I appreciate what you do, and I am pleased to continue to support The St. Louis Journalism Review and your many reporters for whom I developed a respect.

John D. Schneider,
Lawyer

Off the Record
Phyllis Schlafly rides again
The darling of the national right-wing news media, the St. Louis area's own Phyllis Schlafly, is once again dressed for battle to protect the republic from liberal nonsense and leftist totalitarianism.

Schlafly has taken aim at women's rights activists seeking to revive the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in several favorably-disposed state legislatures around the country. Schlafly argues that ERA is dead, dead, dead. She says supporters must start from scratch to push ERA through legislatures, a movement which she claims to have killed almost single-handedly 20 years ago.

Another cause of Schlafly's is to kill a move to allow governors to appoint U.S. House members in the event of a terrorist attack killing representatives. The new Continuity of Government Commission (COG) argues that if a hijacked jet had hit the Capitol Building on 9/11, government might have been paralyzed with the loss of House members. Crucial decisions simply could not wait for emergency replacement elections to take place.

Schlafly smells a conspiracy in COG, headed by former presidential adviser Lloyd Cutler and former Sen. Alan Simpson. "The fear of terrorism should not be used to scare Americans into surrendering their liberties," declares Schlafly, who now chairs Committee to Preserve an Elected Congress. With the recent congressional cutbacks on Americans' Constitutional rights in the name of fighting terrorism, why is Schlafly so focused on preserving Congress?
-Don Corrigan

Iraqi Bank of America
Among the banks hoping to help rebuild Iraq's financial system is Bank of America Corp.

The U.S. Treasury Department is entertaining thoughts of helping Iraq rebuild its financial system in a Western image, including trade finance, payments systems and foreign currency exchange. Department officials, according to The Wall Street Journal, met with banking representatives from Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and more.

While no one yet knows how much work will be available in Iraq or what the scope of the work will be, won't it be interesting-not to mention another reason to hold a grudge against Americans-for Iraqis to visit a Bank of America in Baghdad?
-Erica Burleson

Woops
Black Jack Mayor Norman McCourt blamed one bad day on the local media, and he had a good case. Well, the blame rested partly on the Attorney General's office.

It started on May 30 when KMOX reported that the Black Jack police department had not turned in a required report about traffic stops and racial profiling to the Missouri Attorney General's office. "I heard it on the radio myself," McCourt said.

The next day the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a story saying the same thing, followed by an editorial June 6 criticizing the city for not turning its report in. Black Jack police did not turn in a report because Black Jack has no police department and has never had one. Since its founding in 1970, it has contracted with the St. Louis County for its police protection.

The town's figures are included with St. Louis County. When Attorney General Jay Nixon issued its report, it put Black Jack and Vinita Terrace on its list of municipalities that failed to file the required report although both contract with St. Louis County.

McCourt said he spent all day June 6 answering phone calls about the editorial. "I had better than 30 calls about it," McCourt said.

The Post's correction ran the next day. "A very nice, big correction," McCourt said.
-Benjamin Israel

FCC inspires odd alliance
The Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) 3-2 decision to allow giant conglomerates to increase their stranglehold on the nation's media has inspired a number of strange alliances. Groups ranging from Common Cause to MoveOn.org to the National Rifle Association joined together in their concern about the FCC's media deregulation.

In the weeks before the FCC's vote, more than three-quarters of a million people showed their opposition to the rule changes by sending their comments to the FCC. After the FCC decision, hundreds of thousands of Americans told members of the Senate Commerce Committee to roll back the media ownership changes.

A proposed bill, the Preservation of Localism, Program Diversity, and Competition in Television Broadcast Act would preserve the rule that restricts one company from owning TV stations that reach more than 35 percent of TV households in the United States.

An amendment sponsored by senators Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.; Olympia Snowe, R-Maine; and Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Tex., will also prevent one company from owning a broadcast station and a newspaper in the same market. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., added an amendment that would reverse the control that Clear Channel now exerts over the radio market, much to the chagrin of Rush Limbaugh, who has blasted McCain on his daily broadcasts (carried by KMOX in St. Louis).

None of the proposed legislation is expected to roll until after Congress' July 4 recess.
-Don Corrigan

Playing cards
It seems the federal government has initiated a trend in promoting decks of cards with "pertinent" information on them.

Not so long after the deck of Most Wanted Iraqis hit the streets, decks giving the latest news about actors and other public figures were printed. Most recently, an anti-Hillary Clinton group has printed the "Deck of Hillary," hoping to end the barrage of media coverage over Hillary's book-and her presidential aspirations.

NewsMax.com claims the cards will blow "the lid off her lies and her new book," "revealing the real Hillary-by using her own quotes."

And, not only is the website promoting the cards, but it's also setting a goal of selling more decks of cards than Hillary sells of her book.
-Erica Burleson

It's different
The radio-listening habits of St. Louisans appear to differ significantly from those in the rest of the country.

According to the latest Arbitron RADAR information, radio's largest listening audience comes during morning drive time Monday through Friday (6-10 a.m.). It is followed closely by the afternoon drive time (3-7 p.m.) audience, which comes to 99 percent of the morning drive group. The size of the nation's midday audience is 91 percent of the morning drive total.

In St. Louis, as determined in the Winter 2003 Arbitron survey, the largest audience is morning drive, followed by middays at 99 percent of the morning drive total, and afternoon drive at 88 percent of morning drive.

One major difference between programming in morning and afternoon drive is the use of syndication. In the St. Louis morning radio market roughly 20 percent of the listeners tune to stations running syndicated shows (the "Steve & DC Show" on WMLL is not counted in this figure since the show originates locally). In the afternoon drive period, syndicated shows are virtually unavailable here.

Another nationwide trend in radio listening is being duplicated in the local market. Even though the census bureau says the U.S. population is increasing, the number of people who listen to radio is, at best, stagnant.

Nationally, compared season to season, yearly decreases range from .2 percent to 1.9 percent between 1999 and 2002, the only numbers available on the Arbitron website. The most recent local numbers show the total number of radio listeners in the St. Louis market dropped 2.8 percent from the winter of 2002 to the same three-month survey period this year.
-Frank Absher

Bishops sneak to Cardinals
There was no shortage of protests for the news media to cover outside the June meeting of U.S. Catholic Bishops at the Union Station Hyatt Hotel in St. Louis.

Members of the Association of Catholic Elementary Educators (ACEE) are demanding that the Archdiocese recognize their union after their eight years of existence. They want better salaries, benefits and grievance procedures. They were determined not to get lost in the media shuffle.

Mary Chubb, president of ACEE, said activists supporting women in the priesthood took Wednesday, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) took Thursday, and Archdiocese school teachers took Friday evening.

"The bishops made arrangements to take taxis at other exits of the hotel when it was time for them to go see their Cardinals' game on Friday, rather than mingle with us outside on Market Street. They knew we were there," Chubb said.

"The bishops were essentially shielding themselves from their public, which is certainly contrary to the example of our church's founder," added Chubb. "Jesus was with the people-all kinds of people-and very communicative."
-Don Corrigan

Testing the nation
"Test the Nation," the Fox TV show that has been well received in at least 15 countries, hit big in the United States Monday, June 9. It's unclear whether American citizens are unsure of their own intelligence or are simply looking for support of their high images of themselves, but host Leeza Gibbons announced that more than one million people tuned in to, and participated in, the IQ test.

The test consisted of language, memory, logic, math and perception questions and converted the number of questions answered correctly to an IQ score. It's unclear if the scoring-or the test-can actually be considered valid since the "grading" rubrics and criteria have not been released to the public.

What Gibbons and co-host Mark L. Walberg claim to have made clear is that men are, on average, actually smarter than women-but only by a two-point IQ spread. Boston is, supposedly, the most intelligent U.S. city, and Washington state is the smartest of 50. Surprisingly, Democrats and Republicans are tied in intelligence. But, it's no surprise to anyone that scientists are the smartest professional category.
-Erica Burleson

Ratings war
It has become common knowledge that the Fox News Network is building a better America through "fair and balanced reporting" and by providing a counterpoint to the Clinton News Network (CNN). But how about all those sleazy programs on the Fox entertainment channels? Aren't they destroying the fabric of our country faster than Britt Hume can weave it?
-Ed Bishop

Early Edition:
Kirkwood's answer
By Ed Bishop
A funny thing happened on the way to this column-it got sidetracked by some guy from Kirkwood.

At the end of June, I participated in a discussion at Saint Louis University sponsored jointly by the Press Club and the Black Journalists Association. The discussion was supposed to be about the ethical questions raised by the Jayson Blair incident at The New York Times.

(Actually, the incident is really a management issue, not an ethical issue.)

Anyway, as I had feared, the evening was beginning to show signs of deteriorating into a journalists' whining session. "Why don't they trust us?" "Why don't they like us?" "Maybe my next job will be as a used-car salesman." I hate that stuff.

My philosophy has always been: get it right, publish it and let the chips fall where they may. If you make a mistake, print a correction and move on. If you make a big mistake, apologize in person, print the apology and a correction, and move on. Never, never publish anything bigger than a big mistake.

To tell you the truth, I don't think the public wants anything more than that. They don't care about our soul-searching or our breast-beating.

I take that back. They do want something more-they want us to tell the story exactly the way that benefits them most. Anything else is slanted reporting.

I clumsily tried to explain all this but nobody was buying it. They seemed to want to continue to grope for some kind of "outreach to the community." They wanted to make "the process" "transparent" and such things.

When exactly did journalists become wimps?

Then, some man who said he was from Kirkwood-he said he once ran for mayor of Kirkwood, I think-got ahold of the microphone and began asking the panelists to look into his circumstances. He wasn't one of the people who usually show up for these kinds of functions. He was, more or less, just a regular guy. He continued on and on about how the government of Kirkwood had ruined his life, caused his divorce, and some other stuff I didn't quite understand.

He wanted somebody on the panel to tell his story. He had a good audience for it. Two of the panelists were Ellen Soeteber, editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Tom Finkel, editor of the Riverfront Times.

Most of what the man said didn't make sense to me. One thing was clear, though-his anguish. And something else-his belief that journalism could right his wrongs. He believed, it seemed, that if only someone would tell his story in print, justice would be served.

It dawned on me that this guy was offering us the answer. Instead of worrying about what are essentially public-relations questions, editors and reporters should keep squarely in mind that even if Americans don't believe in journalists, they believe in journalism.

Somewhere deep down in the American psyche is an unshakable faith that, if all the truth comes out, things will be all right. Journalists should build on that.

Early in the program, Soeteber told the audience that instead of having this discussion in a large room in an elegant university building, 20 years ago journalists would have met in a bar and tried to hash out these problems over beer and shots.

Maybe the Press Club ought to consider that. Hold some meetings in a tavern. I bet a lot of folks there would want journalists to tell all kinds of stories for them, about their schools, about their governments, about real life-then maybe journalists could break this stupid habit of only reporting inside-politics, where news happens only when the elites disagree.

Of course, reporters would have to be prepared for those same folks who wanted their stories told hating the stories once they were told.

But, hey, toughen up. You chose to be a journalist, not a social worker.

Channels:
A future classic
By Tripp Frohlichstein
If I may stray from local news for a bit, the passing in June of David Brinkley made me think about how many of the great pioneers of news broadcasting are gone or will soon be gone. Greats like Chet Huntley, David Brinkley's old partner, are long gone and others like Walter Cronkite are getting up there in years.

That made me think about today's greats. Sure, the main anchors of the networks will go down as stars in their business. But I remain convinced that one of the greatest broadcast journalists of all time has to be Ted Koppel. Despite all the opportunity to watch news on cable, I keep returning to Koppel and ABC's "Nightline." He is a reporter's reporter. He appears to start each interview with an open mind. At the same time, he wants answers. Unlike the vast majority of reporters, especially local reporters, he actually listens to interviewees' answers and then follows up. When politicians, executives and others try to evade answering questions, Koppel rarely lets them off the hook.

I still remember his interview with Microsoft founder Bill Gates when it looked like the government might break his company in two. He asked Gates how Microsoft would be affected by a break-up-five times. Each time Gates evaded the question. Koppel would come back politely noting he hadn't answered the question. After the fifth time, he gave up. But he made his point in front of the audience that Gates was "afraid" to address the topic.

In another interview, after trying to get an answer three times, he apologized to the audience for not getting an answer for them.

What makes him so effective is how nice he is. Some reporters are bulldogs when it comes to getting answers. They even border on nasty.

Not Koppel. He uses nice to his advantage. When he comes across like the nice guy just trying to get answers and his interviewees are uncooperative, Koppel wins. If he asked the same questions in a nasty way, he would lose.

Koppel also does his research. When he asks questions, viewers can tell he knows of what he speaks. If you haven't watched "Nightline" for a while, it is time to reacquaint yourself with this marvelous program and superior anchor.

---

It was an award-winning June for KMOV (Channel 4). The station dominated the Missouri Broadcaster Association awards announced last month. The station took top honors in the large city category with the top public service announcement or campaign, complete newscast, news series, television investigative reporting, commercial announcements, promotion, best weathercast and best sports. KSDK (Channel 5) did sneak in and get one for best feature reporting.

In another honor, Channel 4's series "La Oroya, City of Lead" won first-place honors from the National Press Club in the Environmental Reporting category.

Craig Cheatham reported the story along with photographer Mark Hadler. The series looked at Doe Run, the lead company based in St. Louis, and its operations in Peru.

This story also won a Missouri Broadcasters Association award.

---

Because of SJR's deadline, it is too early to assess if Mike Bush is having any impact on Channel 5's ratings. He started as 10 p.m. anchor on Monday, June 23. Channel 5 lost the 10 p.m. news race that night. That has to do with Channel 4's strong lead-in show at 9 p.m., "CSI." If this were Bush's first night ever as an anchor, though, I would have been concerned there weren't more people tuning in to check him out. Since Bush has been anchoring Sunday nights for a couple years, though, there is no novelty factor.

The Nielsen ratings and shares listed are for his first three nights. They are compared to the equivalent Monday through Wednesday from June 2002.

It is interesting, though, to note how consistent the ratings were night to night in 2002 compared to jumping all over the board in 2003.

A rating point is equivalent to 11,564 area households. A share point is the number of people watching a particular station at a particular time compared to all people watching television at that time. That means if 100 people are watching at 9 p.m. and 14 are watching Channel 4's news, the station has a 14 share.

Sports Media
Soft ball to hard ball
By Joe Pollack
The move of Mike Bush from sports director to news reader/anchor on KSDK (Channel 5) will create change for many St. Louis viewers, and perhaps more for Bush himself. He's been a good sports director. He's more softball pitcher than hard-edged interrogator when it comes to asking difficult questions, but that's a St. Louis media tradition.

The most important question, I think, is if viewers trust Bush as a news person or if they still see him, at least for a while, as a sports announcer, wearing a different hat-basically a lightweight.

Much, of course, will depend on the assignments he gets from Channel 5 management. He can't merely do fluffy, happy little Katie Couric-style tear-jerkers, like the story he did on a playground for a child with a major health problem. The next morning, NBC did a story about Florida dolphins playing with disturbed children. Nice, warming stories, but no real news.

Bush is going to have to get his hands dirty with some Mike Owens-style assignments, harassing miscreants on the streets, asking tough questions of politicians and corporate executives. His attitude in these sticky situations and his toughness when it comes to asking the important questions are the attributes he will need to show to the larger body of news-watchers.

It also will not be easy to get executives and politicians to take him seriously, and I speak from experience.

After seven years as a sports writer for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, and a decade as public relations director of the Football Cardinals, I was hired by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as a theater and movie critic, and feature writer. Writing about restaurants came a little later. But when I went out to the Muny Opera to review 1776, Bill Culver, then the president, looked at me and said, in an astonished, disbelieving tone, "What do you know about theater? You're a sports writer." Oddly, many years earlier, at 24, my first Globe-Democrat assignment was an AAU basketball tournament at the field house in Sherman Park. No one there wondered about my bona fides or even cared.

More than 30 years later, I still can write about sports, and about theater, too. I've always considered myself primarily a writer and was confident I could acquire other knowledge. I had learned about sports; I could learn about other things.

When Bush moved across the news room at Channel 5, the station reported that he had initiated the change in assignments, that he wanted to be involved in "more important" events. Reading between the lines, I thought there was a little pique at not being asked to do more "real reporting" in and around 9/11. But that's minor. Like everyone who is a news person, he wants to be where the action is.

Given the state of local television news these days, there isn't much "real reporting" to be done, but let's hope for the best.

I can see reasons for Bush making the move. Many will murmur about no more February trips to Florida for spring training, and he himself may feel a twinge next January. He will not be going to the major events around the country, or the world, where sports journalists are often found and where media receive royal treatment. If he is allowed into a press box to watch a sporting event, he soon will begin to feel like an outsider, even an intruder.

On the bright side, however, he no longer will have to deal with spoiled, big-ego athletes, coaches, managers and agents. He will not be pushed around in crowded locker rooms as dozens of sweaty journalists battle for microphone positions to try to talk to sweaty athletes who really don't care who the journalists are.

And he may have learned that sports are not new each year. Every year is the same year all over again, much as in Groundhog Day. After a World Series game, he will talk to the same athlete this year who he talked to last year, or five years ago, or 10 years ago. He will ask the same questions and receive the same answers. The athlete may have a different face, or may even be of a different gender, but the event will be the same. Someone will win and someone will lose, and the questions and answers also will remain the same. It gets a little boring after a while.

In addition, Bush may have realized that he is getting a little older and that, every year, he finds it more difficult to talk to most athletes. I did. When I left the world of sports, I knew I would not return to it. I've had several chances, and thought seriously about some, but in the end, I stayed in a world that I hoped would be-and was-more intelligent, more interesting and more mature.

Welcome to that world, Mike Bush, and maybe you can keep Channel 5 from repeating its gaffe of a few weeks ago when the news department ran a picture of former New York Times execs Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd, identifying Raines as Boyd and vice versa.

Media/Law
Democrats are better for news
By Ken Jones
At Lawyers Weekly, we rarely get criticized by readers for missing the point of a story, I'm happy to say-all our editors are attorneys who are able to analyze legal issues when writing an article about a new case or a trend in the law.

One comment I hear more often is that we are "pro-plaintiff"-that we have more stories about plaintiffs' attorneys and their victories than we do about defense wins.

That charge used to ruffle me a bit. We pride ourselves on being impartial and refuse to play favorites. We are just as inclined to report on a defendant's verdict as we are a plaintiff's, I would tell myself.

But when I went back and looked at some of our old papers, I discovered there was some merit to that observation. We did have more articles about plaintiffs' verdicts, and we did focus on their triumphs-not to the exclusion of defense wins, but there was a decided imbalance.

I reflected on the cause of the disparity. Were we biased? Did we consciously favor plaintiffs' cases? Were we being unfair to our friends in the defense bar?

After considering several possibilities, I concluded that the problem was not with us but with the nature of the news business.

Forgive me for waxing philosophical, but it really comes down to the meaning of journalism. At bottom, something is newsworthy because it is new, because there has been a significant change in the way things are.

Imagine for example that there was a fire at an apartment building on June 15. If there had been no fire on June 15, no articles would have been written about the building. But since the fire caused a change by destroying property or injuring people, the apartment building became newsworthy. On June 16, we are not surprised to find stories in the media about it.

The same reasoning applies to our newspaper. A lawsuit or court opinion is newsworthy to the extent that it changes the law or demonstrates that someone had been wronged, and therefore, significantly alters the way lawyers and the public confront a legal issue.

Given that definition, a legal story is more likely to be newsworthy if the plaintiff wins a case than if a defendant wins. A plaintiff's victory means that harm has been done, that there was a change in the relationship between parties that caused injury. A defendant's victory means on the other hand that no one did anything wrong-in other words, there is no news to report.

Let's set up a hypothetical medical malpractice case filed by the family of a man who died of cancer. The family sues his doctor for failure to diagnose the disease at an early stage, which caused him to lose any chance of survival.

If the family wins the case, that means the jury decided the doctor did something wrong and failed to meet the standard of care in treating the patient. It is newsworthy. If the doctor wins, however, it means that no error occurred and the standard of care was met. It is not news because doctors are meeting the standard of care all the time-there's nothing new about that.

We see the same principles at work when analyzing opinions issued by appellate judges, such as the Missouri Supreme Court or Court of Appeals. If the judges change the law significantly, there's a story; if they affirm the law, there is no story.

And that's why Democrat-appointed judges are better for the news business than Republican judges, no matter what your political views are. A conservative judicial philosophy means restraint and strict construction-let's go slow, let's not make waves, let's allow the Legislature to make the decision. Conservative judges do not like change, and that's why they make bad copy for newspapers.

On the other hand, liberal judges are less change-averse and more likely to overturn precedent. They see the third branch of government as an active participant in societal progress and are, therefore, prone to transform things from the bench rather than wait for the Legislature to take action.

Last month's Missouri Supreme Court opinion abolishing the tort of alienation of affection was a good example of the difference between Democrat and Republican judges. Five judges-four Democrat-appointed and one Republican-said that spouses should no longer be able to sue if their marriage is broken up by an affair because the lawsuits are based on the "antiquated" notion that a wife is the property of the husband. Two Republican-appointed judges dissented, saying that there are still good reasons for allowing the cases and that if a change is needed, it should be made by the Legislature, not by a few unelected judges.

Because a significant change was made in the law, it became a news story-in fact, it was a national story because the Missouri Supreme Court's opinion was picked up by the Associated Press and broadcast around the country.

Now, if the Republicans had prevailed and alienation cases had not been abolished, there would have been no story-nothing would have changed and there would have been nothing to report on.

So, no offense to defendants and to Republicans, but plaintiffs and Democrats are better for the news business. Without change, news itself would be impossible.

Media/Politics
Catching up with growth
By Terry Jones
The St. Louis regional family added some members on June 3, but the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and other major media ignored the metropolitan area's definitional expansion.

So, belatedly and apologetically, let's all say hello and welcome to our new regional siblings: Bond, Calhoun and Macoupin counties in Illinois and Washington County in Missouri. After examining the data from the 2000 U.S. Census, the Office of Management and Budget-the agency charged with setting and applying the standards for metropolitan areas-says that these counties now have "a high degree of social and economic integration with the core as measured by commuting ties."

In less bureaucratic language, St. Louis's common economic boat now has 16 counties which rise and fall on the same sea. When the national government started recognizing that the world was trending metropolitan in 1950, St. Louis's region had four counties: Madison and St. Clair counties in Illinois and the City of St. Louis and St. Louis counties in Missouri.

Why should this have been a story rather than a non-event? First, for those who prize bigger as better, the most recent quadruplets add almost 100,000 residents to the region's totals, a modest but meaningful overnight 3.6 percent hike. Geographically, the expansion is much greater: 2,085 more square miles, about a 30 percent increase.

Second, for those who fear dispersion is dismal, this means that the region jumped several notches on any sprawl index. St. Louis has gone from 2,603,607 persons living on 6,393 square miles (407 per sq/mi) to 2,698,687 inhabitants on 8,478 square miles (318 per sq/mi).

Third, a larger region means challenges for those institutions charged with having St. Louis act as a single unified entity. The Regional Chamber and Growth Association and the Greater St. Louis Economic Development Council, the lead agencies for devising and implementing a strategy for improving the interdependent metropolitan economy, now must connect with four more jurisdictions. Nonprofits like the United Way of Greater St. Louis and FOCUS St. Louis, having just become accustomed to the relatively new 12-county perspective, now must begin thinking outside that box although the United Way is already serving two of the four additions (Calhoun and Macoupin).

Regional governance is becoming especially challenging for the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council, the area's metropolitan planning organization. Formed in 1965, it has always defined its bailiwick as the seven counties comprising the region at that time plus Monroe County. It has not added any of the eight other counties which the federal government now includes within its St. Louis metropolitan statistical area. Although the council's region still contains about 90 percent of the overall residents, it is now down to just more than 50 percent of its land mass. Since much of the council's work involves coordinating transportation plans, this means that, increasingly, it lacks direct oversight over a growing part of its territory.

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One of journalism's cardinal principles is getting the facts right. That not only means spelling names correctly but also describing things accurately.

Consider, for example, a June 15 Post article comparing state employment in Missouri and Illinois. The headline, "Debate Highlights Size of Missouri's Payroll; Illinois Has Twice the Population but Similar Number of State Workers; Instead, Local Agencies Are Used" pushes one toward the impression that perhaps Missouri's government is overstaffed and that the current budget crisis has a simple solution: cut the number of state employees.

The story's fourth and fifth paragraphs note that Missouri has "67,000 employees" and that "56,000 are full time." By comparison, "Illinois, with nearly twice the population, had about 63,000 employees on its payroll as of the end of last month."

Then, in a sudden reversal, the seventh paragraph notes that "comparing raw numbers can be misleading" but, shifting 180 degrees one more time, the eighth paragraph asserts that "some Missourians wonder why the state would need about the same number of employees as Illinois, with its much larger population." Later the article comments that "Missouri's comparatively large number of employees raises questions about whether the bureaucracy needs a systemwide overhaul."

Comparing only state-level employment numbers not only can be misleading-it definitely is-but the Post should also know better. States can administer programs with some combination of state employees, local employees, and contract (i.e. outsourced) employees. The only correct way to compare activity across states is to examine how much they spend, not how they spend it.

If the Post had taken the few minutes to obtain these numbers (hint-they're on the Bureau of the Census website), it would have come to a very different conclusion. For the latest budget year available (2001), Illinois's state and local governments spent $5,713 per capita, 17.5 percent higher than Missouri's $4,862. For public welfare, much of the focus of the article, Illinois's expenditures were $694 per capita, slightly above Missouri's $677 per capita.

Radio History
Overnight success
By Frank Absher
As a youngster, Don Corey fantasized about being a disc jockey. He'd set up a mock studio with his record player and do shows in his room, eventually getting a very low power transmitter and broadcasting to "three or four houses" in his neighborhood. Then, while a teenager, he hit the big time doing overnights on KSHE.

"I remember calling up Don Shaffer at KXOK when I was about 12 years old. I asked him how I could become a disc jockey. He said, 'Well, first you've got to be a little crazy,' and I said, 'Well, I've got that down.' He told me about the FCC license I needed and gave me some more details, and I decided that was the job I wanted."

Originally Corey had wanted to work for KXOK, which was the top station among teenage listeners, but one day he was checking out the local FM stations and found KSHE. "Being the naļve 18-year-old that I was, I put together a tape and résumé using my bedroom equipment and took the stuff to KSHE. Then, I went home and waited for them to call. It was about the dumbest thing I'd ever done because I had no real broadcast experience.

"I waited and waited and nothing happened. So, I joined the Columbia School of Broadcasting mail order course. About halfway through the course, on Christmas Eve of 1968, my dad came to my room and told me there was a call for me. It was some guy at KSHE asking if I could come in to work. A bunch of their guys were sick with the flu. I told him I'd be there in five minutes."

Don Corey had done his pretend broadcasts to his neighborhood over a very weak home transmitter, but he knew he wasn't prepared for the real thing. Still, that didn't stop him.

"I came in and the guy showed me the studio and he said, 'You've run a [control] board before haven't you?' and I said 'Oh. Yeah.' Which I hadn't, but I didn't want to lose my chance. When I picked up the tone arm for the turntable my hand was shaking."

Things got easier as the shift progressed and management invited him back to do weekends. That soon became a regular midnight-to-six slot on St. Louis' first "underground" radio station, making Corey an electronic companion to the all-night crowd. There was no play list.

"You could play anything you wanted as long as it was in the studio. They weren't afraid to try something different. We played everything but the title cuts because everyone else was playing them.

"I'd play the long songs, so I could talk to the listeners who called in. They were really into the music. We used to play a song called 'Don't Bogart That Joint' by the Fraternity of Man, and in the middle of the song, the singer goes 'Roll another one, just like the other one.' I spliced a tape so the word 'roll' went on for over a minute and played it on the air without saying anything. The phones went crazy and people were asking what was going on. I played innocent and said nothing was different. I got 30 or 40 phone calls, and I confessed after the record was over."

Fellow staff members included Steve Rosen, Dick Merkle, Sir Ed (Rickert), Brother Love (Dick Richards), John Williams and Prince Knight (Ron Lipe), and the studios were in the old cinder block building in the shadow of the 66 Park-In in Crestwood. Listeners would constantly come by, sometimes to buy concert tickets, sometimes just to talk.

"Sometimes there'd be groups of six or seven people in the middle of the night all standing around outside the studio window just waiting to get a chance to talk to the guy on the air. They made you feel like you were a celebrity. It was really an ego trip for a kid who grew up in Webster. Back then my dating life was awful. I couldn't charm an old maid out of a burning building. All of a sudden, I'm on the air, and the girls are calling me."

Don Corey parted company with KSHE in 1972 and, shortly thereafter, left the business.

AM/FM
KMOX replaces Wyatt
By Lynn Venhaus
Former KSDK (Channel 5) segment producer Debbie Monterrey begins co-hosting duties with Doug McElvein on KMOX's "Total Information AM" July 10.

Monterrey was selected after a nationwide search, conducted by program director Steve Moore, to fill the late Nan Wyatt's position. Monterrey is returning to St. Louis after working as a morning news anchor, reporter and talk show host as well as in public relations. She anchored the morning news at WTVN-AM in Columbus, Ohio, and later worked for Wisconsin Governor Scott McCallum as press secretary and communications director. After his term, she joined Wood Communications Group in Madison, Wisc.

Earlier in her career, she worked as a segment producer at Channel 5. She earned a bachelor's degree in communications/journalism from Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo.

"Her depth and experience on a number of levels will make her a great asset to KMOX and the community," commented Tom Langmyer, who noted that the "direction and feel of the show remain consistent-news and information from friends you trust."

Langmyer likes the combination of skills Monterrey brings, both professionally and as a person.

"Debbie was the right choice for the position for a number of reasons. She is more than a news reader; she's a broadcaster. Debbie returns to St. Louis after having gained a great deal of experience. She has done other things that broaden her as a person. Her work as the communications director and press secretary for Wisconsin Governor Scott McCallum will make her a valuable asset in her coverage of Jefferson City," he said.

"As far as her broadcasting skills are concerned, Debbie has a great voice and delivery. She is warm, smart and sounds like KMOX. She and Doug will make a great team," he said.

Langmyer praised Megan Lynch's dedication and work during the interim. "Megan's excellent reporting continues and she will also be heard on special in-depth, highly produced features and stories. A heartfelt thanks to Megan for her professionalism and grace through a very challenging transition for KMOX and the community," he said.

As for how KMOX has dealt with the loss of Wyatt, who was murdered by her husband Feb. 18, Langmyer said the employees has gotten by with the support of each other and the listeners.

"The outpouring of support from the community was tremendous. Her family and colleagues at KMOX have been most appreciative," he said, adding that Nan's son Drake is "doing very well with Nan's folks."

Monterrey and her husband, Steve, were expected to arrive in St. Louis on June 30.

---

Oldies have returned to the St. Louis airwaves. On June 27, WRTH (1430 AM) converted its playlist from nostalgic songs of earlier decades to upbeat Real Oldies from the '50s and '60s.

The greatest-hits format had vanished when Clear Channel's KLOU (103.3 FM) went from "Good Times, Great Oldies" to "Superhits of the '60s and '70s" last year.

The new venture for the Bonneville-owned station is intended to be a swingin' blast from the past, with the sound strictly Top 40 hits by Elvis, the Beatles, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, the Temptations and others from that era. You can even hear Bob Kuban & the In-Men's "The Cheater."

Ron Elz, aka Johnny Rabbitt (the first one at KXOK, not the second namesake, '60s legend Don Pietromonaco), helms the morning show from 5:30-10 a.m. weekdays. He's doing a segment on one-hit wonders called the "Forgotten 45" during each show.

During the rest of the day, special features include a Number One song at 1 p.m. and a daily fix of Beatles with the Fab Four at 4 p.m. (J.C. Corcoran also plays the Beatles' solo and group work mornings on K-HITS 96.3 FM).

The WRTH sound is reminiscent of old AM radio stations like KXOK in St. Louis and WLS in Chicago in its heyday.

So far, so good-a welcome return.

---

Emmis Communications may continue to put up a "boys will be boys" facade with Steve Shannon & D.C. Chymes, but the pair's crass on- and off-air antics continue to dull the shine of the Mall's morning show (WMLL 104.1 FM).

The latest scandal is the bankruptcy filing in St. Louis County court by the apparently high-livin' Isaiah Wilhelm (real name of D.C.), who earns a six-figure income. His wife, Anna Wilhelm, made it public on the www.stlmedia.net website, spilling her guts instead of following advice not to, which caused the local radio community to be in a tizzy. Webmaster Mike Anderson finally pulled the plug on the thread, which had dissolved into vicious personal attacks.

Many radio folks have expressed outrage that a guy with a new three-year contract that earns him tens of thousands of dollars per month could seek Chapter 7 protection.

However, a judge could force him into reorganization of his debts instead.

There is also a lawsuit pending that stems from the pair's stunt using the late Mad Hoosier to act bizarre in a handicapped-use cart and run amuck at the Schnucks store in Richmond Heights back in 1999. It's filed in St. Louis City court.

Not to mention the fact that Terrence Trawick's (Steve Shannon's) contract was leaked, or a 24-page legal document that Anderson insists was confirmed as authentic by an Emmis higher-up but denied as real by Emmis brass. The contract, dated March of this year, makes reference to Steve and D.C.'s religious rantings possibly hurting their ratings, and they need to keep it to a bare minimum for a mainstream entertainment program. They've been directed not to pray on the air.

Steve and D.C. had been a top-rated morning show for much of the past decade. They arrived in St. Louis in 1991 to work at then-WKBQ but were fired over a racial slur incident and later returned. The Top 40 "Q" flipped to soft-rock ALICE in 1997, and the bad boys went to country music KKKX. They moved to KIHT in 2000 in the Bonneville-Emmis-Sinclair deal and changed to the Mall last year when Emmis paired J.C. Corcoran with John Ulett in the mornings, followed by Radio Rich Dalton, at K-Hits. That switch resulted in K-Hits zooming up in the Arbitron ratings, and the former number-one duo struggling in the ratings. The syndicated shows from Howard Stern at KPNT (105.7 FM) and Bob & Tom (KSHE) also have cut into the team's audience. Steve and D.C.'s shows are also syndicated in several states, which critics think dilutes their local flavor.

On the one hand, you can say people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, and on the other hand, those who proclaim loudly how Christian they are better be prepared for a fallout when salacious information becomes public.

---

KTRS's news and sports teams have been honored with a couple of awards. The sports department won first place in sports in the Missouri Broadcasters Association competition this year, and the newsroom won a certificate of merit in the newscast category.

Sally Rushing, a newsroom intern, has left to finish her degree work, and Kent Martin, news director, says the station will be bringing in someone new this month.

Late Edition
Even the best succumb to the lure of the advertising dollar
By Charles L. Klotzer
Without the income from advertising, the media would not be able to function, at least in our country. In some other countries, the media, such as the British Broadcasting Corporation, retain their independence and ability to pry into official misconduct while subsidized by their government.

In the United States the independence of the media is intimately interwoven with advertising and with sales. By now we all know, at least readers of SJR know, that most national media have been acquired by commercial conglomerates dominated by the market demand for ever-rising profits. Thus, the forces which push for utilizing their access to the media are in constant tension with others who insist on protecting the media from such pressures.

Now and then that conflict erupts into public view. Newsweek is generally held in high regard. After all, it is owned by the Washington Post, itself a journalistic institution of renown.

But an April cover of Newsweek succeeded in further blurring the line between news and advertising and in the process fooling its readers.

Outside of the actual cover of the magazine Merck & Co. bought a second cover-actually a full-color, six-page addition with four pages in front and two over the back cover-promoting Zocor, allegedly a cholesterol-lowering drug.

It exactly imitated the regular cover design except for a note which read: "Through special arrangements with the publisher, this cover has been placed on a limited number of copies of Newsweek by Merck & Co. ... It does not constitute an endorsement by Newsweek and no endorsement is implied."

By implication readers are supposed to know that this is an advertisement, but nowhere is it mentioned on the cover.

At least, on the small classified-type ads which occasionally appear at the bottom of the New York Times, readers are warned that it is an advertising by the abbreviation "ADVT."

The Newsweek cover ad was found in a doctor's office. It would not be surprising if the "limited number of copies" referred to above, means that the circulation of these issues is restricted to doctor's offices. Whether it is a news anchor who appears in ads, or magazine covers which promote products, the lure of the advertising dollar appears irresistible, no matter how much it corrupts the news product.

---

Commercial speech is a vague concept, subject to many interpretations. Does it fall just like political speech under First Amendment protection or not? After the U.S. Supreme Court dismissal of Nike v. Kasky, that question will have to be legally decided at a later date.

Simplified, and ignoring many aspects which overlap political and commercial interests, political speech usually favors an issue or a candidate. Commercial speech protects a company or its interests, which usually means the balance sheet.

In our legal history we decreed that corporations are persons and, therefore, in many situations deserve the same protection. That decision, which has always haunted and nullified reform efforts, should not be reinforced by covering corporations now by the Bill of Rights.

Corporations are not people, and the law should recognize that simple fact. It should not be cluttered up by using the term "speech" for "commercial promotion." No one has ever heard a corporation "speak." (Well, my esteemed attorney friends, any comments?)

Features
Chronicle often scoops Post-Dispatch
By Benjamin Israel
If you haven't heard of the Arch City Chronicle, you're not alone. The twice-monthly broadsheet had, at last count, 217 paid subscribers.

But here are some of the things you would have missed by not reading it:

- articles about the extent of lead poisoning in St. Louis and how Milwaukee has a much more successful program for combating it;
- evaluations of Mayor Francis Slay at mid-term from, among others, Les Sterman, Lana Stein, Dick Fleming and Percy Green;
- an interview with Daniel Green, owner of the building at 3309 Illinois Ave. that police raided the morning of May 16, 2003, and evicted people and trashed the contents supposedly to prevent violence from protesters at the World Agricultural Forum;
- extensive coverage of the battle in the Missouri General Assembly over tax increment financing, including analysis of TIFs by Les Sterman of the East West Gateway Coordinating Council;
- an article about a new neighborhood organization representing people living where Pruitt-Igoe once stood;
- a critique of the bill to end the residency requirement; and
- reports on who attended political fundraisers for whom.

But, don't look for the publication on any newsstands. It's sold to subscribers only. Subscriptions are available at its website at www.archcitychronicle.com.

Dave Drebes, then a stockbroker active in Metropolis, founded Arch City Chronicle in 2001, with the help of his friend and political-science graduate student Will Winter. They wrote the first issue and mailed it to 100 friends.

Since then Drebes has been able to bring in an impressive mix of scoops:

- noting that Mayor Slay was able to brag that he had reduced his staff by transferring them to other departments without changing their duties;
- the Cheshire Inn's banning of men with dreadlocks; and
- St. Louis County contracting out its prescription services to Walgreen's.

Drebes said his subscribers include elected officials and that he is so encouraged by the response that he quit his job this spring to work full-time on the Arch City Chronicle.

"My wife gave me six months," he said, noting that he was not earning much as a stockbroker anyway. "It's hard to try to determine the market (for the publication)," Drebes said. "Shouldn't everyone be interested in it? But when we have a school board election, only 19 percent show up (to vote) ... "

Drebes is a signer of the Memphis Manifesto, a document inspired by Richard Florida's book The Rise of the Creative Class. The book argues that cities can best grow their economies by attracting creative people with a diverse, tolerant cultural atmosphere.

While he has definite opinions, he's determined that his paper be an open forum welcoming different points of view.

Or, as he wrote in the paper's mission statement, "Arch City Chronicle is a broad-sheet that subjects St. Louis political and civic activity to both serious contextual analysis and irreverent common sense criticism. It exists to foster a more active and engaged citizenry by making the curiosities and awkward nobleness of St. Louis politics available to the broader public."

Pulitzer fights union at Journals
By Benjamin Israel
The Newspaper Guild faces two crucial tests this summer in its efforts to organize the Suburban Journals: a representation election July 31 for editorial employees at its South office and a decertification election tentatively set for Aug. 4 for the bargaining unit at the Warrenton and Wentzville offices.

This announcement comes just over a year after the Guild narrowly won an election to represent editorial and advertising employees at the Warrenton-Wentzville Journal offices on the same day it narrowly lost three other elections, including the South office.

This time the bargaining unit at South will be only the 12 editorial employees: reporters, copy editors, the city editor and one clerk, but not including the sports editor and the design editor. Although the South office has no part-time reporters or editors now, the union insisted and Pulitzer agreed to include them in the bargaining unit. That way any part-timers the Journal hires would be covered should the two sides sign a contract, said Jay Schmitz, a field organizer for the Newspaper Guild.

The Guild lost the vote at the South office last year 13-12, with most of the support coming from the editorial side, Schmitz said. This time he thinks the union has a better chance.

The Guild has not been as active in the North County office, where it also lost by one vote last year.

Several of the union supporters have left. Turnover plagues most Journal offices where college-educated reporters earn less than most factory workers and are expected to churn out more copy than virtually all reporters at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

At the Warrenton and Wentzville offices, however, only one of the original group who worked for the union has left, said Linda Meyer, the Wentzville reporter and recording secretary of the bargaining unit.

"We're here to see it through," Meyer said. "We want it for everyone who comes after us, for everyone who works with us."

The union and company have made headway on a contract, she said, although they are not even close to agreeing on wages and benefits.

For example, under the present regime, Journal workers who are laid off have no right to be called back. The union and Pulitzer have agreed that laid-off workers would have call-back rights for two years, said Herb Goodrick, executive secretary of the St. Louis Newspaper Guild. They also agreed on a grievance procedure with arbitration as the final step.

A sales representative, John Bradley of the Wentzville office, circulated the petition to hold the decertification election. When a reporter asked him why, he said, "That's my business. I don't think things are working out," and declined to comment further.

Meyer said he collected the signatures quietly, without bothering the known union supporters. "We kind of expected this to happen," she said.

Bradley needed 30 percent or five signatures of the 15 in the bargaining unit.

With no contract in force, the status quo is frozen as long as bargaining takes place. This means that when the Journals replaced an old medical plan with one that cost employees more, the Warrenton-Wentzville employees kept the old plan. Wages were not frozen, however, but the old policy of giving raises after each annual evaluation stayed in place.

However, Pulitzer recently gave all its editorial employees 5 percent raises, except for those at Warrenton-Wentzville.

Schmitz said Pulitzer claimed it couldn't give it there because of the pending negotiations. "They never approached us," he said. "We would've said, 'Yeah, you could raise them.'"

Now they tell us!
Post-Dispatch failed to uncover plans of mayor's slate to privatize St. Louis public schools
By Dan Hellinger and Bob Schaper
The board will solicit proposals for 'a firm, an individual or a collaborative team of firms' to serve as interim superintendent for the district. The move leaves open the possibility that the district could be run by a management firm with a chief executive officer who will serve in the role of superintendent." St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 23, 2003

The news broke in print on a Wednesday morning, two full weeks after the April 8 elections. Driven by four amalgamated and newly sworn members of the St. Louis Board of Education, a motion was passed the previous evening fundamentally to shift the power dynamics within the troubled school district.

At its heart, the plan is simplicity defined: outgoing Superintendent Cleveland Hammonds Jr. (retired as of June 30) is to be replaced by Alvarez & Marsal, a New York-based turnaround management consulting firm. The company, led in its local effort by former clothier William V. "Bill" Roberti, will earn $5 million to "fix" the perennially underachieving district.

Opponents argue that the privatization of a public school system is patently un-American, not to mention Machiavellian; others say draconian measures are long overdue. Beyond dispute, however, is the notion that public institutions should not be subjected to systematic upheaval without vigorous debate ahead of time-particularly during an election cycle.

Sadly, that debate never took place on the pages of the city's only daily newspaper. Through nearly 12 weeks of campaign coverage in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch -including eight news stories and two gushing editorials-the idea of privatizing the school system was never mentioned.

Not once.

Even on April 23, one senses that the Post editors still didn't get it. The story gives only scanty attention to the "turnaround firm" proposal (53 words out of 440 written), while the headline, too, plays down the development, phlegmatically informing us: "New School Board Acts Promptly."

Indeed, the story's author, Post writer Jake Wagman, shows more interest in the histrionic rants of board member Rochelle Moore than the motion itself. Wagman makes entertaining use of Moore's gritty repertoire, including such thoughtful policy gems as, "I am going to give you what for."

In his defense, Wagman was not alone in missing the point. During the school board race virtually every media source in town, including the St. Louis American, chose to focus on colorful personalities and obscure campaign finance laws rather than the underlying issues. Although the Post described the contest as "watershed," and "one of the most important school board elections in the city's history," the paper chose to cover the race pedantically, placing most of its emphasis on political analysis and campaign finance laws.

Also in Wagman's defense is the fact that the new board majority played its cards close to the vest.

"No school system had ever (privatized) before. So, that wasn't on the table," Wagman says. "If they knew they were going to do the turnaround firm the whole time, they certainly didn't make that clear."

Cluttered race, cluttered coverage
With 18 candidates on the ballot, journalists certainly faced a challenge covering the election. Some hopefuls, like Curtis Royston III, a Democratic committeeman from the 27th ward, campaigned independently and enjoyed a modest political base entering the contest. Other candidates, like John Mahoney, had earlier served on the board. Some were simply long-shot unknowns with no clear agenda.
But the race clarified substantially after New Year's. On Jan. 15, with 11 candidates already filed, a coalition organized by Mayor Francis Slay selected four candidates for its endorsement. With the full weight of the mayor's office behind the slate, this development essentially sealed the election.

But in the Post's coverage the next day, little is reported about Slay's choices, other than their names: former Mayor Vincent Schoemehl Jr; Ronald L. Jackson, assistant director of St. Louis For Kids; Robert Archibald, president of the Missouri Historical Society; and M. Darnetta Clinkscale, director of patient care at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.

"We chose four excellent candidates who endorsed our platform to work together to dramatically improve the schools," Slay said in a prepared statement.

A curious reader will logically ask what platform is Slay referring to? What are its essential goals? How does the slate plan to get there? The Post provides no answers. Rather, reporters Carolyn Bower and Jo Mannies spend most of the article giving a complaining voice to those who were not selected. Even the name of Slay's coalition goes unreported. Not until Feb. 23 do we read the name St. Louis Education Coalition (SLEC).

Meanwhile, it was hard to distinguish editorial from news coverage in the St. Louis American. From late January through the election the paper ran enthusiastic headlines and photos endorsing the Slay team above the masthead. The week of the election, the paper ran pictures of Jackson and Archibald on its front page with the headline, "Choosing CEO #1 Job for New School Board."

Perhaps the American has good reason to be biased: the mayor's effort to put together a slate was sponsored by publisher Donald Suggs in September 2002.

Calls and e-mails made by SJR to St. Louis American City Editor Alvin Reid were not returned-nor were numerous calls to the new board members.

Wagman, on Feb. 23, wrote 1,057 words detailing the "colorful" character of many of the candidates. We learn, for example, that Robert A. Volz has a penchant for bow ties. Candidate Alice Bell tellingly reveals, "(I do) not have lots of money."

All well and good. But with a field so large, editorial judgment suggests narrowing the focus of coverage to those candidates with a likely chance of victory. The article, however, goes the opposite direction-not a single scrap of information about the Slay team's platform, goals or educational philosophy is revealed. Surely it was obvious to Wagman and his editors that Schoemehl, et al, were far more likely to win than Volz and his bow ties.

In the same issue, Jo Mannies, a political columnist, meticulously covers the legalistic aspects of the race: state laws concerning joint campaigns, name placement on the ballot and various endorsements garnered by the candidates from ward organizations. Technically, Mannies' column qualifies as a school board story, but nothing substantive is revealed about the slate's agenda.

On March 11, Wagman spends 700 words bemoaning the alleged lack of interest among voters in the school board race. The campaign "so far has been a low-key, low-budget affair," he declares. There is no mention of privatization or corporate turnaround firms.

In Wagman and Carolyn Bower's roundup on area school board races (Sunday, March 16), the reporters rely heavily on comments by Donald R. McAdams, director of the Houston-based Center for Reform of School Systems. McAdams stressed the importance of electing the candidate who "enhances the reputation of the board" rather than candidates seeking broad seats to advance their political ambitions. "The person who understands big systems and politics is much better-prepared," McAdams told the reporters.

"When it comes to political acumen," wrote Wagman and Bower, "nobody on the crowded St. Louis School Board ballot-and perhaps ballots across the region-compares to Vincent C. Schoemehl Jr." The reporters were stating a fact, but in the context of the arguments made by McAdams, the statement is akin to an endorsement.

Meanwhile, the Post's editorial page gushed with enthusiasm for Slay's team, calling Slay's platform "a good one," focused on "academic excellence, high-quality teachers and technology that boost the quality of instruction, along with better planning, budgeting and accounting controls."

Crossing the line into shameless political sycophancy, the paper says a vote for the mayor's candidates is an "investment in a future in which every child has a chance to succeed," one in which "every teacher is supported" and "every principal articulates a clear message of high expectations to students."

Why no mention of a corporate turnaround firm running the district at a cost 25 times higher than Hammonds' last salary? The answer, as Wagman now concedes, is that Post editors had no idea such a proposal was on the table.

At forums and in its campaign literature, an opposing slate put together by board member Amy Hilgemann proposed replacing Hammonds with someone with management expertise, probably a non-educator. The Slay candidates largely agreed on the need to hire a temporary manager, but at the first board meeting after the election, it became clear that they had a much more controversial and expensive approach in mind.

Christine Bertelson, editorial page editor at the Post is unapologetic. Citing the relative cohesion of the "Four for Our Future" candidates, she says, "Although they certainly were perceived as Francis' candidates, they presented themselves more united and coming from the community, especially on the north side."

Did the Post have its mind made up before it interviewed the candidates? "That's crap. And you can quote me on that," Bertelson said.

At last, on March 31, Wagman writes an article headlined, "Picking superintendent is key issue." He discusses three possible choices for the new school board: a prominent educator, a nontraditional leader from business or the military, or "the likely proposition ... a hatchet man or woman who will have a short stay and quick impact." Wagman calls the third option "likely" because Archibald and Schoemehl had advocated it, but there is no reference to an outside firm.

On April 3, Wagman writes his last story before the election. In the last paragraph of a long story (911 words), Schoemehl says he would consider allowing selected, persistently failing schools to be managed by a for-profit company. "If we can't fix certain schools or certain situations," Schoemehl says, "I'm open to any solution."

This cryptic statement-buried in the last sentence in the last paragraph of the last campaign story-is the only known reference on the pages of the Post regarding privatization.

Invisible platforms, hidden meetings
Those who defend the winning candidates, along with the Post's murky coverage of the campaign, insist that the possibility of hiring an interim superintendent-perhaps drawn from the ranks of corporate or military leaders-was discussed many times by many candidates. This is a fact. But the inference readers must draw from the term interim superintendent-the dreaded "hatchet man or woman"-is clear, i.e., that an individual will be selected.

The argument that an interim superintendent hired from the corporate world (or anywhere else) is synonymous with a for-profit corporation is ludicrous. As Wagman himself says: "We had done stories saying that (hiring an individual from the business community) was keeping with a pattern of other major urban school districts to hire non-traditional superintendents. We thought they were going to follow this mode and hire a non-traditional superintendent. We had no idea how non-traditional they were going to go."

Translation: the Post-and therefore voters-had no real understanding of the sweeping approach about to be taken by the subsequent winners.

Granted, Slay's candidates did little to help the media during the race. The slate said little about specific proposals in its campaign literature. One leaflet prepared and mailed out by SLEC on behalf of the candidates warned voters that "time is running out" to "take back our school board." Another flyer for the Slay team promised improved safety "by returning discipline to the St. Louis classrooms" and "by helping our students build character."

The literature made no reference at all to privatizing services or bringing in an outside management firm. Furthermore, members of the slate who sat down with the Post editorial board did not offer any hints of privatization. "We did not talk to the Post specifically about that prior to the election," Board President Clinkscale remembers. "We talked about change artists and that sort of thing."

Predictably, Schoemehl and his three running mates cruised to victory, garnering a combined 54,830 votes to 47,764 for the remaining 14 candidates. Volz and his bow ties received 1,831 votes.

Yet even after the election, when it was clear the new board would be moving swiftly to institute a radical, never-before-tried agenda, Wagman and his editors were slow to catch the news. Nowhere is that more obvious than in the coverage of two clandestine board meetings reported by the Post.

On April 19, Wagman reports that the newly elected members had met in secret twice, prior to being sworn in, in order to discuss board business. The story degenerates into a quibbling debate over whether the meetings were a violation of the Missouri Sunshine Law in deed or in spirit.

But, significantly, Wagman makes no attempt to report what was actually discussed at the secret meetings. Typical of the Post's coverage throughout the entire campaign, he is far more interested in reporting the technical violations of the gathering-in short, the political processes-rather than the meaningful content of what took place.

It should be said that Wagman is a skilled and energetic young reporter, one who, perhaps, ran aground of a seasoned and highly sophisticated political machine. "My feeling was that the idea of hiring the turnaround firm came a lot from Schoemehl," Wagman says now. "It's tough to say whether he knew the whole time he was going to do this, or this is something that occurred to him."

Veteran observers of the St. Louis political scene throw their vote toward the latter. In any event, Wagman isn't sure he could have done anything differently. "I think we were plenty tough," he says. "I think I did a good job."

Robert Joiner, a member of the Post's editorial board, now says (a bit late) that he is suspicious of the mayor's accumulated powers and doesn't put "a lot of credence" in what Slay says. He is worried that the new school board may not be adequately involving "broad segments of the community" in its plans.

If only those concerns had been raised prior to the election.

Requiem for a loser
Pew pulls the plug on public journalism
By Don Corrigan
The distinguished and infamous Pew Center for Civic Journalism shut its doors and closed its checkbook this May. Eulogies and retrospectives on the great experiment known as public (or civic) journalism soon followed.

Even before the Pew Center was shuttered, an article in Editor & Publisher (E&P) anticipated the death of public journalism with an impolite subhead: "Funerals can be downers, but save me a front-row seat for this one."

Public journalism's detractors are giddy, jubilant, frothing-ready to dance on its grave. At the risk of appearing gauche and insensitive, SJR also would like to join in on the fun.

Of course, the public journalism advocates insist that, like Mark Twain, reports of their journalism reform movement's death have been greatly exaggerated. Still, it's hard to imagine how the wind can be kept in public journalism's sails-and in its windbag cheerleaders-without the breezy promotional apparatus and bags of cash provided by the foundation folks at the Pew Center.

During its 10-year reign, the Pew Charitable Trusts, whose billions come from the heirs to the Sun Oil fortune, subsidized more than $14 million worth of public journalism projects. Pew Center paid for polls, citizen forums, focus groups, special reporting initiatives-more than 120 projects in newsrooms across the country.

SJR first took aim at the public journalism movement in 1995 with a July/August issue largely devoted to examining the phenomenon. The Freedom Forum's Everette Dennis asked whether public journalism was requiring reporters to act as social workers and community organizers.

SJR also reprinted a speech by William Woo, then editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who asked whether public journalism wasn't destroying any semblance of objectivity with its suggestion that newspapers convene civic events while then proceeding to cover these same events.

In the mid-1990s, SJR could only critique the various public journalism phenoms and projects from a distance as they unfolded in places like Portland, Me.; Madison, Wis.; and Wichita, Kan. Advocates proclaimed that public journalism naturally took hold at small papers that were not beholden to the traditionalist values of big city elitist dailies.

And then Woo was deposed from his editorship at the Post. His replacement in late 1996 was none other than one of the most vocal gurus for public journalism, Cole Campbell, who immediately went to work as a "change agent" bent on bringing a new "civic culture" to an often reluctant newsroom.

Front row seat
With Campbell at the Post, SJR no longer had to be content with attempting to chronicle episodic public journalism from afar. Now SJR could get out its looking glass and examine this new brand of journalism as executed in holistic fashion by one of its most visible, self-proclaimed practitioners.

And Campbell brought in public journalism's heavy hitters to the Post, including Jay Rosen, a professor at New York University and the director of the Project on Public Life and the Press, which was being funded by the Knight Foundation. His study, "What Are Journalists For?" instructs the press to take an active role in promoting citizenship, improving political debate and reviving public life.

Rosen and Campbell were soul mates since the early 1990s in the public journalism movement. Before coming to the Post, Campbell was editor of The Pilot in Norfolk, Va., where he reorganized the paper's newsroom. He created reporting teams to cover local issues using public journalism methodology. Rosen touted Campell's approach to journalism in seminars from Orange County to Dade County.

"I was there to talk about what reporters do and to visit with the editorial department and the education team," Rosen told SJR after his seminar at the Post. "I gave a lunch time talk about the Pulitzer legacy. I took some of the platform language and other inspiring words and reinterpreted them in the context of today's time and place.

"I don't know how much I want to talk about the visit, because it wasn't a public meeting," added Rosen, whose sole reporting credentials consisted of an internship at the daily in Buffalo, N.Y. "But in a very broad sense, I was at the Post to talk about how we can hold public institutions accountable, about how we can get citizens involved in public life ... I was just there to widen the lens through which reporters see their roles and their work."

SJR contacted Post reporters in the early days of the Campbell reign, but most were reluctant to talk at the time or went off-the-record with their comments.

"Our boss is known around the country as one of the most visible public journalism advocates," said one Post reporter. "It shouldn't be any mystery why those with reservations about public journalism would be reluctant to talk about it."

Another journalist, who wished to remain off-the-record, said she attended Rosen's luncheon talk at the Post about the Pulitzer creed. She said she was troubled by Rosen's answers to questions about public journalism after his talk.

"Rosen said journalism should not be measured by its prizes, but in how it helps democracy flourish," she said. "But when Rosen was asked for some concrete examples of how this new public journalism has encouraged democracy, he didn't have a whole lot to say."

As Campbell's own tutelage on public journalism and newsroom reorganization plans became more outlandish, Post editors and scribes went "public" with their shop criticism. One editor told SJR how he hung up on a complaining subscriber, telling her that he didn't have time to talk, he was late for a seminar on "how to end disconnect with readers."

Campbell's initiatives at the Post began to attract national attention. His special "Imagine St. Louis" Sunday section was praised by Pew publications, damned elsewhere. American Journalism Review ran a piece entitled "The Change Agents," noting that Campbell brought in the "Harwood Initiative" to train reporters at a cost of $250,000 to Pulitzer Publishing.

Of course, that was probably a modest fee for, as Harwood put it, "pulling editorial dinosaurs into the age of new journalistic reflexes. Reflexes that will inspire citizens to once again care about their neighborhoods, their larger community and their daily newspaper that is hemorrhaging circulation."

Post reporters and editors did not go quietly as they were dragged into the era of "new reflexes," "civic capital" and "connectedness." Some became vocal dissidents; others quiet saboteurs. Some jumped ship. Many delighted in leaking newsroom speeches, memos, action plans and newsroom reorganization schematics to SJR for publication and critique.

Campbell's use of the Post as a public journalism guinea pig was headed for failure-and his reign as editor was cut short, ending in April 2000. The reportorial reshuffling, the citizen forums, the newsroom seminars on "mapping the civic swamp," alas, did not stem the circulation skid at the only surviving daily in St. Louis.

The top 10 sins
With the advantage of having read almost all of the various monographs, screeds and apostles' creeds of public journalism; and with the advantage of having observed public journalism in action, close-up at a major U.S. daily, this edition of SJR offers its top 10 sins of public journalism as the movement now teeters at the edge of the grave with the recent closing of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism:

1.) Counterfeit reform. There is no question American journalism is in serious trouble and needs "reform." It is a product of news media outlets concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. It is market-driven, risk-averse and superficial when not provincial. Local coverage is often boosterish; global coverage is sparse-until war time when it circles the wagons and becomes jingoistic.

The essential failure of public journalism is that it failed to address any of these maladies. Instead, it scolded reporters for journalism that is too "conflict-driven" and too apt to "giving voices to the extremes." The irony in this is that, in fact, the range of political discourse in U.S. media outlets is pitifully anemic compared to its European counterparts.

American journalism's failure to engage in in-depth, "watchdog" genre reporting is evident in the Project Censored compilation of stories that are missed annually. Many of the best stories in recent years-the 2000 Florida election debacle, the Jessica Lynch rescue hoax, the falsification of intelligence on Iraqi WMDs-have originated with British news media.

2.) Coverage for cash. One of the most criticized aspects of public journalism involves cash for reporting projects. What precedent is set when foundation money is allowed into the newsroom? If a story is worthy of assignment and publication, why would a newspaper wait for financing by Pew or others to initiate it?

The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., bumped up against these issues, when it accepted $170,000 of Pew funding for an anti-crime series that became a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Editors came to realize that it was reporting that should have taken place without outside assistance.

Are newspapers charitable causes? What strings are attached when news entities start taking cash for coverage?

3.) Politicizing journalism. The recent E&P obit on public journalism took aim at its willingness to jettison objectivity in favor of taking sides on a "citizen agenda." The argument went that there are communitarian goals which journalists should advocate without hesitation as part of their civic responsibility.

As E&P noted, this dictum has translated into journalists getting in bed with politicians who are deemed to be promoting a civic agenda. This is overtly manifested in journalists endorsing candidates, speaking at fundraisers, contributing to political candidates and writing speeches. It is more covertly manifested in bias found in story coverage.

"In recent years, Pew's form of civic journalism appears to have encouraged journalists to routinely engage in bad civic behavior," noted the E&P piece. Of course, there are other factors leading to politicized journalism as noted in the sidebar to this story (see page 21).

4.) Old values devalued. Bill Woo, past Post editor and an eloquent defender of traditional journalism, argues that the public journalism gurus have been far too eager to throw overboard concepts such as objectivity, detachment, impartiality and what makes news.

"They are an important heritage," declared Woo. "Before we set them aside, before we declare them obsolete and rush on to something else, we need to understand carefully what we are throwing out. We need a more persuasive argument."

5.) Asinine attachments. In Woo's defense of the journalistic value of detachment, he declared: "When the lion lies down with the lamb, when the editor and the real estate broker and the banker and the elected official form a team, whose ethics, whose culture prevails?"

In jettisoning detachment, public journalists have taken on some asinine attachments in their civic projects. For example, to push for economic redevelopment in their circulation areas, they've linked with banks to subsidize community pizza parties where citizens can engage in "deliberative dialogue" to be duly recorded by attending reporters.

6.) Reporters demoralized. Any reasonable assessment of the plight of reporters today has to be grim. They are over-educated but underpaid to the extent that in some markets they qualify for food stamps. In some news chains, they are expected to churn out eight, 12 or more stories per week - with "convergence," they are expected to adapt that copy to websites and broadcast as well.

The public journalism gurus, instead of taking up the cause of reporters, simply piled on. They accused reporters of being arrogant, aloof, conflict-oriented, elitist and in need of reform. To their normal story loads, the gurus added the obligations of attending seminars and organizing forums and community meetings.

Bruce Gellerman, a Boston broadcast journalist who once led public journalism projects for WBUR Radio in Beantown, rebelled against public journalism and came to loathe the rhetoric of public journalism.

"I don't buy it. It's an intellectual circle jerk," observed Gellerman in a 1996 book, edited by professor Jay Black, a study largely favorable to public journalism.

"People who don't do journalism or haven't done it in years are trying to tell us how to do it. I think it's garbage ... I'm sorry people don't vote," noted Gellerman, referring to reporting projects that get news operations involved in registering people to vote. "I'm sorry people don't listen, but my job isn't to make them listen. I'm not into advocacy journalism."

7.) Newsrooms debilitated. The gurus of public journalism left any number of newsrooms in chaos. They abolished beat systems because they caused "myopia and tunnel-vision." They replaced the city or school beats with less hierarchical groups of reporters, such as "public life teams."

The problem with teams is that everyone and no one is accountable. When a story is missed on what was the old police or court beat, who is responsible for dropping the ball? Even more bizarre is the process of writing a story series by committee.

At the Post under Campbell, team leaders were given an "expedition map" to coordinate a new newsroom agenda and cultural transformation. The agenda included day-long retreats, reading and reflection days on team topics and one-on-one sessions with consultants to get past reporting myopia. 8.) Focus hocus pocus. One of the hallmarks of public journalism is the citizen focus group and town hall meetings. A major problem with newspapers convening meeting is how should these events be covered if they are poorly attended or end up in disaster?

Columbia Journalism Review reported on one of the early town hall meeting experiments in southern California, where a paper sponsored a peace summit between Koreans angry with law enforcement over a local police action. It degenerated into a shrill shouting match.

The newspaper reporter wrote an account of the meeting as essentially a food fight, but the editor reworked the article into a brighter, public journalism success story and "celebration of diversity."

9.) Framing for mediocrity. The public journalists decry how reporters typically engage in "framing stories in the conflict mode." Under this kind of framing, journalists give voice to the extremes, the people at 1 and 10 on an issue, rather than the people at 4 and 6 on an issue.

Public journalists say most people are ambivalent on issues, so giving interviews to those in the middle provides a more accurate portrayal of reality. It also provides for reporting that is mediocre and boring.

Who is better able to articulate on such issues as gun control, abortion, hate crime laws and affirmative action than those who are committed to either side in these disputes? What is gained by interviewing those who have no emotional or intellectual stake in the issues under discussion? And who is going to read the thin gruel that comes from the convictions of the ambivalent, the uninformed and the wishy-washy?

10.) Newspeak gibberish. In a profession that is supposed to prize clear and concise language, nothing has been more ironic than the lingo of the movement. Rosemary Armao, a former director of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), called herself a "refugee from public journalism" after toiling for Campbell at the daily in Norfolk, Va.

"Public journalism is a cult-like movement, you're either a believer or a heretic. It even has its own jargon like a cult," said Armao. "You've heard some of the code words. Do you want to hear the word 'connectedness' again? How about 'engaged' or 'set the public agenda'?"

Under public journalism, a seminar-drenched reporter is sent out by his "change agent" editor to "connect" with the ambivalent citizenry through an "effective deliberation" to arrive at a "common agenda" for his community. No wonder so many reporters who've suffered under public journalism are no longer ambivalent about it.

Civic journalism played into right-wing media bashing
By Don Corrigan
The public (civic) journalism movement's call for reporters to become social activists; to express their inner "core values;" to end this obsession with objectivity, detachment and balance-sent traditionalists into fits.

After all, traditionalists argued:

- Objectivity may be an elusive ideal, but the search for the truth should not be tainted by any journalistic bias.

- Detachment is what lets the public know that a journalist isn't in anybody's back pocket. Nobody else is pulling the strings.

- Balance is crucial for credibility. A journalist gives both sides a fair hearing on an issue, then lets the chips fall where they may.

Without commitment to these key professional values, traditionalists argued that journalism would be politicized. Insistence on accuracy would yield to supporting an agenda. Public confidence and trust in the news media would be lost.

The traditionalists' fears have become increasingly realized, but the public journalists cannot take the credit. The politicization of the news media is the triumph of American talk radio, conservative weeklies and the rise of Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes' Fox News.

Radio talk show hosts, Fox News and other right-wing media outlets have convinced a large segment of Americans that no news is honest or without bias, so choose the news that fits your own view of the world. Forget about any professional news values, it's just one big food fight out there anyway.

The right-wing media's mantra accusing the mainstream media of being liberal can be refuted in any number of ways: an analysis of media owners' political affiliations, a study of how those affiliations have affected political endorsements by their media properties, other scholarly research that indicates the mainstream media is centrist or leans to the right.

It may well be true that most reporters tend to be liberal. Studies by academics and by conservative think tanks have shown reporters to be liberal on many social and political issues. But reporters have, up to now, subscribed to a canon of ethics that demands their neutrality in coverage.

More important, reporters do not call the shots on editorial pages or on presidential and other political endorsements. Freedom of the press is for those who own one, and studies show definitively that most media outlets have endorsed Republican candidates in the last 100 years.

Never mind all scholarship and analysis. If a lie is repeated often enough it becomes fact-perception is more important than truth. The right-wing media have effectively politicized themselves and convinced many Americans that all the news media have been politicized.

Even a reporter for a small-town weekly is under suspicion in the new media environment. That humble reporter probably gets his cues from Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and The New York Times, all part of the vast liberal media conspiracy, according to the cacophony from the right.

Paid to be un-objective
Matt LaBash, a senior writer with the right-wing Weekly Standard owned by Rupert Murdoch, recently told a reporter for the website journalismjobs.com that it pays to market the news for conservative ideologues and to be un-objective.

LaBash added that knocking the mainstream media for being a liberal media conspiracy gives anxious white males in America a scapegoat for all the demographic and socio-economic trends that frighten them.

Right-wing news organizations are popular, he said, "because they feed the rage. While these hand-wringing Freedom Forum types talk about objectivity ... We've created this cottage industry in which it pays to be un-objective.

"It's a great way to have your cake and eat it, too," LaBash added. "Criticize other people for not being objective. Be as subjective as you want. It's a great little racket."

No major television media outlet has perfected this "little racket" better than Murdoch's Fox News. Murdoch's minions at the Fox never tire of telling their audience that they give "fair and balanced news," before proceeding to brand anyone to the left of their own paradigm as fuzzy-headed, inept, perverted, socialist or downright traitorous.

This should not be of any surprise, given that Fox News is the creation of Roger Ailes. Ailes is not a news professional. His credentials are as a political consultant to Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George Bush I, as well as being the man behind Rush Limbaugh's short-lived TV show.

Nothing illustrates the Fox News approach like the coverage of Bush II and the Iraqi War. Before the war, Bush was constantly described as a man of "integrity" with lots of "guts," cleaning up after the soiled Clinton presidency. Fox gave a sanitized view of war action; handled it in a sports game format; rapped other networks for being disloyal, while wrapping up its own war reporting with cheerleading, flags and bunting.

In a lengthy and enlightening interview in the May 26 New Yorker magazine, Ailes gives no apologies for the un-objective Fox News and says journalists are "people with enormous responsibilities that they don't often live up to." Of course, Ailes' distaste for what he sees as elitist, slanted reporters is dutifully echoed by his stable of Brit Hume, Sean Hannity and, of course, Bill O'Reilly of the "No-Spin Zone."

Backlash by reporters?
Conservative columnist Patrick Buchanan was once asked at a journalism conference at Washington University about political leanings of reporters. He said most of them were liberal. He added that it was hard to attract conservatives to journalism because they are more interested in making money-and journalism is not the place to get rich.

Buchanan was speaking more than 20 years ago, before Murdoch, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and Richard Mellon Scaife entered the American media scene to heavily finance a new brand of right-wing journalists. Still, most journalists in the trenches today continue to work for modest wages, without a political agenda, and minus any subsidies from Scaife or other right-wing benefactors.

Journalism, much to the delight of media owners, does attract people who do not see money as an end in itself. They tend to be open to new experiences, diversity and intellectual discovery. They also tend to be idealists who sympathize with causes involving human rights issues, social welfare and aiding the oppressed.

Nevertheless, most journalists are guided by an education and a code of ethics that demands their neutrality when reporting stories-give both sides, strive to be accurate, avoid bias. That's why the call by the 1990s' public journalism movement for reporters to become activists-and to express their core values-was met with skepticism, if not disdain.

But what is a journalist to do in the new politicized environment of the Limbaugh-Fox-Savage Nation era? If, as a reporter, you are going to be branded as part of the liberal media conspiracy no matter how professional you strive to be, then why not let it all hang out?

Why not take a new tack on those fair and balanced stories: consider demonizing the senator who is on the wrong side on human rights issues; consider an investigation into the personal life of a political candidate who wants to roll back civil rights protections; best of all, attack any opposition media as in cahoots with Fascists, Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan.

Right-wing journalists such as The Standard's Labash-subsidized by right-wing think tanks and ultra-conservative business interests-seem to be getting a kick out of "having their cake and eating it too." In other words, being un-objective while at the same time accusing other journalists of being "rad-libs" and cogs in the liberal media conspiracy.

But if the journalism profession is as riddled with liberal reporters as the conservative attack dogs charge, then these right-wingers may have the most to fear-and to lose-with their politicization of the news and their destruction of news values. They may not have an inkling of the food fight and the backlash their politicization of the news media could trigger.

Storytelling key to good journalism
By Larry Timbs
If you're a journalist who doesn't understand the art of storytelling and the power of detailed description to bring "red meat dripping with blood" to your prose, you may well be in the wrong profession.

That warning comes from two authoritative sources. One, Jerry Bledsoe, is a former award-winning journalist-turned New York Times best-selling true crime writer who spends his time these days trying to understand and portray the mindset of serial murderers. The other is Marjie Lundstrom, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and writing coach who is senior editor/columnist for the Sacramento Bee.

Both Bledsoe, 60, and Lundstrom, 45, suggest the heart and soul of journalism is storytelling.

Not the inverted pyramid.

Not just getting the facts.

Not AP style or grammar or sentence structure.

Not a gimmicky headline.

So enamored of storytelling is Bledsoe that he readily admits that his tendency toward narrative detail alienated him from some editors when he worked as a newspaper reporter.

"The problem I've seen with journalists," said Bledsoe, who left the newspaper business in 1989 after having written for such papers as the Louisville Times; the Greensboro, N.C., News & Record; and the Charlotte Observer, "is that too many of them don't understand narrative these days ... As a journalist, I never used inverted pyramid structure."

Hoping that journalists will get away "from the old boring stuff" they're now publishing and return to storytelling, Bledsoe passionately believes that everyone loves narrative. "Storytelling is innate and part of us, and the sooner we learn that, the better we'll be as journalists," said Bledsoe, author of the 1998 best-selling Death Sentence: The True Story of Velma Barfield's Life, Crimes and Execution.

Death Sentence is about a serial killer Christian grandmother in rural North Carolina who murdered four people by arsenic poisoning. One of four true-crime books written by Bledsoe, Death Sentence reflects the painstaking attention to detail and description Bledsoe applies to his narrative about Velma Barfield, the first woman to be executed by lethal injection in the United States.

In Death Sentence, Bledsoe almost makes readers feel firsthand the pain of arsenic poisoning. The former journalist, for example, writes of Barfield's victims writhing in pain from diarrhea, lying in their own vomit and feces, and of their moaning, flailing and clutching their stomachs as "agonizing, hot, burning sensations" overtook their insides.

Bledsoe, who today does most of his writing in Asheboro, N.C., or from a mountain cabin in Carroll County, Va., suggests it is that kind of graphic take-me-there make-me-feel-it storytelling description that newspapers today seem not to care about.

But to accomplish that quality storytelling and attention-to-detail description evident in his true crime books, Bledsoe notes that he has to do in-depth, penetrating research and reporting. For Death Sentence, the former journalist spent about 18 months examining thousands of pages of court transcripts, interviewing members of Barfield's family, Barfield's victims' families, and court and law enforcement officials. Bledsoe even visited the graves of Barfield's victims and the death chamber where Barfield died to get a better sense of the story. He had done so much research and had so much material for his narrative that he ended up having to cut about 70,000 words.

"I interview people very thoroughly," Bledsoe said, explaining how he recreated in Death Sentence what happened with the poisonings. I ask (him or her): "What were you thinking at that time? What did you say? And a lot of detail is available in court documents, and some of it is on audiotape or videotape."

Attention to detail and narrative is also a mantra of Lundstrom, winner of the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for stories (co-authored with Rochelle Sharp, now of Business Week) about how child-abuse deaths went undetected because of mistakes by medical examiners and coroners.

A visiting faculty member in journalism ethics, writing and coaching at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, Lundstrom said "that little extra detail can give flavor for a story" and can impart the kind of magic to a story that readers crave.

Example: If you write about someone going to a grocery store, get the name of the store in your story. Is it a Piggly Wiggly? Food Lion? Kroger?

Sharing her ideas on writing with a group of about 25 South Carolina journalists and editors at a workshop on reporting and writing, Lundstrom cited famed Miami Herald crime reporter Edna Buchanan as a phenomenal stickler for capturing details in her prose. Lundstrom says Buchanan won't write merely that the victim was watching TV; instead, from Buchanan readers learn that the victim watched the "Cosby Show" when the blue sedan pulled into her driveway.

Caution, however. Packing too many details into a piece may not work because they may not advance the story. And interviewees may balk at a journalist who presses for so much seemingly nitpicky stuff. Lundstrom, who has been a columnist, magazine writer, national correspondent and editor for several news outlets, including the Denver Post, said journalists should still ferret out as many essential details as possible.

"Keep in mind that people won't always understand why you're trying to get so many details," she said. "It may seem stupid to them, and some of them will say, when you ask them about the color of the dress she wore, 'Who cares? What difference does it make?!'"

And as much as some writers may despise editors, the latter have their place when it comes to shaping the final version of a story, Lundstrom said.

Editors, as do readers, according to Lundstrom, love stories that have "red meat dripping with blood."

Writers should work with editors, "staying on the same page with their editors," to help ensure that the former produces compelling, detailed narrative.

"I really do have faith that editors understand the needs of the paper and of readers," Lundstrom said.

"Work with your editor ... If you think you have steak, and you really have hamburger, tell your editor ... Editors may be able to send you out so that you'll get steak instead of the hamburger. Editors bring fresh eyes and fresh perspective to the table."

In the shadow of the speed of light
By Mike Martin
Questionable acts of commission-fraud, plagiarism, and deliberate deception-have recently scandalized The New York Times and wrecked the journalism careers of Times reporter Jayson Blair and former New Republic writer Stephen Glass.

Journalistic omissions may be just as potent and deceiving. When reporters know the whole truth and only report select facts, they can mislead their readers, damage the reputations of their subjects, and hurt their own credibility.

In recent issues of Discover, Publisher's Weekly, the Christian Science Monitor, and other well-regarded magazines, some of the world's best science journalists misled readers by omitting important facts about research reported by scientists John Moffat, Joćo Magueijo, and a best-selling book on the speed of light.

Faster than the speed of light
In 1992, Moffat-a now-retired University of Toronto astrophysicist-hypothesized that light may have traveled faster in the early universe, then slowed to its present speed.

This controversial idea might explain important mysteries of the cosmos, but it would also repeal a fundamental scientific law. In 1905, Albert Einstein decreed that light never traveled slower-or faster-than 299,792 kilometers per second. Decades of research agreed with Einstein-the speed of light was a constant of nature.

Moffat published his "variable speed of light" theory in two places-on the Los Alamos National Laboratory's (LANL) online archive, Nov. 16, 1992, and in a 1993 edition of the obscure International Journal of Modern Physics D.

"Physicists secure credit and primacy by submitting their papers electronically to the Los Alamos National Laboratory archives," science writer Dawn Levy of the Stanford University News Service told SJR.

Six years later, Cambridge University cosmologist Joćo Magueijo and Andreas Albrecht, the leading cosmologist at Imperial College, agreed with Moffat in a strikingly similar paper.

They published "A time varying speed of light as a solution to cosmological puzzles" on the same LANL archive November 2, 1998, and later in the prestigious journal Physical Review D.

In 2001, in a development that stunned the scientific community, University of New South Wales astronomers John Webb and Michael Murphy reported evidence from distant stars that supported the so-called VSL, or "variable speed of light" theory.

In the shadows
Ahead in the race to overthrow Einstein, John Moffat has nonetheless faded in the glare of Joćo Magueijo's rising media star and the publicity machine promoting his new bestseller about the VSL theory, Faster than the Speed of Light: The Story of a Scientific Speculation (Perseus, 2003).

Recent press accounts fail to mention Moffat or sideline him with niceties.

In an April 2003 Discover article, that magazine's former news editor, Tim Folger, makes no mention of Moffat's seminal contributions.

Despite facts to the contrary, Folger attributed the VSL theory entirely to Magueijo and Albrecht.

"Tim Folger interviewed me for about two hours," Moffat told SJR. "I explained carefully to him how I published the first VSL theory in 1993, six years before publication of the paper by Albrecht and Magueijo. How can he have distorted the truth about the origins of this theory to such an extent?"

Moffat put that question to Folger.

"I phoned Tim Folger regarding his article about VSL and spoke of my displeasure with the lack of credit attributed to me," Moffat said. "He told me that he 'thought about including a few sentences about the real origin of the theory but didn't.' I find this incredible."

Folger, who has a degree in physics, laments the oversight.

"I believe you are justified in writing an article about how John Moffat's work has been ignored by the press," Tim Folger told SJR. "Moffat is perfectly correct in his assertion of primacy, and it was poor judgment on my part not to include more about him."

Moffat experienced the same post-interview oversight by Toronto-based journalist Mary Rogan, of New York City's Seed Magazine, whose cover touts getting "Beneath the Surface" of science and culture.

For her article on VSL theory, Rogan took "a scenic tour" of 35-year-old Joćo Magueijo's "rebellious mind" and found it "impossible not to notice how ridiculously handsome he is" while noticing "a body that goes with his second-degree black belt."

Rogan did not mention Moffat at all, though she "came to my office at the University of Toronto and interviewed me for two hours," Moffat told SJR.

Peer primacy
Unlike the press, the scientific community widely recognizes Moffat's first-mover status.

"There is no question about who had the idea first," University of Montana physics professor Neil Cornish told SJR.

"John Moffat had the basic idea for it all," added Acadia University physics professor and one-time Moffat co-author Michael Clayton.

"John Moffat's theory is more general than Magueijo's, and better developed," author and astrophysicist Paul Davies told SJR. "I personally am well aware that Moffat was ahead in this field, and I'm glad this is now becoming more widely recognized."

Even Magueijo and Albrecht recognized Moffat in a 1998 paper widely available online.

"After this paper, as well as its sequel, was completed, J. Moffat brought to our attention two papers in which he proposes a similar idea," Magueijo and Albrecht wrote. "We regret that because we were unaware of this work we did not cite it in the first publicly distributed version of this paper."

Making a mystique
Peer recognition itself does not make a scientist's career, however.

"The legend of who discovers a bit of science or brilliant innovation is really the result of effective publicity," public relations executive Scott Hildula of San Francisco's Red Umbrella Group told SJR.

Few people understand effective publicity better than a good agent does and Magueijo landed one of the best-New York City-based Susan Rabiner, a former science editor. Rabiner, who described Magueijo as a "stud muffin" in a recent Publisher's Weekly article, landed a six-figure deal with Perseus Press for Magueijo's book.

Fawning journalists have since been tripping over themselves to portray Magueijo as a scholarly stud, a hunk of hubris who walks alone, conceiving masterful ideas about the grand design while drunk, hung over or fuming about the arrogance of the academic establishment.

"At the heart of Einstein's elegant equation, E=mc2, is the constant speed of light," writes the Christian Science Monitor. "'Whoa!' cries Joćo Magueijo, a young theoretical physicist" at once "courageous," "audacious" and "iconoclastic."

"Magueijo's heretical idea-that light traveled faster in the early universe-came to the author during a bad hangover one damp morning in Cambridge, England," Publisher's Weekly explains.

Ideas rather than apples fall from a murky sky in Tim Folger's Dickensian description which also suggests scientific legend Isaac Newton.

Magueijo, Folger writes in Discover, "was tramping across a sodden soccer field, suffering from a hangover and mumbling to himself, when out of the gray a (sic) heretical idea brought him to a full stop: What if Einstein was wrong?"

Press or PRess?
"Journalists are so fond of 'Einstein is wrong' headlines, which are unfortunately encouraged by publicity-seeking physicists," Michael Duff, director of the Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics, told SJR. "Their need for an eye-catching headline almost always outweighs the unpalatable truth."

Building a more palatable story-the legend of a brilliant idea conceived through the murk, for instance-is "a PR phenomenon related to Joćo's book," Andreas Albrecht, now at the University of California, Davis, told SJR. "When this story is reported in a colorful but not particularly accurate way in the press, I think most scientists see it as a public relations spectacle rather than a great event in the history of science that requires careful reporting."

A more accurate assessment of "credit for a research discovery is bestowed by the scientific community" explained Lauren E.D. Ward, media relations director of the science college at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

The ethical responsibility to correct media misconceptions and omissions may therefore fall to Joćo Magueijo-a member of the scientific community.

"Joćo should be saying that John came up with the idea first," Neil Cornish told SJR.

Magueijo agrees-to a point.

"I am not responsible for what the press has written," Magueijo told SJR, and he does credit Moffat in important places reporters may simply be ignoring.

"I cite Moffat's paper in all of mine," Magueijo explained. "I also devote a whole chapter [Chapter 11] to Moffat and these issues in my book."

Making Magueijo's mystique by making mistakes may be a fault of the press, but people in sensitive positions who need credit to further their careers should take note.

"Researchers need to be aware that coverage of scientific discoveries by the press is extensive these days, and on the rise," Lauren Ward told SJR. While fellow scientists may give credit where credit is due, "credit for work, as it's represented in the press, is another matter," Ward added.

Missouri access to electronic information
Reprinted from New Media and The Law.
Access to electronic records in Missouri is pretty good compared to some states. The law allows agencies leeway to make determination in charging fees and whether to do custom searches. As a result, some agencies are access-friendly, others are not. In some cases, agencies have provided databases to news organizations that could have been withheld under the law. Agencies that have been particularly difficult to get databases include law enforcement agencies and universities.

The law
The Sunshine Law defines "public record" as "any record, whether written or electronically stored ... including any report, survey, memorandum, or other document or study." Mo. Rev. Stat. § 610.010(6). A public body may close records relating to "software codes for electronic data processing and documentation thereof." § 10.021(10). A separate law provides access to "records, instruments or documents" required to be kept pursuant to a statute or ordinance. §§ 109.180, 109.190. If a community creates a geographic information system, it may set terms and conditions to limit access to the database. § 67.319(2)-(3) Political subdivisions of the state may place their records into state data processing machinery and allow the state to take responsibility for storage, retrieval and copying. § 67.350.

No public governmental body shall grant any person or entity the exclusive right to access and disseminate public records, although there is a narrow exception when there is a need to facilitate coordinate with industry regulators. § 610.023(2). A public governmental body keeping records in an electronic format is strongly encouraged to provide online or other electronic access to public records. Agencies are to provide information in a usable electronic format "to the greatest extent feasible." § 610.029.

A public governmental body "may" provide electronic services involving public records to members of the public. By statute, public governmental bodies are "strongly encouraged," but not required, "to make information available in usable electronic formats to the greatest extent feasible." § 160.029.1. Customized searches computer databases are authorized, but not mandated, by the statue. § 610.029.

Cases & opinions
The Missouri State Library, the Missouri public institutions of higher education and local public libraries can restrict copying of records received from a not-for-profit online computerized cataloging service that provides a shared database of bibliographic records. Mo. Op. Att'y Gen. 138-87 (Dec. 18, 1987). The Court of Appeals held that selling state statutes on computer tape through bidding impermissibly limited public access by depriving it to all but the highest bidder later marketed these statues to the public. Deaton v. Kidd, 932 S.W.2d 804 (Mo. Ct. App. 1996).

The names, addresses, and water bills of customers of a public water supply district are records subject to disclosure under Chapter 610, Mo. Rev. Stat. Att'y Gen. Op. 95-2001 (June 4, 2001).

Pursuant to subsection 3 of Section 566.617, Mo. Rev. Stat., as enacted by Conference Committee Substitute for House Committee Substitute for Senate Committee Substitute for Senate Bill No. 56, 89th General Assembly, First Regular Session 91997), a local law enforcement agency shall provide to any person upon request a complete list of the names and addresses of sex offenders registered within such agency's jurisdiction as well as the crime for which each offender was convicted. Mo. Op Atty. Gen. 145-97 (Sept. 5, 1997).

Electronic information is treated the same as paper information. In the instances were litigation has been brought to secure the information, the electronic status of the information was not an issue. See, e.g., Pulitzer Publishing Co. v. Missouri State Employees' Retirement System, 927 S.W.2d 477 (Mo. Ct. App. 1996) (pension payment records, which were stored electronically, were ordered disclosed).

Fees
The Sunshine Law limits "fees for providing access to public records maintained on computer facilities, recording tapes or discs" to "the cost of copies and staff time required for making copies and programming, if necessary, and the disk or tape used for the duplication." Mo. Rev. Stat. § 610.026.1(2). Fees for copying public records shall not exceed the actual cost of document search and duplication. Upon request, the governmental body shall certify in writing that the actual cost of document search and duplication is fair, reasonable and does not exceed the actual cost incurred. § 610.026.1(1). The custodian may require advance payment. § 610.026.1(2). However, waiver or reduction of fees is allowed when disclosure "is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operation or activities of the public governmental body and is not primarily in the commercial interest of the requester." § 610.026(1)(1). The public records law allows a records custodian to change "a reasonable rate for his services or for the services of a deputy for the use of the room or place where" a requester makes his own copies. § 109.190.

"Fees for providing access to public records maintained on computer facilities, recording tapes or discs, video tapes or visual items or devices, shall include only the cost of copies and staff time required for making copies and programming, if necessary, and the disk or tape used for the duplication." Mo. Rev. Stat. § 610.026.1(2).

Software
Software codes for electronic data processing and documentation thereof may be closed. Mo. Rev. Stat. § 610.021(10).