New Post editors know little about St. Louis

By Ellen Harris

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has named seven new senior editors and hired three highly credentialed African-American men. In the latter stages of its reorganization, two major themes emerge-more out-of-towners in top management and more minorities in high-level positions.

Todd Duncan, assistant to the editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, becomes the first African American named to a top news position. As senior editor for community news, Duncan will oversee teams in hard news (social justice, nation/world, education, science and thriving community.)

Duncan is a photographer, leaving some Post news reporters to question "if his appointment is part of the overall effort to make the new Post more design driven than it's already become." The reporters worry the newspaper will become more like television-if it's visual, play it bigger.

Post Editor Cole Campbell was not available at press time for comment.

Duncan shot pictures for Ebony magazine and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and served as photo editor at Newsday and the Charlotte Observer where he also was director of photography and assistant managing editor of news and graphics. A graduate of Cornell University, Duncan received his master's at University of Missouri School of Journalism and was a fellow at University of Michigan.

Long-time Post staffers also worry that with Campbell and Managing Editor Arnie Robbins being newcomers, the addition of Duncan as senior editor for community news and Wade Wilson, another transplant, heading up the graphics team, no one in the top chain of command really knows St. Louis. The well-respected Executive Editor Richard K. Weil is homegrown but no longer oversees news.

"It's the carpetbagger issue," says one reporter. "I've heard that sentiment," adds another. "It seems to me that if Post management is trying to get closer to readers, they should know their turf. Let's get down to basics. Is this better journalism or just new management?" A third reporter sees the appointments as "a vote of no confidence in the staff."

Duncan and the three other new senior editors-Margaret Freivogel, Phil Gaitens and Bob Rose-will oversee daily news. They will report to Robbins. Freivogel, now assistant managing editor on projects and who supervised coverage of the pope's visit, becomes senior editor for sports and culture. While Freivogel has been handling features since Ellen Gardner departed, the sports department allegedly was incredulous at the announcement she would manage them. A veteran of the Washington bureau where she collected reporting awards, Freivogel also handled the national and international desks.

Zoned news will be managed by Gaitens who has spent the past year supervising the creation and beefing up of suburban coverage. He worked with non-news staff in advertising, circulation and marketing. A 14-year Post staffer, Gaitens served as assistant managing editor for the metro, sports and business sections before tackling the zones strategy.

The man in charge of the 1997 redesign of the Post, Bob Rose, becomes senior editor for presentation and production. He'll work with the designers, the photo desk, copy editors and section planners to coordinate overall production of the paper. A former assistant sports editor at the Post, Rose later helped start Get Out, oversaw the 1996 Olympic presentation and moved to news for special presentations. As assistant managing editor for presentation since 1996, Rose has worked on revamping the Sunday paper.

Executive Editor Weil named three senior editors, Laszlo Domjan, Carolyn Kingcade and Jim Mosely to assist him on administration and development. Weil's leadership team already has Dick Weiss, Cynthia Todd and John Brophy.

Domjan will supervise staff and organizational development; that is, he'll train the news teams. In his in-house school for writers, he'll develop special curricula, train instructors, bring in expert trainers and select seminars and special courses. He'll work with Weiss, who's senior editor for writing.

As senior editor for readership, Kingcade will manage a reader outreach program. As Campbell noted in his memo announcing the seven appointments, Kingcade "has been an advocate for doing all we can to connect with readers ... she'll write a weekly column connecting our newspaper with the community." In addition to speaking to community groups, Kingcade will direct a reader task force and report what readers want to the news teams, or as Campbell puts it, "help teams develop ways to connect directly with readers." Kingcade has researched how readers see bias in the Post.

As senior editor for information, Jim Mosley will create the newsroom's communication infrastructure and oversee computer support. A former metro editor, a specialist in computer-assisted reporting and a reporter, Mosley developed the electronic newsroom schedule. He'll work with the news teams on using research from the consultants, such as the Harwood Group and Cheskin.

The editorial page has its first African-American writer since Bob Joiner left. Ronald J. Harris is writing on the social justice beat, that is, on welfare, Social Security, Medicare, police brutality and police. A long-time Los Angeles Times reporter and columnist, Harris was a foreign correspondent in its Brazil bureau and a national correspondent. He also was an assistant metro editor and director of minority recruiting at the paper. He began at the Memphis Press-Semitar and did a stint at Ebony magazine.

While he's the only black writer on the editorial page, Harris is not the only black in the department. John L. Mason is working there part-time in what Bertelson called "an editorial fellowship" for three months. Mason began 30 years ago at Monsanto as a research chemist before working in corporate recruiting, management development, human resources and corporate communications. As the respected director of the Monsanto Fund, Mason allocated grants until his retirement last year. He's been on the boards of MICDS (Mary Institute-Country Day School), Webster University and St. Louis Symphony. He's on the national board of an arm of the National Conference of Christians and Jews.

"He's marvelous, very articulate," says one admirer at the paper. "I really respect him. He's a first-rate facilitator of meetings. It's not clear what he's consulting on, but he's an asset to any organization.

"But he travels in the toniest of circles. Does he really have the black perspective? He's more typical of Town & Country magazine than the St. Louis American newspaper. Does management assume that just because someone is black he'll understand the black middle class? I'd love to count up the consultants we have because we don't understand who our readers are."

Post-Dispatch circulation drops near 'magic' low

By Ellen Harris

After dropping for years, St. Louis Post-Dispatch circulation figures are now hovering over a costly precipice. For the second month in a row, the numbers are down. Sunday readership in the four weeks ending Feb. 28 has fallen to 501,663 from last February's 521,936-down 3.9 percent. Weekday circulation is now 302,447 compared with 313,355 last year, a change of minus 3.5 percent. The numbers are according to a monthly report by the Pulitzer Publishing Co.

The January numbers were also down. For the five weeks ending Jan. 31, the unaudited numbers are: daily readership at 307,303, down 3 percent from 1998's 316,911; Sunday, 514,952, a .5 percent decrease from 517,537 the year before.

February's decline is dangerously close to what is widely believed to be the magical numbers of 500,000 for the Sunday edition and 300,000 for the daily Monday through Saturday. Circulation is a major factor in determining advertising rates. And rates are usually based on increments of 100,000. While it's been long said that if the Post falls below those magic numbers, ad revenues will be affected, no one at the Post wants to comment about that.

Editor Cole Campbell says he doesn't know what the cut-off is and referred the query to Tom Rees, vice president of advertising. So did Larry T. Martin, vice president of circulation. Rees did not return phone calls. A call to a manager in ad sales elicited this response: "Ad rates are not totally based on circulation, but circulation is part of the ad rate structure. I have no comment on that 500,000 figure. I'm not at a level where I can help you."

Post reporters say those numbers of half-a-million Sunday readers and 300,000 weekdays "are important psychological markers to us." The Post routinely posted circulation figures near the fifth floor elevators years ago but no longer does so. Last fall, when told his reporters wanted management to resume the postings, Campbell told me, "The new teams will receive the numbers." They still don't. "But somehow every month the Pulitzer reports find their way to the reporters," points out one staffer.

Although circulation is down, circulation revenue is comparatively steady at $15.2 million for the first nine weeks of 1999.

Despite more bad news, again, Campbell is optimistic that his continued changes will ultimately entice readers back: "I am confident that improvements over time will make the paper more valuable to people. We have no particular projection. A lot of things are cumulative. We had a lot of complaints over changes in the Sunday TV book but people need to relearn how to use it, which can be annoying. But [the new version] is far more useful. We had far fewer complaints than expected. We expected in the low thousands and they're in the low hundreds." The response, he says, to the "more usable and more interesting travel section has been positive. Haven't heard much about the metro section."

So when will the new improved Post see the return of old readers who've dropped their subscriptions? "With all the changes," says Campbell, "I don't know when it will start going up. Larry Martin is fairly optimistic he can make some changes that will kick in."

Martin believes circulation will rejuvenate once he corrects "operational issues," which translates to better service to both the older ring suburbs and the outlying areas. "We're starting new subscribers on a more timely basis instead of the several days or more it takes to have delivery started or they get lost in the shuffle." New subscribers should have a paper on their doorstep within 24 hours. And, says Martin, should a subscriber miss a paper one morning, "we'll get another one to them.

Martin attributes many of the stops, those readers who stop their subscriptions, to "service. It's not at the levels we'd like to see. I haven't heard complaints about the product itself." So how many stops do they have? "I prefer not sharing that at the moment."

In all the complaints SJR has heard about the Post, service has never been one of them.

Martin is new at the Post, having taken over as head of circulation several months ago; previously he was circulation director at another Pulitzer paper, the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson.

He points out that Pulitzer's unaudited figures for January and February are "subject to change" when audited. "They do not include the papers we sold during the pope's visit." But if the papal trip is factored out, the way the McGwire effect was, then circulation, any way you calculate, is still down. Martin cited the last publisher's statement audited by the Audit Bureau of Circulation, released this February for April through September 1998, compared with a year earlier. Daily was 324,059, up 1.3 percent from 319,887, which he attributes to McGwire. Sunday was 520,635, down 1.8 percent from 530,442.

Why Sunday? "I wish I could answer why Sunday was down," Martin said.

NRA money influences police on concealed-weapons Prop

By Don Corrigan

The NRA's Charlton Heston had little trouble parting the Red Sea when he played Moses in "The Ten Commandments." Heston's NRA now has had equal success splitting apart St. Louis area law enforcement in the debate over Proposition B.

On one side of the debate are police chiefs who are bitterly opposed to the "right to carry" proposition facing Missouri voters on April 6. On the other side is the St. Louis Police Officers' Association (SLPOA), which claims its rank-and-file police officers support the right of citizens to carry concealed weapons.

Area police chiefs argue that the SLPOA has traditionally opposed the idea of citizens toting handguns in public places. They say the SLPOA has only had a change of heart-and is now endorsing Proposition B-thanks to the prospect of NRA bucks going into its future battles for collective bargaining rights.

"The police officers association has sold the safety of its officers in exchange for the NRA's support of its collective bargaining issue in the future," said Carl Wolf, police chief of Hazelwood and an outspoken opponent of Proposition B.

"This association is allegedly a rank-and-file organization that is supposed to help officers and to be concerned about their safety," added Wolf. "I can't believe they represent officers when they are willing to trade their safety. This is the worst kind of horse trading. It may not be a legal problem for them, but it certainly poses an ethical issue."

Police chiefs insist passage of Proposition B will not increase safety for either police officers or the general public. They argue that even by the simplest logic, passage of Proposition B can only make Missouri a more dangerous place to live and to work. More guns in circulation simply equals more potential for violence.

Billboards proclaiming the St. Louis Police Officers' Association's support of "right to carry" are found in neighborhoods throughout St. Louis and St. Louis County. Area police chiefs insist that the flood of billboard messages touting police support of Proposition B is, at best, misleading, at worst, a deception.

"The billboards say we police are in support of concealed weapons. That is absolutely not true," said Police Chief Dan Linza of Kirkwood. "My personal advice to residents is to vote against Proposition B.

"I'm tired of hearing that concealed weapons haven't caused problems in other states where this has passed," noted Linza. "That's just not the case. Does anybody really think they'll be safer in a restaurant or a tavern or at a sports event where all kinds of people will be carrying concealed weapons?"

Linza said he opposes the proposal because it will put a "large and expensive" burden on county police to handle registrations. He also said the 12 hours of training required under the proposition will not make carriers of concealed weapons competent handlers of such weapons.

"It takes continual training to be able to use these weapons properly," said Linza. "It worries me to think of all these weapons floating around with people who will think they are now capable of taking the law into their own hands."

Police Chief Neil Kurlander of Maryland Heights said most of his officers are offended and angered by the billboards touting police support of Proposition B.

The billboards show an earnest police officer gesturing in support of Proposition B. The billboards declare that "1,325 St. Louis Police Officers say "Right-to-carry" Works." The ads are paid for by the euphemistically named Missourians Against Crime.

"We polled our officers here in Maryland Heights and found that 70 percent are against this proposition," said Kurlander. "We're offended by billboards that make our residents think we're all for it. These billboards do not represent us.

"We took a poll of our officers, that's more than the St. Louis Police Officers' Association did for their officers," added Kurlander. "They just took a poll of their executive board. They are, therefore, engaged in false advertising. They don't really know how many of their officers really support concealed weapons."

'Just politics'

John Johnson, who heads the SLPOA, disputes Kurlander's "false advertising" charge, but concedes that St. Louis police officers were not polled on Proposition B.

"It's true that our executive board made the decision to back Proposition B; we did not poll our officers," said Johnson. "But I've only had about 12 phone calls from officers who oppose our decision. They say we should have had a ballot, but we only do that for election of board officers."

Johnson also did not reject the charge that SLPOA is looking for political allies in its future battles for collective bargaining rights.

"Of course, we're looking for allies on that legislation. We're not necessarily looking for help from the NRA. But we do know that state representatives Steve Gau and Wayne Crump in the state legislature feel strongly about the right to carry concealed weapons. They might be inclined to help us with our issues because of our support of Proposition B.

Who benefits?

"If we thought this proposition would endanger the public, we would not support it," added Johnson. "The main reason we back it is because we think retired police officers should be allowed to carry a weapon after they retire. This proposition will allow for that. We want our retired officers to be law-abiding. We don't want them to be felons if they carry weapons after retirement."

Amy Pennington, a spokesperson for Missourians Against Crime, said her group is proud to have SLPOA's Johnson in its fold of right-to-carry supporters.

Pennington said her organization has most certainly been a beneficiary of NRA money, both from the national office and the 103,000 individual NRA members living in Missouri. That money is funding the SLPOA billboards and TV ads supporting Proposition B.

"The SLPOA supports Proposition B as do many other police officers' groups throughout the state," said Pennington. "John Johnson of SLPOA is in our television advertising and he makes it clear that St. Louis police officers support Proposition B. That is their stance.

"I don't know why the police chiefs in St. Louis County seem to be against it, but I really doubt that their officers are against it," said Pennington. "We're getting our support from the people in the streets, the police officers on the beat. They know what's going on.

"The chiefs who sit behind a desk and oppose Proposition B are beholden to mayors and politicians," added Pennington. "There's a clear breakdown between police chiefs sitting at their desks and Missouri's finest walking the streets."

Pennington, who has helped Missourians Against Crime crank out a blizzard of pro-gun faxes to the news media since the beginning of the year, said she looks forward to carrying a concealed weapon herself after the April 6 election.

"Absolutely I will carry a weapon," said Pennington. "I used to work in downtown St. Louis and had to park under Highway 40. It was scary. I would have felt a lot safer with a gun. It's a tough area.

"But it's not just downtown St. Louis that's a problem," said Pennington. "We have a lot of dead spots in the Missouri Ozarks. If my car broke down and I was stranded there, I would feel a lot better with a gun in my glove compartment."

Pennington said Missourians Against Crime feel that Gov. Mel Carnahan has tried to thwart the will of the people on the concealed weapons issue, and that he continues to do so.

"The governor fought us in the legislature for six years. He blocked us by saying he would not sign right-to-carry legislation if it crossed his desk," said Pennington. "So now we're going to a vote of the people. And Carnahan promised he would stay out of the way. But who's heading our main opposition, the Safe Schools and Workplaces Committee, headed by Robin Carnahan, the governor's daughter."

Despite opposition from the Carnahans and the Safe Schools and Workplaces Committee, Pennington said she is confident that "democracy will succeed" when voters decide Proposition B in Missouri.

"I think democracy is going to work on April 6," said Pennington. "Missourians have seen all these other states pass right-to-carry laws and they know that it works. Missourians know they should have the right to self-protection."

Democracy at work?

"When the NRA says it's willing to spend $7 million in the state to get this thing passed, what kind of democracy is that?" asked Hazelwood Police Chief Wolf, who is also president-elect of the Missouri Police Chiefs' Association. "We're talking about a steamroller.

"They've got all these TV ads and they're bringing in Ben Hur and Moses to speak all in favor of concealed weapons," observed Wolf. "We've just got to count on Missourians' common sense."

Police Chief Kurlander of Maryland Heights echoes Wolf in his assessment of the April 6 decision: "It will be interesting to see if all this NRA money and a lot of smooth advertising hoodwink the public."

Kurlander said the public will be in for a big surprise if Proposition B passes. He said police officers will interact with the public much differently with the knowledge that every citizen could be armed.

"In our jurisdiction, we have casinos, restaurants, amphitheaters and Riverport," said Kurlander. "Our officers dread the idea of guns in these places. And even if a casino or a restaurant puts up a sign, 'No Guns On The Premises,' there will be no real way to enforce it.

"The way the legislation is written, if somebody disobeys those signs, the most they can get is a little ticket violation," said Kurlander. "It won't even endanger their permit to carry."

Greg Jeffery, president of the Second Amendment Coalition of Missouri, argues that passage of the proposition will make the state safer. He said police chiefs "will come around" once Proposition B passes and they can see it in action.

"Police chiefs are in sensitive political positions and they feel they have to be cautious," said Jeffery. "In all the states where this has passed, there has been a paradigm shift among police chiefs. They express support for it after it's put into effect.

"Missouri is one of seven states that doesn't give law-abiding citizens the option to carry weapons to protect themselves," continued Jeffery. "We don't have to worry about the gang bangers and the low lifes, because they are already carrying concealed weapons. We're trying to help regular citizens acquire firearms for their personal safety."

Jeffery said too many law enforcement officials "are crying that it will be Wild West and blood in the streets" if the proposition passes. But he said groups such as his don't have to guess what will happen if the right to carry concealed weapons passes in Missouri on April 6.

"We know from the facts that crime will actually go down," said Jeffery. According to Jeffery, studies by his group and the Missourians for Personal Safety show that the right to carry concealed weapons reduces the crime rate. Crime rates have declined in states where concealed weapons measures have passed.

Ed Dowd, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, has taken issue with supporters of Proposition B on the crime-reduction argument. According to Dowd, dramatic declines in crime rates across the United States are in no way connected to passage of concealed weapons measures.

"In fact, FBI statistics show that in states which have strict laws against carrying concealed weapons, the crime rates have dropped 25 percent since 1992," declared Dowd. "In states with laws which permit carrying concealed weapons, the crime rate has fallen 11 percent."

Jeffery of the Second Amendment Coalition said that even if one accepts Dowd's use of statistics, the figures still show crime going down in "right to carry" states.

"Even Dowd's statistics show that the sky doesn't fall when a concealed weapons bills passes," said Jeffery. "We think law enforcement people will support Proposition B, once they see it in action. The police chiefs are basing their views on opinions, rather than facts."

Chief Terry Good of Rock Hill said he is at a loss as to why any police would support the concealed weapons measure. He said billboards in the area showing police support for Proposition B leave him scratching his head.

"I don't know where all these cops are who support this," said Good.

Glendale Police Chief Richard Black said Proposition B will only make the job of police officers more difficult and more dangerous. He also said it will give citizens who exercise the "right to carry" a false sense of confidence.

"Unless you are really trained to use arms, there's a good chance they will be taken from you and used against you," said Black. "The amount of training involved under these measures isn't sufficient. It doesn't prepare anyone for a real confrontation situation.

"As a citizen, I'm against it," said Black. "As a police officer, I just don't want to see any more weapons out on the street. This just isn't going to make us any safer."

LETTERS

Thank you

SJR: Many thanks for your focus on the death penalty in your March 1999 issue. You pointed out some important questions in coverage of executions and the death penalty; I enjoyed the issue very much.

A couple of typos need correcting. On page 9, you say that "approximately 90 of the total executions have taken place in Missouri." In fact, Missouri has now executed 35 men (soon to be 36 if Roy Ramsey is executed April 14); the number 90 refers to the approximate population on Missouri's death row.

Second, on the same page, you quote me referring to "Resorted Justice." In fact, I was talking about "restorative justice", an approach to crime which starts by asking very different questions: instead of "Who did it," and "What's the appropriate amount of punishment," restorative justice asks, "Who was hurt, and how can we heal everyone involved?" Following these questions to their logical conclusions leads to profoundly different responses to crime.

My apologies for perhaps being unclear. Overall, bravo for a welcome issue.

Margaret Phillips

An open letter to KWMU

Dear KWMU: For the first time since I began listening to Public Radio more than 15 years ago, I am not contributing to my local station this year. While I feel this decision is the right one, it bothers me a great deal. Although I am not optimistic that you will amend your approach to fund-raising, I think it is important to say publicly why I have chosen to contribute directly to NPR News instead of to you.

When I first discovered public radio in the early 1980s, I was delighted to hear such intelligent and well-reported news. I quickly became a regular listener-and a member. At that time, I was working as a full-time volunteer in a soup kitchen and shelter for homeless people, receiving a small weekly stipend. When that station did a membership drive (it's now WHYY in Philadelphia, but had different call letters back then), it invited all its listeners to contribute. It announced the suggested cost of a "basic membership," and premiums for higher amounts, but it always explicitly talked about a special membership rate for students, seniors, and people on fixed incomes. When I called in and said I wanted to contribute but didn't have much money, they immediately told me that it was fine, and I got all the membership mailings.

After moving to New York City, I joined WNYC the first time I heard their pledge drive. Of course they had a basic membership rate, and spoke of other higher levels, but they also always mentioned a lower rate for those who couldn't afford even the basic amount. (I was able to contribute the standard rate then, but was glad to hear everyone invited to join.) Steve Post, host of their morning classical music show, is one of that station's best fund-raisers. I understand why: during the drives, he'd always talk about the need for everyone to take responsibility for the station, saying things like, "Send us your pocket change, send any amount, just be part of it!" As I'm sure you know, WNYC lost its municipal backing under Mayor Giuliani's administration, but the public has indeed taken responsibility for the station, raising millions to keep it strong.

I joined KWMU the same month I arrived in St. Louis almost five years ago, even before you asked. It felt like a responsibility. But I was surprised that in all your pledge drives, I never heard you invite students and others with fixed incomes to join even if they couldn't afford the basic rate. That seemed especially odd since you are affiliated with the State university system. It disturbed me enough that a few years ago, I mentioned it to Harry Cargas. He looked thoughtful and said he'd bring it up at the station. One year ago, when one of your fund-raisers called me at home to ask for a contribution, I explained my discomfort. We had a rather long conversation, during which she conceded that she had heard of accepting less than the basic membership rate, but said, "We're not allowed to mention it." I renewed anyway, since she assured me that she would pass along my concern. During one pledge break around that time, I actually heard an on-air fund-raiser say that people with smaller pledges shouldn't call during his half hour, because he only wanted big donations.

During your recent Valentine's Day fund drive, you repeatedly emphasized a $200 contribution, for a premium of a night's stay at a bed and breakfast. I visited your web site, and sure enough, $200 was the default contribution. When I recently received a phone call from you asking that I renew my membership, I told the caller why I have decided to give directly to NPR instead. She seemed embarrassed, and apologized, saying she understood.

Clearly, KWMU wants the wealthy to be its primary supporters. You don't seem concerned about the majority of the people out here who might be listening, but who may not have vast resources to give you. I don't think you are intentionally driving away potential members who might actually be willing to support the station, but consider that it may be an effect of your approach to fund-raising. For now, I will make my contributions directly to National Public Radio. If your on-air pledge drives ever begin to mention low income memberships as often as the pleas for major donations, I will rejoin without hesitation.

I'll be waiting for you.

Bill Barrett

Amusing Voltaire

SJR: Michael Wild's letter in the March issue of SJR takes exception to being reminded that the annals of the Roman Catholic Church have been now and then splattered with blood and that were the Vatican now unreservedly to embrace pacifism it would be news.

What makes Mr. Wild's objection so intriguing is that he did not dispute the observation, but maintained only that it was bigoted. If I understand him right, he considers it churlish, in light of the Vatican's current feel-good posture, to mention the excesses, say, of the Crusades, the persecution of the Templars or the atrocities of the Inquisition. He seems to be saying, in effect, that while he may not disagree with what I say, he will oppose to the death my right to say it. Voltaire would be amused.

What we have here seems to be the Gopher Prairie mind-set according to which it is bad manners and perhaps even a threat to civic harmony to bring up past unpleasantness. Or is it merely that the church, teaching as it does infinite forgiveness, is asking that it too be forgiven as though we were all dogs, everlastingly devoted to an impetuous master who now and then gives us a drunken kick in the flank?

There seems, indeed, to be a certain inequality-and invidiousness, really- in how we regard crimes against humanity. It doesn't seem to have much to do with how long ago they occurred.

On one hand, the brutality visited upon the Serbs by the Croats (and vice versa), Hutus upon Tutsis ( and vice versa), Indonesians upon Timorese, and Russians, Chinese, Cambodians and Sudanese upon one another seem to have attracted only token concern. Yet, insuring that the world will never forget the viciousness of the Nazi treatment of the Jews has developed into a kind of growth industry.

I consider my argument unrefuted: If the Holy and Apostolic Church of Rome, the Throne of Peter, with its two millennia of often abetting hideous violence, is now slouching towards Bethlehem to be reborn, it would be a helluva story.

I hope it's true.

E.F. Porter

Correction

SJR: In reference to your piece on page11 of the March issue, the name of the organization headed by Gordon Baum is the Council of Conservative Citizens, not the Council of Conservative Christians.

Calvin Cahan

Nick Penniman's career at Post ends

By E.F. Porter

St. Louis Post-Dispatch employees were startled last month when they received a letter announcing that Nick Penniman, once the rising star in the Pulitzer executive pantheon, was being put out to pasture. Startled but not surprised. There had been plenty of straws in the wind, like wall posters at the Gate of Heavenly Peace, that Penniman had fallen out of favor.

The announcement was signed by Bob Woodworth, a recent hire from Knight-Ridder, who is now, rather suddenly, president and CEO of the newly created Pulitzer Inc., and Penniman's replacement as Wunderkind du jour.

Penniman, Woodworth explained, "will step back from active management ... and assume a new role as consultant to the company with focus on the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson" - which sounds like a banishment as well as a demotion. The letter was otherwise well-seasoned with the usual limping corporate clichés ("integral part ... period of change and challenge ... growth and accomplishment ...") and ended with a valedictory from Penniman himself, which Woodworth wrote, "Nick asked me to relay ... to you:

'The strength of Pulitzer has always been the deep sense of loyalty and commitment we all have. This is a very special quality, one that makes Pulitzer a very special place to work. I wish each and every one of you a bright and fulfilling future. I will cherish the 24 years we worked together.'"

Several staffers thought it curious that Penniman, who is thought to be adequately articulate and rarely at a loss for words, was unable to speak for himself. Some doubted that he wrote it.

Penniman's fortunes apparently began to fade several years ago after the death of Joseph Pulitzer in whose imperium Penniman had been hired.

Penniman was distinctly a Joe Pulitzer type: a button-down, Ivy League patrician from the East Coast in Brooks Brothers grey flannel and round, clear-rimmed spectacles, not so pretty as Bill Woo, Pulitzer's favorite protege, and not grotesquely tall enough and pleasant-looking. He upheld the Ivy League taboo against over-careful dress, which Pulitzer himself never quite learned.

Nicholas Griffith Penniman, IV, was born 61 years ago in Baltimore into a family with enough pride in his name to recycle it thrice. One of Penniman's children is styled the fifth.

He graduated from Princeton in 1960 and served nearly three years in the Army as an enlisted man, a fact many staffers consider to his credit. He became assistant business manager of the Illinois State Journal Register in Springfield in 1964 and was promoted to business manager in 1969. He came to the Post as assistant general manager in 1975 and was named general manager in 1984, and publisher in 1986.

In St. Louis, Penniman played out the rising executive role in the conventional way, keeping fit by playing tennis and sometimes jogging during his lunch hour and taking on non-controversial civil endeavors such as the Boy Scouts, Downtown St. Louis, Inc., the Mercantile Library and Country Day School.

Staffers recall him as a slightly paradoxical figure. On one hand, he was invariably civil, sometimes, you could say, charming, greeting employees by name in the elevator, surprising them that he even knew who they were. One former staffer recalled that on a New Year's Eve several years ago, Penniman did not hesitate for a second to put his own social engagements on hold in order to do a favor for an employee who had just had a death in the family.

"It was the act of a true gentleman," the staffer said. "It's not the kind of thing you ever forget."

On the other hand, most Post staffers believe it was at the instigation of Penniman that Pulitzer retained King & Ballow, a Nashville law firm with a reputation for brutality, to handle negotiations with the paper's unions. It was a move that firmly slammed the door on a tradition of civility in labor relations going back more than three-quarters of a century. But it achieved, partly owing to the timidity of the unions, a grandfather contract under which new hires are deprived of many of the benefits enjoyed by their colleagues.

The episode had a depressing effect on employee morale, especially in the newsroom, and seems to make Penniman's farewell invocation of "a deep sense of loyalty and commitment" something of a cynical canard.

Penniman's fortunes at the Post began to fade, it appears, shortly after the death of Joe Pulitzer, but not so soon as to prevent Penniman to engage in some aprés-moi blood-letting of his own. It was Penniman, most staff members are pretty sure, who fired William Woo, Pulitzer's hand-picked editor, and Foster Davis, Woo's choice as managing editor.

Some of the straws in the wind were sown by Penniman himself. During a staff meeting called to explain an impending, consultant-driven reappraisal of the Pulitzer establishment, somewhat grandly designated Operation Odyssey, Penniman told employees they could look forward to profound changes in the paper's operation and that even he might disappear.

Most of his listeners at the time dismissed the remark as self-effacing, but not entirely sincere, modesty, but in hindsight they wonder if it weren't prescience.

Documentary verification of Penniman's sidelining finally came with the distribution in February of the prospectus on the proposed (now consummated) merger of Hearst-Argyle Television and the concurrent spinoff of the Pulitzer newspapers.

Penniman's name appears in the prospectus almost as an afterthought. Woodworth now heads the small, leaner Pulitzer Inc., the position that once upon a time would have fallen to Penniman. Woodworth will replace Penniman on the voting trust, a board which votes most of the family-owned stock and thus controls the company. Penniman is listed, only, among six top executives slated to receive bonuses and what the prospectus terms "retention awards" as a consequence of the merger.

The totals of these pourboires are:

Six hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars each for C.Wayne Godsey and John Kueneke; $900,000 for Ronald H. Ridgway; $1.6 million for Ken J. Elkins and $1.9 million for Michael Pulitzer. Penniman brings up the rear with $300,000, and whether he'll get all of that now that he's been sent down to the minors is not clear.

None of these signs and symptoms actually explain why and how Penniman fell from grace, and Penniman himself has so far declined to discuss it. Several weeks before Woodworth's announcement, SJR asked Penniman for an interview. The reply, conveyed over the phone by his secretary was a stiff, "Mr. Penniman said to tell you he has no comment at this time."

It was almost as though he thought we knew more than he did.

MEDIA ON MEDIA

By Frank Absher

On top

When it comes to making money in radio, look to Infinity. Of the top 10 grossing stations in the U.S., five are owned by that one company. The top two stations, both in New York, are Infinity stations. Between the two of them, they grossed more than $100 million: WFAN-AM $55.1 million; WXRK-FM $45.6 million. (Gavin News, March 12)

TV wins

Which medium gets more subpoenas? Broadcasters win out over newspapers, getting 71 percent of the subpoenas issued to the news media in 1997, the most recent year for which data were available. (Broadcasting & Cable, March 22)

Chew this

A television reporter and camera operator in Salt Lake City have been sued because they used minors to stage a news item about the use of chewing tobacco by young people. The station, KTVX, had argued that the First Amendment protected the pair, but a state appeals court ruled the argument invalid and the charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor was upheld. (Broadcasting & Cable, March 8)

Target women

Turner Broadcasting is getting ready to roll out a new cable network targeting women. The venture would compete with the previously announced Oxygen Network and the already existing Lifetime Network. One industry executive is looking for a good fight, saying, "Ted doesn't do things half-assed." (Ad Age, March 15)

Times TV

A re-organization of executives at The New York Times may signal that company's increased interest in television. Daniel Cohen left his post as senior vice president for advertising to start a new television production company. His group will work with Times Electronic Media Company to target the younger generation which is not showing a great deal of interest in newspapers. (New York Times, March 3)

No news

A Chicago television station owned by CBS has dropped its 6 p.m. nightly news broadcast and is placing emphasis on a newly created news broadcast at 4 p.m. Viewers will see "Hollywood Squares" at 6 p.m. on WBBM-TV, and the 4 p.m. news will be aimed at women viewers. The station's news broadcasts are a distant third in the market's ratings race. (Electronic Media, March 15)

Ladies first

At least one CBS television affiliate is dropping NFL broadcasts next season. WWTV in Traverse City, Mich. made more money in 1997 broadcasting movies and programs for women on Sunday. The station manager says comparative time slots this season were down in revenue 30 percent. (Electronic Media, March 1)

The final

It's the end of the final frontier for MST3K. "Mystery Science Theater 3000" will not be renewed for another season on the Sci-Fi Channel. The final episode is scheduled for August, and reruns will be broadcast through the end of the year. (Electronic Media, March 1)

No way

An advertising agency study has come under fire from the magazine industry for concluding that readers are turning to the Internet. Leo Burnett Company found a shrinkage in the number of 18- to 49-year-old magazine readers of almost 6 percent in one year. Magazine publishers say the study methodology was flawed. (Ad Age, March 8)

Fathers' Day

The National Fatherhood Initiative is taking the TV industry to task for its unrealistic portrayal of fathers. The group's president wants producers and writers to take a more responsible approach in its depiction of fathers in programs. Of 102 programs reviewed, the group found, only 15 showed dads in recurring roles involving kids under 18. (Electronic Media, March 8)

HERE

By Ed Bishop

Copies of a speech by John Carroll, editor of the Baltimore Sun, have been circulating around the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Recently Carroll won the prestigious Editor of the Year Award from the National Press Foundation in Washington, D.C. In his acceptance speech, Carroll made it clear that he didn't think much of current trends in journalism-in the consultants, the gadget gurus, the purveyors of the touchy-feely gobbledygook masquerading as news judgment who are haunting a lot of American newspapers at the moment.

"If you were to visit the Baltimore Sun's newsroom today," he said, "you might be surprised as much by what we're not doing as by what we do. We have, for example, no self-improvement programs. You won't find re-engineering or Quality Circles or News 2000. You won't encounter editors brandishing MBAs, nor will you hear journalists exhorted to get out of their 'silos.' No one is being put through months and months of meetings, leading eventually to the formation of teams."

They are at the Post.

In fact, the staff of the only major daily in the metropolitan area is being put through one of the goofiest management restructurings in the history of newspapers.

You'll be able to read all about it in the next issue of SJR. But you don't really need to know the details to see some of the outward manifestations of this silliness. All you have to do is pick up a copy of the Post-any copy.

Front pages are dominated by photographs and feature stories. Boosterism is rampant. Articles about religion, especially Protestant religion, appear almost daily. The Post is starting to have the feel of a small daily in the south-say, Norfolk, Va., or somewhere. You almost expect to read a daily prayer over the flag or that Myra Bramwelter is in town from Hannibal to visit her grandmother, Lillian Cratbach, 92. In short, most days the Post is filled with mush.

That's because the Post is currently filling its top editing positions with people who are more loyal to a management process than they are to news. In fact, a lot of them have been in St. Louis such a short time they have almost no idea of what would be news here anyway. The focus of the Post is almost totally on rearranging the deck chairs.

If its circulation keeps dropping, the Post might, in fact, be a small daily in a very short time.

• • •

Every good teacher knows that students learn lessons from the context in which information is presented to them, not just from the information itself. For example, when students in run-down inner-city schools are told that everyone in America is equal, the lesson is that American society is sometimes hypocritical.

The lesson Beth Plunkett, principal of Parkway West High School, taught her students is that people in power don't have to play by the rules-if you offend them they can squash you.

In late March, the student journalists at Parkway West published a school newspaper with a cover that was, well, high-schoolish. The cover graphic was about the "war between the sexes." The humor was pretty broad. But it wasn't "illegal, libelous, obscene, disruptive to the learning environment or an invasion of privacy," which are the standards of the U.S. Supreme Court's Hazelwood decision allowing administrators to censor high-school student publications. The cover simply offended Plunkett's sensibilities and she pulled the newspaper off its racks.

Lesson learned.

Like most of these cases, Plunkett's actions drew more attention to the newspaper than if she had just let it go. In fact, if anyone's actions were disruptive to the learning environment, it was those of the principal.

But it's not just Plunkett. People in this country have a hard time understanding that without allowing offensive expression-expression that falls within the law but is nevertheless offensive-we undermine the entire basis of a free and open society. Sometimes folks need to be offended.

Too often, though, high school and college administrators see student publications as public-relations tools, or worse, personal affronts to themselves.

Plunkett needs to ask herself if she truly wanted her lesson to be that power is more important than rights. If she didn't, she should apologize to the students for her mistake.

THERE

By Charles L. Klotzer

The redesign of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch sacrifices copy for display. It implies less reporting and more pretension. Instead of letting readers decide on the merits of the news, it screams "look at me." That is not to say that the new layouts are not more attractive, but is that the calling of the media? Advertising and commercials have some of the best brains and the most appealing layouts in order to overcome buyer resistance. The substance of the media, however, is the message and not the packaging.

Yet, however much the Post is willing to sacrifice in its repackaging addiction, as long as it will permit (and "permit" is used advisedly) Columnist Bill McClellan to have his say, we can overlook many things. It is not that we agree with all of his views, far from it, he is dead wrong in many cases, but he is an independent, unintimidated soul who can drive his dagger into the heart of hypocrisy even if it rests within the walls of his workplace.

His free pen is a credit not only to him, but also to his editors.

• • •

America is about to sponsor a U.N. resolution criticizing China's human rights record. The U.S. also supports the trials of war criminals in Serbia, Croatia, Cambodia and other countries.

What about American war criminals?

President Clinton has recently apologized for U.S. support of the many murderous regimes in Central America. But is that enough?

Forty-five years ago the U.S. instigated the overthrow of Jacob Arbenz Guzman in Guatemala. Among those later killed by death squads were Americans, nuns, human rights and union organizers, and an archbishop, and thousands of Guatemalans. We repeated that performance in Nicaragua and other countries to the south. Indeed, we trained many of these criminals in U.S. institutions.

Subversion, murders and torture were the tools of American diplomacy. Specifically, who ordered it? Who carried it out? Who should be held accountable? The executive branch, the state department, the C.I.A., or all three?

A few, isolated reports have appeared in the mass media. What is now required is an in-depth study and congressional hearings.

• • •

Using advertising dollars to influence editorial policy is a business tool widely practiced. When media conglomerates do likewise, it highlights the trend that such outfits have abandoned the ethical precepts of their profession or other interests.

When the American Journalism Review featured a series of in-depth reports on American newspapers by Geneva Overholzer, a former Gannett editor, the Gannett Company cancelled its annual eight-page advertising budget with AJR, reports The New York Times (March 8). It is assumed that critical comments about Gannett's editorial and business practices triggered the cancellation.

• • •

Claude-Jean Bertrand, journalism professor at the Insitut Francais de Presse, Université de Paris, who knows more about American journalism than most American journalists, bemoans the decline of U.S. media, "They are now a sad joke," he writes in Media Ethics (Vol. 10, No. 1).

Traditionally, Bertrand was enthusiastic about U.S. media which he held up as a model for the European press. But saturation coverage of the Simpson trial and now the Lewinsky affair, among others, shows that "the U.S. media have terribly declined in quality."

If they pursue these stories under the guise of investigative journalism, Bertrand asks, "why do they not go after the important and obscure stories, of the kind that get listed among 'The Ten Best-Censored of the Year.'"

The cause for the decline? "Money, mammon, money. The U.S. media have sold their souls to mindless moguls. Their policy now is to cut costs, increase advertising revenues and produce worthless, sometimes noxious, entertainment," says Bertrand.

• • •

Politicians of both major parties, the executive branch and think tanks of various ideologies, among many others, foresee a shortfall in social security income which will sooner or later shortchange the baby boomer generation.

The media do their best in promoting that view. All projections are based on a 1.5 percent increase in the rate of the U.S. annual growth. Only a few, isolated voices have pointed to the fact that the assumption of that rate over the next 75 years is less than half of what we have averaged over the last 75 years, as Craig Butler explains in a letter to The New York Times. Other possible solutions and misleading statistics have been pointed out again and again by Merton C. Bernstein, professor of law emeritus at Washington University.

But the full-page reports in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on March 21 and in The New York Times on March 24 do not even mention the possibility that the potential shortfall may never materialize. Both papers discuss in detail several proposals how to save the social security fund-but never mention alternative views whether it requires saving.

The question which should be asked: In whose best interest is it to create such a one-sided scenario?

EVERYWHERE

To the stars, Alice

There once was a time when the editors of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch took quiet pride in a working familiarity with the dead languages. Several copy editors were journeymen Latinists and retired music critic Frank Peters, the last staffer to win a Pulitzer, read the classics for pleasure. So far as we know he still does.

Those days are gone. An otherwise estimable story on the proposed evisceration of the McDonnell Planetarium (page one, March 15) not only misquoted the Latin motto of the planetarium but mistranslates the misquote.

The motto, Per Ardua ad Astra, (Through Adversity to the Stars) is also the motto of the Royal Air Force and numberless other institutions, and though of uncertain origin, is about as close to a cliche as Latin can get these days.

The Post rendered it, Ad Astra per Astrum, which, to the extent any meaning at all can be ascribed to it, might be translated, "To the Stars through the Star."

-E.F. Porter

A day late, dollar short

Cole Campbell, editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, reportedly said recently that news was not nearly as important as process (of writing it? collecting it? learning it?), and he and his newspaper certainly proved the constantly lessening importance of news for St. Louisans recently.

The suburban-Chicago Amtrak crash occurred about 10 p.m. on March 15, but there was no mention in the March 16 newspaper. Sporting events that end far later than that seem to make the paper the next morning.

The New York Times also scooped the Post on at least two major local stories within a week. The announcement of the cancer diagnosis of Joe Torre showed up in the Post two days after it ran in the Times-and Torre spent enough time in a Cardinal uniform as player and manager that he came to Barnes-Jewish Hospital for examination and diagnosis. A few days later, on March 16, the Times was first to report that the surgery would be here too, with Dr. William Catalona in charge.

Even more egregious was the Post handling of the fare increase at TWA, something that affects almost all St. Louisans who fly. Once again, and even though the airline has its major hub here, the Times carried the story on March 15, the Post joined in the next day.

-Joe Pollack

What's next?

Here we go again. Broadcasting & Cable magazine is out with the latest list of planned cable channels. An overview gives the impression that people are running short on creativity.

• The Boating Channel-All boating, all the time. Launch date unknown

• Celtic Vision-Programs from Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Available now.

• Fanfare-Classical music videos and performer interviews. Launch November 1999.

• Hobby Craft Network-How-to shows about crafts. Launch March 2000.

• The Love Network-Info and advice on relationships. Launch September 1999.

• Parent Television-Advice for parents. Launch date unknown.

-Frank Absher

Suburban Journals: missed the point

A number of March 7 editions of the Suburban Journals carried a front page cover photo of Tibetan Monks who recently visited Webster University. The performances of the Tibetan Buddhist Monks at Webster were moving and a rare privilege to behold.

Unfortunately, the cutline under the Journal's photograph was a complete disservice to the monks. It stated that the happy monks were from Drepung Loseling Monastery in Tibet. Not so. The monks live in exile in India. Their monastery is kaput.

Drepung Loseling Monastery was one of 6,000 Buddhist monasteries desecrated and destroyed since the Chinese invaded that independent country in 1949. Only 13 remain in Tibet itself, all closely controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.

The monks international tour is trying to alert the world to the terrible destruction of a centuries-old culture. The Journals missed the point completely. Oh well, never mind the accuracy; it was a colorful photo.

-Bill Barrett

Below the law

Our state legislators spent years in Jefferson City wrangling over the concealed weapons bill, only to foist the issue on Missouri voters after their inability to come to any reasonable judgment on their own.

The lawmakers did the citizenry another great service as well. They excluded the state capitol building-their own workplace-from the list of permissible places to carry concealed handguns.

If Proposition B passes on April 6, concealed handguns could be legally carried right up to the doors of schools, in the school yard, as well as in any retail and wholesale business, banks, bars, restaurants, sports stadiums, shopping malls, day-care centers, casino boats and more-but not in the statehouse.

It seems odd that state legislators, especially those who insist that concealed weapons will make us all safer, don't really want handguns in their own place of employment. Don't state lawmakers really believe the literature of the NRA patriots who ante up for their election campaigns?

-Don Corrigan

Top-notch reporting

Kudos to Linda Tucci at the St. Louis Business Journal for breaking two major investigative stories recently.

The first one dealt with major problems in the development of new single-unit residential structures in St. Louis. Tucci found, after poring through volumes of public records, that the city's program to construct new houses in North St. Louis was a dismal failure because of the bureaucracy in the Community Development Agency and St. Louis Development Corporation.

She says she began her inquiry shortly after Mayor Clarence Harmon announced he would completely revamp the agencies because of their inefficiency and voluminous red tape. Although her front page story focused on one new home (she got information from a folder as thick as a new phone book), Tucci says her research found that her example was typical of many other construction efforts, resulting in a cost overrun of 100 percent.

Her second scoop focused on the growing fiscal problems at Family Corporation of America, parent company of National Markets. Tucci says the Business Journal got a tip on the story and she was aided on the story by Rick Desloge. Her work was hampered by her inability to get a direct quote from the company's CEO, Jim Gibson, who was in Florida, but she says she's been even more disappointed by Gibson's refusal to take any of her subsequent calls to clarify the company's situation.

"You'd expect the CEO would want to respond," Tucci says. "This is a story that's not over yet."

Both of these efforts point out the value of old fashioned basic journalism. Tucci was able to hand off some of her regular writing duties at the paper because of the research time involved. It's odd that no other media bothered to report her findings.

-Frank Absher

Meal money

Most newspapers follow the old Army slogan of "Do as I say, not as I do," and Knight-Ridder, second-biggest newspaper chain in the country, goes right along when its top executives are concerned. Knight-Ridder, which forced a strike at its Detroit Free Press and still is battling the National Labor Relations Board over the affair, recently moved its headquarters from Miami to San Jose, Calif., and therein lies the tale.

Anthony Ridder is the chief executive of Knight-Ridder, whose papers also include those in both Miami and San Jose, along with many others, including the Kansas City Star. Ridder is amazingly tight-fisted when it comes to his employees. He demands 20 percent profit margins at company newspapers, and he has been known to joke over his nickname of "Darth Ridder," for the merciless way in which he slashes costs.

In Detroit, by the way, the NLRB ruled against the corporation in levying

blame for the strike, and ordered back pay and job reinstatement for strikers. Knight Ridder still is fighting the decision in the courts.

Anyway, the corporate move, as discussed in the company proxy statement and reported in The New York Times, was a windfall to Ridder, whose 1998 salary already included a salary of $810,000, bonus of $415,242 and stock options valued at $926,400 on the day they were issued. The Times noted that Ridder made $2.1 million exercising options and still holds options worth another $7 million.

When it came to the corporate move, Knight-Ridder paid expenses for about 40 of its 150-person staff, and added bonuses to compensate for the higher cost of housing in San Jose. Compensation consultants estimated that housing was 2.5 times as expensive on the West Coast. Ridder received expenses, of course, and a "relocation bonus" of $300,000, another $274,163 to pay income tax on the bonus and "incidental relocation expense allowances of $25,000."

Ridder, by the way, had lived in San Jose until 1986. So, it's hardly as if he moved to a town he'd never seen.

The Times also spoke with two compensation consultants about the package for Ridder. Brian Foley, a White Plains lawyer, said, "It looks like a $600,000 handout." Alan Johnson, a New York-based consultant, added, "It's a high price and terrible optics. This is a national corporation with national-level pay for senior executives. So the higher housing price argument doesn't hold. And if it's on top of actual moving expenses, then it's outrageous."

-Joe Pollack

In SJR

10 Years Ago:

• The St. Louis Journalism Review learned that the St Louis Post-Dispatch had used a computer to alter a photo that had run on the paper's front page the previous month. Ironically, the photo was of a local free-lance photographer, Ron Olschwanger, who had just learned he'd won a Pulitzer prize for one of his photos.

• Ralph Ingersoll II announced his plans to launch a new daily newspaper in St. Louis. The former senior vice president and general manager of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Tom Tallarico, was chosen as publisher of the St. Louis Sun.

• WGNU moved its studios from two house trailers in Granite City to the 13th floor of Portland Towers in St. Louis' Central West End, just across the hall from the residence of owner Chuck Norman.

5 Years Ago:

• KPLR-TV charged that the St. Louis Archdiocese shut the station out of coverage of Archbishop Justin Rigali. The religious organization tried to charge the station $6,000 to get videotaped excerpts of the ceremony. The market's other stations had paid for pool coverage.

• WIL's news director Gene Hirsch announced his retirement after over three decades of radio news-work.

• KSDK weather man Bob Richards died in an apparent suicide when the plane he was piloting crashed at Spirit of St. Louis Airport.

St. Louis radio news operations at a glance

KMOX

• 14 full-time editors, producers, reporters

• 4 part-time employees

• 1 Jefferson City correspondent

• 3 Springfield correspondents

• CBS Network affiliation

• News Director John Butler.

• Philosophy: News should be fast, but more important, accurate and fair.

• Key newscasts in morning and afternoon drive

KTRS

• 9 full-time reporters, 1 part-time reader

• ABC Network affiliation

• News Director Joan Beuckmann.

• Philosophy: Don't want to lead with blood and guts. Most stories are chosen according to their impact on the community.

• Key newscasts 5 to 10 a.m. and 4 to 6 p.m.

KWMU

• 4 full-time reporters and producers

• NPR Network affiliation

• News Director Bill Raack.

• Philosophy: We give our listeners objective, in-depth coverage of state and national politics, health care, crime, city and county government, the economy, science, the environment and the arts each day.

• Key newscasts 5:35 a.m., 5:50 a.m., 7:35 a.m. and 7:50 a.m.

Metro

• 10 full- and part-time employees

• Metro News Networks affiliation

• Operations director Tori Lyons

• Provides anchored news broadcasts to four St. Louis radio stations and news content (copy and actualities) to eight other stations.

-Frank Absher

RADIO HISTORY

One-woman station operated in Gaslight Square

By Frank Absher

When Joan Colegrove took a job at KACO in the late 1960s, she didn't mind the fact that she was the station's only employee. She changed her mind the day the building caught fire and she was trapped inside.

KACO was a blip on the FM dial at the time. It was owned by Apollo Radio Corporation, which was based in Houston. As she remembers it, the company hired her to manage the offices, which were located along with the studios on the second floor of a three-story building in Gaslight Square. The area had suffered its big decline, and about the only business left on that block of Boyle was O'Connell's Restaurant across the street.

There are a lot of questions surrounding Apollo's operation here. It had begun seeking an FM frequency in 1963, with plans to put studios in the Continental Building. By 1967 the company was seeking a studio site in a trailer in Crestwood adjacent to the KSHE studios, but that town's board of aldermen turned down the request. Apollo had told the F.C.C. that it would be programming classical music, but when it finally got on the air, the music was MOR, which is the industry term for middle-of-the-road.

There was also the problem of KACO's broadcast day. Because it had only one employee, Joan Colegrove, the station on the air for a small portion of the day. She'd been hired to answer phones "if they ever rang" and pick up the mail. The company told her that it was trying to sell the station, so it had gotten a special ruling from the F.C.C. allowing it to broadcast only 36 hours a week.

"The people from Houston would make periodic trips to St. Louis," Colegrove says, "And on one trip they told me, 'We've decided it's silly to hire a deejay. Anyone, even a chimpanzee, can operate a radio station. Joan, here's the book, study it and get your license.' So I did.

"Then came the day when they came in from Houston and sat me down at the board. We had an Ampex tape machine in the studio, and a tape would play for 45 minutes. There were three turntables for records, and I'd use the tape when I had to use the restroom or go across to O'Connell's to get something to eat."

What she wasn't aware of is the fact that the F.C.C. was putting pressure on Apollo. The Commission threatened the company with a $1,000 fine because it had not adhered to its promise to play classical music. In addition, the Commission questioned the short broadcast day. Colegrove only knew what she was told to do, and she did it.

"I used to come in at 10 in the morning, unlock the door and flip the transmitter switch. I'd check the meters and start playing music. The transmitter was over on deBalliviere at the KCFM tower.

"I seldom had a problem, except that I was so totally tied to this, and there was no one there to relieve me. The people in Houston told me I was doing very well. 'Why don't you get creative? Start running public service announcements. If you want to talk and introduce a record, do whatever you want to do.' Up until then I'd only opened the microphone to give the station ID."

It was, for all intents and purposes, a station that went on the air only to play music. There were no advertisements. It appears, in retrospect, that Apollo simply wanted to keep the signal active until it could find a buyer for the FM slot at 107.7.

"Occasionally a couple of the guys who worked as disc jockeys at KSHE would come up to the studios because we had such good equipment compared to theirs. Gary Bennett and Steve Rosen even backed me up once in awhile when I needed a break from my air shift."

Then came the fire. Colegrove says: "Our engineer, the man who was supposed to monitor our signal, was never at the station. One day he called me and said there was nothing on the air. I knew something was wrong because my meters weren't working. When he didn't call back, I picked the phone to call him, and the phone was dead. I went to the reception area and smelled smoke. The door to the main second floor corridor was hot. So I went to the window and opened it. It was about 10:30 in the morning in February and no one was out on the street.

"I was in a panic. I figured I was going to have to jump or find another way out. I went to the front door and got down on my knees because there was so much smoke. I knew there was a large room on my floor that had a window in the back that opened onto a first floor roof. But when I got to that door, it had been nailed shut. I pounded and pulled and finally got the door open, and when I got to the roof, it was covered with ice, but there was a fire escape about five feet from the roof's edge.

"I started yelling for help and finally a man walking through the alley saw me. He called the fire department and came back, climbed the fire escape and helped me across the gap."

This was the first fire at the radio station. After damages were repaired, Colegrove went back to work, but the second fire destroyed everything.

"Apollo kept paying me, even though we weren't on the air." But the company had finally found a buyer. In July of 1970, Intermedia, Inc. of Kansas City announced plans to purchase the frequency, which had been renamed KGRV, with studios at 1215 Cole. The MOR signal gave way to "music for groovy adults." As for Joan Colegrove, she made the switch to KGRV for awhile, taking to the airwaves as "Kay Groove."

She now designs restaurant interiors. Among her credits: the old KSHE Café. Gary Bennett, now a KSHE chief engineer, is still one of her best radio friends.

'Seven Deadly Sins' offends some readers

By Ellen Harris

The recent "Seven Deadly Sins" series on the op-ed pages of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch violated the first cardinal rule in journalism-get it right. Trying to be witty, writer Steven V. Lawler, who is an Episcopal priest, irritated Catholic and Jewish readers. Several Catholic theologians say Lawler misinterpreted an ancient moral construct. Some Jewish rabbis and readers found his introduction to the series offensive.

"It's not our theology," said one rabbi.

The two rabbis, Reform and Conservative, and two Catholic priests asked that their names not be used.

The Seven Deadly Sins began in the early Church. The number varied over the ages. "But he [Lawler] mixes everything up and isn't very informative," points out an academic whose specialty is the seven big ones. "He confuses lust as in immoral sexual activity with energy and enthusiasm about doing something good. He mixes up envy with the desire to be excellent. He makes fun of righteous anger and says we should relax. Well, there are injustices we shouldn't remain calm about," the professor pointed out.

The medieval clergy developed the construct of sins and virtues as a practical guide to being a good Christian. "We need advice on how to manage human desires, reach the middle of the road," explained a Dominican priest. "Take, gluttony. It's not that we shouldn't eat and enjoy it, but we must avoid becoming enslaved by food and drink," he noted. Another priest added, "Lawler didn't clarify; he confused. Jazzing up the subject tells us nothing and fails to be interesting. The series was superficial. He offered no guidance."

A rabbi thought, "Lawler took the sting out of criticizing those who commit sins by trying so hard to be general."

Yet sometimes Lawler's phrasing was too specific. The series began Feb. 21 with "We all remember the seven deadly sins from Sunday School..."

The "we" excluded the 55,000 Jews in the St. Louis area as well as Muslims, Buddhists and other non-Christians.

"The Seven Deadly Sins is not part of our tradition," said, a prominent rabbi. "This is a blase attitude, his assuming that we all know the same things," said another rabbi. "It neglects that other people don't subscribe to his ideas. The writer is doing a disservice to his effort. He framed it poorly."

Lawler, who is a consultant on ethics and leadership teams at the Post should have known better. So should have Editorial Page Editor Christine Bertelson who is raising her two children Jewish. The idea for the series was his idea and the project was her baby. She carefully edited each piece. But two other editors changed Lawler's

original language which was more exclusionary to make the pieces more inclusive of Jews and other non-Christians.

"The Post just doesn't get it," explained one rabbi. "I hear that from a number of Jewish reporters at the Post."

The rabbi cited the recent case of a diversity training group praying to Jesus despite the fact a Jewish reporter was among them.

"This series really should have run on the religion page, but then they overdid the pope, too," the rabbi continued. "Editorially, they can do whatever they want," another rabbi pointed out. "I have no problem with their right to say whatever they want. They just said it so poorly."

Had Lawler and Bertelson framed the series differently, they wouldn't have offended Jewish readers. There have been successful newspaper series on the Seven Deadly Sins in the London Sunday Times and The New York Times Book Review, both of which were later published as books, eg., The New York Times' eight discourses published in 1993, with Gore Vidal on Pride, John Updike on Lust and Joyce Carol Oates on Despair. English essayist Henry Fairlie, who wrote for the New Republic and the Washington Post, published the well-received "The Seven Deadly Sins Today."

But Lawler hasn't read those books although he'd heard of The New York Times series. In a long-distance telephone interview from Baltimore, Lawler said he used as "a springboard" "The Seven Deadly Sins: Jewish Christian & Classical Reflections on Human Psychology" by Soloman Schimmel, Oxford University.

Lawler seemed contrite that he offended some readers. "I feel bad about

that. I had no intent to be exclusionary." He asked how his pieces might have been better written. He said he wrote his essays last summer "to make

you think about things ... There is a wonderful Walker Percy book, 'Lost in the Cosmos' where he does this, he calls it 'thought experiment.' I am a little of a pump primer myself. I was using my own reflections to prime the pump where people might read them [his reflections] and think, 'Oh, I hadn't thought about this.'"

Apparently not many readers did so. Editorial Page Deputy Editor William Freivogel said there were only two letters to the editor over the series: a funny one from a restaurant association and another asking why the Post wasted so much space on the series. The Editorial page received six calls and notes, including one from an Episcopal church in Birmingham, Alabama, asking to reprint Lawler's pieces.

Some Post staffers took umbrage in the way the paper identified Lawler merely as a consultant. "He's here all the time. He even has an office on the third floor," said one reporter. Lawler works with the Post 30 to 35 hours a week on management and leadership training, according to Editor Cole Campbell. Because Lawler, who has served as consultant to the U.S. Department of Education and the Danforth Foundation, works elsewhere, Bertelson felt Post needn't identify him as its consultant.

Lawler and Bertelson deserve kudos for bringing new thought to the op-ed page, discourse on more than politics. Lawler also should be applauded for enticing readers into reflecting on morality. And he did it without being preachy. Amen.

CHANNELS

KTVI holds viewers in 10 p.m. second half, other stations lose

By Tripp Frohlichstein

The February Nielsen-ratings period brought no real surprises. KSDK (Channel 5) continues to lead by a relatively substantial margin over KMOV (Channel 4). KTVI (Channel 2) and KDNL (Channel 30) remain relative also-rans.

It is interesting to note how many people are tuning out the second quarter hour of the 10 p.m. news on most stations. Channel 2 seems to do a better job of holding on to its audience-perhaps a reflection of Dave Murray's ability as a weathercaster. It is usually weather (and sports to a lesser extent) that keep people tuned into the second quarter hour.

Given that a rating point is equivalent to roughly 11,200 homes, after 10:15 p.m., Channel 5 loses nearly 27,000 homes. Channel 30 drops more than 19,000 homes. Channel 4 only loses about 14,500 homes during the measured time period. The reason for this is last February was an aberration because of the Olympics, which skewed Channel 4's 10 p.m. ratings higher than normal. While Channel 2 gives up a comparatively small figure of about 5,600 homes.

A share is the percentage of televisions tuned in to a particular station compared to all homes with televisions turned on during the measured time period. The statistics in the table has factored out Olympic nights.

At 9 p.m., Channel 2 news averages a 6/8 while Channel 11 news averages a 4/6.

Channel 5 also continues to dominate in the early news race, winning by a huge margin.

• • •

In March, I taught a media relations class at Webster University. Part of the exercise for the students was to watch local news and comment about it.

One of the most interesting and common (yet independent) observations from the students (mostly in their 20s and 30s) was how little national and international news our local stations provide at 10 p.m.

While stations might (and do) argue that national news is available earlier in the evening and on cable, some students push back by saying they aren't home at 5:30 and can't afford cable.

They have a good point. Have the local stations become so provincial that what's happening in Kosovo gets 10 seconds (maybe) while a relatively minor local story gets a minute and a half. This, of course, changed when the Kosovo attacks began. But only a few days before the U.S. operation, little coverage was provided at 10 p.m.

One night the students noted that despite an active day in world events, Channel 5 aired only one non-St. Louis story. The next night, they complimented Channel 30 for airing more international news (four brief stories).

There have been big losses in local news viewing over the past year and a half. Perhaps part of that is the audience isn't getting enough national and world news.

Local is important. There is no disagreement with that concept. But at 10

p.m., the local/national/world mix is more important than most of the stations seem to think.

Some argue that cable picks up the slack. But around two of every five homes in our area does not have cable.

Others have suggested that people can watch the national news at 5:30 p.m. A trip down highway 40 at that hour would remind those folks how many thousands of people aren't home in time for the early national news.

It's time to better balance the late local newscasts to become less provincial and more worldly in their thinking.

• • •

So what's with Mike Owens? The Channel 5 reporter's case is one of those ironic situations that sometimes exists in the media.

A St. Louis Post-Dispatch article on March 17 noted Owens' trial has been delayed until mid-May.

He is charged with several misdemeanors stemming from an alleged incident Nov.11, 1998, on the parking lot of the Casino Queen. Those charges include battery, disorderly conduct, illegal transportation of alcohol by a passenger and obstructing a peace officer according to the Post.

The irony stems from the last paragraph which reads:

"Owens could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for KSDK (Channel 5) said the station would wait until Owens case is resolved before commenting."

Owens, however, is known for going after people refusing to comment. When some officers in Brentwood's police department were sued for sexual harassment, for example, Owens chased after the police chief (not named in the suit) suggesting he ought to talk since, as Owens noted, the charges are "serious."

Owens, despite making others look bad for not talking, should realize he now looks bad.

One could argue, from a perception point of view, that this is a double standard.

The station won't talk, saying this is a personnel matter. True. But if you watched Channel 5 in February, you may have noticed Owens' voice and even face occasionally showed up on the air. But they never let him do a piece himself. Why? We don't know because the station says it's a personnel issue.

The station owes the public an explanation of why it's "kind of" using Owens but not really. As a public figure, the way a station uses on-air talent and its reasoning should be shared with the public when things change. Owens went from on-air to off-air to kind of on-air. Why? I wish I could tell you but in this case, the station is mysteriously hiding behind "personnel matter."

When it comes to salaries or even off-air discipline of employees, I agree.

But when it now directly changes the on-air product, we have a right to know

why they are doing it.

Besides, we viewers need Owens back on the air. His work and style are part of what makes Channel 5 so strong.

• • •

Channel 2 is to be commended for a superb Sunday 10 p.m. newscast on March 14. The story selection was excellent, the pacing and flow of the newscast superb, and the reporting/ anchoring outstanding. You might say, everything was clicking.

The best part of the newscast was Channel 2's team coverage of the snowstorm that hit just south of St. Louis.

Sitting in the metropolitan area, we saw barely a flake. But just 30 miles south, they were hammered with several inches of snow.

The station visited several localities with a legion of reporters, not only in southern Missouri but in southern Illinois as well.

The station sent meteorologist Chris Higgins in a chopper which, from the air, showed a remarkable demarcation line between the area of snow and no snow on the ground. The chopper, as it headed further south, showed more and more snow. Higgins even got out to measure the snow, 10 inches, at one point. Reporters including Jill Farmer and Roche Madden did a wonderful job. The stories were detailed and included people's personal feelings about the late winter blast to the effect (or lack of) on local businesses.

A call to News Director Rick Erbach to ask about others responsible, including behind the scenes staffers who deserved credit, was not returned.

As anchors, Paul Shankmann and Elliot Davis both performed well, combining authority with personality.

Randi Naughton, likewise, was in top form in sports on a day that required her to report on a variety of sports including baseball, hockey, golf and the NCAA tournament.

Some days, Channel 2 seems oversensationalistic (story choice) and overproduced (video gimmicks). Everyone in the newsroom should watch that tape. If they have more days like March 14, they can't be beat.

• • •

Channel 2's Nancy Pasternak needs some serious lessons in ad-libbing. On

March 13 at 10 p.m., she had a series of remarks that showed little forethought behind them.

Weathercaster Chris Higgins had noted that there was heavy snow falling south of St. Louis and none to the north. In a "state the obvious" ad lib, Pasternak told viewers, "So it really depends on where you live." Duh.

Soon after, a report on the six children killed in the tragic arson fire ended by saying the fire department would provide counseling for firefighters. Pasternak's comment (said in a way to fill time, not as if she meant it) was "Okay, Lynn, they'll probably need it."

Then, when Elliot Davis told viewers it was important to have a working battery in your smoke detector, Pasternak added, "It sure is."

Perhaps her mind was elsewhere. A bit later, she told viewers, "You're watching Fox 2 news at 5." It was 10:13 p.m.

• • •

A postscript to the recent papal visit in terms of media coverage. Several times, print and broadcast media referred to Catholics and non-Catholics. Reverend Ron Glusenkamp, on KMOX radio, brought up a good point. Do you want to be known for what you aren't? Glusenkamp asked if people might look at him as a non-Jew, non-woman, non-Black, non-Hispanic. His point is correct. The media should have referred to Catholics and people of other faiths.

• • •

The Las Vegas Sun report on the opening of the new Bellagio resort gave us a hint as to writers John Wilen and Gary Thompson's feelings towards television anchorpeople. In the story, it was noted that it was windy, causing a water fountain show to spray the crowd. The story said: "Where's my umbrella?" screeched one television anchorwoman doused by the fountain show. Screeched?

• • •

Finally, SJR was saddened to hear of Mandy Murphey and Paul Brown's loss. The couple lost twins.

Defending Tinky Winky draws wrath

By Murray Farish

If H. L. Mencken were writing today, he might have to change his famous definition of Puritanism to the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, might be allowing their three-year-old child to watch the "Teletubbies."

The nation's current chief puritan, televangelist Jerry Falwell-whose National Liberty Journal shows him to be a formidable opponent of both homosexuality and good English syntax-has dragged the "Teletubbies" from the muck of children's TV into the even more horrifying mire of what passes for political discourse these days. The February issue of NLJ issued a "Parents Alert" which stated that one of the Teletubbies, Tinky Winky, was gay.

Enter Don Corrigan

Don Corrigan is the editor-in-chief of the Webster-Kirkwood Times and a regular contributor to SJR. In the Feb. 26 Times, Corrigan wrote an editorial, "Exposing Tinky Winky," in which he quoted professor Clint McCann of Eden Theological Seminary as saying, among other apparently outrageous things, that "we should encourage inclusivity and openness. Jesus loved everyone unconditionally.'"

Then the letters began rolling in.

"In God's eyes, (homosexuals) are included among the wicked," wrote Kirkwood's Tony Christopher. Mark Davidson of Webster Groves wrote that the Webster-Kirkwood Times had given McCann a "forum ... to perpetuate ... lies and half-truths." Ben and Judy Haas of Webster Groves wrote that "there are always consequences for our sinful choices. To teach otherwise is irresponsible." All of this about a character in a television show aimed at pre-schoolers.

"It always amazes me that significant issues that we cover, like City Hall, can go by without a lot of notice," Corrigan said. "Hardly anybody pays attention to how much their local budget is, or how it's being allocated, but then when it comes to these hot-button social issues we get an avalanche of letters."

Corrigan said he merely wanted to give McCann a forum after McCann had been asked to comment on KSDK (Channel 5) concerning the "Teletubbies" controversy. McCann told Corrigan that Falwell's claims were a "publicity stunt," and lamented the notion that "the less you know about the Bible, the more television time you get to talk about it."

In an interview with SJR, McCann said that he finds "Falwell's Biblical interpretation-his whole ministry-extremely self-serving. I believe that his whole approach is part of a larger money-making enterprise, and his promulgation of hatred and bigotry certainly is."

"Parents Alert"

Falwell's knowledge of the Bible aside, he certainly believes he has the scoop on Tinky Winky. The NLJ article says that the sexual preference of Tinky Winky has been an issue since the show premiered in England in 1997, and that "now, further evidence that the producers of the show intend for Tinky Winky to be a gay role model has surfaced. He is purple-the gay pride color; and his antenna is shaped like a triangle-the gay pride symbol."

How this evidence "surfaced," or is in any way new, the piece does not explain. Tinky Winky has been purple-which is also the traditional color of royalty, and signifies repentance in the Roman Catholic Church-since the show premiered, and has always worn a triangle above his head.

The NLJ article also states that "the character, whose voice is obviously that of a boy, has been found carrying a red purse in many episodes and has become a favorite character among gay groups worldwide." The author does not elaborate on which "gay groups worldwide" have adopted Tinky Winky as their favorite character, nor does he in any way explain the rather bizarre, Dragnet-like diction of the phrase "has been found," as if Tinky Winky were somehow hiding with his purse.

The alert goes on to warn parents about the dangers of "allowing the series to entertain their children." Finally, in foreboding tones, the article reveals that the "itsy bitsy Entertainment Company will release interactive 'Teletubbies' dolls in March."

Knowledge of a grand gay conspiracy is hard to relate to a judge, which may explain Falwell's backpedaling in recent weeks. In TV appearances, and in the March issue of NLJ, Falwell claims that "until the recent media explosion accusing me of 'outing' Tinky Winky as being gay, I had never heard of this sweet looking (sic) character." Falwell claims that NLJ Senior Editor J.M. Smith wrote the "excellent admonition to parents" in the February issue, and that AP reporter David Reed of Roanoke, Virginia, wrote a "devious story ... which left the false impression that Jerry Falwell had personally launched an attack on the Teletubbies." Smith, in a connected piece, also softened his stance, writing of Tinky Winky's "probable homosexual attributes," the show's "possible hidden themes," and calling Tinky Winky himself "apparently naive," to the uses to which he is being put.

Both sides now

The Times' policy on letters is simple. When an issue draws comment from readers, Corrigan and his staff try to present those letters in a balanced fashion. If an issue receives 10 letters in support and 20 letters against, the Times will make every effort to print a selection of letters that reflects that ratio.

"I'd say we're running about six-to-one on this issue," Corrigan said, which explains the heavy dose of letters attacking Corrigan's and McCann's position. Only recently have letters started to arrive from the other side. But these letters are just as vituperative and fiery as those sent in by Falwell's supporters.

In the March 19 edition, Bob Staake of Kirkwood wrote that "Corrigan is being chastised for .... not accepting ... the sort of twisted, fear-motivated thinking that comes from a mind engorged on a reactionary diet of Bible-thumping hatred, middle American morality, intolerance, hypocrisy, paranoia and textbook homophobia."

Whew.

Murray Farish is a St. Louis free-lance writer.

SPORTS/MEDIA

Better athletes, more susceptible to injury

By Joe Pollack

Today's children usually grow up to be physical improvements over their parents, and that's the way it should be. The kids are not only all right, but they're also bigger and stronger than their parents. Why not? They eat better, get the vitamins and minerals they need. When they're athletes, they have better coaching, better equipment and better training techniques.

And yet, look around baseball this spring. Pitchers have been falling like leaves in autumn. Surgery is as regular as meal call. An elbow here. A shoulder there. Pitchers are spending more time than restaurant centerpieces poised in the center of tables.

Of course, pitchers are suffering lots of injuries this spring, but the pattern has been going on for several seasons. Look at the Cardinals. A pitching staff that looked good, not Yankee good, not even pennant-winner good, but good enough to be competitive, now looks like the remnants of Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg. But we can't even glory in our problems. Other clubs are checking their hospitalization policies and surgeons are getting so rich they'll be able to afford the tickets to watch their patients play.

Things are at such a sorry state that Bernie Miklasz sees Orel Hershiser as a road to salvation.

It's early to panic, but when you see a rotation of Donovan Osborne, Kent Bottenfield, Kent Mercker, Darren Oliver and Jose Jimenez, who have combined for 166 victories and suffered 153 defeats in 24 years and one month of major league experience, perhaps it really isn't too early after all, though I don't see Hershiser as the answer. None of the five Cardinal starters has a reputation for dominance, but then, neither did Morris, who was 12-9 two years ago and 7-5 last year in a season that shouldn't count against him because of the injuries. Alan Benes remains disabled and Osborne has been on the DL often enough to make it part of his name.

As noted, the problem is not limited to the Cardinals. The Cubs' Kerry Wood is out for the year, as is the Angels' Paul Dickson. Paul Wilson of the Mets faces elbow surgery and his teammate, Greg McMichael, has shoulder problems. The Dodgers and Giants also have ailing pitchers, and that's just a partial list. Position players are not immune, though few injuries are as high on the ridiculous list as the Houston outfielder who tore a knee ligament stepping off a treadmill.

The deeper question is "Why?" While the spring-training injury scene may get excess coverage because there is so little to write about and most of the fans may have forgotten last year's injuries, it certainly seems like there are a lot more-and more serious ones-than there used to be. If training techniques are so good and diagnostic facilities so accurate, why aren't injuries being prevented, or else spotted early enough to avoid surgery?

I talked about it with Jack Rockwell, who came to St. Louis in 1960 as the Football Cardinals' first trainer and now is living in retirement in lovely Santa Rosa, Calif., seat of Sonoma County and in the midst of the wine country. He's pretty well stumped, too.

"There are so many possible reasons," he said, "and any one of them could be right. Or all of them could be wrong. It's the sort of thing that drives trainers and doctors crazy."

Rockwell pointed out that two players playing under similar conditions could follow the same training regimen and one could have a perfectly healthy season while the other spent most of his time in the training room.

"Much of it goes way back in the player's history," Rockwell added. "There might have been injuries in childhood that left weaknesses somewhere else, or perhaps it was genetic. Some kids throw curve balls and sliders too early and hurt their arms, but it doesn't show up for a long time. Others compensate for a first injury and create a second."

The case of Dizzy Dean-yes, that Dizzy Dean-is a perfect example of the last statement. Pitching in one of the early All-Star games, Dean was hit by a line drive that broke his toe. In his desire to get back into the pitching rotation as soon as possible, Dean made a slight change in his motion. The result was an arm injury that ended his career far too early.

Tom Seaver, former Mets' standout, thinks that the old four-day pitching rotation gave the arm more workout and better tone than today's more popular five-day rotation. I tend to agree with him; I think that the pitchers don't work enough-five or six innings is now considered a "quality start" (poor quality, if you ask me), and the relievers take over.

Of course, I may be wrong, too.

Pitching a baseball at 97 miles an hour is not a natural act, nor is throwing breaking balls. However, as long as there is baseball, and its salaries, there will be young people who want to be pitchers and are willing to make the eventual sacrifice of learning to comb their hair with the arm they do not use for pitching.

• • •

To all intents and purposes, the National Basketball Association destroyed the Players' Union with its recent lockout, though the players didn't help themselves with some inane behavior that played right into the owners' hands and lost them what little public support they might have had.

At the same time, when they voted to go back to work, even for a shortened season that has started badly and will only get worse before we get around to the never-ending playoffs, they hammered the final nails in their own coffins. One of the owners' many slam-dunks was the fact that they spoke with a single voice, that of Commissioner David Stern, and Stern made sure his gag order would be obeyed when he threatened owners with million-dollar fines.

Well, baseball will have its next labor showdown in 2001, and in the past the players have been united and the owners fragmented.

This will not happen again if the new commissioner, Bud Selig, has his way. Selig plans to levy similar fines the next time around, under the theory that

he-the commissioner-is solely in charge of labor policy, and will speak for baseball management in one voice-his, no matter how frightening his basic philosophy.

Take this for scary, from his comments at baseball's January meeting, "There will be no other spokesman and no other spokesman tolerated. While we live in a democracy, democracy only works reasonably well."

Of course, club owners, regardless of the sport, never have been huge supporters of democracy in any of its forms, and we'll just have to see what happens. Selig says he will not tolerate the same indiscretions that have occurred in the past, but owners are used to having their own way and speaking their own minds. Most of them can afford it, too.

Victim's sister opposes concealed weapons

Anne Rudder turns the TV off in disgust when advertisements in favor of Proposition B, the so-called "right to carry" concealed weapons measure, appear on the screen. She's been turning the TV off a lot in the four weeks prior to the April 6 election.

"It's hard to argue with an election and the democratic process, but what kind of democracy is it when the NRA and the gun groups have all the money to promote weapons?" asked Rudder of West County. "What kind of a fair fight is it when the gun lobby can buy endorsements and all of the TV advertising?"

Rudder is particularly infuriated by an advertisement in which a rape victim of Dennis Rabbitt gives her backing to the concealed weapons ballot measure. In her testimonial, the victim argues that women can protect themselves from attack with a concealed weapon.

"Who is this woman kidding? Its more likely that she would have lost the gun and it would have been used against her," said Rudder. "Putting more guns out among the public is not going to make us safer. It's going to make society more violent.

"Right now we have the right to have guns in our homes for self-protection, but look what the statistics tell us," explained Rudder. "A handgun in the home is 43 times more likely to be used against someone in the home than used against an intruder."

Rudder has been an activist against guns since 1990. This year her activism translates into support for preserving the anti-weapons provision of the Safe Schools Act and sending postcards out to residents to urge a vote against Proposition B.

On June 11, 1990, Rudder's brother, Patrick, a family physician in Louisville, Ky., was shot and killed by a mentally ill patient who then committed suicide. Prior to that incident in October, 1988, her sister's husband was shot and seriously wounded by a vagrant.

"When my sister Erin's husband was shot, we thought it was a fluke-an isolated incident," said Rudder. "But when my brother was killed by a handgun a year and a half later, it became obvious to me that something is wrong in this country.

"People are running around with guns and violence has become pervasive," said Rudder. "It's not confined to the ghetto areas. It's happening in streets everywhere. My brother-in-law Chris was shot in a fairly nice apartment complex. My brother was killed at his medical offices in a middle-class area in Louisville."

Rudder said her family has never recovered from the death and destruction in her family. But she said she and her surviving brother did make the effort to find out how this could happen in normally tranquil areas of America.

In their efforts to find an answer, they have been shocked to learn that 22,000 Americans are killed with handguns each year. This compares with fewer than 10 handgun deaths in Great Britain and fewer than 10 in Australia, countries where the handgun restrictions are tighter.

Handguns are particularly destructive to America's youth. Every day, 10 children, aged 18 and under, are killed with handguns. Many more are injured. Rudder said she knows parents in West County who have lost their children to handgun violence in the years since her own personal loss.

Rudder and her surviving brother, Joseph, of Louisville, have armed themselves with the terrible statistics to join the battle for what they see as "reasonable restrictions" on handguns in America. They saw the passage of bills outlawing weapons near schools and the passage of the Brady Bill as steps forward. They see Proposition B in Missouri as an effort to roll back the progress by groups such as the National Rifle Association (NRA).

Rudder said she becomes very emotional when she confronts gun advocates who tell her that her own brother could have saved himself if he had just had his own concealed weapon.

"My brother never knew what hit him. It all happened so fast; it's outrageous to think that people with a few hours of training are going to defend themselves in these kinds of situations. And for every case where a concealed handgun is used in self defense, how many more cases will be found in which these guns will be used recklessly?

"Imagine what would have happened this year at the Mardi Gras riot in Soulard had the drunks been armed. Imagine what will happen in road rage incidents when the drivers are armed," says Rudder.

Rudder said she is "absolutely shocked and flabbergasted" that Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis has given Proposition B its endorsement. She asked whether the company is suggesting that "guns and beer are a great mix." Rudder doesn't think so. She said Anheuser-Busch's position can only be counterproductive for the company's push in recent years for responsible drinking habits.

Rudder is not optimistic about the outcome of the April 6 election in Missouri, primarily because millions of dollars of pro-gun advertising seem to overwhelm the message from the other side, such as op-ed pieces run in the state's daily newspapers. One of those op-ed pieces that has appeared in St. Louis is authored by Edward Dowd, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri.

"Mr. Dowd has pointed out the loopholes in Proposition B that would allow people who have been convicted of child molestation, stalking and assault to legally carry weapons into public places," said Rudder. "County sheriffs would be required to issue weapons permits to people whom they believe to be dangerous or mentally unfit."

Rudder recalls that it was a mentally unfit person who shot and killed her brother, Patrick, less than a decade ago. That incident and that memory have Rudder working against Proposition B at a grass roots level as the April 6 vote in Missouri grows closer.

-Don Corrigan

GUEST COMMENTARY

J-school prof learns about pitfalls of journalism on the campaign trail

By Mark Harmon

A thin blue haze hangs over the pool tables at Mr. Porky's, a biker bar just outside Denton, Texas. I fan a handful of my "Harmon for Congress" cards on the pool table. Like the other Democratic candidates in the room I circulate and greet the members of a motorcycle organization. My turn to speak goes well. I talk about how Congress has shifted taxes from corporations and the wealthy to working families. To nods of agreement, I rail against the corporate welfare that wastes taxpayer money.

That event and hundreds of others comprise fond memories of my recent run for Congress. Who could have imagined dancing in front of the "Groovy Mule" float at the University of North Texas homecoming parade, judging a chili cook-off at the Wichita Falls Mounted Patrol Arena, or riding in a Conestoga wagon for cow calling in Miami, Texas?

I drove some 38,000 miles in a year to events in dozens of counties, along the way meeting thousands of people. One can't go through an adventure like that without learning a lot about yourself, the people's concerns, and the processes-both journalistic and political.

Somehow, despite the substantial time and effort of the campaign, I was able to meet my teaching, research, and service obligations as an associate professor of telecommunications at Texas Tech. This feat was made more difficult by the large size and odd shape of Texas' 13th Congressional District.

The 13th encompasses all of 35 counties and parts of three more. Its western edge includes part of the city of Lubbock, and the northern half of the city of Amarillo. It rolls east across many Panhandle, West Texas and Red River Valley counties; it picks up all of the city of Wichita Falls, and ends in a finger-like extension into the city of Denton, an area more associated with the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex than the ranches and cotton fields of West Texas. To anyone who commented upon its gerrymandered shape, I'd say that I didn't draw it, I only wanted to represent it.

I began the campaign determined to conduct it in the same direct and honorable way most people would choose-turning down special interest money (taking contributions only from individuals and my political party), going everywhere, and listening as much as speaking. The intent was not only to do what was right but also to draw attention to a serious problem, the desperate need for campaign finance reform.

The people I met tended to agree with that position, and brought additional suggestions that the current budget surplus (and savings from cutting the $60 billion of corporate welfare) should be used to assure the future of Social Security, Medicare, veterans' health care, home health care, Head Start, and student loans.

Many of those I met had no idea who was the current congressman from the district; some knew it was William McClellan Thornberry, and rightly pointed out his near invisibility in the district, his lack of district service, and his cowardice in ignoring invitations to debate his opponents.

News organizations unfortunately rarely picked up on these issues or these matters of fairness. Instead, news performance was uneven-sometimes participating in valuable comparisons, but frequently playing the incumbent game of expectations, horse race, and name recognition. Sadly this becomes self-fulfilling prophecy.

The implicit message of stories about the huge incumbent advantage in fund-raising is to tell campaign workers not to bother, voters not to care, and opposition donors to go elsewhere. It's a bit like predicting someone will have a sore leg and then kicking him in the shin.

The Amarillo Globe News was one of the worst offenders in this regard. It refused guest columns from me during the campaign period, saying it would do so regarding all candidates, but ignoring the fact it regularly takes guest columns written by or for the current congressman during non-election periods. In effect, this policy says, "We're going to let an incumbent frame issues for many months, then when others take on the monumentally difficult challenge, we'll freeze out everyone and let the incumbent advantage ride." This is a great example of what the British news critic Stuart Hood once called "a tradition of impartiality on the side of the establishment."

The Times Record News from Wichita Falls did better. It took a guest column, ran an elaborate side-by-side comparison, and even listed a call-in line where voters could hear taped candidate messages. If one looked carefully, one might even discover Thornberry failed to record that message (and failed to answer the neutral Project Vote Smart survey). The day before the election, however, the paper ran a front-page variation on the self-fulfilling prophecy story. It even used as a major source an academic from outside the district who was unfamiliar with the 14-month history of the race.

Some weekly newspapers continued to run the incumbent's guest columns throughout the campaign cycle, largely ignoring my campaign materials, events or submissions. Sometimes I just shook my head as I saw several different misspellings of my name; two daily newspapers (Amarillo Globe News and Dallas Morning News) actually ran stories listing the name of the gentleman, Ed True, who lost the primary as the Democratic candidate in the 13th district.

The coverage by Denton's Record-Chronicle also contained a significant error. Just before the primary the paper released its Republican endorsements and claimed there were no contested Democratic races. Of course, there were several contested statewide offices, not to mention the 13th Congressional District which covers about a third of Denton County and featured a Democratic primary contest between me and True.

Local television news coverage was, no surprise, superficial. Little attention was paid to the six general election candidate forums (League of Women Voters in Amarillo, Wichita Falls, and Denton; NAACP and 100 Plus both in Wichita Falls and Farm Bureau in Quanah). A voter would have had to search high and low before discovering that, while I attended all six, the incumbent ducked all but one-and at that spoke first and left. Times Record News reporter Lee Templar avoided that Republican embarrassment by dedicating his debate news story entirely to the county judge race and ignoring the congressional contest.

Many voters were left off the tilted playing field of campaign commercials. Rocky Mountain Media Watch surveyed 128 evening TV newscasts in 25 states to discover an average of 5.5 candidate ads within those newscasts compared with only 1.3 election news items. Imagine how lopsided the figures would have been if the group included commercials from other times of day. I did my level best to fight in this quixotic arena. I bought ads on nine television stations, seven radio stations, and five cable systems; and I sent out thousands of pieces of direct mail.

The ads stressed public policy, but in ways that offered sharp comparison. One radio spot, complete with sound effects, dramatized that my opponent had co-sponsored a very bad bill that would change current law so persons with civil convictions of beating up their spouses or beating up their kids could still get guns. I called that the "Blam!" Ad. Once it aired, much to my joy and amusement, during a right-wing radio program, KGNC Forum in Amarillo. The host had my opponent as a guest via phone. The host was fawning all over Thornberry-virtually conceding re-election and asking softball questions about legacies and goals. Cut to commercial and "Blam!" The host stumbled all over himself coming back from commercial; the incumbent pretended he hadn't heard it while on hold. They quickly stumbled through a bland point about all campaigns being responsible for their commercials, and abruptly changed subjects.

The other radio ad featured a couple talking about high cable TV bills, revealing that the incumbent voted for the bill allowing cable rates to skyrocket, and contrasting that I support allowing communities to decide on regulating cable TV rates. It and the TV ad drew favorable responses. The television ad talked about my opponents getting things backwards, matching that with video of a cowboy mounted backwards on a horse. The remainder of the TV ad showed crowds reacting favorably to my statements about living up to our health care promises to our veterans, and about how the current Congress is catering too much to the whims of its corporate contributors.

The opponent's ads were standard slick and vacuous fare: Thornberry in Western Wear and what appeared to be heavy make-up, repairing a fence or having a picnic. All the while he'd speak of Washington as some confused and rotten place-as if he hadn't been there the past four years making public policy in the current majority; and as if he hadn't spent most of his adult life there in previous Capitol Hill jobs.

I found no newspaper, radio or TV news "Ad Watch" or "Truth Box" analyses of the ads. That would have been a good public service. Any fair observer I believe would conclude the problem was not ad quality, but quantity. The long and short of the campaign was that I was outspent about 30 to one, and in the end was outvoted about two to one.

One should note, however, a few other factors. The district had been trending Republican, especially in top-of-the-ballot races. Thus, straight-ticket voting undoubtedly hurt more than it helped. Furthermore, some traditionally Democratic constituencies, while not big on turnout overall, are especially light on turnout in non-presidential years.

Additionally, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had not targeted this race, perhaps a bit more self-fulfilling prophecy. I had a friendly contact whom I could page and expect a return phone call from, but the help was limited to advice and a few faxed documents. My direct requests for contributions were turned down, sometimes with the suggestion that Texas Democratic Party assistance to candidates in the area indirectly would help me. I know that was meant to soften my disappointment. It didn't work. Nevertheless, I can't be too upset with the DCCC. Outspent two to one in an off-year election in the middle of a presidential crisis, it confounded the experts and gained five House seats. I only wish I could have been the sixth.

Finally, I also must mention the "damn furr-nerr" problem. It popped up hours after I announced my candidacy. I'd been in Lubbock, Texas, 10 years. I'd been promoted and tenured at Texas Tech University, winning seven teaching awards, and teaching a dozen different classes. I'd been active in my community, including service on several boards. I'd been a Big Brother to three different boys and a mentor in a scholars' program. Twice I'd been elected Lubbock County's Democratic Party chair. Years before I'd been a local TV news producer, and then host of a talk radio program. Yet the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal story about my pending campaign described me as "the 40 year-old Pittsburgh native."

Several places along the campaign trail I was asked "Where are you from?" I'd say, "Lubbock." Unsatisfied, the questioner then ask, "Where were you born?" I'd say "Allegheny County, Pennsylvania" wondering whether I'd lost a voter to my bland midwestern accent. It all seemed so irrelevant and unfair, especially when one remembers that the senior U.S. Senator from Texas has a thick Georgia accent. Furthermore, my opponent has homes in Randall County and the Washington, D.C. suburbs (neither in the district). I had not made a big issue of this in deference to my opponent's family having deep roots in the district. As if to come full circle, the "damn furr-nerr" problem even showed up in election results. The Times Record News story called me "a native of Pennsylvania."

Looking back, the campaign had featured a wide array of quotations. In many ways it followed Rabbi Hillel's famous quotes about "speaking truth to power." Other times it seemed to be more like Lao Tsu's advice, "To lead the people, walk behind them." However, in the end the campaign best adhered to a line from Satchel Paige, a line I quoted to hundreds of people across the area. The great pitcher once said, "Be who you is. 'Cause if you ain't who you is, you is who you ain't."

Election night, footsore and tired from working nearly all day at a large polling station, I joined friends at the Holiday Inn in Wichita Falls. So many were new friends, the folks met along the trail. They got to know me for who I am, and I came to like and admire so many of them. They were the real victory of the campaign, no matter any other outcome.

The returns were poor. Only two of our local and regional candidates had won office. To some of our disappointed but determined faithful, I recalled a line of poetry from Emily Dickinson:

Not one of all the purple host

Who took the flag today

Can tell the definition,

So clear of victory,

As he, defeated, dying,

On whose forbidden ear

The distant strains of triumph

Break, agonized and clear.

The Associated Press called my race at 7:40 p.m. The first request for me to run again came at 7:42. I didn't know what to say. So much would have to come together again for such an effort. You see, the Associated Press wasn't entirely accurate. Thornberry had gotten more votes, but he hadn't won much. All he did was get the predictable result of playing the game of hiding behind his money.

I had won so much for trusting my instincts, trusting my friends and the voters, and being "who I is." We never spent more than we had, but energetically we managed to be true to our principles, creative and responsible. The campaign was over. Now almost five months removed from the hectic activity, cool and reflective moments prevail. I am a better person for having done it.

Making the process better will take at least one change in the law and several major changes in journalistic ethos. Current law regarding broadcast advertising time is best described not as "equal time" but instead as "equal treatment." Sections 312 and 315 of the Communications Act, in effect, require equal treatment in the selling or giving of non-news air time to candidates for elective office. Candidates get the lowest prevailing rate, and federal candidates cannot be denied the opportunity to buy time. However, a candidate with a massive campaign war chest can and probably will outspend his or her opponent by outrageous ratios of 20, 30, 20, or 100 to one.

We must change broadcast law to a simpler and fairer system I call "free, equal, and no more." By that I mean every on-the-ballot federal candidate in a broadcaster's signal area should be given free some set amount of time; let's say 10 minutes. The candidate could divide the time any way he or she wanted, but could buy no more. That would even the playing field in the most costly aspect of most campaigns. It also would lessen the rapidly rising campaign costs driving many candidates into the arms of special interest contributors. Broadcasters even may come to like this new rule. For some, it would be less costly to give 10 minutes free to a handful of candidates than to sell huge chunks of the ad time inventory at the lowest prevailing rate.

Regarding news ethos, I believe some simple changes are in order. Radio and TV stations should arrange, even before the candidates are known,

to cover debates sponsored by groups such as the League of Women Voters. Those broadcast debates should go forward even if cowardly candidates duck them. Commentary and analyses of the debates by local political science

professors and debate coaches should become common. Broadcast and print journalists aggressively should use available resources (voter guides, Project Vote Smart, financial contribution records, interest group ratings, etc.) to create side-by-side profiles of all candidates. Coverage and analysis of "stump" speeches should be routine.

Candidate claims about the opposition should be regarded as story leads worthy of further exploration. For example, I mentioned to several reporters and said in some speeches that my opponent had co-sponsored a bill to get rid of the congressional bulk mail franking privilege, but had indeed used that privilege. No story followed from this lead. Of course, analyses of campaign commercials and mass mailings should be a routine news activity for both print and broadcast reporters.

None of this should be regarded as a call to be partisan, but all of this must be viewed as a call for the aggressive, skeptical, demanding, challenging, and critical coverage so necessary for representative democracy and so obviously missing in many congressional contests.

Editor's note: Mark D. Harmon, former Democratic congressional candidate, has returned to teaching courses in broadcasting. He is still with Texas Tech, but this semester is a visiting associate professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Mark Harmon is a professor in broadcasting at Texas Tech University.

Reporters write book on deadbeat dads

By Don Corrigan

Charlene Dunbar is a modern-day bounty hunter. Her prey consists of deadbeat dads who skip out on their families and renege on their child support payments.

Dunbar started her Children's Support Services only after her own eight-year struggle to make her ex-husband ante up. She charges clients a basic fee of $175 and a 30 percent cut of the back support collected.

She's aggressive, one day bringing 13 parents into court to file criminal non-support charges against their ex-spouses. The parents were glad to pay Dunbar her share of the catch after giving up on government prosecutors and inept family service workers.

Bounty hunter Dunbar is just one of many unique sources contacted by two local authors in researching and writing their new book, "Make The Jerk Pay" (Albions Press, $14.95). The subtitle for this handbook on tracking down negligent fathers is, "Tracking Down A Deadbeat Dad And Getting Child Support."

The straight-from-the-shoulder book is a paperback product of St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporters Louis J. Rose and Roy Malone. Rose, 67, is now retired from investigative reporting work at the Post, while Malone, 60, continues to pound the keyboard for the daily paper from the Post's bureau in Belleville, Ill.

Rose and Malone originally planned to bring the investigative tricks of their literary trade to a book on abductions. The aim of the writing duo was to pen a book that would help people find missing persons who somehow, some way had vanished from their lives.

"Finding those parents who've skipped out on their child support was just going to be a small part of our original book," explained Rose. "But as we got into it, we saw just how much ground there was to cover on the child support issue. The enormity of the problem absolutely shocked us."

The statistics ferreted out by Rose and Malone reveal a national scandal:

• State collection agencies across the country are overwhelmed by 19 million cases of such negligence.

• More than 30 million kids are suffering because of the neglect of a deadbeat parent.

• While moms get nowhere with harried and indifferent caseworkers, children never know what it is to have a real father.

• As much as $40 billion is owed in back support for kids lost in the debris of broken relationships.

"The biggest shock to me was to learn that only one in five of these fathers is making the child support payments required by the court," said Malone. "It's almost like the whole system is voluntary.

"There are lots of reasons to be outraged by it," added Malone. "For one thing, the kids without fathers learn a total lack of responsibility from the example that is set; second, but perhaps less important, is that we taxpayers are called upon to pick up the slack for these deadbeats."

Akin to child abuse

"A deadbeat father who doesn't pay to take care of his own children is committing something akin to child abuse -morally, if not legally," said Rose. "We urge mothers to pursue deadbeat dads, no matter what kind of a sad story or excuse they have.

"In our research, we found dads with all kinds of sob stories, but they managed to come up with the money before it came down to going to jail," added Rose. "And we found some dads who moved away from responsibility, changed identities, who bought fancy cars and who were living in big houses."

The book by Rose and Malone constitutes a handbook on how to catch up with those dads. If working with the caseworker is not successful, the authors tell mothers how to do the leg work themselves.

Mothers can learn how to find the "missing" dad's trail in directories, in public records and on the Internet. They can also learn how to go after his assets and how to "raise hell" to get the system to go to work for them.

"In 1975, the federal government established a law that said the states had to set up a system for enforcing child support," noted Malone. "In St. Louis, we have a Child Support Enforcement Agency. Like so many agencies across the country, it is simply overwhelmed.

"With so many cases, the workers tend to put their energy into the easy ones, where fathers can be easily found," continued Malone. "We are suggesting that mothers take matters into their own hands. That means finding the husband, finding the assets, and putting it all into the caseworker's hands and demanding action."

Rose stressed that almost half of the book is devoted to tracking down the absentee provider. The sources to be utilized include the Internet, drivers' license records, phone directories on CD, Social Security files and various data bases available to the public.

"I had a mother in western Missouri who complained that her case worker was getting nowhere," said Rose. "I used some of our methods and tracked the husband's location down in 10 minutes. We took the information to the case worker, who was well-meaning, but who didn't have a clue as to how to use data bases.

"The hunt doesn't always have to involve computers and files, though," noted Rose. "Sometimes it just involves going to the husband's friends and relatives and leaning on them politely. That's how the police often get their information in investigations. Go to the relatives and just make a sincere case: 'This is his child, too. How can you help me?'"

"The story of deadbeat dads is so big, and yet it has been swept under the rug," said Malone. "It involves millions of frustrated people, but it just isn't sensational enough for the media. It only gets picked up when it involves something like a dad trying to give HIV to his child to avoid paying child support."

Rose has his own theory for why the scandal of non-support hasn't hit the radar screen of the news media and legislators. He said editors and lawmakers associate with a different income class than that of single mothers. They are more aware of equal pay issues and promotions in the workplace, than with the problems of desperate mothers seeking child support to stay off the welfare rolls.

"We read Hillary Clinton's book, 'It Takes A Village,' because we thought she might give us a blurb to support our book," said Malone. "We were simply astounded that there's no mention of this problem in her book.

"We're convinced that this is probably the biggest crisis for kids trying to

grow up and to have a chance-and it's nowhere in Hillary Clinton's book," Malone said in exasperation.

Rose and Malone cite the efforts of the Association for Children for Enforcement of Support (ACES) as a useful group looking for solutions to the deadbeat dads problem. The 35,000-member group helps single parents pursue child support.

The authors also point to legislative efforts to address the problem. Some proposed laws would require the garnishment of wages of deadbeat dads; others would get the IRS into the act by deducting child support as a part of taxes to be redirected to meet child support obligations.

"It really tore us up to hear some of the stories that are out there," said Malone. "There has to be a solution to the problem of enforcement. But, ultimately, a way has to be found to make deadbeat dads develop a conscience about abandoning and cheating their children."

Men's group insulted by phrase 'deadbeat dads'

By Don Corrigan

Some fathers' rights groups take great offense at the term "deadbeat dad." They feel the term should be banished to the trash heap of politically incorrect verbiage-the heap that contains such labels as "gold-digger" and "welfare queen."

Members of the St. Louis chapter of the American Coalition for Fathers & Children (ACFC) are especially angered by what they feel is an unfair stereotype of the deadbeat dad.

The ACFC's annual Father's Day Proclamation includes a number of declarations, including the statement: "We will not be enslaved by the rhetoric of child support or welfare, or condemn any father who has done his best to follow through with the responsibilities of marriage, but was evicted from his children's lives by the so-called 'value-free choice' of an irresponsible spouse."

Lou Rose and Roy Malone, authors of "Make The Jerk Pay: Tracking Down A Deadbeat Dad And Getting Child Support," make no apologies for the title of their handbook for tracking down offenders in child support cases.

"The title of our book is not necessarily politically correct, but why not be frank about what this problem of child support is about?" asked Rose. "This is a male gender game. And our study shows that 90 percent of deadbeat spouses who don't provide support for kids are dads."

On radio talk shows, Rose and Malone have tangled with call-ins from angry men such as Dave Usher, a local men's rights activist and a national board member of ACFC. Usher is among those who take exception to the "deadbeat dads" term.

"On the radio talks shows, we actually get more phone calls from men than we do women," conceded Malone. "And the men are very emotional. They are angry. They say they are not getting visitation rights. They say they are hit with unrealistic amounts of child support payments."

Malone said that he and Rose took great pains to point out in the book that single mothers need to honor visitation obligations granted divorced fathers. He said they also pointed out that women can also be deadbeats and that women can be jerks for violating the visitation rights of fathers.

"But it's pretty hard to get around the fact that the vast majority of deadbeat spouses are male," said Malone. "They are fathers who are hurting their children by shirking their financial obligations and responsibilities as parents."

Karen Nixon and Connie Nicely are two St. Louis area women who think Malone and Rose's "90 percent male" statistic for deadbeat spouses just doesn't tell the whole story. Nixon and Nicely have become active with the local chapter of ACFC after seeing how divorce has affected the status of men who are now in their lives.

"My husband was previously married and his ex-wife just gave him and our new family a very hard time," said Nixon. "She began denying him visitations and she would set up visits and cancel. It made it impossible for us to have any kind of life.

"On top of all this, his child support is so ungodly, it is incredible," continued Nixon. "Then she demanded to move to Chicago and he had to find money to fight her move to Chicago in court-but there was no money to pay for an attorney."

Nixon said the news media never tell the story of the burden that is placed on divorced males. She said males need to form a men's movement so that their grievances can get the same attention as those of feminists.

"The financial burden that has been placed on divorced dads these days is grossly unfair," said Nixon. "I didn't marry until I was 35 and I was living on my own independently. If I got a divorce, I would not expect my ex-husband to provide a roof over my head and everything else.

"Maybe there was a time when deadbeat dads didn't support their ex-wives and the kids, but I think the problem has been turned around," said Nixon. "The awards have now become an incentive for women to divorce."

Nicely said that her boyfriend was hounded by his ex-wife for support. The emotional trauma of the divorce led to the loss of his business. Now he faces prison for the back payments he owes on maintenance and child support, according to Nicely.

"I always considered myself a feminist. I've known women who've been abused by men; you hear a lot about that," said Nicely. "But the situation with my boyfriend led us to ACFC and it's really opened my eyes to some of the injustices that men have to face.

"I can see why men are driven over the edge to sometimes do horrible things," added Nicely. "The unfairness of what happens in our courts just sends them over the edge. And the media never show what went on behind the scenes when these terrible acts occur. They never show the judge, making $90,000 a year, telling a man making minimum wage that he has to come up with $1,000 a month for maintenance and child support."

AM/FM

Successful on-air audition produces silent reaction

By Larry Hoffman

It was eerily silent just two weeks before the announced end of Jim White's 30 year career at KMOX when a post on an Internet radio board drew the definitive word that John Carney will, in fact, replace the Big Bumper after his April 9 retirement show. The respondent to the post, a KMOX insider, allowed that Carney had successfully completed contract negotiations with his superiors and will step into the 10 to 2 a.m. slot after months of on air defacto auditions. One would think such a milestone would be properly noted with a press release from the station and the standard set of superlatives and trumpeting, but there was nothing ... nothing! A lot can be read into the corporate silence. KMOX Program Director Tom Langmyer was on vacation and unavailable for comment.

• • •

And speaking of successful on-air auditions, KTRS has secured the services of longtime Washington, D.C.-based broadcaster Paul Harris. KTRS program director Steve Moore told SJR that Harris has taken over the 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. slot, followed by Kevin Slaten who will pick up an additional half hour and remain on the air until 3 p.m. Harris fills the time vacated by Jim and Andee earlier this year.

The most recent gig in Harris' 12 year run in the nation's capital was at the legendary (and now defunct) classic rock station WCXR-FM. He has also worked in other east coast markets such as Hartford, New York and Philadelphia in a career that spans two decades. His morning show won six AIR Awards, including five-in-a-row for Best Morning Show. Harris traveled extensively as a morning personality, having done remote broadcasts from two Super Bowls, the 1992 Winter Olympics in France, plus Jamaica and London. In 1989, according to the biography on Harris' Web site, his show was the first American rock-and-roll morning show to broadcast live from Moscow to the United States and then back again via Radio Moscow.

Harris has been well-received in St. Louis during several weeks of appearances in varying time periods.

• • •

A veteran broadcast sales and management executive and a longtime classic rock jock have joined forces to pump some life into the 6 to 10 a.m. slice of WEW's clock. Steve Mosier, former general manager of Majic-108 and KATZ-AM/FM, and Mark Klose, have bought out the morning drive segment on the 1000 watt former daytimer and have launched an eclectic music show which sounds promising, especially after some recent signal enhancements. Klose is handling the on-

air duties from a studio located in a flat at Hampton and Southwest Avenues and Mosier is on the street, building a book of business for the duo. Advertiser response has been favorable, and the morning show on "Channel 77" is worth a listen as it evolves.

• • •

Former KSD morning talent J.C. Corcoran has engaged the services of an L.A.-based agent for opportunities outside the St. Louis market, having severed ties with longtime representative Lissa Miller. Corcoran resurfaced recently with a lengthy e-mail to his Web site distribution list. The letter contains a curious allegation which arose from his attempts to land locally following his departure from KSD in late November, 1998.

In an effort to bring fans up to date on his job seeking activities, Corcoran writes as follows: "Over the past three months, interest from several different stations has come and gone. Someday, I'll have to tell you some of the stories about how decisions are made. For example, would you believe there are two very prominent stations whose hiring decisions must be approved by a guy (whose name you'd recognize immediately) with zero radio background, but who's loaded and has invested in both stations and uses that leverage to execute his personal vendettas agains broadcasters who were critical of him when he was frequently in the news about five years ago? If you don't believe me, ask Bernie Miklasz."

Corcoran went on to say: "Other stations have demonstrated equally bizarre behavior. The fact of the matter is that the combination of all the massive cost-cutting, the frightening amount of syndicated programming coming in off satellite, and the spooky way radio in St. Louis is becoming more 'safe,' leads me to conclude that opportunities are more limited here than ever before. These are strange times."

• • •

KLOU has announced the addition of a "cyberjock" from the "Jacor Talent Bank" to fill the 7 to midnight weekday slot. Kain Cameron, who does middays at WXLY/Charleston, will provide customized work parts for the oldies station, according to KLOU program director Dave Michaels. The use of talent from distant markets is sweeping the industry, providing huge savings in payroll and benefits costs, while fielding programming which is virtually indistinguishable from that which is locally produced.

Michaels also confirmed that contracts are nearly signed for the station's outdoor oldies Summer Spectacular which will be held on Friday, May 28 at Riverport featuring The Guess Who with Burt Cummings, The Grass Roots with Rob Grill, and two of the three original members of Three Dog Night. Michaels told SJR that the Grass Roots, always a St. Louis favorite in recent years, were a late addition after Blood Sweat and Tears featuring original lead singer David Clayton Thomas cancelled in order to perform at a private party.

Meanwhile, KLOU will stage an even more incredible group of oldies-circuit talent on Saturday, April 10 at the Kiel Center. In the first-ever such formatted concert for the station, which is sounding better than ever these days, headliners will include the Four Tops, Chris Montez ("Let's Dance," "Call Me," "The More I See You"), The Tokens (1961's "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"), Percy Sledge (1966's "When A Man Loves A Woman"), Lou Christie ("Lightning Strikes," "Rhapsody in the Rain," "Two Faces Have I," "The Gypsy Cried"), and The Turtles, with Chesterfield resident Howie Kaylan and his cohort Mark Volman bringing back such hits as "Elenore," "Happy Together," and "It Ain't Me Babe."

• • •

KMOX has added veteran newscaster and talk show host Vicki Atlas, who returned to radio after a long absence. Atlas was the charter newscaster on the Phillips and Wall Show on KSLQ-FM (now KYKY-FM/Y-98FM) in 1979 and remained in that position until 1981 when she became a newscaster at then-rival KXOK-AM. She worked there until 1985 then left the business to form Atlas Communications, her own company which provides corporate communications services and video and multimedia productions. Atlas can be heard on the weekends as a fill-in host for the station's talk segments. She is a graduate of Indiana University.

Fourth Annual Achievement in Radio Award Winners

Best Newscaster: Nan Wyatt, KMOX-AM

Best Public-Affairs Program: Julie Buck, Insight on St. Louis, KYKY-FM

Best News Series or Investigative Series: Steve Jankowski, On the Road with RCGA,

KMOX-AM

Best Continuing Program: Saturday Nite Fever, KYKY-FM, Craig Cornett-Host,

Greg Hewitt-Host

Best Sports Play-by-Play: Mike Shannon and Jack Buck, McGwire's 70th Homer,

KMOX-AM

Best Public Service Announcement: Duck Dash, KYKY-FM, Craig Cornet

Best New Talent in the Market: Danny Wright, KSLZ-FM

Best Complete Newscast: Total Information PM, Sept. 30, KMOX-AM, News Staff

Best Station-Sponsored Community Event: Game Show, KSHE-FM, Ed Brown

Best On-Air Promotion: Top 32 of '98, KSHE-FM, Ed Brown and Rob Naughton

Best Non-Drive Time Talent: Paul Cook, KYKY-FM

Best Student On-Air Talent: Dennis McGrane, KCLC-FM

Best Student-Run Station: KCFV-FM

Best Afternoon Drive Talent: Craig Cornett and Julie Buck, KYKY-FM

Best Station Event Promo: Shania Pair, WKKX-FM, Jim Modglin

Best News Interview: Al Gore Iraq Bombing, KMOX-AM, Charles Brennan

Best Radio Host-Music Format: Smash, KSD-FM

Best Traffic Reporter: Joe Sonderman, Metro Networks

Best Spot News Coverage: Joan Beuckman, Lambert Expansion Wins Approval,

KTRS-AM

Best One-Time Program: Jack Buck Statue Unveiling, KMOX-AM, Dan McLaughlin

Most Versatile Talent: Rob Walker, WXTM-FM

Best Sportscaster: Randy Karraker, KMOX-AM

Best Performance in a Radio Commercial: Mr. Goodcents, KYKY-FM, Craig Cornet

Best Talk-Show Host: Charles Jaco, KMOX-AM

Best Station Image Promo: George Michael Weekend Promo, KPNT-FM, Marty Linck

Best Commercial: Fast Eddie's Bon Air, WIL-FM, Pat White

Best Production/Creative Director: Marty Linck, KPNT-FM

Best Morning Drive Talent: The Steve and D.C. Show, WKKX-FM

Lifetime Achievement Award: John Ulett, KSHE-FM