Public journalism hits television airwaves

By Dawn Grodsky

KMOV (Channel 4) is the latest local medium to jump on the civic journalism bandwagon. On Sunday, Sept. 26, Channel 4, in a collaborative effort with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, launched "Imagine St. Louis," a 30-minute program airing at 10 a.m. each Sunday and dedicated to examining "critical issues" for the region. Public journalism was, of course, brought to St. Louis by Cole Campbell, editor of the Post. The paper launched its "Imagine St. Louis" section in April.

The inaugural program on Channel 4

imagined the creation of quality jobs. Host Myriam Wright was joined by Post reporter David Nicklaus along with Eddie Davis, president of the St. Louis Minority Business Council, and Richard Fleming, president of the St. Louis Regional Commerce and Growth Association.

The discussion was loosely based on Nicklaus' two-part report in the "Imagine St. Louis" section of the Sunday Post that appeared Sept. 19 and 26.

The program opened with footage of the demonstrators who shut down Interstate 70 earlier this year to protest a lack of minority hiring, mentioned the high number of layoffs at Boeing and wrapped up its introduction with Wright declaring that "finding quality jobs for people is the greatest challenge for the city."

The show then featured a package by Channel 4 reporter Jamie Allman, who talked to a woman looking for a job at a local employment office and then went to a nearby temp agency. The main thrust of Allman's story was that while unemployment figures here are slightly lower than the national average (4.2 percent compared to 4.3 percent as a full-screen graphic showed us twice during the program), finding good-paying jobs is a different story. Most temp jobs pay in the $6 to $7-an-hour range.

Fleming of the RCGA talked about how raising the quality of jobs sustains job growth and said that the entrepreneurial spirit needs to be encouraged. He said St. Louis' natural assets are plant and natural sciences, and automobiles.

Davis pointed to the small-business backbone, most especially that of minority-owned small business because they tend to hire more minorities. He also said business should invest in the center of the city.

After a commercial break, the group discussed the "nagging problem" of the city's earnings tax, which comprises one-third of St. Louis' budget. Fleming, who noted even stock options are taxed, talked about capping this tax.

Davis then talked about the importance of education and plugged a course offered locally in the business of construction.

Nicklaus didn't say much and appeared decidedly uncomfortable in the spotlight, never once smiling nor looking at the camera. He wore an off-white suit and was placed against an off-white wall.

No citizen involvement

What was lacking in the program-the concept of which attempts to get citizens more involved in their communities-was the participation of those very citizens. There was not one aspect in the show that would help a person looking for a job. All the talk about entrepreneurial growth and the use of phrases such as "we need to understand our assets," "the competition is improving on its basic products" and "the intellectual capacity needed to compete with down-sizing" mean absolutely nothing to a person who is worried about making next month's rent.

If these guests are talking to the policy makers, then wouldn't it be better if they set up a meeting with the folks at City Hall or Civic Progress? If they're talking to Joe Citizen, how about sponsoring a job fair instead?

What could make this program reasonable would be if it were live, shot in front of an audience or where viewers from home could call in and ask questions about whatever the topic is. Instead, the program is taped each Wednesday.

And as much as the creators would like a live show as well, they say it's an impossibility.

"A live call-in show with a studio audience would be the optimal thing to do," producer Steve Perron said. "I don't see it as a possibility, financially. We'd have to have an entire studio crew there, the control room, a camera crew, the producer, talent. It would be a logistical nightmare. It would affect the entire week's schedule."

Bob Duffy, the Post's cultural news editor who oversees the print version of "Imagine St. Louis" and works with Channel 4 for the TV show, agreed. "Live would be preferable," he said. "But in terms of their production schedule, they need to pre-record it. I would hope that at least we'll have a phone number (so viewers can) call the TV studio."

Duffy said a comment on the air Sunday made by Fleming and referring to Nicklaus' story may have confused some listeners about the format of the show. Fleming mentioned how he agreed with the lead in the reporter's story. Duffy noted Nicklaus' story was in two parts and Fleming was referring to the first part, printed the Sunday prior to the Wednesday taping of the show. He said the guests do not get to read the coming Sunday section in advance.

Two shows cancelled

Perron was formerly the producer of "Newsmakers," one of Channel 4's two public-affairs programs it cancelled to produce "Imagine St. Louis." The other was "Eye on St. Louis." Both aired Sunday morning and the decision to cancel was made by upper management, Perron said. President and General Manager Allan Cohen approached the Post about the collaborative effort, according to Duffy.

Duffy said the paper was first contacted by the station over the summer, when he had initial meetings with Executive News Director Steve Hammel. "And then we had more meetings and lots more discussions. Marketing and PR people got involved. And we had our show, more or less," he said.

No money changes hands between the Post and the station. Channel 4 pays for its talent, promotions and the air time while the Post does the same for its staff and promotional materials.

Who decides the topics? "Sort of me," Duffy said. "I still determine what goes in the paper and the show is determined by the paper. The idea is to take an issue of broad public interest or a problem of broad public impact on the region."

Duffy chose the job-creation issue for the debut of the TV show even though he admitted that wasn't one that has generated a lot of interest. "It was the first time we revisited the topic since July," he said. "It's sort of a rotation. We revisit issues every six or eight weeks." Duffy said he expects to introduce about eight new topics a year. "Some reach critical mass. We feel the time has come to go out and do something else."

'Works in progress'

Duffy said both the printed and on-air versions are "works in progress." "'Imagine St. Louis' in the paper and on TV is something evolving and nothing is really set in stone."

Perron said it's fine for the Post to choose the topics and schedule the guests at this point, as he's been enormously busy building the set and setting the tone for the show. "We do retain the discretion in choosing how to present it visually," he said.

Duffy and Wright are now meeting every Monday to discuss in depth what is in the upcoming article for the following Sunday's show. By Thursday or Friday, Perron will find a reporter to do a piece for the broadcast.

Jamie Allman, whom Perron called one of the station's "premier reporters," expressed an interest in participating in "Imagine St. Louis." Perron and Allman discuss the possibilities, whether it be an overall story or a "slice of life" piece and then Allman is freed for a day to cover the story.

"That's a big commitment on our part," Perron said. "He's taken out of the news mix and we generally don't have reporters to spare."

Perron said he's excited about the new program and its possibilities. "We all understand in our business (TV) we are not able to do the types of in-depth examination of issues that a newspaper can. David Nicklaus worked three weeks to a month, maybe more, on that story. We just can't do that type of thing. But there are things that we can do visually. We can take an issue and capture the feelings of that on the street. And that is what a newspaper isn't able to do," he said. "This whole public journalism thing and, of course, 'Imagine St. Louis' is a manifest of Cole's (Campbell, Post editor) views, but regardless of how you feel about public journalism, the issues they've brought up are worth looking at and it's worth going ahead with the program."

But what about the TV station doing its own examination of issues rather than collaborating with the only daily newspaper in town?

"We did that with 'Newsmakers' and 'Eye on St. Louis,'" Perron said. "We've been doing these kinds of shows since television had its licenses. This type of program is certainly not, by any stretch of the imagination, anything new for us."

Perron noted the ratings were good for the first "Imagine" broadcast, with only the Ryder Cup beating it in its time slot. He added that he believes the collaboration is exciting and innovating, and said he doesn't know of any other similar effort.

But this type of effort between TV or radio and a newspaper has been done in Madison, Wis., San Francisco and Seattle, where civic journalism is also practiced by daily papers. In all of these cases, it was the newspaper approaching the TV stations rather than the other way around, as Duffy said happened with "Imagine."

Collaboration raises concern

What concerns many is both the proliferation of public journalism in St. Louis and the fact that other media are joining forces with the Post.

Eileen Solomon, an associate professor of broadcast journalism at Webster University and former executive producer of the Channel 4 news department, thinks the collaboration is dangerous. "Does this mean that now we can expect Channel 4 to do no critical reporting of the Post-Dispatch and the Post-Dispatch to do no critical reporting of Channel 4, now that they're working together for a common goal? When the media join forces, it seems to me, there is an inherent danger," she said.

Perron discounted that theory. "I don't see how the relationship would affect coverage. We've been working with the Post for years in smaller ways."

Campbell wrote in a letter announcing the new joint effort, "While newspapers and television are often seen as competitors, we believe there is great opportunity for the two media to complement each other. And we look forward to many more opportunities to join the power of the pen with the illumination of the lens."

Other criticisms of the joint effort include the fact that there are more than enough news stories in a market the size of the St. Louis for media organizations not to tag-team coverage, and there's certainly enough for "Imagine" to cover 52 topics a year instead of just eight. These collaborations do nothing to diversify information.

Illusion of participation

Critics of public journalism in general and the "Imagine" section in particular say the movement only gives an illusion of public participation. With Duffy essentially choosing the topics in the Post and on Channel 4, it is he alone who determines what issues are "critical" to the area.

The Post has said it is reflecting a citizens' agenda and is not taking a proactive stance on any issue. However, the second printed issue of "Imagine" asked people to "Imagine a Bridge" and brought up the need for another bridge crossing the Mississippi River in downtown St. Louis. Later, the paper editorialized in favor of the bridge. The Post could stand accused of choosing topics to soften readers so they'll be more receptive to its editorial positions. After all, a new bridge was never a citizens' agenda. It was the Post's from concept to editorial to determining when an issue has "reached a critical mass."

And how is that decided? Does the Post determine a problem is "solved?"

"No. We're not guilty of that," Duffy laughed. "Our hope is this will be a way for people to re-engage themselves in public life. It's a public journalism cliche but we believe that. It is my sincere hope that's what this series does."

But Duffy admitted some issues haven't attracted much interaction. At a Post-sponsored town hall forum on a new stadium held at Charlie Gitto's downtown, which Duffy chose because of its baseball history, only two citizens showed up.

"It was a total disaster. Nobody came," he admitted. Thinking the get-together would be crowded, he ordered a lot of food. "There were two guys who were very interested in the topic, and there was a man with a sign that said if the owners wanted a new ballpark they should borrow the money from the players to pay for it, who stood across the street." Duffy added a television news crew came to cover what the station expected to be a crowded meeting. "It turned out that the cameraman was very articulate and had been in Chicago and had a lot of knowledge on the subject. We had a perfectly nice time but the Post people outnumbered the audience," he said. Also, Duffy noted no one from the Cardinals' organization attended.

However, Duffy is quick to add other meetings have attracted large crowds, including one on health care at the St. Louis Metropolitan Medical Society. And response ran high on the baseball issue, with an estimated 75 e-mails and even more letters. The job issue, on the other hand, has received little response, Duffy said.

"Complexity, emotion maybe have something to do with it. You just never know. It's not scientific," Duffy said.

Imagine that.

Local radio stations get national honor

By Frank Absher

For the first time in the 10-year history of the awards, the National Association of Broadcasters has named two St. Louis radio stations as "Station of the Year" in their respective formats.

KFUO-FM and KZJZ received Marconi Awards as the nation's top classical and New Adult Contemporary (NAC)/jazz stations, respectively.

At KFUO-FM, the staff is elated. Director of Station Operations Dennis Stortz says it's the first time the station was nominated. It's been broadcasting a classical format since going on the air in 1948. Program Director Jim Connett credits a presence on the World Wide Web, including real audio, with giving the judges a complete picture of what the station is doing. A visit to the website, he says, shows the full extent of the station's involvement in the community.

Stortz says KFUO-FM has long been involved in the local arts scene, including live concerts at the Missouri Botanical Garden, the musical instrument collection to benefit low-income kids, a blood drive and a full-blown outreach program in the community.

"It's almost impossible," says Connett, "to be a classical music station and not support the arts in every way, shape and form. That means doing more than promoting the symphony. We're now developing relationships with Dance St. Louis, the art museum, zoo, science center, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis and other local musical groups."

"There's no other radio station in town that helps the arts to any consistent degree," Stortz says. "We decided about three years ago that we would actively take this channel and move forward.

"We've seen the demise of classical radio stations around the country. Where it was once a viable, solid format, now only certain communities have classical music on the radio. The reason we have it here is because of our ownership." Stortz says. "The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod supports that sort of programming in this community."

At the 1380 spot on the AM dial, KZJZ has been percolating along at 5,000 watts with a "straight-ahead" jazz format for about 15 months. But even the winning of a cherished Marconi Award won't necessarily guarantee success. Carol Archer, the NAC/Smooth Jazz columnist for Radio & Records, told SJR she is not aware of any commercially successful straight-ahead jazz stations anywhere in the country. In fact, according to a press release from KZJZ, there are only two other commercial stations in the nation playing this style of jazz. All forms of jazz stations were considered for this award.

Maria Keena is the general manager at KZJZ, which is owned by New Horizons Church. She says her station is giving St. Louis listeners something they haven't had in nearly 30 years, a true jazz station. "Given the way radio has changed, with most of the stations owned by huge corporations, you've lost all variety, individuality and creativity. I think the people want something different."

It was a well-respected black man named Spider Burk who made a name for himself as a jazz disc jockey on KXLW in the 1960s. Now, in 1999, Keena believes our young people should be exposed to jazz.

"We're going into schools and teaching them about Duke Ellington. They hear tapes of Newport 1956 and come alive to the beat. We're targeting city schools next, where the band programs have dwindled. Sports always seem to get funded. Music doesn't."

KZJZ has slowly seen an increase in sales revenues over the past year, and Keena says Arbitron shows solid core listenership for her station. This, she says, makes ownership happy. "When Emmis donated this station to Reverend B.T. Rice, there was hope that the black community would gain another voice. It really has. Our solid core listenership is firmly in high-density black neighborhoods. But with our music format, no one is excluded. We bring people together."

The Sporting News faces uncertain future

By Don Corrigan

A venerable St. Louis institution, the Sporting News (TSN), is now on the auction block. Once a beacon for baseball afficionados and other sports lovers across the nation, the Gateway City publication's future has never been so uncertain.

Parent company Times Mirror of Los Angeles put the weekly sports magazine up for sale on Sept. 3. That action has triggered massive speculation about what will happen to the magazine on North Lindbergh Boulevard, both locally and within the national sports media industry.

The 1990s has been a decade of fighting red ink and circulation decline for TSN. In an effort to address those problems, Times Mirror has invested heavily in several format revamps and facelifts for the publication, as well as putting up several million dollars to bring the magazine into the age of cyberspace.

The move to sell TSN as the year 2000 approaches would indicate that Times Mirror is throwing in the towel on efforts to make TSN profitable again. The magazine has faced increasing competition from cable television sports channels and from sports publications that are teamed with broadcasters, such as ESPN Magazine and its television protege, ESPN Cable.

Several sports media insiders contacted by SJR offered a number of rationales for why TSN has lost its footing in an increasingly difficult market. Among the reasons offered:

• Problems with TSN go way back before Times-Mirror ownership. TSN has had a history of being so fixated on baseball as "the be all and end all of sports" that it ceded football, basketball and hockey coverage to competitors. It has tried to play "catch-up" too late in the game.

• Times Mirror's long-distance management of the publication damaged the sports weekly. Imposing the company's style on a sports maverick, more than a century old, hurt loyalty to the publication both internally and externally.

• TSN tried to change its basic personality to appeal to a younger audience, while trying to maintain old-time loyalists. But a change to long theme stories, accompanied by snippets, pie charts and graphics, gave the once staid flagship of the sports world "a sort of identity crisis."

• TSN's various "revamps" and "relaunches"-some inspired by USA Today and cable sports programs-inevitably alienated many of its core faithful. TSN's circulation is now estimated at about 540,000, declining from a 1980's heyday readership of 740,000.

As early as 1991, SJR reported Times Mirror had given the local management at TSN an ultimatum that advertising and circulation must grow or the Sporting News would face sale or closure. Times Mirror now appears to be making good on that threat.

When contacted by SJR for comment, TSN Editor John Rawlings said he had been instructed to refer all phone calls about the future of the publication to the media relations office of Times Mirror Magazines in New York.

TSN, the oldest sports magazine in the United States, employs about 120 people with 90 of them in St. Louis County. Some TSN staffers are looking for lifeboats; others are hanging on to the rocking vessel while wondering what's next.

Among the questions nagging at anxious staffers: Will TSN be picked up by another media conglomerate, such as CBS/Viacom, NBC/MSNBC or Rupert Murdoch's Fox Network? Will it be moved from St. Louis? Will it be picked up by a New York or Chicago-based magazine company and merged or even killed?

Sporting news history

In a 1984 profile of the Sporting News, just a couple of years shy of the sports publication's centennial, Newsweek magazine described TSN as being for diehards who "aren't 'sunshine soldiers' who follow the local team only if it's winning. The readers of the Sporting News are the sort who know that a midget named Eddie Gaebel battled for the St. Louis Browns in 1951 and wore the number 1/8, who know that a team can get six hits in an inning and still not score."

Newsweek noted that Ty Cobb paid 25 bucks, in two installments, for a lifetime subscription to the News; that a vice president named Richard Nixon offered to write an article for it, only to have Ike scotch the idea; and, that an ayatollah in Iran let American hostages read the Sporting News while in captivity-and very little else.

Newsweek also noted that TSN fans are very resistant to change. They love "the old-fashioned disorderliness" that in the past has been a hallmark of the publication. Purists were shocked in the 1940s when a special football section was added to the exclusive coverage of The Game-baseball. In an effort to stave off criticism, TSN advised that the section was "easily removable" for the offended hard-core baseball fans.

The Sporting News was founded by St. Louis sportswriter Alfred Spink, who happily cranked out the first issue on St. Patrick's Day of 1886. Al Spink left the paper to his brother, Charlie, after writing and producing a play called, "The Derby Winner," which featured six live horses galloping on a treadmill. The play flopped miserably, and when Al realized he had a better thing going with TSN, Charlie let his prodigal playwright brother know that he was now holding tight to the reins of the fledgling publication.

When Charlie died in 1914, his son, J.G. Taylor Spink took over, but not before the twosome had had some knock-down, drag-out fights, over such issues as whether baseball should have an American League, an idea that did not sit well with the older National League. By World War II, TSN had a respectable circulation of 80,000. Aggressive marketing and expanded editorial content by Taylor Spink, toward the end of the war, brought the publication many more readers.

Taylor became ill in 1961, and the publishing responsibilities fell to his son, C.C. Johnson Spink, who was named after his grandfather's good buddy, Ban Johnson, founder of the American League. Johnson expanded coverage into other fields, including more than just the major sports in TSN's repertoire. However, the biggest change for TSN came in 1978 when Johnson sold the sports tabloid to Times-Mirror for $18 million.

Aside from owning the Sporting News, Times-Mirror owned several other St. Louis properties at that time, including KTVI-TV and the medical publishing house, C.V. Mosby. Shortly after the purchase, Times-Mirror brought in Richard Waters, a former top editor at the Reader's Digest, to "bring the Sporting News into the 20th Century," as Waters told Newsweek.

Under Waters, circulation more than doubled from an initial figure of 325,000. The growing sports tab shed its "blue-collar" image, with a more literate editorial content and an automation of plant operations. Revenues soared to the $50 million range. Waters served as chief executive and president of the publication from 1981 until 1989, when Tom Osenton was named publisher and Rawlings became the new editor.

The Black Book

Industry experts contacted by SJR said nothing will happen with TSN for the first few weeks of October until the "black book" is completed by Times Mirror and TSN management. This book is a sort of insider portfolio on the company containing financial data, marketing strategy as well as potential future scenarios for the publication.

Once the black book is available to potential buyers, the sale of TSN is expected to move quickly with bids coming in late October and November and with a closing before the end of 2000. The publication may fetch less than $30 million or as much as $50 million depending on what's in that black book.

A source, who described himself as a former Sporting News licensee, said work by Rawlings and other TSN staffers on the publication's Internet presence has hiked the company's cash value from just a few years ago. He said that three years ago, the word was out that ESPN/ESPN Magazine was offering $18 million for TSN with the intention of merging or killing the St. Louis publication.

"There are a lot of factors that got the Sporting News to this point," added the source. "But the bottom line is that the Chandler family wants some money to buy back more of their Times-Mirror stock. They also want to concentrate on their newspapers.

"It's a natural for them to sell off the News which has been losing about $2.5 million a year," he continued. "Some major changes could make it profitable again. If there's a place it can be faulted, it's in the failure to take advantage of some sports marketing opportunities. That could have made the difference between profitability and where they are now."

LETTERS

Enfants terrible

SJR: Geez guys.

I agree to deliver Jay Rosen's paper at the recent AEJMC convention, and next thing I know I'm a poster boy for public journalism.

I enjoyed reading about the gonzo antics of Don Corrigan and Ed Bishop. And I endorse your criticisms of the conglomerates that have elbowed their way onto the AEJMC program.

But if you ever get serious about putting public journalism in perspective for your readers, please consider the following points:

• The crisis in American daily newspapers long predates the public journalism movement.

• Journalism educators usually find it easier to defend the heroism of their profession once they have left behind the humiliations and frustrations of the news business.

• John Merrill assumes that news coverage is something professional journalists do for democracy. Many citizens suspect that it is something journalists do to democracy.

As you noted, I am no fan of the current reorganization of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newsroom. That is because I believe that any top-down plan to transform a complex organization is probably doomed to failure.

We all appreciate how much fun you had working the term "circle jerk" into a story (whether or not it was your term originally is irrelevant). But aren't you guys getting a bit long in the tooth to play the enfant terrible? At some point, don't you owe your readers a more thorough, balanced discussion of public journalism?

John Pauly,

St. Louis University

Kudos

SJR: I'm sure you've gotten a ton of compliments on your SJR article on cruising. Allow me to add my kudos. What terrific reporting on a major but totally ignored situation. Congrats!

David Clohessy

More kudos

SJR: Congratulations on a beautiful piece of journalism. Your article on the closing off of Highway 40, to frustrate the inner-city kids, was beautiful. And what an embarrassment to the Post-Dispatch! Keep up the good work. Thanks.

Murray Underwood,

Kirkwood

Correction

In the July/August issue, an article in SJR referred to an internal supplement about the controversial reorganization of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newsroom into teams as "Campbell's special supplement." This phrase may well have left readers with the impression that Post Editor Cole Campbell wrote, edited or designed the piece. He did not.

In fact, reporters Michael Sorkin and Phyllis Librach, who were asked to research and write the supplement, say they believe they were chosen for their reputations for independence. They also say they asked for and got a promise of no retaliation for their work. The reporters asked Richard Weiss, a senior editor, to edit their stories. But, they say they frequently overruled Weiss, restoring critical comments about teams that he had edited out for space reasons. The supplement explained their independence on the front page. It was an error not to report so.

Also, in the same article, Campbell is quoted as saying: "Histrionics will get you nowhere." This was not a direct quote from Campbell, but rather was taken from a cartoon of Campbell that made fun of the reorganization which appeared on the cover of the supplement.

SJR regrets the use of the phrase "Campbell's special supplement" and attributing the cartoon quote to Campbell.

OF NOTE

Fewer minority students

Charles L. Overby, in the Freedom Forum News, reports the number of minority journalism students has declined in 1998. "Professor Lee Becker of the University of Georgia, who tracks enrollment trends annually, said the percentage of minorities in undergraduate journalism and mass communication programs declined in 1998," Overby reported.

African-American enrollment declined the most, from 13.5 percent to 10.5 percent. Hispanic enrollment decreased from 8.5 percent to 8.3 percent. However, Asian enrollment increased from 2.7 percent to 2.9 percent and Native American enrollment increased from 0.5 percent to 1.1 percent.

-Charles Klotzer

Miami search continues

Robert Rivard, a long-time reporter and editor whose career has been as a newsman for newspapers and magazines, was the leading candidate to become executive editor of the Miami Herald, until he withdrew from the running last week.

Rivard, 46, is staying on as editor and senior vice-president of the San Antonio Express-News, one of the few remaining Hearst papers. Rivard's decision came after the Hearst organization announced an increased operation budget for the San Antonio paper.

He apparently was the leader among several finalists who have survived the four-month search by the Knight-Ridder organization. Others include Larry Olmstead, managing editor of the Herald, and Mark Seibel, the paper's assistant managing editor for metropolitan news.

-Joe Pollack

By the book

The Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities opposes proposed tighter controls over what is being taught in the nation's 235 Catholic universities by U.S. bishops, reports The New York Times (Sept. 26).

"...a 54-member board (of the bishops) approved a proposal, which will be voted on in November by all the nation's bishops, that would require theology teachers to have the endorsement of the bishops in order to teach. That would allow the bishops to remove a teacher in cases of conflict," reports The New York Times.

The proposal requires a two-thirds approval of the bishops and the endorsement of the Vatican.

The association contends that the controls would threaten the survival of some schools, academic freedom and civil law.

-Charles Klotzer

Student Web site censors

Missouri seems to be right in the middle of things when it comes to controversy over student expression on private Web sites from home. More and more high school students are facing the wrath of administrators for articles posted on the Internet from home on their own Web sites.

Brad Gore, a Mexico High School student, was suspended from school for several days after administrators found out about his site, which included a page called "The System Sucks." Gore was still suspended after he agreed to take down the page that offended administrators.

Brandon Beussink of Woodland High School created a Web site with his sister listing reasons they did not like their high school. Beussink was suspended and the student brought action against the school. Late last year, a federal judge prohibited the school from lowering Beussink's grades. The case was settled this summer, but terms of the settlement have not been released.

The Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Va., which monitors such cases closely, finds the actions by Missouri school administrators to be disturbing. The center maintains that courts must uphold First Amendment privilege for private Web sites, and emphasizes that outside of the school day or school-sponsored events, parents, not school officials, have the right to control student expression.

-Don Corrigan

E & P sold

Editor and Publisher magazine, while primarily catering to the newspaper industry and its owners, has earned a reputation of outspokenness and independence.

Its sale to BPI Communications, owners of Adweek, Brandweek, Mediaweek, Shoot, Mc Magazines, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Architecture, Interior, American Artists and various electronic data and marketing services, raises questions of its continued independence.

In the final inch of its 38-inch article BPI executives are quoted, "The company intends to continue the editorial integrity of E&P maintained by the Brown family."

BPI itself is a subsidiary of VNU-USA, "which is owned by Dutch publishing giant VNU N.V. VNU-USA also owns Bill Communications, VNU Marketing Information Services, and SRDS, which is a provider of media rates and data to the advertising industry," reports Editor & Publisher (Sept. 11).

We will be watching.

-Charles Klotzer

In SJR

10 Years Ago:

• The St. Louis Suburban Journals ceased publication of its Friday editions. Management admitted the product didn't meet expectations, so it was merged with the Sunday advertising sheets currently being delivered by the company.

• Meteorologist Dave Murray returned to forecasting duties at KTVI (Channel 2) from a stint at WBZ-TV in Boston.

• Of the 31 commercial radio stations operating in the St. Louis area, 22 were owned by companies headquartered outside the market.

5 Years Ago:

• Suburban Journals President/ CEO Thomas Rice was demoted after Circuit City pulled all its advertising from the papers. As soon as Rice was replaced by Don Miller, the advertising was restored.

• Don Marsh left his anchor's slot at Channel 2 after management offered him a new contract with a 55 percent pay cut. He had been with the station 23 years.

• At KSDK (Channel 5), investigative reporter Jody Davis parted company with the station after it refused to renew his employment contract.

MEDIA ON MEDIA

By Frank Absher

Car talk

If you're driving in your car, chances are you have the radio on. Arbitron surveys indicate 79 percent of their respondents listen in their cars. Men said that 31 percent of their radio listening time came in cars, while women spend 25 percent of their total radio time on the road. (Radio World 9/15)

Easy listening

Those people who enjoy listening to Internet radio but lament the terrible speakers on their computers have a friend in Silicon Valley. A company there has invented Sonicbox. It works with a small transmitter plugged into your PC and allows you to listen to pre-selected Internet radio stations through the FM receiver on your stereo. Sonicbox will be available early next year. (AllAccess 9/14)

Private lives

The recent activities of the press may not sit well with some of the nation's media consumers. A new Pew Research Center survey found a growing distaste for the way the press digs into the lives of political candidates. Of those surveyed, 53 percent thought the information was valuable. Twelve years ago that figure was 59 percent. Those least tolerant of such scrutiny are over the age of 30. (N.Y. Times 9/20)

War stories

RIP Military Channel. The cable offering has pulled the plug and laid off half its workers. During its year of operations, The Military Channel picked up 8 million subscribers for its specialty programs. (Broadcasting & Cable 7/18)

Canned yuk

There's a little less laughter on the tube this season. Several programs have opted to do away with the canned laugh tracks. While some may say the action makes sense due to the lack of actual humor, Fox Entertainment President Doug Herzog puts a slightly different spin on it, "There's something about canned laughter that I think is unnerving to younger audiences who expect something a little more real and in-your-face." (Electronic Media 8/2)

Getting even

It was like something right out of the movies. KHOU-TV anchor Marlene McClinton resigned on the air Sept. 7 after finishing the 5 p.m. news. She announced she was leaving the Houston station, saying, "Suffice it to say, I'm very unhappy with the way management has decided to treat people here and has indeed done business." She then walked off the set. KHOU suspended the show's producer for a week for knowing something was coming and allowing it to happen. (Electronic Media 9/20)

Turn about

Imagine the egg on the face of WPTV news director Bob Jordan. It seems one of his reporters was caught in the act. While doing a story of people who impersonate police officers, the reporter flashed a badge to enter a local woman's home. Turns out the woman whose home was entered was a reporter from the Palm Beach Post. (Electronic Media 7/5)

Older target

It will probably mean even more headaches for radio and television programmers. The huge baby-boom demographic of 25-54 year-old people is breaking apart. Interep says the 35 plus demo appears to establishing new spending and buying habits. An observer says the next "hot" demo will be 35-64. (Radio World 9/15)

Crowing

Electronic Media is out with its annual poll of television critics, and HBO has a lot to crow about.

The critics named "The Sopranos" TV's best series. It's the first time a non-network program has received the honor. Other critics' favorites, in order, were: "The Practice," "Sports Night," "Everybody Loves Raymond," "Ally McBeal," "NYPD blue," "Friends," "Law & Order," "The Simpsons" and "Frasier."

The worst TV shows, according to the critics, were: "Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer," "Wind on Water," "Jerry Springer," "Veronica's Closet," and "Encore! Encore!"

Network shopping

You may be surprised to learn that many people turn on their television sets with no clue what might be on at the time.

Magid Merdia Futures studied the viewing habits of 1,002 adults and 40 percent of those surveyed didn't bother to check TV listings before turning on the tube. They simply turned on the television and looked through the channels to see if there was anything worth watching.

The Sunday newspaper's TV magazine was consulted by 28 percent of viewers, 14 percent checked listings in their daily papers and 14 percent checked out TV Guide.

Kid TV

It seems even PBS is susceptible to competition. The kids' shows on Nickelodeon, the Disney Channel and Noggin have been targeted by the new, commercial-free PBS Kids Channel. In addition to showing repeats of PBS kids' shows, the channel is rebroadcasting them during prime time. (Electronic Media 9/6)

HERE

By Ed Bishop

In the summer of 1988, in order to serve a federal warrant, U. S. Circuit Attorney Thomas Dittmeier threw an armed cordon around the Emerson Electric Company in north St. Louis County. The feds sealed off the plant's executive offices and sent the workers home.

Their warrant alleged that Emerson Electric was placing parts paid for by the government into armored vehicles being sold to Egypt-in other words, that Emerson Electric was defrauding American taxpayers.

Then, as now, Emerson Electric's CEO was Chuck Knight, one of the biggest Republican movers and shakers in the state. Dittmeier was a Republican too, appointed by President Ronald Reagan.

Dittmeier had earned a reputation among liberals as well as conservatives for being an excellent, hard-nosed U.S. attorney, going after political corruption and organized crime wherever he found it. At the time, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch strenuously defended Dittmeier's raid. But Knight was extremely unhappy. He called the raid "police-state tactics."

A few months after the Emerson incident, when the Bush administration replaced the Reagan administration, Dittmeier was fired. The vast majority of Reagan appointments retained their posts, but Dittmeier got the boot. The point-man for Dittmeier's firing was then-Senator John Danforth.

The Post wrote several articles outlining the series of events. It pointed out that Dittmeier's dismissal was almost certainly the result of the Emerson raid. The editorial page of the Post went even farther. In an editorial about Danforth's role in Dittmeier's firing, the Post said: "If our Missouri senators were half as productive as Tom Dittmeier maybe this announcement would not seem nearly so absurd." The editorial went on to castigate Danforth for kowtowing to Knight.

Within days, Danforth called a news conference. He accused the Post of repeatedly printing untrue stories about his decision to replace Dittmeier. He also accused the paper of not getting in touch with him for comment.

But Editor William Woo said Post reporters had called Danforth's office numerous times and were refused interviews. Reporter Robert Koenig told Sue Ann Wood, the Readers' Advocate at the time, that it was "the worst stone-walling by a public official" he had ever experienced.

Now fast-forward 10 years.

On Sept. 9, 1999, Attorney General Janet Reno announced that she was appointing Danforth to investigate the Justice Department's role in the Branch Davidian mess at Waco. Two days later, Danforth announced that he would not talk to the press except to outline the strategy of his investigation. He would not, he said, discuss details until after the investigation was completed.

The irony of all this-Danforth investigating the very department he had once stripped of one of its best prosecutors and then saying he would probably stonewall the press again-was not lost on reporters at the Post. In a Sunday, Sept. 26, article written by Terry Ganey and William Freivogel, the reporters asked a Danforth lieutenant about the incident at Emerson Electric. The lieutenant told the two reporters that Danforth fired Dittmeier because he was "a right-wing guy... Danforth thought Dittmeier was way too reactionary."

What?

So far the Post has done an excellent job of covering the Danforth investigation into one of the major branches of the Justice Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation-despite Danforth's policy of not talking. It needs to keep doing so.

If any organization needs some sunlight, it's the FBI. And any policy that does not allow the public to watch-step by step-the search for truth about the FBI in this matter is simply wrongheaded.

The details not withstanding, this story lies at the core of the relationship between the press and democrary.

Here's a chance for the Post to shine. Like I said, so far, so good.

THERE

By Charles L. Klotzer

Thomas W. Purcell, president of the Laclede's Landing Redevelopment Corporation, ought to be satisfied. His pet peeve, car cruising, made the media. Not only was it the cover story in last month's SJR, but the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published his letter as well as a follow-up article about car cruising (which even credited SJR, the first such mention we can remember in decades). Of course, nothing fundamentally is going to change to stop car cruising next summer.

It is interesting to observe what is and what is not published in the Post's letters section. For example, Purcell's letter on car cruising was written weeks before SJR published its report. He showed SJR the letter during our interview. However, it appeared only after SJR broke the story. Editors, of course, rightfully control what sees the light of day in their publication.

In response to Purcell's letter, we wrote a letter to the Post not really expecting it to be published. To our surprise a Post staffer called us to ask if we intended it for publication and if we minded if it were to be published. Of course not, was the response, go ahead. Among other things, our letter said that it is wrong to accommodate the assumption that white citizens will be scared off from visiting the riverfront entertainment area because of car cruising. Well, the letter never appeared. However, shortly thereafter an editorial on car cruising appeared with a baffling headline, "No more finger-pointing." The editorial recited the basic facts and admonished, "First, get race out of the equation. The racial finger-pointing and name-calling that has gone on thus far have no place in the discussion."

Until SJR published its car cruising piece no one was discussing anything. We suspect, therefore-or are we too self-inflated to assume so-that the editorial comment refers to SJR's coverage.

SJR's article emphasized that car cruising by itself has absolutely nothing to do with race. As Police Chief Henderson repeatedly told SJR, what the cruisers do is perfectly legal, there are simply too many of them doing it.

But the way the St. Louis City Police attempted to address the issue has everything to do with race. The type of racism manifested was not intentional, rooted in bias, but systemic, institutional and unthinking, which is just as harmful.

Some examples:

• Blacks were corralled onto specific roads and highways while whites were permitted to cross police barricades.

• Some downtown entertainment outlets are harassed by police for featuring rap music at events primarily attended by black teenagers and young adults.

• City agencies create difficulties in obtaining licenses for entertainment events which feature black teenage artists.

• Key business leaders collaborate with the notion that white county residents will not frequent downtown entertainment if they see too many blacks cruising in cars.

Must we go on?

The Post editorial reflects a degree of naiveté which fails to recognize how police harassment is perceived by the cruisers. Their amused answer to our query of why the police chases them from place to place was "we're black." To them the difficulties which cruising causes are irrelevant. Their perception, flawed or not, is what counts and that perception is racial and no "no more finger-pointing" editorial will change that.

To repeat: car cruising is a permanent American institution. It is done by whites and blacks. Outside of out-an-out repression-which is most likely unconstitutional-no one has come up with an acceptable solution to reconciling the legitimate concerns of residents and businesses and the cruisers.

What is not acceptable is introducing solutions which, though unintended and without much forethought, target African-Americans, even if they are teenagers.

• • •

The unthinking kind of racism is so much a part of American life that it is even practiced by some blacks against other blacks. Mostly, there are economic reasons for such collaborations. Jobs might be in jeopardy. Black business owners conspire with white business owners in obtaining minority contracts. Black real estate salespeople might steer prospective buyers to areas which are homogenous to their race.

Statistics on racism are everpresent.

Housing conditions are getting worse, says Housing Secretary Andrew M. Cuomo upon the release of reports on discrimination against blacks and Hispanic home buyers.

"African-Americans were twice as likely as whites, and Hispanic-Americans one-and-a-half times as likely, to be denied a conventional, 30-year home loan last year, according to one of two studies by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now," reports The New York Times (Sept. 16).

Yes, the economy is on a continuous upswing. All ethnic groups benefit. Unemployment for youth is the lowest in 30 years, reports the Associated Press.

But the report also says that unemployment for young whites was 8.1 percent; for blacks it was 21.9 percent.

Progress will not be made depending only on the good will of economic, civic or political leaders, on the leadership role of the media, on academic studies or on editorials such as this.

They all may and, of course, can help. Progress will only come through activism by a collaboration of white, black, Hispanic and other citizens who target areas in need of reform.

Such activism may not always be polite; it may select the wrong targets and methods, and it may fail to achieve its goals. In the long run, however, history has shown that the American public is willing to undo its institutional and economic injustices if they are pointed out, probably more than once.

EVERYWHERE

Not black and white

Promotion is one thing. Blatant untruths are another.

WESL in East St. Louis is running a promo stating it is "the only African-American owned and operated radio station in the Metro area."

Maybe the East St. Louis folks should check out what's been going on in St. Charles for a long time. Bill White, his wife Virginia, Johnny Roland and a couple other former pro footballers own a fine little station there, KIRL. Last time we looked, these folks were African-Americans. This is a reality WESL can't ignore.

-Frank Absher

Call me madam

Only in Los Angeles would a magazine hire a former madam as a writer. But a new magazine, Channel Los Angeles, has done exactly that.

Sydney Biddle Barrows, the semi-notorious Mayflower Madam and author of a book by that title, will be a regular contributor to the new magazine, scheduled for an October debut-and she's writing about plastic surgery, and

not the kind that involves kiting credit cards.

Channel Los Angeles, a spinoff of Channel Miami, is out to challenge the long-running (37 years) lightweight champion, Los Angeles Magazine. On a playing field covered with fluff, well, the newcomer will have an even start with an article on fashion accessories for celebrities' dogs, in addition to Barrows' effort.

"Channel won't be doing nasty exposé stories," executive editor Sue Cameron, obviously familiar with the city magazine style, told The New York

Times. Richard Bronson, a former stockbroker (and obviously extremely wealthy, at least for the time being), is the owner. He plans to do free mailings to high-income households and free distribution at trendy boutiques, hoping to attract some paying customers.

-Joe Pollack

Death of a salesman

Larry Kent, 86, died during the summer; I hope every NFL owner showed up at his funeral, but knowing NFL owners, I doubt if that happened.

Next to Pete Rozelle, Larry Kent made more money for the owners than anyone else in the league's history. Last year, each of the 30 owners pocketed more than $5 million because of NFL Properties, which was Kent's baby. It all began when Kent worked as Roy Rogers' marketing manager, traveling with Roy and Trigger, Dale Evans and Buttermilk, and the Sons of the Pioneers.

One of Kent's ideas was to have a Roy Rogers Corral in every department store, selling T-shirts, clothes and toys. Then Rogers died, so Kent took his idea to Pete Rozelle and the NFL. Coincidentally, the league had formed NFL Enterprises to sell program advertising on a league-wide basis. Rozelle named Kent president of NFL Enterprises, and the league hoped to make a few bucks and to have the various logos look good and the T-shirts be of decent quality. The teams would divide the licensing fees and the profits on sales.

The initial year was 1963, and I remember being at a meeting of team PR types, and we listened with little enthusiasm to the proposal. But when Rozelle made a sales pitch, we listened. At the end of the first year, NFLE had gross revenues of $36,647. In 1998, NFLE took in $3 billion.

Kent retired in 1975 and was living in Palm Beach, Fla., when he died. I knew him casually, and he was a demon salesman, but I don't think he knew a sack from a sock, unless you could get an NFL logo imprinted.

-Joe Pollack

Ambivalence at Harwood

Public journalism advocates put a premium on "ambivalence." They say much of the citizenry is ambivalent about critical issues, and reporters need to reflect this ambivalence in their stories with more quotes from the confused and undecided.

Nevertheless, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editor Cole Campbell could hardly have been pleased with the ambivalence displayed by Harwood Consulting Group's president, Richard Harwood, when he was recently asked about his opinion of Campbell's prized public journalism production, "Imagine St. Louis" in the Sunday paper.

Harwood's firm has been coaching the Post newsroom in its conversion to a public (civic) journalism culture. Harwood was asked by Charles Jaco on KMOX Radio's "Newsmakers" show whether he thought "Imagine St. Louis" was an example of good journalism.

Harwood was, quite frankly, "ambivalent," as he stuttered about how public journalists are going to make mistakes as they forge a new road to a better journalism. In a fit of frustration, Jaco accused Harwood of waffling like a politician on the question.

-Don Corrigan

New attitude

Am I the only one who is put off by this new attitude at the Riverfront Times? It all came home during their "Best of St. Louis" issue.

Instead of spotlighting those things considered St. Louis' best by readers, the RFT paid scant, single-line lip service to readers' choices. But they trumpeted with photos and lengthy editorial support the choices their own staff had made.

"We don't care what you want or think. Here's what we think" attitude has been evident in the RFT since Ray Hartmann sold the paper to an out-of-town conglomerate which proceeded to fix something that wasn't broken. Gone are many favored local writers and reviewers, and also gone is the "edge" the once-sassy paper had.

The "Best of" issue put the icing on the cake. They don't care how their readers feel. What's more important is what they, the writers, think.

-Frank Absher

Truth be known

Truth still works as a defense against libel, even if the lawsuit lasts for seven years.

James B. Stewart, author of several non-fiction best-sellers, had been sued in 1992 by Michael F. Armstrong, an attorney who had represented Lowell Milken, brother of the infamous Michael, the junk bond dealer. Armstrong sued over a single paragraph in "Den of Thieves," which explored Wall Street scandals and the actions of the Milken brothers.

Stewart wrote that Armstrong had written an affidavit exonerating Lowell Milken, but another attorney, Craig Cogut, had refused to sign it because the basic facts were untrue. Armstrong sued. Lowell Milken did not sue, but loaned Armstrong up to $1.6 million to finance the suit. According to The New York Times, Armstrong did not have to repay the loan if the suit did not win.

It didn't. Barry Cozier of the state supreme court dismissed the $35 million suit, stating that Stewart's passage about Armstrong was substantially true.

-Joe Pollack

KMOX ad raises questions

A KMOX ad in the St. Louis Business Journal (Oct. 4-10) may go over well with the Journal's readers, heavily in business, but raises questions about the station's impartiality in news.

Promoting the station's slogan "Total AM Information," it features not only staffers Nan Wyatt and Doug McElvein, but more prominently a quote by presidential candidate John McCain, "I worry when the President of the United States rents out the Lincoln bedroom, treats it like Motel Six and he's the bellhop."

Some readers worry when KMOX rents out its promotional space to rehash an episode settled by now we thought, treats it like a political ad, and becomes a partisan sloganeer.

-Charles L. Klotzer

Post Fabric Flip-Flop

Few observers can escape the fact that the very fabric of journalism is changing daily, if not hourly, at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Case in point is the business story entitled, "Emerson's Tamke, Knight differ in paths to the top," which appeared in the Sept. 5 Sunday Post.

The story by Al Stamborski noted that Chuck Knight's heir apparent to lead Emerson Electric, George Tamke, has a different leadership style.

"Tamke seems to be cut from a piece of cloth that's slightly less rough-more like denim than burlap," declared the story in the Saturday evening edition.

By Sunday morning, the wording had changed to: "Tamke seems to be cut from a piece of cloth that's slightly less rough-more like linen than denim."

How did Knight's character change from burlap to denim overnight? How did Tamke's character change from denim to linen at the same time? Did a civic-journalist-oriented copy editor decide that burlap was too extreme a descriptive for the morning edition?

Stamborski told SJR that a public relations person for Knight called him at home on Saturday after the "burlap" edition to complain that Knight took offense to that descriptive. "I was not out to personally offend him, I just don't know a lot about fabric, so I made the change for the Sunday morning paper," said Stamborski. "There was no coercion involved in deciding to make the change," Stamborksi added.

-Don Corrigan

CHANNELS

Viewers want weather info and stations know it

By David Cohen

Why do you watch the local news at 10 p.m.? Some viewers want to see what happened in their community. More want to catch the score of the ball game. But most viewers of the late news watch for the weather. The local stations know this and they are giving their viewers what they want.

Tune into the late local news; it makes no difference which station you choose. A few minutes into the broadcast, you get the weather forecast. Hang around to quarter past the hour, you get the forecast again. And just before the news team says "good night," there's another look at the forecast.

With the exception of a day or two in the severe weather season, the weather doesn't change that much in the space of one half-hour. So why so much weather? The simple answer is that viewers want to know the forecast. Below the surface, the reason is ratings.

St. Louis is what's called, in the industry, a metered market. Nielsen Media Services, the ratings agencies, places meters in around 300 area homes. These meters track which stations television sets are tuned to. The meters register every 7 1/2 minutes. So viewers get the weather before seven after the hour, just after quarter past the hour, and again, just after the half hour.

There's no doubt that the weather forecast is a public service, and the weather is something we are all interested in. But just how much weather do you need to stay informed?

The Internet

If you've been looking at the employment ads in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on any recent Sunday, you've probably noticed the ad that KSDK (Channel 5) is running for someone to manage its website.

Channel 5's website shows an "Under Construction" banner. It's been there for a long time. KMOV's (Channel 4) website has been up for several months. It's an offshoot of the CBS page. KPLR (Channel 11) has had a website for several years. KTVI (Channel 2) and KDNL (Channel 30) have yet to join the Internet age.

Unlike newspapers across the country, including the Post, which have embraced the Internet as one method to extend their franchise, and reach out to non-traditional readers, broadcasters have been slow to establish a presence on the web. Broadcasters feel that the Internet will require extra staff and an investment in technology that won't pay off in the short term. Broadcasters in St. Louis are not blazing trails to be online.

But in some cities broadcasters see the Internet as a natural extension for their product. Some stations post regular local news updates, and post breaking news as it develops. Some stations put their tower cameras online, so that visitors to their website can check out their community or see what the weather is like. And some stations re-broadcast their newscasts, using streaming video, online.

The time has come for St. Louis' television stations to step up to the plate. The Internet, a novelty just a few years ago, is a resource today. Tomorrow, it will be as important to have a station's full content online. Fifty years ago, some radio broadcasters viewed television as a passing fad. In the lushly carpeted corridors of television stations, you hear the same language about the Internet today.

Ownership update

Emmis Broadcasting CEO Jeff Smulyan, who is quoted in the Sept. 27 edition of Broadcasting and Cable, saying the deal for his company to purchase Channel 30 and the six St. Louis radio stations owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group "is moving along," and that it should be reached within the next month. Industry observers speculate that Emmis won't hold onto Channel 30 for long, swapping the station for more radio properties, or a television station in one of the markets where Emmis already owns a television station.

As expected, NBC has bought a one-third interest in PAX-TV. PAX is a family-friendly network which features feel-good programs like "Doctor Quinn" and "Touched by an Angel." The deal includes partial ownership of the more than 70 television stations owned by PAX, including the local outlet, WPXS-TV in Mount Vernon, which broadcasts on Channel 13 and on Channel 40 in the St. Louis area. The station is also on all area cable systems.

Game shows are back

ABC's "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" proved that greed is good-for ratings, at least. When the game show ran in August, ABC rang up its highest ratings in several years.

Come November, the next ratings sweeps period, "Millionaire" will be back on ABC's schedule. It will run every night from Nov. 7 through Nov. 21, and if it continues to draw viewers, the game show could mean good things for the local ABC affiliate, Channel 30.

If viewers hang around-and don't get that itchy finger on the remote control-strong ratings for "Millionaire" could mean more viewers for Channel 30's 10 p.m. news.

Historically though, viewers in St. Louis tune into Channel 5 or Channel 4 to see the late news, regardless of what they have been watching before 10 p.m.

The success of "Millionaire" has the other networks looking at game shows in prime time. NBC will deliver "21" as a mid-season replacement, and CBS says it is looking for a quiz show as well.

Reliable sources

Because we think media criticism is good, one program worth watching is "Reliable Sources" on CNN. The half-hour program airs Saturday afternoons at 5:30 p.m., and is re-broadcast on Sunday mornings at 10:30 a.m.

The program probes into the reasons some stories get more time and space than others. It also asks the reporters and news directors why they made the coverage and programming decisions they made.

It is the only regular program on television that turns the lens inward every week. There should be more.

SPORTS/MEDIA

Los Angeles says 'no' to subsidizing the NFL

By Joe Pollack

While St. Louis wavers between the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's head-in-the-clouds "Imagine" section, which should be printed on rose-colored paper to match the glasses of its editors, and the greed of professional sports entrepreneurs, Los Angeles has apparently become the first city to say "no" to both the National Football League and to those ardent capitalists who insist the government should pay for their toys.

Not even, "No, thank you." Just plain "No."

As The New York Times' Richard Sandomir wrote so delightfully, "The National Football League is not omnipotent. It can't keep Al Davis from filing lawsuits, can't make the Pro Bowl matter, can't make geographic sense of its divisions and can't put a franchise in Los Angeles."

It apparently also cannot convince Gov. Gray Davis to spend $150 million in taxpayer money to build garages, and Davis had the effrontery to tell the NFL that the state had more important priorities than new garages and, apparently, a new football team.

Actually, it's a good thing that the Rams are off to a fast start here, because they seem to not only play badly and then leave a city, but also to despoil its turf so that no fans grow there ever again.

All sports owners are arrogant, and commissioners and top league officials are arrogant to the nth degree. Footall's Paul Tagliabue apparently insists that the NFL shall hand out franchises the way God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses, on stone tablets handed down from on high. Eli Broad, a very wealthy Angeleno, offered to spend $400 million to rehab the Los Angeles Coliseum and another $550 for an expansion team. The league scorned this one, though it seems that Broad is in a class with the Kroenkes and the Lauries when it comes to wealth.

It's wonderful to note, however, that the NFL may be the world's leading espouser of socialism-television revenue is divided, advertising money is divided, cities should provide tax money for stadiums, franchise fees and the like. Now the NFL wants governmental entities to build garages, too.

These Los Angeles problems could have been solved if only the league had worked with some other people, softened its stance a little. But then, given what happened in St. Louis, why should it? Just look at the Ugly Dome-and by the way, the Dome will soon lose its title as the city's ugliest building to the disgusting monstrosity about to be constructed next door to the Ritz-Carlton in Clayton. If you want to see ugly, well, as Jack Buck would say, "That's a winner..."

Back to L.A. for just one more comment. In 1995, when Peter O'Malley still owned the Dodgers (and it was his father, Walter, who led the Marxist revolution in sports when he moved the Dodgers from Brooklyn), he was asked to look into the possibility of building a football stadium next door to Dodger Stadium (in Chavez Ravine) for football. He had some plans drawn up and the whole thing worked. O'Malley said some double-decking of current parking lots would solve the problem. I remember, too, when the current Busch Stadium was being built in 1965. I was with the Football Cardinals and we discovered that if the cost of land is not a key factor, it is cheaper and completely better to build two separate stadiums. Kansas City did it. We couldn't because land cost was a key factor, but it was not a problem for O'Malley. But then Los Angeles decided to rehab the Coliseum, and the Chavez Ravine dream came to an end.

Los Angeles and professional football may be at the same point.

• • •

Basketball fever seems upon us-or at least upon the sports writers and talk show hosts in the community.

Bill Laurie is the hero of the moment, and while I can think of lots of Wal-Mart jokes, and snide remarks about finding wealthy spouses, I'd rather wonder about basketball.

Jeremy Rutherford, in a well-considered, thoughtful piece over the weekend following the basketball rush, looked carefully at the history of St. Louis and basketball, talking of the glory days of the Hawks, who made St. Louis more than just a stop along the way from Milwaukee to Atlanta.

As Rutherford said, it was St. Louis racism that eventually sent the Hawks out of town. As long as the team had white leadership in Bob Pettit, Cliff Hagan, Slater Martin, Med Park and a few others, and as long as it won, all was okay. Once the number of victories began to slide, however, all was remembered and the team's days were numbered.

I had good times with the Hawks. I had gone to college with Park, and some of the Hawks lived in Laclede Town and got into our softball games. Zelmo Beaty once got the only hit off me in a softball game I was pitching, but I struck him out once, too, and I figured that if I could achieve a standoff against an athlete like Beaty, I was in good shape.

More about basketball another month, and baseball-both players and umpires-season, and a variety of other topics.

Sale of Sporting News sparks memories

By Joe Pollack

First it was Tom Mix and his Wranglers, and a secret decoder ring, available by mail from a place called Checkerboard Square in a city called St. Louis, in exchange for some Ralston box tops, making cereal palatable to a grade school kid. Then it was the Sporting News, which also came from St. Louis. In my high school days, it was a broadsheet (full-size) newspaper, and my friends and I would stand in the rear of Schifrin's Candy Store and Newsstand on Flatbush Avenue to read it, checking batting averages and

standings of Brooklyn Dodger farm teams from Class AAA Montreal in the

International League to Class D Cairo, Ill., in the Kitty (Kentucky-Illinois-Tennessee) League.

The Schifrins didn't mind much because their son, Joe, was a high school classmate of ours, and he and George and Sandy and Jerry and I hung out together. Jerry, however, was a St. Louis Browns fan and shareholder. His father had bought him one share of stock after the Browns won the pennant in 1944 and went public in hopes of raising some money.

Later, in the spring of 1948, as a pre-journalism, would-be sportswriter freshman at Mizzou, I wrote a term paper on the Sporting News for an English composition and rhetoric class. I sent a letter to John George Taylor Spink, owner, publisher and editor, informing him of my project. In return, I received a torrent of material, including books, a subscription and an invitation to a baseball game. The letter was signed in the unreadable scrawl that was one of Spink's many trademarks.

The term paper is long gone; even a packrat such as I can't keep everything, but the memories are strong, from the first time I rode the rackety elevator to the seventh floor of 2018 Washington Ave. and crossed the old, creaky, rutted wooden floor to visit the jowly, gnarled, gravel-voiced, profane, cigar-chewing little man in the corner office.

I saw him a few times a year, even introduced him to my father, a baseball fan from the days before World War I. The two men got along famously, swapping old stories. When my father retired, Spink was shocked. He was of the old school, where people worked forever. But dad sent him postcards from Tokyo, and from Paris and Rome, and Spink would send them along to me, with a carbon of the thank-you note he had sent to dad. My folks traveled a lot by ship in those days, and I remember a letter Spink sent to the president of United States Lines, a man he somehow knew. Spink said he didn't understand Samuel Pollack, because he sailed on small ships, but he wanted all courtesies extended to his friend.

Dad often recommended retirement and travel to Spink, but it fell on deaf ears; Spink was a man so dedicated to his work that when he took a rare evening off and went to the Muny Opera, it was a real event when he stayed beyond intermission. Sometimes he left at the overture, recalling a phone call he had to make. The portable phone was invented too late for him.

Spink was one of the last of the personal journalists. He inherited the Sporting News from his father and uncle, who founded it in 1886. He left it to his son, Charles C. Johnson Spink, named for an elder Spink and for Ban

Johnson, a sportswriter who founded the American League. All have died, and Johnson's widow, Edythe, former mayor of Ladue, is the sole survivor.

And now the Sporting News is leaving, too. It's being sold by the Times Mirror Corporation, which bought it from Johnson Spink in 1978. It was one of a trail of acquisitions (including C. V. Mosby, a technical publisher based here) that seemed to reach an end at the feet of Mark H. Willes, chairman and chief executive. It now seems time to divest (Mosby went two years ago, for some $415 million; some 700 people reportedly lost their jobs) its "underperforming assets," a superb piece of corporate double-speak to obfuscate "properties that just don't make enough money."

The Sporting News, known as 'the Bible of baseball" for its massive coverage of professional baseball teams, with complete statistics and weekly "letters" from a group of correspondents across the country, came to accept other sports the way baseball came to accept African-Americans - very slowly. Of course, the paper was subsidized by major league baseball for many years, including the purchase of thousands of copies to distribute to soldiers during World War II. For a while, it had a special section, the Quarterback, dealing with football but printed as a pull-out so that baseball fans could pitch it without having to see even a mention of other sports.

Taylor Spink read practically every word that went into the paper. I remember piles of proofs on his desk, towering over the short man. He didn't

write, even though he had a column in which baseball players often were quoted as addressing him by name. "I was born, Mr. Spink, in a log cabin (or

on a farm). . ." was a favorite parody. Hard-working editors like Lowell Reidenbaugh, Oscar Kahan, Oscar Ruhl, Edgar Brands, Ray Gillespie and others did the work, bolstered by local sportswriters who worked one or two days a week as copy editors. Writers from across the country filed stories on the teams they covered, and the greatest sports artist of all, Willard Mullin of

the New York World-Telegram, provided covers. It was Mullin who devised the "Brooklyn Bum" and the "St. Louis Swifty,' a lean riverboat gambler type to represent the speedy, and winning Birds of the early 1940s.

Bill Fleischman, long-time chief sports copy editor (the slot man) at the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, was one of them, and the favor was returned by many Sporting News people who filled in on one of the dailies' sports copy desks on a semi-regular basis.

Spink was a legendary character in sports journalism. Though he rarely attended a game and probably never saw more than a couple to their conclusion, he always was one of the official scorers at the World Series. Spink had a habit of strolling through the office after the edition was printed, often tossing 5- or 10-dollar bills to people, an instant bonus for a clever headline, or just for fun. At one point, his son, Johnson, told him this was messy bookkeeping, confusing to the accountants. Why didn't he just give everyone a raise? Spink thought it was a good idea and did so. A few weeks later, he was back at the old habit, dropping paper money here and there.

He was violently opposed to unions, too, but I recall an incident in the late 1950s. As a bit of harassment of the Newspaper Guild and its members, the St. Louis Post -Dispatch and Globe managements decided to forbid staffers from outside employment, a long-time practice guaranteed in the contract. It didn't last, of course, but a friend at the Sporting News chuckled over a Spink call to Rollin Everett, the Guild's executive secretary, that began, "Rollin, you've got to help me..."

And he was a legendary horseplayer, which could not have endeared him to Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who tried for years to keep baseball players like Rogers Hornsby away from the track. He also was a legendary loser. Reportedly, one St. Louis bookmaker had no other client, and still lived a comfortable life. When I was at the old Globe-Democrat, it was a young sports writer's chore to check the race wire every now and then, relaying the results to Fleischman, who would call Spink. It was a litany of bad news, of loser after loser. On occasion, Spink would bet every horse in a race, hoping a long shot would provide a decent return on investment. In those situations, the favorite always won.

Before the 20th-and-Washington site, the weekly was at 10th and Pine Streets, catty-corner from the Scruggs, Vandervoort, Barney department store. As the mercantile calendar shortened the period between holidays, the store began playing recorded Christmas music right after Thanksgiving, and it floated across the street to Spink's office. Spink asked his secretary, the cherubic-looking, always smiling, long-suffering, asbestos-eared Frances, to call Walter Head at the department store and ask to have the music volume lowered. She did, and she reported, "Mr. Head told me to tell you he won't give you advice on how to run the Sporting News and you don't have to give advice on how to run the department store."

Spink's response was unprintable, and he then took action, hiring a brass band to perform continuous renditions of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." An hour or two later, the phone rang, and Frances asked Spink to look out the window.

Walter Head was outside, waving a white flag.

Bob Broeg, sports editor and columnist emeritus at the Post, also shared a story that Spink used to tell on himself. He was, as everyone knew, an expert on tracking down people he wished to talk to (with the help of Frances and the legendary long distance operators of the time) and his language, which could blister the paint on a door jamb, was more styled for a ship's boiler room than a tea party.

Anyway, Spink was in New York in a cab when he noticed the driver's name was Tommy Holmes, also the name of a Brooklyn Eagle sportswriter and Spink's long-time Dodger correspondent. Spink knew the difference but he innocently asked the driver if he was related to the Tommy Holmes of Brooklyn.

"I'm not," said the driver, "but some silly son of a bitch in St. Louis thinks I am. He calls me at all hours of the day and night asking for information on the Dodgers."

The Sporting News changed radically after Times Mirror bought it, and too often seemed indistinguishable from its competitors. Two years ago, a

major remake made it a glossy, colorful publication, and it, like everyone else these days, has a web site and an on-line operation, in loose affiliation with NBC. However, creeping but eventually unbeatable competition came from Time Warner and from Disney, who may also be buyers who would kill it just for its subscription lists. Both have television networks to help in cross-promotion, and the arrival of Disney's ESPN Magazine last year may have been the last coffin nail. ESPN Magazine now has 800,000 circulation, some 300,000 more than the Sporting News. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., owner of Fox Television, is another with possible interest, as are Emap, a British company, and San Francisco-based Miller Freeman. Emap recently bought Petersen Publications, which publishes several dozen sports magazines. A year ago, Petersen bought Inside Sports and folded it into Sport Magazine. Time Warner and Disney might do that for Sports Illustrated and ESPN, respectively. Miller Freeman has some 70 magazines that focus on

special interests, and its holdings include the New York Times Sports Group.

Like so many St. Louisans, the Sporting News left the city for the county, though it had spent half a century at its downtown locations and was

long a factor and an influence in the world of St. Louis journalism, especially on the sports side. Johnson Spink made sure that Times Mirror would keep the publication here. The Californians will have no such conditions, nor consideration for those who work here. Interestingly, the old 20th-and-Washington location is being considered as a site for remodeling and for lofts. The Sporting News floor will have more than its share of ghosts-wonderful ghosts.

Online ads stiff competition for newspapers

By Leigh Muzslay

Newspapers could lose as much as $5 billion in classified revenues to Internet competitors by the year 2003.

The gap in projected revenue for newspaper classified ads if there were no Internet and the actual revenue with the Internet will only widen with time, reports Forrester Research Inc. The company says that eventually the "Internet will eliminate classified ads as we know them."

The 90 classified advertisers Forrester interviewed around the country spent an average of $382,000 on all media in 1997. While 11 percent of that was on the Internet, these advertisers planned to reallocate an average of 22 percent of their newspaper classified spending to the Internet by 2000.

Currently, classified advertisements constitute a $17 billion market that represents an average of about 40 percent of all advertising revenue for newspapers, according to the Inland Press Association and the Newspaper Association of America (NAA).

The future, as Forrester sees it, may look bleak. But Kevin McCourt, NAA's Director of Real Estate Advertising and Online Classifieds, says that although the classified advertisement market has become more competitive, newspapers are still in the game.

"Newspapers are still the first place people go," McCourt says. "Newspaper classifieds will change, but I think they'll still be around for a while."

He says that while many classified advertising directors are "worried more about continued revenue gains, there's a great sense of optimism, in part due to newspapers embracing the Internet."

That, he says, is key. Newspapers must evolve with the technology or lose out. He notes two factors that put a newspaper at risk for losing classified advertisements: ignoring the Internet or taking some steps to utilize the Internet, but not communicating with advertisers to let them know what improvements have been made.

And newspapers are getting the message. More than two-thirds of NAA member newspapers publish classifieds in print and online as a package deal. About 650 to 700 dailies publish their classifieds online.

In St. Louis, the Riverfront Times sees the threat of online classifieds, but has accepted the challenge.

"We've decided to go the other way-to embrace the electronic age," Kenny Stocker, classified advertising director for the RFT, says. "We're trying to make a positive out of it. It is the wave of the future. Are we worried about it (the online competition) enough to make sure our online product is good? Yes."

McCourt says the competition comes in two forms, cross category competitors and product line competitors. Cross category competitors provide classified advertisements for many categories, often in a directory form. Product line competitors focus on one category, providing more in-depth services. Examples include Career Mosaic, CyberHomes, Microsoft's CarPoint and Autobytel.com.

Product line competitors are most changing classified advertising because they offer extended services such as pictures of cars or houses, resumé posting services and databases and additional product information or job hunting tips.

The RFT made the first move toward expanding its online classifieds about a month ago when it added an option to include links in online line ads. Links connect the advertisement to another website, often the home page of the company or individual advertising. Links increase the cost of the ad, but also allow an advertiser to connect the reader to pictures, resumes or company profiles and more detailed information. Stocker says links are a new trend, and he expects them to increase in the next quarter.

Online classifieds also rank above print classifieds in their ability to provide national listings. A person using most online classifieds can search for homes, cars or job offerings across the country. Newspapers, wanting to expand their service in the realm, often outsource a national service like AdQuest3D, Classified Warehouse or CareerPath.com. Often, the national site will have the newspaper's logo on it when accessed from that paper's website.

"Consumers might not even know the technology was being outsourced," McCourt says.

CareerPath.com, for example, was co-founded in 1995 by the Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, San Jose Mercury News and the Washington Post. Financial backing for CareerPath.com is provided by Knight-Ridder, New York Times Company, Times Mirror Company, Tribune Company and The Washington Post Company, as well as Cox Interactive Media, Gannett Company and Hearst Corporation. Currently, 90 newspapers are affiliated with CareerPath.com.

At any given time CareerPath.com has about 340,795 jobs listed. Each month 1.1 million people visit the site, according to Media Metrix.

CareerPath.com offers career management information, including interactive chats/bulletin boards with career experts and the ability to post resumes.

Services for the job seeker, such as posting resumes and searching for jobs are free. CareerPath.com charges employers to search the resume database and to post job listings. Companies now can post jobs directly on the site without posting in a newspaper. About three-fourths of the ads come from newspapers, but the ratio of newspaper-based ads to direct ads is expected to even out next year.

Having the newspaper's name on the site is important, McCourt says, because people trust the quality of a newspaper. He says that when people pay for classified ads, as they do in newspapers, they are less likely to be just fishing. Often, she says, free Internet ads attract less-than-serious advertisers. Also, he says, newspapers are more sensitive to issues like fair housing and other laws. For example, you cannot sell anything illegal through a newspaper.

"It's just a safer place to shop," McCourt says.

To help newspapers utilize that trust, NAA created a symbol, similar to the Good Housekeeping seal, to identify newspaper-affiliated sites. McCourt says two-thirds of customers in a recent survey said they were more likely to respond to advertisers on newspaper-affiliated sites than on other sites.

Another advantage he says newspapers have is that advertisers get print and online ads in one package, which should generate more response for the advertiser.

Stocker agrees that print classifieds still have value.

"We feel that print media is still the best way to meet the masses and the passive reader," Stocker says.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch was contacted for comment, but did not respond.

Court applies Hazelwood to universities

By Don Corrigan

A little more than 10 years ago the high school press took it on the chin with the Supreme Court's infamous Hazelwood decision. Now the judicial system has struck a blow against the college press with a Sept. 8 decision.

In the 1988 Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier decision, the U.S. Supreme Court said the content of a student newspaper at a public school could be censored by a school's administration for the flimsiest of reasons, including the potential for mere "embarrassment."

However, in a footnote to its decision, the high court stated: "We need not now decide whether the same degree of deference is appropriate with respect to school-sponsored activities at the college and university level."

Now, a ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has applied the logic of Hazelwood to a college media case. The ruling has outraged organizations representing university journalists, professors of journalism and national press groups.

Among the professional journalism societies supporting college press rights in the case are the Society of Professional Journalists and the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

The case decided Sept. 8 by the federal appeals court involves Kentucky State University's (KSU) 1994 yearbook, which was seized by the vice president of student affairs at KSU. The official, Betty Gibson, confiscated the university yearbook and withheld the publication from distribution.

Two students filed a lawsuit against KSU arguing that their First Amendment rights had been violated. One of the students served as editor of the Thorobred yearbook. The other was a school newspaper reporter who argued that he had paid a student activity fee which entitled him to a yearbook copy.

Legal counsel for the university contended that the yearbooks were withheld because of "poor quality" and not for any reasons of "ideology or any opinion in them." Gibson reportedly objected to the theme and title of the yearbook and pictures of current events unrelated to day-to-day happenings at the university. She also took issue with the color of the yearbook's cover.

The U.S. Court of Appeals divided 2-1 in its affirmation of a lower court's ruling in 1997 against the students and in favor of university officials. In that ruling, a district judge held that the yearbook was not a public forum and that the officials had a right to okay its content before distributing it.

Judges Alan E. Norris and James L. Ryan echoed the reasoning of the lower court, maintaining that college publications were bound by the same restrictions placed on high school newspapers by Hazelwood.

Enunciating the appeals court's opinion, Judge Norris stated: "It is no doubt reasonable that KSU should seek to maintain its image to potential students, alumni and the general public. In light of the undisputedly poor quality of the yearbook, it is also reasonable that KSU might cut its losses by refusing to distribute a university publication that might tarnish, rather than enhance, that image."

Judge R. Guy Cole Jr. strongly disagreed with the other judges' decision to apply Hazelwood to a college case. Wrote Cole: "It is worth emphasizing that the Supreme Court in that case was addressing the scope of the First Amendment in the context of high school student publications," he wrote. "I believe that there is reason for courts to afford colleges and universities greater deference than they do high schools."

Decision denounced

Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center (SPLC), said that a motion for a rehearing before the entire appellate court will be filed soon. He said failure to get a remedy at that level will prompt an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"The language of this decision is shocking," said Goodman. "The judges in the majority did not even give a justification for how and why Hazelwood should apply to the college press. It's probably the most offensive lapse in their decision-making, but it also opens the door for an appeal to the entire appellate court.

"To me it shows that we have not done enough to fight the original Hazelwood decision," added SPLC's Goodman. "There's always a 'trickle-up-effect' whenever there is a curtailment of First Amendment rights at any level.

"This latest decision may well affect more than the college students, but also faculty expression and the freedom to bring films and speakers onto campus as well," explained Goodman. "Administrators who feel certain speech is unpopular or politically divisive may put the clamps on."

Among those speaking out against the appeals court decision in Missouri are college newspaper advisers. David Fortney, adviser to the student Index at Truman State University in Kirksville, uses the word "disaster" to describe the appellate decision.

"It's terrible," said Fortney. "It sets back what we're trying to do to make our students independent thinkers," said Fortney. "When I read the court decision, I wondered if it was for real. I'm hopeful it can be overturned.

"If we don't give students the chance to exercise some responsibility and decision-making now, how prepared will they be when they get out with their degrees?" asked Fortney. "It's outrageous to apply Hazelwood to college students. College is the time for students to take some risks, and make some mistakes, when they have a little bit of a safety net."

Roy Keller, adviser to the Capaha Arrow at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, said he would like to think the decision applies more to yearbooks than to college newspapers.

"The decision is about a yearbook that apparently was a mess," said Keller. "I would not have much sympathy for the students if they did a shoddy job. I'm not sure a yearbook is a public forum in the same way a newspaper is, especially since there's no opportunity for give-and-take in its pages.

"This is a troubling decision, however, if the court is saying that college newspapers ought to be subject to Hazelwood. I suppose the grain of potential is there," added Keller. "I applaud the Student Press Law Center for seeking a full hearing from the appellate court to clarify what this is all about."

Judi Linville, adviser to The Current at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, said she is alarmed by the Sept. 8 decision, and her students feel threatened. She said that even though it only applies to colleges in the Sixth Circuit, "these decisions usually have an influence beyond the original jurisdiction."

"I have downloaded the entire decision from the Internet and I am mystified by it," Linville said. "I've talked to our administrators and they say they have no intention of publishing the college paper. But decisions like this embolden some college administrators to take action against a paper whenever they feel embarrassed.

"The students at our college paper are between the ages of 18 and 35," added Linville. "These are adults. They take responsibility for their lives and their decisions every day. To impose Hazelwood on them is to take away their basic right to think for themselves with the constant threat of censorship. The decision is really an insult to them."

Rough times ahead

The appeals court decision signals rough times ahead for college newspaper advisers, who already walk a precarious line in trying to maximize press freedom for students, while keeping unhappy university administrators at bay.

Indeed, part of the motivation for the First Amendment lawsuit by KSU students was the tough treatment accorded their college newspaper adviser when she balked at demands on the publication by administrators.

The journalism students accused administrators of trying to censor the student newspaper and of demanding that it carry more positive news. When the newspaper adviser did not prescribe the newspaper's content as directed, she was penalized with transfer to another position at KSU. Only after filing a grievance with officials at the university, was she reinstated as the student newspaper's adviser.

The appeals court decision in the KSU case now appears to leave college newspaper advisers in the same weakened position as high school newspaper advisers during the past decade. But even before the crucial Sept. 8 decision, college newspaper advisers have been under siege by administrators across the country.

Last spring's Student Press Law Center Report chronicled any number of heavy-handed attempts by administrators to control content of college newspapers. Advisers who have failed to acquiesce, and who have defended student press rights, have paid the price.

According to the Center Report, Sara Mullins, director of student publications at Frostburg State in Maryland, lost her position after administrators complained about a student column and failure of the paper to run university press releases.

Emmanuel Hughley, adviser to the student newspaper at Cuyahoga Community College, lost his position after students misspelled the name of the college president. Hughley, an eight-year member of the College Media Advisers, told the Center Report that he got the axe because of the president's outrage over the students' gaffe.

Another CMA member, John Schmitt, lost his advising position with the Peachite, the student newspaper of Fort Valley State University in Georgia. Schmitt told the Center Report that his contract was not renewed after a year of controversial articles which irked administrators.

Among the topics covered by articles published by the Peachite: a campus bookstore overcharging students; a series about misplaced student activity fees; an account of a security guard's mishandling of a student's asthma attack.

AM/FM

More personnel moves at KTRS

By Larry Hoffman

More changes have become apparent at KTRS-AM (550 AM), some in defiance of local industry rumbles suggesting two possible directions for the everchanging talk outlet: "sold or fold." The two changes that give a sense of longevity to the Big 550 are recently announced contract renewals for morning show host and CBS NFL weekend color commentator Dan Dierdorf (two years) and afternoon drive market owner Frank O. Pinion whose "station within a station" concept inks another three years. Dierdorf is also a part-owner of the station.

Cutbacks include morning newsperson Donn Johnson, who had his time reduced to filling in for Dierdorf on Mondays and Fridays when he's away for CBS, in order to make room for afternoon host Kevin Slaten who joined the morning show in late September. Johnson was at one time designated to become KTRS news director, replacing the retiring Joan Beuckmann; however, that faded as KTRS withdrew much of its commitment to a full-time news operation.

Replacing Slaten in the afternoon, sandwiched between the well-received Paul Harris and Frank O. Pinion, is veteran talk-show host Mike Siegel. KTRS Program Director Steve Moore told SJR he hired Siegel to do the show via ISDN lines, and that he would be doing a separate, dedicated show for the station, apart from his regular syndicated show on the Talk America Radio Network, which clears nationally in a late-evening time slot.

Siegel was a mainstay in the Seattle market and has been active in the National Association of Radio Talk Show Hosts (NARTSH). He appeared in St.Louis several years ago for the organization's annual board of directors meeting at the Ritz-Carlton in Clayton. Controversy surrounding a remark he made about the mayor of Seattle cost him his job at KVI-AM, leading him to pursue syndication. He has also occasionally done some overnight fill-in work for KMOX in the same manner as Michael Dixon did from Phoenix. Moore claims to have "put a stop to that" as Siegel was introduced to the KTRS airwaves.

The weekend lineup at KTRS now includes the excellent money program, "The Motley Fool," from 5-8 p.m. on Saturdays, and another superb offering, Mitch Albom from Noon-3 p.m., also on Saturday. Albom is the author of the highly acclaimed book "Tuesdays With Morrie," and is a sports columnist for the Detroit Free Press. His daily column is available on the web at www.freep.com/sports/albom. One must-read column of his from Sept. 28 dealt with the final days and a retrospective of Tiger Stadium.

• • •

Continuing with talk radio, and in this case the best of the genre to be found anywhere-NPR "Talk of the Nation" host Ray Suarez left the slot he held since 1993 to return to television.

His first day as senior correspondent for public television's "News Hour with Jim Lehrer" was Oct. 4. "Ray is among the most talented and distinctive voices working in journalism today. This is a tremendous opportunity and we wish him well," said Kevin Klose, president and CEO of NPR. "We are pleased Ray will remain a vital presence in public broadcasting," Klose is quoted in an nprONLINE interview.

Suarez did his swan song broadcast on Sept. 23 and went to great lengths to dispel rumors that he was returning to television because he was not offered a sufficiently attractive renewal package from NPR. Regarding his salary, Parade magazine reported in its annual "Who Makes What" survey last year that Suarez earned an astonishingly low $120,000 for his high profile position as a four-day per week host for NPR. There does seem to be a funding imbalance when that amount is compared to certain local rock station morning show hosts in St. Louis who have been said to earn more than $200,000 per year.

After Suarez's exit, NPR's Melinda Penkava, an award-winning reporter and the regular substitute on "Talk of the Nation," will host the program on an interim basis, at least through November of this year. A nationwide search for a permanent replacement is under way, according to nprONLINE. The show is heard locally on KWMU-FM (90.7 FM) at 1 p.m. Monday through Thursday. On Fridays, the time period is devoted to science and is called "Talk of the Nation Science Friday," hosted by Ira Flatow, who did a remote broadcast of the show from the St. Louis Science Center in late August.

• • •

Two recent departures from local radio management positions include Sinclair Regional VP/GM Lon Bason who joins Susquehanna's KLIF-AM and KLPX-FM/Dallas as general manager. And Bob Barnett, who was WIL-FM program director and K-HITS operations manager, left to join former WIL GM under the Heritage regime of Dick Williams at WSIX-AM in Nashville.

Speaking of WIL, a local industry observer notified SJR that at least during a recent afternoon drive daypart, the country leader appears to have been speeding up its music, perhaps to shoehorn more tunes into the rotation. WIL Program Director Mark Langston was unavailable for comment. This practice was quite common in the late 60s and early 70s when rock stations boasted "more music" than competitors. The most flagrant practitioner of "chipmunk"-sounding airplay was yesteryear rocker KIRL (1460 AM) which sped up 45 rpm tracks as much as 5 percent in order to play "more hits more often."

• • •

KMOX has firmed up its weekend news and fill-in staff with TV personalities Larry Connors, Mandy Murphey and Victoria Babu. TV newspeople crossing over to work various shifts on KMOX has been a regular occurrence for nearly three decades.

• • •

KMOX morning drivers Doug McElvein and Nan Wyatt celebrated one year on the air recently. Their show remains solidly in the number one position, proving that KMOX continues its dominance. Bill, Bob and Wendy are long gone from 1120 AM, yet KMOX remains the top choice in the time period.

• • •

The award spotlight shined down on the weekly overnight KDHX Boogie, Barrelhouse and Blues show as host Gabriel won best radio personality in the Riverfront Times' "Best of St. Louis" annual issue. There is no more unique broadcaster in the market than Gabriel, and it was good to see his show continue on KDHX-FM (88.1 FM) after almost leaving the air late last year. This recognition is well deserved and long overdue.

• • •

Three recent adds to the fast-paced and rapidly changing KSLZ-FM (107.7 FM) playlist are notable: "Smooth" by Santana featuring Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20, "Mambo Number 5" by Lou Bega, and the highly regarded "Rockefeller Skank" by Fatboy Slim.

Fatboy Slim (Norman Cook) snared three MTV Video Music Awards and his recently released single, which was called the best single of the year by Rolling Stone when the CD "You've Come A Long Way Baby" was released in 1998, has popped up in commercials for Kodak and other advertisers.

Techno artist Cook also produced a relatively obscure track which accompanied the CD and cassette single for "Praise You." It's worth mentioning because this middle track entitled "Sho Nuff," contains the best talk show intro bumper I've ever heard. Besides an ideal replacement for the oft-heard Pretenders bumpers, "Sho Nuff" is exactly the type of musical bed which could find a home on Pete Parisi's "World Wide Magazine."

• • •

NPR talk show host Diane Rehm visited St. Louis recently to promote her new book "Finding My Voice."

The radio veteran writes about her struggle with spasmodic dysphonia, which affects her voice, growing up in Washington, D.C. and her "accidental" entry into talk radio after volunteering at WAMU-FM in Washington in 1973.

Rehm alluded to people who heard her on the air when she began to lose her voice but before treatment. She said there were those who couldn't imagine how someone with such a horrible sounding voice could have a national radio show.

She shared her experience with the audience and it wasn't long before listeners appreciated the content of her well-produced shows and overlook any vocal flaws.

Her show debuted nationally in July 1996, and was added to the KWMU schedule.

RADIO HISTORY

By Frank Absher

She was, literally, the first lady of St. Louis radio. Virginia Jones wore many hats at KSD, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch station, and her deep voice caused some early confusion among the station's listeners in those natal days of the industry in 1922.

V.A.L. Jones, whose given name was Virginia Adele Laurence Jones, was KSD's first announcer, program director and scriptwriter. She was there when the station officially signed on with a gala broadcast on June 26, 1922. It was Miss Jones' job to decide which talent to use during the station's daily broadcasts, coach them on the proper technique for using the primitive microphones and ease their nervousness, rehearse them with scripts she had written, and act as the station announcer once the broadcasts began.

In radio's earliest days it was not considered proper for announcers to identify themselves by name, but gender confusion caused by her deep voice led her to be identified as "Miss Jones" to all who heard her. It was a time when a national publication, "Radio Broadcast" was running an article entitled "Is Woman Desirable - Over Radio?" She was quoted in a St. Louis Globe-Democrat article in 1960 as saying, "I think I probably did everything, including sweeping out the studio." Still, she was a mystery, because the spotlight in all external station publicity was placed on the performers and lecturers being featured in upcoming broadcasts.

V.A.L. Jones had worked as a feature writer and society editor for the St. Louis Republic writing under the name "Serena Lamb." She worked at the rewrite desk of the Post, was a respected musician, and she had been publicity director for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Association. During the five years she worked at KSD, Miss Jones also ran a business of her own providing public relations for St. Louis charity clients.

The radio business was also where she met her future husband, and in 1927, she quit to marry KMOX engineer Archibald Campbell. He was soon transferred to Kansas City, but she returned to St. Louis after the marriage ended.

It was her knowledge of music and of happenings in the city that led to her appointment at KSD. "Radio Broadcast" magazine wrote in 1924, "Miss V.A.L. Jones, of station KSD, St. Louis, judging from the letters received commending her announcing, is not only in the lead among the women filling this position at broadcasting stations, but ahead of most of the men as well." She was quite well-liked, even to the extent that she received "flirtatious" correspondence from a number of men.

Val Jones, as she was known to her friends, worked long hours for the city's first commercial radio station. An article in the September 1923 issue of "Radio in the Home" noted, "Once a week she holds hearings of from 50 to 60 aspirants at which the well-known and the unknown performers alike must go through their paces. At these hearings Miss Jones is sole auditor, judge and court of last resort." She considered this auditioning, in which she had to turn down aspiring radio performers, the most unpleasant of her tasks.

Miss Jones was a tireless worker in the new medium called radio, often staying on the air for long shifts. On Christmas Eve, 1922, she reportedly stayed on air for a 24-hour period, and her regular shift usually ran into the early hours of the morning. While her published obituaries disagreed on her age, she was about 40 when KSD signed on.

Following her return from Kansas City, she devoted her time to compiling St. Louis' social register, but she often said the book was of no real importance. "The only thing it is good for," she proclaimed, "is to keep snobs who aren't in busy. It keeps them out of trouble trying to get in."

V.A.L. Jones Campbell died in 1962.

High flying publication looks at aviation

By Don Corrigan

Jim Tecu has taken to the air in a sail plane glider, a gyroplane and a Cold War vintage Czech jet fighter. Tecu hobnobs with aerobatic champs and experimental airplane builders.

One might guess that Tecu is a stunt pilot or an aerobatic daredevil himself. In fact, Webster Groves' Tecu is the publisher of Midwest Aviation Journal. His newspaper for aviators has served as his passport to meet and to fly with all kinds of folks who cavort in the "wild blue yonder."

Since starting his newspaper five years ago, Tecu has garnered some incredible aviation experiences. He has been able to fly in airplanes ranging from Piper Cubs to jet fighters. He has flown in a powered parachute, an engineless gyroplane and helicopters of various sorts.

"I almost lost it when I flew in the Czech L-39C jet fighter. Believe it or not, there's a club of general aviation jet fighter owners," said Tecu. "The L-39Cs went up for sale after the Cold War. The Soviets used it as a trainer, since it flew at relatively low speeds of 300 to 350 miles per hour.

"The fellow I interviewed took me up for some rolls in his L-39C, which were actually quite comfortable," noted Tecu. "But when he started doing loops, the G forces zipped past four and everything went from color to black-and-white, and I just about passed out as the control panels blurred to a gray for me."

Tecu also has been roughed up a bit while doing stories on gyrocopters, gyroplanes and heliplanes. He has a whole new respect for helicopter pilots, especially those who fly in the open below the whirring rotor hub.

"There's a fairly high accident rate with these gyro machines, most of them home-built," Tecu said. "But their owners love them. When I went up, I just got beat to death. The wind and force blowing down on you from the blades are intense. I went up in May in Paducah, but I was sure glad I wore a heavy coat that day."

Tecu also counts his flight time in a sail plane glider as among his most memorable airborne experiences. His glider experience came with a story about the exploits of St. Louis Soaring Association in Highland, Ill.

"They use tow planes to take these engineless gliders up to about 3,000 feet. When they let you go, it's a weird experience. There's no noise, no engine," Tecu explained. "Some of these gliders have a 50-1 flight ratio, which means if you start one mile above the ground, you can travel 50 miles before landing.

"What these glider pilots really love is going out on a hot day when they can get on these lifting columns of warm air," he said. "It's like you're catching an elevator to the top of the sky."

Humble beginnings

"I'm someone who started taking flying lessons in 1969 when I was 31 years old," Tecu said. "I progressed enough to do my solo cross country flight. That meant I could do my checkride to be a private pilot. But I did not feel comfortable with my abilities so I quit."

However, Tecu could never get flying out of his system. It gnawed at him even as he pursued a successful career in radio broadcasting and advertising sales. In 1993, he enrolled again in flying lessons-this time determined to get his pilot's license.

"In the winter of 1994 I was learning to fly solo with the help of Don Hoffman, a Monsanto retiree who is now a flight instructor," recalled Tecu. "I had soloed 15 years before and it was a huge thrill to do it again. I was so inspired I came home and wrote a story about it, which was accepted for publication by Flight Training magazine.

"After I got my license, I began doing some advertising work for the outfit where I learned to fly," explained Tecu. "As I started to formulate some ideas, I realized there was no regional aviation publication. That's when the light went on in my head that I ought to start one myself."

Tecu sought out a friend of his who knew a lot about desktop publishing. Soon, Tecu was designing the aviation paper on the computer program QuarkXPress and running down to Kinko's to print out the masters for his newspaper.

What started out as a hobby has become a business. Tecu prints Midwest Aviation Journal six times a year and he hopes to increase its frequency and its circulation area in the near future. Most copies are distributed to general aviation airports in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky.

Tecu has a respectable hangar of writers for his paper, including columnists Jim Cone, a decorated combat pilot, and Charlie Duchek, fixed-wing and helicopter flight instructor. Tecu's publication is packed with ads for pilot shops, flight lessons, cheap air fuel, customized air craft and hangar space.

"My main concern when I started the publication was whether I knew enough about aviation," said Tecu. "But everybody was so supportive. They said it was an advantage to come to coverage of flying with fresh eyes."

Flying folks' affliction

"People who love aviation are afflicted with something akin to an addiction," Tecu said. "It's a bug. It's a chronic condition. Sometimes it can lie dormant for a few decades, but given the right circumstances, it can germinate in a very short time.

"I thought my stopping flight and starting years later was so unique," added Tecu. "But after my first article was published about my own experience, I received phone calls and letters from around the country from people who went through the exact same thing."

Folks like Tecu are determined to share their bug with whomever has the slightest interest. In his New Year's Aviation Journal column this year, Tecu urged his readers to make a resolution to take at least one non-aviation person up for a flight this year.

According to Tecu, general aviators have a mission to show the public that their sport and hobby are not so dangerous as the media try to make it. General aviation is fun. There's nothing like flying to a pancake breakfast or an experimental aircraft show or a regional fly-in, Tecu said.

Tecu is especially fond of the annual air show in Oshkosh, Wis. The annual get-together of parachutists in nearby Quincy, Ill., also makes for an impressive sight for clear skies, according to Tecu.

However, Tecu's tone approaches the spiritual when he speaks of his reverence for certain solo flight experiences. He spoke of such a recent occasion on a short touch-and-go from Spirit of St. Louis Airport to the Washington, Mo., airport.

"For some inexplicable reason there weren't many airplanes flying on this gorgeous spring evening," noted Tecu. "I owned the sky. As I returned to Spirit, the sun was setting over the rolling hills passing under my wing.

"I was overcome by a sense of awe and gratitude," recalled Tecu. "Awe for the beautiful evening and the scenery. Gratitude for the privilege to be so lucky to experience the magic of flight by piloting an aircraft over the beautiful landscape on this wonderful Midwestern evening."

MEDIA/POLITICS

Reform or revolution-whatever works

By Dennis R. Judd

The general outlines of St. Louis's political culture are easy to describe. On the one hand, it is saddled by an unreformed, fragmented machine-style governmental structure that seems explicitly designed to dissipate political energies. On the other, it has long had a southern-style civic leadership centered in a downtown corporate elite. To have any realistic chance to revitalize its downtown, the power structure of St. Louis must undergo two seemingly opposite changes. Somehow a strong public leadership must emerge out of the many contending governmental fiefdoms, but at the same time civic leadership must open up to allow many new groups and voices to gather at the political table.

The idea that fundamental reforms may bring an end to fragmented governments is about dead. Too many politicians benefit from the ward system in St. Louis to allow it to be changed. Even more modest reforms that might replace the weak mayor form and the Board of Apportionment and Estimate have been suggested, and they've gone nowhere. A few years ago a Board of Electors recommended a consolidation of governments in St. Louis County, but that foundered, just as had all previous attempts at metropolitan reform in the St. Louis area.

Nevertheless, political change is in the wind in St. Louis and in the region. It is likely to be more evolutionary than revolutionary, but if it happens, it will come through such citizen-based organizations as FOCUS St. Louis and Metropolis St. Louis. Both are positioned to help change politics in St. Louis, though gradually and modestly.

FOCUS, with more than 1,200 members, came into being as the result of a merger in 1996 between Confluence St. Louis and the Leadership Center of Greater St. Louis. Confluence was officially organized in 1983, though its roots go back somewhat farther. In 1974 the Danforth Foundation commissioned studies to assess the feasibility of starting a regional citizens' organization. The idea kept percolating until it bubbled up again in the early 1980s, when the RCGA asked researchers at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and Saint Louis University to make proposals about how to facilitate regional decision-making. When Civic Progress, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the St. Louis Globe-Democrat weighed in favorably and the Danforth Foundation followed with funding, Confluence was born.

From the beginning, Confluence was infused with a classic reform ideology, with the purpose of engaging with governmental and civic leaders and improving public policy. Gradual improvement, not protest, was the order of the day. Virtually all of the original 100 members were political or community activists, or people who dabbled in politics from time to time. Throughout its history Confluence fit a distinctly upper-middle class profile. Among the 16 projects it undertook from the mid-1980s to mid-1990s are such policy issues as solid-waste disposal, health care for the indigent, the distribution of sales tax among municipalities, local governmental structure, racial polarization, low-income housing and youth crime. To implement its preferred policies, Confluence sometimes recommended new legislation, but just as often it worked with established leadership structures, including Civic Progress, to obtain political and financial backing for particular initiatives.

Leadership St. Louis was an important Danforth-sponsored initiative that preceded Confluence and, in fact, ultimately provided much of Confluence's initial membership. It is said that Leadership St. Louis began as a result of a visit to Atlanta in 1975 by RCGA's first executive director, Harry Morley (now of Taylor-Morley Homes). At the time Atlanta had a leadership training program that helped establish lines of communication across racial lines in that divided city. At the urging of some civic leaders, in 1976 the Danforth Foundation founded and initially ran Leadership St. Louis, although Leadership became a 501 (c)(3) organization by the mid-1980s, Danforth continued to pick up the tab into the 1990s, when it gradually fazed out its support. About five years ago Leadership became self-supporting, in part by charging a $2,500 tuition.

Leadership St. Louis sponsors a nine-month program that (in the words of a FOCUS pamphlet), "includes opportunities to enhance self-awareness of leadership approaches and on-site visits and interactions with decision makers to inspire participants to address community challenges." The list of more than 1,300 graduates reads like a Who's Who of political and community activists and opinion leaders in the St. Louis region, though top corporate leaders, who presumably need no leadership training, are not much represented. Some of the more notable graduates include Karen Foss, Debra Patterson (who runs the Monsanto Fund), Dee Joyner, Denny Coleman, St. Louis Police Chief Ronald Henderson and Mayor Clarence Harmon.

Leadership St. Louis was always an elite organization. It recruited people who already held leadership positions in the region. It was hoped that its seminars would foster friendships and informal networking among its graduates. In this way, governmental fragmentation and interjurisdictional rivalries might be partially overcome. According to a Leadership graduate, the program indeed works as intended: "When I get a request from someone in my class, I don't say no."

When FOCUS was created in 1996, it was able to hire a program manager and two support staff, but that has quickly grown to nine full-time professionals, six consultants and a couple of support staff with a revolving group of interns. FOCUS appears to have gained legitimacy with the St. Louis establishment. Since Danforth funding ended in 1995, it has been successful in obtaining support from a variety of corporations, foundations and other organizations.

Two years ago FOCUS was invited by Mayor Harmon to study and make recommendations for a reorganization of the city's development agencies. The Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District has invited FOCUS to study its recent proposals for administrative reform. Do these kinds of activities mean that FOCUS is being co-opted by the powers that be? Not according to staff members. They stress that FOCUS is process-oriented; that what they are trying to do is to institutionalize citizen engagement in public issues. As evidence they cite their work in organizing the citizen forums connected to the Downtown Now Plan. FOCUS also organized and ran the community outreach activities for 2004.

There is a tension in FOCUS's self-definition that cannot be easily resolved, however. As its work on the reorganization of St. Louis's development agencies demonstrates, when it is called upon to "study" policy issues, it also must inevitably offer advice. To be invited back, it must respect political understandings and established ways of doing things. But it must also take sides, as it did when it recommended that the city's development agencies be reorganized so that more money could be freed from control by individual aldermen.

What can reasonably be expected of an organization like FOCUS? It will presumably help bring about and introduce efficiencies into some bureaucratic agencies like the Metropolitan Sewer District. It will be able to organize citizen involvement in major undertakings without appearing to have its own axe to grind. It may, to some degree and on some issues, help to cut through some political rivalries and antagonisms.

But the St. Louis region also needs more fundamental reforms. Since Percy Green ceased being an activist sometime in the 1980s, St. Louis has lacked the kind of rebellious spirit that Thomas Jefferson thought to be important as a constant source of renewal in the Republic.

Credible anti-establishment organizations are missing from the St. Louis political scene. The only plausible candidate for that role is Metropolis, but it does not represent or articulate a coherent agenda, nor is it likely to in the future. Having said that, it nevertheless may become a catalyst for gradually opening up St. Louis's politics. Failing that, at least the young people in Metropolis will have some fun to show for it.

Metropolis began life as an e-mail listserve, a "virtual" organization (so '90s!), but before long people started to meet and talk about issues. From there Metropolis evolved into a social organization for 20-somethings, many of them students, who wanted to live in a city with a vibrant downtown culture. A person close to the organization described its members as having no mortgages or children; it is therefore understandable that it is more oriented to social activities than to politics, sponsoring pub walks and informal gatherings. These still go on, especially on Friday and Saturday nights in the Washington Avenue area. Metropolis members organized the event last year in which the last Seinfeld episode was projected onto the side of a downtown building.

Once again, the Danforth Foundation has played a pivotal role. Metropolis ceased being a virtual organization about two years ago when Danforth offered funds for leadership training to members of the group. Metropolis now has one part-time staff position, basically to administer the Danforth grant. It is almost completely decentralized; anyone who has an idea can start to run with it with virtually no overview, as long as they can get some other members interested. The issues, however, are confined to downtown revitalization. Metropolis may end playing a meaningful role in the cause for downtown through their input into the Downtown Now! plan, and simply because its members constitute a main constituency for loft living.

Some people may view Metropolis as an anti-establishment group. But it isn't nearly well enough organized for that. Even if it were, its young people are likely to be more interested in making contacts that can be used to grease the path to professional advancement than in making waves. If it begins to build an organization structure in the next few years, a struggle may well break out over Metropolis's future. With FOCUS occupying the regional reform niche, it is likely that Metropolis will remain focused on the downtown.

I mean no criticism with the observation that FOCUS and Metropolis are not exactly pushing the envelope for fundamental reform, which would involve such causes as governmental reorganization in the city and the region.

Neither are these groups trying to unseat or even to modify the power held by Civic Progress and the civic leadership. Still, St. Louis needs reform; the region needs to build a culture of cooperation, and it's all to the good that citizen-based organizations have evolved to push these agendas.