree children and is an electrical

engineer, living in Saratoga, CA.

Hailed from Wisconsin

Clarence is now 82, but looks fitenough to work on a dairy farm,which he did as a youngster in Wis-consin. He entered the Navy near theend of World War II, but never got touse his radar training. After graduat-ing from the University of Wisconsinhe traveled the country working atodd jobs.He returned to Wisconsin and

learned to use a 4X5 Speed Graphicto take pictures for a centennialissue of the weekly Edgerton (WI)Reporter. It was there he met Arielleon a blind date. She was visitingfrom New Jersey where she workedfor the Morristown Daily Recordwriting features and other articles.Her father, Sterling North, was arespected literary critic on the EastCoast and author of 27 books. Anannual award in his name is given toauthors and artists who make a sig-nificant contribution to children’s’literature.Clarence’s brother had set up the

blind date and it blossomed intomarriage. Clarence, who answers tothe nickname Ole, got on the CapitalTimes as a photographer, thanks tohis stint doing the centennial pho-tos. Then, along came Randy.

The family came to St. Louis in1959 where the other two childrenwere born. Clarence worked on thePost-Dispatch’s Sunday Picturessection and his editor, Julius Kly-man “was the best editor I ever had...I had to learn to write features.”Nonetheless, after 10 years

Clarence accepted a job for a newmagazine which was supposed tostart up in California. The Olsonssold their house in St. Louis andbought another in Delmar, CA. Butthe magazine, to be called CareersToday, was scrapped by the parentowner Psychology Today, before itever saw daylight.The Olsons came back to St.

Louis and Clarence went back to thePost. Though he lost 10 years ofseniority he was given the job ofbook editor which had becomeopen. He held that post for 21 years,retiring in 1991.In 1995 the Olson’s bought a sec-

ond home on the coast of Oregonoverlooking the Pacific ocean Theylive there half the year, wintering intheir Webster Groves’ home. Thefamily likes to do reunions in Ore-gon where Randy and Melissa oftenjoin them. Though the traveling pho-tographers call Pittsburgh home,they also bought a condo and ahome in the Portland area. �

Roy Malone


Randy Olson, not yet two, withhis toy camera, imitating his dad,Clarence. Randy said he devel-oped an obsession for photogra-phy early on.

Family photo: Randy is at the righthugging his niece, Lindsey Kennedy.Melissa is next to Lindsey. Arielle isnext to Clarence on the left.

Randy Olson and hiswife Melissa Farlow,longtime photogra-phers for TheNational Geographic.Photo credit: PatrickTehan



All the worstthings aboutcollege sports—

greed, sexism, egos,more greed, stupidity,even more greed —arebearing fruit in thissummer of 2010, andthe latest developmentis that the courts aregoing to decide what isa sport and what is nota sport, kind of likehaving to decide whatis a fruit and what is avegetable.As the NCAA takes

a deep breath it real-izes how close it hascome to being deemedmore irrelevant than italready is, with the big colleges havingcome this close to forming four 16-teamsuper-conferences, setting up their owntelevision deals and leaving the NCAAtwisting in the wind.Media coverage has been heavy, at

least by newspapers, blog sites andESPN. Local TV stations have littlechoice in what games they show, so cov-ering or not covering is out of theirrange of vision, and talk radio has itsusual thousands of opinions, almost allbased on emotion and not knowledge.The Big 12 barely escaped annihila-

tion and Mizzou (my Good Ol’ AlmaMater) discovered large portions of eggon its face. Mike Alden soon discoveredit was no yolk when he tried to bluff abust hand into a pot where other people(like Texas) were holding lots of acesand kings. By taking a superior-than-thou posture and disparaging otherconference schools, the Tigers and Gov.Jay Nixon made some enemies, and inthe end showed that they had few teeth,and little power.The truth is that old rivalries and

geography and travel costs don’t counta tinker’s dam in this reorganization.It’s all about money. TV money first andforemost, followed by ancillary revenueand gate money. The power schools(Texas, Oklahoma, Penn State, OhioState, USC before the most recent scan-dal, Florida and some others) want anational championship game, with sev-eral weeks of games leading up to it.The Big Ten has the most lucrative

television contract, and is greedy formore. The conference wants NotreDame, but Notre Dame has its own TVdeal and enough of a national name thatit can remain independent as long as itchooses. But even the Irish can beswayed by the idea, the publicity andthe cash of a Collegiate Super Bowl. Inthe near future, look for the Big Ten tocourt Rutgers, which will provide anentry into the New York television mar-

ket, or Pitt, which willlock up Pennsylvania.Missouri is defi-

nitely in a pickle thesedays. The Tigers drawviewers in St. Louisand Kansas City, buttheir scheduling hab-its of the recent pasthave made them less-than exciting to TV. Inthe interest of pilingup victories and bigscores, plus bankingsome wins for the vari-ous minor bowls theyseem to prefer, theTigers have batteredsuch patsies as Bowl-ing Green, McNeeseState, Southeast Mis-

souri, Buffalo and Furman in recentyears.All the nonsense of claiming records

comes from two things—playing moregames and playing weaker opponents.Since TV is interested in showing excit-ing games and well-matched teams, theTigers find themselves on the sidelines.Conference expansion seems over for

a while. I think the various conferencesfear that rapid expansion might bringgovernment curiosity, and they will letthings shake out for a few years beforethey move again. Some of the greedierand smarter athletic directors want four16-team conferences, and we can becertain there will be many quiet conver-sations as universities’ athletic depart-ments battle for position and power. Sofar, Ol’ Alma Mater has shown itself tobe below the top rank when it comes tosmarts and toughness.

Post slights other teams

I’ve been a baseball fan for a long,long time. I went to my first majorleague game in 1938. My BrooklynDodgers beat the Phillies, 4-2, at EbbetsField. I love baseball no matter who isplaying. Years as a sports writer, andlearning the importance of objectivity,increased my affection for the game, notfor any individual team. My warm feel-ings for the Dodgers disappeared min-utes after Walter O’Malley moved theteam to Los Angeles.But I am puzzled by how much space

the Post-Dispatch devotes to the Cardi-nals and how little to the other majorleague teams and games. On a normalday, there will be three or four stories onthe previous day’s game, plus a columnif Bernie Miklasz or Bryan Burwellchooses to write one.Two or three writers are at Busch Sta-

dium every night; always one, sometimes

The truth is thatold rivalries andgeography andtravel costs don’tcount a tinker’sdam in thisreorganization. It’sall about money.TV money firstand foremost,followed byancillary revenueand gate money.

Joe Pollack is a formerSt. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist

and operator of the blogwww.StLouisEats.typepad.com

Greeddrives

collegegrid

expansion

sports&media/JoePollack




“I would like to doanother bluesshow on the radiobut nobody’splaying that musicon the air. Howcan you not playthe blues?”

Frank Absher is aSt. Louis radio historian.

St. Louis radio historyis available online at

www.stlradio.com

RadioHistory/FrankAbsher

“The more I didit, the more Iliked it.”

That’s how Lou “Fatha”Thimes describes hisentry into radio.The beginning was

inauspicious. Thimeswas sitting in the bar-racks at Kadena AirForce Base in Okinawawhen the captain camein looking for a volun-teer disc jockey to playblackmusic on the baseradio station. Thingswent well on the air, andthe experience paid offwhen he returned tocivilian life in St. Louis.He started out playing gospel music

on Saturdays at KATZ in 1958. “I guess Ihad a good enough voice,” he says,“because soon they took me off thegospel show and had me playing rhythmand blues.”The setup of the studios back thenwas

very different from what most people mayhave envisioned. The announcer sat at atable with a microphone on it. In anotherroom, behind soundproof glass, an engi-neer took care of the technical work,playing the records and commercials andkeeping audio at the proper level.And it was up to each disc jockey to

pick his own music. “That was beforeowners decided they could choosemusic,” Thimes said.During the week, the other jocks on

the air were Dave Dixon, Robert BQ andDoug Eason. They also played R&B andgospel.Soon another local owner came call-

ing. Richard Miller offered Fatha moremoney to jump to KXLW, the market’sother R&B station.The KXLW studios, located on Bom-

part Avenue at the station’s tower site,were smaller and the studio operationwas different. The DJs had to operatetheir own control boards and the onlyengineer Thimes remembers was JimmyMitchell, whom he says was always tin-kering with the transmitter.At first, working for a local owner was

no different than working at a stationwhose owner lived in another city. “Wewere trying to beat KATZ, so Richard leftus alone at that time. Later, he decidedhe knew music.”Like most of his fellow deejays,

Thimes had gigs on the side to makemoney. He pursued his comedy careerwith partner John Smith in a teamknown as “Lou and Blue,” in variousclubs around town. This sideline gavehim a perfect opportunity to cross pathswith some well-known musicians, whowould later end up as guests on his radioprogram—people like Dinah Wash-

ington, Louis Jordanand Otis Redding.Other disc jockeys

were also moonlight-ing. Dave Dixon andRoscoe McCrary wouldproduce talent showsat the YMCA at Sarahand Page. They’d bringin people like SmokeyRobinson and GladysKnight.KXLW also opened

the door for announc-ers to pick up lucrativecontracts.“I remember when

Anheuser Buschbought my show onKXLW. They had my

picture, along with the station’s call let-ters, on every black tavern’s juke box.“There was a gentleman at the brew-

ery, Mr. Porter, who didn’t like blues. Healmost killed some of those contracts.When he asked me what kind of music Iplayed, I’d tell him it was requestedmusic.

“A-B had salesmen on the street, andthe disc jockeys would travel with thesalesmen to different taverns and buybeer for people in the taverns. I couldn’tgo anywhere without somebody yelling‘Hey, Lou. Let’s have a beer!’”Thimes says he was surprised when

he found out white kids were listeningto his show “A white kid called me oneday and asked what I was doing workingat that black radio station. Theythought I was white!”When the music changed and man-

agement began telling the announcerswhat they had to play, Thimes knew itwas time to hang it up. “I only knewblues and that’s all I wanted to do.“I would like to do another blues

show on the radio but nobody’s playingthat music on the air. How can you notplay the blues?” �

Playingthe Blueson R&B

radio

Lou “Fatha” Thimes



By C.D. Stelzer

Kevin Flynn, an investor in theChicago Sun-Times, alsoholds a stake in a Soviet-era

military aircraft owned by Illinoispowerbroker Gary Fears.A bankruptcy case filed in St.

Louis last fall on behalf of Air Sup-port Systems LLC shows that Flynn,a former Illinois casino operator,holds a $1.3 million stake in the cor-poration’s only asset—a gargantuanSoviet-era military aircraft worthmillions of dollarsSince securing an interest in the

refueling tanker—which has beenstranded for a year at a former AirForce base in the Upper Peninsula ofMichigan—Flynn has made anotherinvestment. He is now part owner ofthe Chicago Sun-Times.Flynn, 42, was among ten co-

investors who bought the financiallytroubled tabloid in October, accord-ing to the Chicago Tribune. Other

investors include William andRobert Parrillo, whose father was anattorney for Al Capone.Flynn is alleged to have more

recent ties to Chicago organizedcrime. In 2001, the Illinois GamingBoard yanked his long-dormantstate license because two of hisinvestors had ties to the Chicagomob.At the time of the revocation,

Flynn and his father, Donald Flynn,a former executive of Waste Manage-ment Inc., were seeking to transfertheir gaming license from the shut-tered Silver Eagle casino in EastDubuque, so they could operate theproposed Emerald Casino in Rose-mont, a Chicago suburb.Investors in the casino deal

included associates of ChicagoMayor Richard Daley, according tothe Chicago Tribune. Donald Flynn,70, is CEO of LKQ Corp., a Chicago-based national auto salvage com-pany. Kevin Flynn heads Renovo

Services LLC, a multi-state vehiclerepossession operation.Gary Fears, the 64-year-old owner

of Air Support Services, met theFlynns in the 1990s, when theyoperated the Blue Chip Casino inMichigan City, Ind. Kevin Flynn andFears were later involved in a failedIndian casino development in Cali-fornia.Fears, who is the subject of an

investigative series in the onlinejournal FOCUS/Midwest, resides inBoca Raton, Fla. But his career isrooted in Madison County, Ill. poli-tics, where he made his bonesdecades ago as an operative for then-Gov. Dan Walker. Since leaving pub-lic life, he has traded on his insiderstatus to parlay a series of contro-versial deals into a financial empire.That empire began in the early

1980s, when he received millionsfrom the state to build a hotel inCollinsville but eventually defaultedon the loan, leaving Illinois taxpay-

A Potpourri of astranded Ukranianplane, investmentin the ChicagoSun-Times, ties tocasinos, lobbyists,aborted bankruptcy filing andit is all of interest (well, not all) to theWall Street Journal.

Reporter C.D. Stelzer, while researching dealings ofsome investors with government connections, cameacross an interesting side story—a huge former mili-tary plane from the Soviet era has been stranded atU.S. airports for four years because of legal squabbles.Stelzer found out how it happened.

ilyushin-ii-78-2



When it comesto a Russian-made military

cargo plane strandedon the Michigan UpperPeninsula on LakeSuperior, the ques-tion “What’s up withthat p lane?” wasasked in one of the headlines of a Wall Street Journalarticle, yet never much answered.That same plane’s peculiar fate gets a fuller examina-

tion in the online incantation of the still-breathingFOCUS/Midwest magazine. This may be another exam-ple of a non-profit funded online version of the FourthEstate doing a more in-depth treatment of an event thanthe mainstream media—or it could just be a typical roll-of-the-dice editorial call to give a topic or an event a dif-ferent spin.The FOCUS/Midwest piece in May (http://focusmid

west.com/2010/05/07/under-ther-radar/) produced byC.D. Stelzer is thorough, meticulous recounting of theplane’s recent history as reflected through the convo-luted financial dealings of Madison County smoke-filledroom veteran politico and developer Gary Fears.Stelzer’s piece is a painstaking tour through co-in-vestors, who knows who and how, bankruptcies andshadowy motivations. It’s a dissection of how a politicaland economic insider like the 64-year-old Fears isstill up to his ears in skullduggery, which makes thestranding of the giant Russian plane that much moreinteresting.The Wall Street Journal, in its July 12 page-one story,

took a weird tale and just focused on the quirky factor.FOCUS/Midwest, in the two-part series on Fears, tried todelve into the how and why of what happened andextended their effort beyond a gee-whiz veneer. The WSJreporter whose byline is on the piece, Bryan Gruley,declined to discuss why he took the tack that he did,

saying that WSJ re-porters “generally donot discuss our newsgathering decisionspublicly. I think thestory speaks for itselfand I stand by its ac-curacy.”Accuracy is not the

problem with Gruley’s article. For a light, odd-ball fea-ture it achieves its purpose. Yet anyone seeing the page-one headline and expecting to find out if not what hap-pened to the plane, then at least how it happened, willbe disappointed. The FOCUS/Midwest two-parter isawash in details. Stelzer’s use of the bankruptcy filingby Fears in St. Louis opened the door to his maze ofinvestors with backgrounds in pornography, casinosand online gaming.The manner in which Gruley reported the bizarre

plane piece may have been dictated by its expectedplacement: as the page-one quirky feature. That hasbeen a standard for decades at the WSJ. In the issuesprevious to the Russian plane saga, the topics for thepage-one feature included diaper-wearing pet chickens(“Fowl Fans See Golden Eggs”), new female members ofthe Czech parliament posing for a racy calendar(“Czechmates”), and how some men don’t like the newfancy shavers (“Razor Burn”).That’s not exactly the place for a follow-the-money

treatment of a Russian military cargo plane headed toPakistan and stalled in Michigan. So instead of break-ing down the twisted financial and political path that ledto the Ilyushin Il-78 being grounded on the Upper Penin-sula, the WSJ played it for laughs.FOCUS/Midwest missed the joke, played it straight.

Stelzer said of the WSJ: “They took the skeleton of mystory and left out the complicated parts.” �

D.J. Wilson

ers in the lurch. A decade later, hecircumvented regulators and made afortune selling his family’s hiddeninterest in Illinois’ first riverboatcasino. Both deals involved Illinoispowerbroker William Cellini ofSpringfield, who is now under fed-eral indictment on unrelatedcharges tied to the corruption trialof former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagoje-vich.At this time, Fears pursued other

ventures, including acquisition ofthe Ilyushin IL-78 aircraft, Theplane, formerly owned by theUkrainian Air Force, departed Kievon May 23, 2006, according to flightrecords, and landed the next day atthe North Texas Regional Airport inSherman, Texas. Once there it satidle for the next three years due tofinancing problems and squabblesamong Fears’ partners.Finally, on July 17, 2009, a nine-

member Ukrainian crew boarded the

IL-78 with the intent of flying it toPakistan. Alerted to the plane’sdeparture, Victor Miller, the ownerof Air 1 Flight Services, filed arestraining order, and the plane wasdiverted to Sawyer International Air-port, in Gwinn, Mich., where it hasbeen stranded ever since due to liti-gation.The St. Louis bankruptcy case is

related to a civil suit filed by Millerfor unpaid maintenance expenses ofmore than $70,000. On October 23, ajudge in Marquette County, Mich.ruled in Miller’s favor. Fears coun-tered by filing for Chapter 11 protec-tion for Air Support Systems onOctober 28 in federal bankruptcycourt in St. Louis.“That stayed all of the action,”

says Cheryl Hill, the MarquetteCounty prosecutor who is the legalcustodian of the aircraft. On Dec. 17,Fears reversed his strategy and hadhis St. Louis bankruptcy attorney

dismiss the case. In March, theMichigan court’s ruling was upheld.But Fears is still fighting to keep

the plane. “Air Support Systemsowns the plane,” he told FOCUS/Midwest late last year. “The wholething was a huge misunderstandingand blown out of proportion by thepress.”The abortive bankruptcy filing,

however, shows that Fears’ acquisi-tion of the plane was not carried outalone. Besides Flynn, Air SupportSystems’ backers include TridentResponse Group, a private merce-nary group based in Dallas withholdings of $2.5 million; and Head-lands Ltd., a shadowy company inGibraltar, which holds a $1.1 millionstake. �

C.D. Stelzer is a freelance investigativereporter. His series on Gary Fears is available

at http://focusmidwest.com. It wasfunded by a grant from the

Press Club of Metropolitan St. Louis.

WWaallll SSttrreeeett JJoouurrnnaallppllaayyss uupp tthhee qquuiirrkkyy



Moose collides with pickuptruck.

The headline above may be mildlyfictitious, but regular subscribers toThe Jackson County Star, of Walden,Colo., (including this writer) do occa-sionally encounter such bizarreheadlines, especially during slownews weeks.The Star’s headlines, stories, edi-

torials, photos, cutlines, prettymuch the whole shebang, springsfrom the fertile mind of Jim Dustin,61, ex-Post-Dispatch re port er, for-mer chief of both the West Countyand St. Charles bureaus, formercopy editor and journalistic cur-mudgeon, who left the Post-Dis-patch about 12 years ago. In 1998, after putting in two

decades at 900 North Tucker,Dustin informed his friends (thereare scads of us) that he was headedwest, Horace Greeley-like, for asmall town in Colorado: Walden (ele-vation, 8,100 feet; population, 600;Jackson County population 1,500,ZIP code, 80480) about 30 milessouth of the Wyoming border.Dustin, no longer married, had

decided to actually do what battal-ions of veteran newspaper typesoften say they dream of doing: run-ning their own newspaper. His deci-sion may not seem as cockamamie,now, as it did then. His weeklytabloid has a healthy list of sub-scribers, the earned confidence ofits readers and little to no competi-tion from the Internet or nearbymass media (there is no nearby). The Jackson County Star is dedi-

cated to covering the town’s and thearea’s news, and Dustin has a staffsmall enough to make metropolitanreaders smile: himself, Abby—one ofhis two lummox-like dogs (Wreckshaving shuffled off this canine coil)—and part-timers Debbie Wilson, thead manager, and Helen Williams, theeverything-else manager, whomDustin refers to as the paper’s tokenDemocrat. Except for a gaggle ofoccasional contributors, that’s it.The Star’s focus is clear: localschools, local kids, local politics,local weather and local economy.So, in the midst of contemporary

media upheaval and the online revo-lution, one might wonder: What’slife like in bucolic journalism land?What follows is a brief Q&A, a smat-tering of Dustin’s musings and mis-givings about his life and times as asmall-town newspaper editor-owner—a mix of the scalawag inStuds Terkel, the gruffness of RedSmith and the gravitas of EditorWebb in “Our Town.”

SJR: Any regrets? A. It’s been tough doing this

alone. And I wish I’d checked thebuilding closer. Building inspectorshereabouts range from nonexistentto diligent. My building was con-structed pre-diligent, and it’ssoaked up a lot of work and money.Q: And the rewards? A: Well, folks don’t call it the

County Butt Wipe anymore. And thismay sound hokey, but the kinshipbetween the paper and the local peo-ple has become pretty special. Thispaper is a 100-percent homegrownproduct. Its fate rises and falls withthe ranchers, farmers, loggers andhard-working townsfolk who read it.And we all know it. Example: A few

years back my old pickup gave upthe generator ghost at Granby, 65miles and a Continental Divide southof Walden. The local wrecker hauledmy crippled truck back to town. Andthere, an entourage of folks waswaiting for me to open the office—to

get their Jackson County Star. I now have more subscribers out-

side of the county than in. Plus, I getto wear Levi’s, plaid shirts andskuzzy boots everyday without feel-ing like Pecos Bill at high tea. Theplaques on my woefully thin officewall tell me that we’ve won 49 jour-nalism awards from the ColoradoPress Association, including theEditorial Sweepstakes Award in2006, making The Jackson CountyStar the best small newspaper in thestate, for news coverage. (Prettycool, huh?) And I hope to actuallymake money someday.Q: What do you miss... most, or

least?A: Most? The regular working

stiffs at the Post. They were, as agroup, as imaginative, well-in -formed, creative and open-minded abunch as you could hope to workwith—despite the creative sumpthey had to slog through everyday. Itwas always a hoot just gabbing withHarry Jackson, Tom Pettit, GeorgeRichardson, Andre Jackson, JoeHolleman and Mary ... damn …what’s her last name? She moved toPennsylvania. And lots of otherfolks on the fourth and fifth floors,too numerous to list here.And I miss working for a paper

with statewide clout—especially onnights when big news is breaking.Only newspaper people will reallyunderstand that high.Least? The boring commute, the

oppressive bureaucracy, the down-town parking fees, the guy on theroof who threw a brick at me when Idrove my motorcycle to work. Andthe St. Louis heat. (I have an air con-ditioner at my house that I havenever turned on.)Q: Any advice to those still at the

P-D?A: Try to get to the future before

it gets to you. And hang on. Onlypeople can create; only we can write,edit, photograph, compose head-lines and cut copy with care. And local papers, even big ones

like the Post, can still do two thingsthat the “other media” (whatever orwhoever they may be) cannot do orchoose to ignore: investigative piecesand local coverage.Hell, most TV folks wouldn’t even

leave their building to do what I do:cover high school sports; interviewfarmers and ranchers; attend retire-ment parties and high school schol-arship awards; photograph highwaymishaps between animals and vehi-cles and write the headline (seeabove).But everything else, these days—

national, international, Wall Street,

Adventuresin

small-townnews -

paperingBy Avis Meyer

Post-Dispatch

retiree makes

his mark in the

mountains of

Colorado



Washington, ad infinitum—mostpeople have already read, or seen, orheard, or all three. And I think thatthe days of “think pieces” are over,too. The upcom ing audience, largelyweaned on texting, YouTube, Face-book, Twitter, electronics a-go-go,etal. seem to have developed theattention span of parakeets. Andeven Uncle Walter would have said,“That’s the way it is,” about that.Q: Any words of wisdom for jour-

nalists considering following yourmadcap example?A: Yeah. Rely a lot on blind luck.

And maybe three other things.First: Open an account with the

reliable Mom and Dad NationalBank—or have someone leave youabout $300,000. Second: Learn to enjoy wrestling,

daily, with pesky advertising andsubscription rates; and learn toadapt, quickly, to changing technol-ogy. And don’t be surprised if a help-ful reader sends you a crusty cowpiein a shoebox, to illustrate the rich-ness of North Park hay (in itsunadulterated form).

And about retirement plans: Ifinsurance rates keep climbing, planto just keep working until youslump over your old wooden desk.(And remember that alcohol alwayshelps, regardless.)Third: Don’t be arrogant and

assume that since you’re a boda-cious, metropolitan hotshot, youknow more than the locals. Like thisbig-city-type lady who bought a papera couple of mountain ranges overand commenced to lecturing thelocals on the proper way to think,vote, operate their businesses, raisetheir kids, pick up dog poop andrecycle their beer cans. She lastedabout eight months. She reminded

me of a new word I read somewhere;she was an ignoranus: a personwho's both stupid and an asshole.Q: Finally: Your biggest surprise

or revelation?A: The first few weeks of the

putting out the paper, I kept fussingover layout, fitting heads, gettingpersnickety with copy editing... andconstantly looking over my shoul-der, to see if anyone thought maybethe headlines needed a bump, or theleads needed some pruning. Butthere was no anyone; there was only

me—and the paper.It hit me, gradually, and still does,

occasionally: I was, I am, the re -porter, copy editor, layout and photochief and boss. I also shovel the frontwalk, weed the flower beds (if we hadflower beds), change the light bulbsand chase squirrels off the roof.And there’s always a moose out

there somewhere that needs pho-tographing. �

Avis Meyer, a professor at St. Louis University, worked as a copy editor

at the Post-Dispatch with Jim Dustin.

Jim Dustin

Jim Dustin at the Jackson County Star

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Rate!1 year ...$25.002 years...$44.003 years...$62.00

4 years...$80.005 years...$98.00



About 50 years ago, when con-struction plans were beingmade for a more comfortable,

better designed and less expensivedowntown Busch Stadium than theone we have today, we learned thatthe last remaining burlesque housein the city, Harry Wald's memorableGrand Theatre, was to be demol-ished as part of the stadium foot-print. I wrote at the time that St.Louis had decided that night base-ball was more important than sex.Today, as a result of a money grab

by Vince Schoemehl and his fellowarts lovers on the board of GrandCenter, and a lack of courageousresponse by Mayor Francis Slay, agroup of our city's most powerfulcitizens has obviously decided thatnight baseball is more importantthan theater, music, dance andother forms of cultural entertain-ment.In these parlous times, when

communities are in the same tightfinancial bind as their citizens, it'seasy to understand that moreincome, from more sources, isneeded desperately. Grand Centerfound some by jiggering the parkingmeters in the immediate area. Theymust now be fed until 10 p.m., withadditional police on duty to issuetickets, and while Schoemehl andhis pals in the money-machine gametalk about four-hour meters, thoseare a pretty good hike. All the closer-to-performance-space meters have a90-minute maximum, and no way fora theater-goer to sit through anentire show. Grand Center has spo-ken of leaving parking space forfolks going to dinner, but rememberthat only one Grand Center site is adestination restaurant; others aredesigned for speedy meals before, ordessert after, a performance.This sounds like a time for some

civil disobedience. If 50, or even justa few dozen people suddenly got upduring a performance at the Fox,Grandel, Powell Hall or a smallervenue, and exited, bothering every-one in the row and even jinglingsome change in their pockets, andreturned five or 10 minutes later,repeating the bother, think of thefuror among the audience, not tomention among the actors ordancers or musicians trying to per-form. . . . and you don't have to actu-ally need to feed a meter to cooper-ate. It's not breaking any laws, butbe careful not to jay-walk.Oh, what does Mayor Slay have to

do with it? Well, a couple of yearsago, the mayor spoke at a theater

awards ceremony and proclaimedhow his administration was in favorof the arts, loved the arts and woulddo everything in its power to help thearts. And the mayor does deservesome credit; he apparently has beenworking, albeit slowly, on the EdGolterman project, a valiant effort tore-open Kiel Opera House, a genera-tion or so since it closed. But interms of the city budget, there mightbe some extra revenue available atthe downtown parking meters whilethe Cardinals or the Blues are play-ing. And what about the metersaround St. Louis U's Chaifetz Arena?After all, a precedent has been estab-lished.... just grab from the peopleand ignore the media.Schoemehl and his buddies have

handled the media well. They madethe announcement about the changein parking rules, then handed pre-pared statements to reporters whosought comment. The former mayoravoided talking to anyone in themedia, and so did the current mayor,and after a while the media stoppedwriting about the cash grab in GrandCenter for its parking lots, and forthose operated by its pals. Other-wise, it would look as if the mediawas just being repetitious.Matthew Hathaway, a fine re -

porter, did an excellent article aboutthe parking meter shenanigans in

the Post-Dispatch. Hathaway point -ed out that about 1800 meters werechanged, but the 400 closest to thevarious venues were of the 90-minute variety. The change wouldadd about $200,000 a year to theGrand Center coffers, through anarrangement whereby three-fourthsof extra meter money goes to aGrand Center subsidiary. And, ofcourse, Grand Center owns a half-dozen of the lots in the immediatearea, and organizations whose lead-ers sit on the 29-member GrandCenter Board have interests in asmany more. Grand Center's lotshave earned about $160,000 annu-ally the last few years. Schoemehl'ssalary is in the quarter-million dol-lar range, not much for an athlete,but pretty good for an executive at anon-profit.Bloggers at Stltoday responded

with 60-some messages, 80–90 per-cent accusing Grand Center of greedand vowing never to return excepton Sunday. I'm surprised the GreedCenter—oops, Grand Center—over-looked that, but it's probably thenext fee-parking tactic that GrandCenter will consider.The Grand Center folks re -

sponded with an op-ed piece byMark Miller, identified as a memberof the Grand Center board of direc-tors. He noted that he is a volunteerand then said he is chairman of theParking Strategy Committee, un -doubtedly qualified because he's anexecutive retired from EnterpriseRent-A-Car.Miller wrote about parking for

restaurants, strictly a diversionarytactic. In many years of writingabout restaurants and theater, I'velearned they don't really mix. Peoplego to the theatre to be entertained;they go to restaurants to eat. A bigmeal is not conducive to enjoyingthe performance. It's too easy to fallasleep, and while falling asleep is itsown form of criticism, there's noneed to make it easier because of afull stomach. And celebratory din-ners, or dinners that have seductionin mind, take more than 90 minutes.In addition, I think there's only one(it hopes) destination restaurant inGrand Center, the Kota Grill. Thenew City Diner may become a post-theater destination, but it's for aquick meal like those offered at theBest Steak House, or Vito's, or Na-Doz. Restaurants with hopes ofbecoming destination spots, or withgourmet dining aims, have found


Parking

(porking)

at

Grand

CenterJoe Pollack



two writers travel for road games.Meanwhile, all the other games arecovered in a single column, one shortparagraph for each game unlessthere is a no-hitter or some otherexceptional feat. The coverage isextremely wide but extremely shal-low. We learn every statistical feat,but get little analysis. Joe Straussseems best in that regard, Rick Hum-mel’s sense of history is absorbingand interesting, and Derrick Gooldoften writes brightly.In trying to figure out why, I sup-

pose its the popularity of sportsradio and the fact that the colum-nists and some of the sports staffseem to be on-air experts, too. Beingable to read off arcane statistics—how many strikeouts does a rookieleft-hander from Kansas have in hisfirst whatever-number of games asopposed to a rookie left-hander fromWyoming?—keeps everyone happy. Idon’t care that a batter has hit safelyin 11 of his last 19 games; 11 out of12 might have some relevance, butthese things string out farther andfarther.Football is almost as bad, but

there are longer stories about othergames. What with going 1-15 lastyear, I’m surprised the Post is cover-ing the Rams at all, but the draftingof Sam Bradford has increased thecurrent off-season hyperbole andbrought forth more babble from thecolumnists than is necessary.This extreme localization is mak-

ing the Post-Dispatch look like asmall-town newspaper, as evidencedin the recent coverage of the U.S.Open. It’s always a pleasure to readDan O’Neill, but did he or the Postsports editor really think the youngamateur from St. Louis had a chanceof winning? A sentence or two eachday would have sufficed, with moreanalysis of the performances of thegood golfers.But at least the Post covered the

entire tournament, considering it animportant event. Too often, the papersends someone to an event, but assoon as the team is eliminated (Miz-zou women’s softball in the NCAApreliminaries, for example), thewriter comes home and one becomeslucky to find any results for otherteams in the sports section. �

SPORTS AND MEDIAContinued from page 18

GRAND CENTERContinued from page 24

Grand Center infertile ground. Peo-ple in search of elegant dining go to

the Hill, or Clayton, or the CentralWest End, or Downtown, all areaswhere theaters are rare.Miller also wrote about visitors

who come to Grand Center to beentertained, “and then rush to theircars to leave those magical experi-ences quickly behind.” Several blog-gers complained about the waitingtime to get out of parking lots.Well, why doesn't Grand Center, or

its entrepreneurs, think about pro-moting bars and restaurants to post-theater customers, whether with alate-night snack menu, ice-creamspecialties or even a little entertain-ment, like a piano player or a jazztrio? By the time they finish, theparking-lot traffic will have cleared.In this regard, I refuse to enter-

tain comments from people who saythey must get up early the nextmorning to go to the gym. Exercisethe mind instead of the body a cou-ple of days a week. Convince thechildren to nap before the theater,or to just lie down and relax for anhour or so. When I was a boy (sorryto use the phrase), my parents tookme to Broadway theater or to a con-cert about once a month on a schoolnight, even though curtains rose at8:40. We took the subway, and afterthe play we would stop for an ice-cream soda or a snack at Schrafft'sor Toffinetti's in Times Square.They're some of my fondest child-hood memories.The Grand Center money-grab

will not affect the Fox or the St.Louis Symphony very much. Peoplewho spent upward of $60 for a ticketcan handle the $8 parking-lot tariff.The body blow is to the small the-ater groups or cabaret performerswhose staffs work at the CenteneBuilding and who perform at theKranzberg Arts Center. They oftendepend on volunteers who now willhave to pay more than the quarter ortwo it used to cost early-arrivals andthe people who do not have theretirement benefits of the 29 GrandCenter board members.Performers need parking spaces

when they rehearse, and they don'tmake much money (if they make anyat all). Neither do ushers and tickettakers and concession-stand work-ers, and that holds true for the Foxand Powell Hall and the GrandelTheatre as well. And, of course,these people are on hand for anentire run, not just the single per-formance that ticket-buyers attend.I thought about calling Schoe-

mehl, but since he refused to talk toanyone in the media, and I still con-sider myself part of it, I figured I didnot need the aggravation of a snub. �

ing what some readers say is just ashadow of its former self.The editorial cutbacks have in -

cluded scrapping of the zone sec-tions, reducing the WashingtonBureau to just one person (from six),reduced coverage of the Illinois sideof the metro area, cutbacks in busi-ness news and features in the Every-day section, and fewer editors. Stillvibrant are the sports pages and theeditorial section—still liberal—though there are fewer editorial writ-ers.The Post is no longer listed in the

top 25 newspapers in the nation,based on circulation. Shannon Duffy,the Guild’s business manager, saidin a union bulletin’s message to Lee,“...imagine our surprise when we dis-covered that your goal was to turn thePost-Dispatch into just another Leenewspaper.”The Lee-owned Suburban Jour-

nals, also acquired from Pulitzer, hasfallen on hard times as well. Deepstaff cuts were made and then theJournals went from free distributionto paid circulation. It has not gainedthe expected number of subscribersand some of the weekly newspapersare still thrown for free.The Pulitzer family sold the Post

and other newspaper properties in2005 at top dollar. The family mem-ber with the most voting shares wasEmily Rauh Pulitzer, widow of thelate Joseph Pulitzer Jr. She got morethan $400 million in the sale. Shenow operates the Pulitzer Founda-tion, a museum in midtown St. Louis.Quoted in the Jerry Berger online

column earlier this year, “Emily” asshe is called, said of the Post. “Thequality has clearly deteriorated. LeeEnterprises has faced a really diffi-cult economic situation. What Leedid with the Post-Dispatch is not dif-ferent from what has happened inother cities. Nobody has figured outhow to deal with the Internet.”Berger wrote: “The mention that a

former P-D editor blamed Emily forthe current situation of the Post byselling it, got a quick response. Shesaid, ‘How simplistic. My vote wasone of three. We saw the handwritingon the wall.’”Longtime Post readers say they

expect Lee’ s advertising and revenuewill bounce back, and its profits willincrease even more. But they doubtthe cutbacks will be restored to makethe paper as respected as it had beenduring the last century. But that’shistory. �

SOURCES SAYContinued from page 28



MEDIA

Columbia Daily TribuneTerry Ganey has resigned from

the Tribune after four years. Previ-ously, he had a long reign as head ofthe Jefferson City bureau of the Post-Dispatch. He is doing free-lance writ-ing and teaching a course at the Mis-souri University School ofJournalism.

Feast magazineCatherine Neville, co-founder and

former editor of Sauce magazine, willbe publisher of the new Feast culi-nary magazine to be debuted inAugust by Lee Enterprises, owner ofthe Post-Dispatch, Suburban Jour-nals, Ladue News and St. Louis' BestBridal.

KETC (Channel 9)Mike Bauhof was promoted to

the new position of director of digi-tal engagement. He will work as partof the team for Homeland, a KETCinitiative about immigration issues.

KMOV-TV (Channel 4)Jasmine Huda has joined KMOV-

TV after failing to reach an agreementon a new contract at KSDK-TV, whereshe had been a reporter since 2007.She started as a producer at KMOVand will again become an on-airreporter, say KMOV sources.

News Leader Media GroupDavid Stoeffler has been named

executive editor of the Springfield(MO) group. Stoeffle has served aspublisher, general manager or topeditor at publications including theSuburban Journals of Greater St.Louis, the Arizona Daily Star, theLincoln (Neb.) Journal Star and theLa Crosse (Wisc.) tribune.

St. Louis AmericanKevin Jones, senior vice presi-

dent and chief operating officer ofthe St. Louis American, has beenelected president of the MissouriPress Association.

St. Louis MagazineJarrett Medlin has been

appointed editor-in-chief replacingStephen Schenkenberg, who is relo-cating to Berlin. Medlin has been awriter and executive editor of SLMand previously was editor of WichitaMagazine.

St. Louis Post-DispatchCarolyn Tuft, an investigative

reporter, has resigned for health rea-sons, according to the newspaper.Editors downgraded her stories onthe Joyce Meyer Ministries in 2005and then published an apology to thetelevangelist. A protest by 124 staff -ers was ignored by the top editors;Tuft grieved a suspension and wonexoneration by an arbitrator. Out offavor with the editors, she worked asan online reporter the past two years.She reported being mugged in 2007by three men on the newspaper'sparking lot.Kurt Greenbaum, an online editor

who helped the Post make the transi-tion to Stltoday.com, has resigned totake a job as regional editor in St.Louis for Patch.com, the growing net-work of local community websitesthat AOL is setting up around thecountry.Lisa Brown, has joined the paper

as a business reporter. She worked atthe St. Louis Business Journal forfive years, primarily covering realestate and development.

The Press Club of Metropolitan St. LouisSusan Kert, media relations offi-

cer at Webster University, andAmanda Cook, freelance journalistsand public relations professional,joined the board of the Club.Cynthia Kagan Frohlichstein

was recognized for her Lifetime Ser-vice at the 55th Women of Achieve-ment Award luncheon.The Press Club's 2010 Media Per-

son of the Year Gala September 29will honor Mike Shannon, Cardinalsannouncer.

MEDIA AWARDS

Bonneville St. Louis Media GroupThe Group won awards from the

Missouri Broadcasters Associationfor excellence in programming atWIL (92.3 FM), WXOS (101.1 FM),and WARH (106.5 FM).

Gateway Media Literacy Partners, Inc.

The following 2010 CharlesKlotzer Media Literacy Award hon-orees were chosen for their on-goingrecognition and practice of medialiteracy: Bill Maxfield, educator,Mehlville High School; TomAtwood, media communicator;Press Club of Metropolitan St.Louis. GMLP will honor the awardrecipients at its Fourth AnnualMedia Literacy Week kick-off event,Oct. 3. Details are forthcoming onwww.gmlpstl.org.

KWMU (90.7)Adam Allington and Maria Alt-

man received awards for newsreporting from the Missouri Broad-casters Association.

St. Louis MagazineThe journal was cited as the over-

all winner in the Redesign categoryby the National City and RegionalMagazine Association.

St. Louis Post-DispatchTodd C. Frankel won a first-place

award for feature writing and RobertCohen won a second-place award forphoto essay/story from the NationalHeadliner Awards. Cohen's photog-raphy was also honored by the Amer-ican Society of News Editors.Will Sullivan, interactive director

at the Post, was named to the 2010-2011 class of Donald W. ReynoldsFellows. His Fellowship projectMobile Development Opportunities isto develop strategies for news organi-zations to use mobile technology toreport deeper, faster and more accu-rately for and with their audiences.Editorial writer John Carlton and

photographer Robert Cohen wereamong the finalists for the PulitzerPrizes announced in April. Carltonwrote about health care reform andCohen portrayed homeless suburbanfamilies camping in motels.Reporters Matthew Hathaway,

Elizabethe Holland and Jim Gal-lagher won the Gerald Loeb AwardFor Distinguished Business andFinancial Journalism for their sto-ries last year about problems in theafter-market auto service contractindustry in the St. Louis area.

The St. Louis University News The student newspaper won the

Best In State honors in this year'scompetition by the Missouri CollegeMedia Association.

St. Louis Press ClubVerna Smith and Marge Polcyn

people people people people people people people people people people people

MediaNotes


27 | JAN/FEB 2010 ST LOUIS JOURNALISM REVIEW

were recognized for their volunteerwork at Press Club tour of the down-town Public Library that will un -dergo a $79-million renovation.

AD/PR

Boxing Cleaver Advertising AgencyAli Siegel joined the agency as an

account executive.

Community Service Public Relations CouncilThe Council, a St. Louis-based

association for nonprofit profes-sionals, has elected its board offi-cers and members for 2010-11. President Janet Vigen Levy, mar-

keting and communications man-ager for Girl Scouts of Eastern Mis-souri, will work with the followingboard of directors:

Board OfficersJames Judge, Vice President

(Better Business Bureau), Kate Kro-mann, Secretary (United Way ofGreater St. Louis), Joe Mueller,Treasurer (Greater St. Louis AreaCouncil, Boy Scouts of America)

Newly Elected Board MembersLinda Behrens (School Sisters of

Notre Dame), Kathi Corbett,Stephanie Garvey (Herbert HooverBoys & Girls Club), Kelly Peach (St.Patrick Center)

Returning Board MembersDeborah Cottin (Safe Connec-

tions), Everett Dietle (Missouri His-torical Society), Barbara MacRobie(Dance St. Louis), Patricia Merritt(SIUE East St. Louis Center), BevPfeifer-Harms (Missouri Founda-tion for Health), Julianne Smutz(YMCA Trout Lodge)CSPRC provides professional and

organizational development oppor-tunities for those working in non-profit marketing communications,public relations, development andvolunteer management. CSPRChosts monthly professional develop-ment and networking luncheonsand presents an annual conferencein May. To learn more about CSPRC,visit www.csprc.org or call314.416.2237.

Kratos Global StrategiesThe public affairs firm in Wash-

ington has added Jim Morice andMark Abels to its staff.

The Hauser Group, Inc.

Alicia Diveley and Ashley Pitlykare interning at the agency.

The Vandiver Group, Inc. (TVG)Claire Eckelkamp joins the

agency as an assistant account co -ordinator.The agency has added social

media director to Eileen Buleza’stitle of senior account executive,and Shelley Lester has been pro-moted to senior account executive.

Weintraub AdvertisingThe agency added Susie Penn

and Alex Chartrand as senior writ-ers; Jen McKenzie as broadcastwriter/producer; Danielle Wein-traub as director of social media;Barb Stefano as traffic manager;and Julia Schneider as director ofdigital media.

AD/PR AWARDS

Grizzell & Co. The agency was recently selected

as a recipient in the 2010 HermesCreative Awards competition. Thecontest recognizes outstandingwork in the marketing and commu-nication industry. There were over3,600 entries from throughout theUnited States and abroad.

Rodgers TownsendThe advertising agency won nine

Midwest Regional ADDY Awardsfrom the American Advertising Fed-eration.

St. Louis Post-DispatchTom Engelhardt, editorial car-

toonist emeritus of the St. LouisPost-Dispatch, received an honorary

degree of Doctor of Arts and Lettersfrom the University of Missouri-St.Louis in May. It was awarded inrecognition of his more than 8,000cartoons that made strong pointsabout issues such as social justice,education, Vietnam, racial equality,Watergate, poverty, and the environ-ment. In conjunction with the com-mencement, the St. Louis MercantileLibrary on campus hosted the exhibit“Engelhardt on Elections,” a displayof cartoons published be tween 1962and 1997 and originally shown at theState Historical Society of Missouriin Columbia.

The Vandiver Group, Inc. (TVG) The agency received first place in

the brochure category from the Soci-ety for Marketing Professional Ser-vices St. Louis Archie Awards.

BOOKS

Ellen Sweets, once a reporter forthe Post-Dispatch and the DallasMorning News, has completed a biog-raphy of columnist and author MollyIvins who died in 2007 in Austin, TX.,where Sweets now lives.Don Marsh, former television

reporter and current host of KWMU's“St. Louis On The Air” radio program,has written a new book called “HowTo Be Rude Politely.”

IN MEMORIAM

Louis J. Rose, 78, died April 14.He was a longtime Post-Dispatch in -vestigative reporter who was once arunner-up for a Pulitzer Prize.Patricia Degener, 85, died April

19. She was a former interior designwriter and art critic for the Post-Dis-patch and a founder of Craft Alliance,a gallery and crafts cooperative.Randy Kessler, 60, died May 2. He

was a retired newsroom and photocoordinator for the Post-Dispatch.Peter Keefe, 57, died May 27. He

was a former St. Louis television per-sonality and creator of the animatedchildren's series “Voltron.”Jerry Lovelace, 68, died June 15.

He was a former public relationsdirector for the St. Louis Cardinals.Richard “Dick” Ramage, 76, died

July 24. For 25 years at the Globe-Democrat he held a number of edito-rial and administrative positions. Hedid public relations for local civicgroups and founded the Wishing WellFoundation for children.

people people people people people people people people people people people


JAN/FEB 2010 ST LOUIS JOURNALISM REVIEW | 28

sources say...

By Roy Malone

Lee hits five-year mark with Post-Dispatch

A lot of reductions have occurred at the St.Louis Post-Dispatch in the five years since theLee Enterprises newspaper chain boughtPulitzer Inc. and its flagship newspaper, thePost, for $1.46 billion.The debt is down, the size of the paper and

its contents have been reduced, the ads andcirculation dropped, a third of the staff hasbeen jettisoned and pay and benefits for thosewho toil to put the paper out have beenslashed. Some changes were expected, but thebad economy has taken its toll on Lee andnewspapers everywhere.Foremost for Lee is reducing the staggering

debt as quickly as possible as the chain ofabout five dozen smaller papers has done withother purchases. Some in the industry sayLee, based in Davenport, Iowa, paid too muchfor Pulitzer. But that’s history, just as the rep-utation of the Post as one of the top newspa-pers in the nation is history.Filings with the Securities and Exchange

Commission show the debt due to the Pulitzerpurchase to be about $1.1 billion. Lee had torefinance the debt to banks last year. It hasbeen paying off about $90 million a year on itsdebt say business sources, who keep a closewatch on the finances. Lee said it paid down$66 million in the last nine months endingJune 27. It pays down debt mainly with cashflow.The guess is that the debt can be retired

within ten years of the purchase, depending onrevival of the economy and increased advertis-ing income.As the revenue decline continued to ease,

Lee said, profit for the quarter ended June 27were $10 million; the same quarter a year ear-lier showed a $24.5 million loss. For the pastnine months, Lee’s profit was $41 million.That’s an improvement over Lee’s fortunes lastyear when an audit report questioned whetherit could continue as a going concern. It’s stockhad plummeted to less than $1 per share.

Lee still profitable

So while revenues and advertising continueto drop, Lee remains profitable, mainlybecause of cutting of costs. The company set acost-reduction goal of $100 million for fiscal2009 but actually cut costs by $147 million.For fiscal 2010 the cost-cutting was set at $54million.Lee CEO Mary Junck gave SJR a statement,

saying St. Louis is a good marketplace, and:“We have a great team at the Post-Dispatch,with wonderfully talented people, who contin-ually improve the way we serve readers andadvertisers, through print, online and mobile.Although the economy has continued to chal-lenge our customers and us over these last fewyears, we’re very much upbeat about the futureof St. louis, the Post-Dispatch and Lee Enter-prises.”Kevin Mowbray, the Post's publisher, said

the paper remains “the dominate source forlocal news, information and advertising in ourregion.... the Post-Dispatch and STLtoday.comremain in front of all print, broadcast andonline competitors. And, we are well posi-tioned to take advantage of new distributionopportunities to drive content and advertisingthrough mobile, iPad and social media chan-nels.”While Lee turns a profit, so does the Post,

according to the St. Louis Newspaper Guild.(Lee no longer breaks out figures for the Post).During more than three dozen bargaining ses-sions for a new contract, Lee stressed that theunion employees must agree to give-backs or itwould declare an impasse in negotiations andthen impose its own contract terms.The Guild, representing about 250 staffers

(less than half what it had five years ago), madeplans to conduct a $500,000-public-corporatecampaign against the Post in order to get a bet-ter contract offer. The local’s treasury has $3.6million.In the end, Guild members, mainly out of

fear of more layoffs, voted 132-54 o accept a 5-1/2 year contract that called for a six-percentwage cut and three unpaid, one-week fur-loughs. No more layoffs for six months wasagreed to. But the employees will no longerhave a company pension and medical benefitswill be ended for retirees.Lee told shareholders that when it dropped

health benefits last winter for many retirees itsaved $30 million. The Guild has gone to courtin an effort to get an arbitrator to rule onwhether those retirees should get the healthbenefits restored because they were promisedin previous Guild contracts.“We gave in without a shot being fired,” said

one Guild member about accepting the newcontract. Another said: “It wasn’t just theyounger employees, but some older ones too,”who argued for accepting the pay cut. Giventhat Lee is an anti-union company, “At least westill have a union,” one Guild officer said.Lee has a website for employees that pro-

vides negative information about unions; inturn, union people contribute to their own LeeWatch website to share news items such asthis one in June:“On Thursday, each director was awarded a

10,000-share package worth $30,500 while fur-loughs and layoffs continue throughout therest of the company.” The eight directorsinclude two from St. Louis, Andrew E. Newmanand Mark Vittert. They were paid $93,470 and$78,470 respectively in 2009.

Deep cuts

Morale has suffered at the Post because ofthe way many loyal employees were thrownoverboard, most without even a thank you.There have been two buyouts and several lay-offs. The staff is required to produce the paperwith less manpower, and now with less pay.Hard-working reporters and editors takeoffense when the paper is criticized for becom-



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