Ku Klux Klan demands air time on KWMU

By Benjamin Israel

Attorney Robert Herman doesn't believe KWMU, the public radio station owned by the University of Missouri-St. Louis, has the right to turn down the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in its efforts to underwrite "All Things Considered." He filed a plea for an injunction and a declaratory judgment in federal court Oct. 16 to force KWMU to air an announcement saying that a segment of the popular evening news program is underwritten by the KKK.

Herman said he is fighting for the rights of everyone to free expression without government interference.

The full announcement would read, "'All Things Considered' is supported in part by the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, a white Christian organization, standing up for the rights and values of white Christian America since 1865. For more information please contact the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan at P.O. Box 525, Imperial, Mo. 63052."

Herman said: "If Temple Israel had applied to sponsor "All Things Considered" and the general manager has said we don't like Jews, what's the difference?"

Still, doesn't KWMU have the right to decide what goes on the air? Doesn't the First Amendment guarantee that a radio station or a newspaper can control its content without interference from the government?

The answers to those questions aren't cut and dried.

Federal Communications Commission rules allow public broadcasters discretion in selecting their underwriters.

"No one has the absolute right to be on the air," said Bobby Baker, an attorney with the FCC in Washington, citing a late 1960s decision involving a group of anti-war veterans and the CBS television network.

But Herman notes that KWMU is not just any public broadcaster. "This is a state facility," Herman said, pointing out that the station is licensed to the Curators of the University of Missouri. "If you're going to open it up as a soap box for the Unitarians to pay $50 and they get to say they are fighting for peace and for $60 you can sell Mercedes, you can't make distinctions based on content. You can't say we like Republicans and don't like Democrats. There's lots of reasons for that. It's none of a government's business deciding whose viewpoints are correct and whose aren't ... Even in a case where these people's viewpoints are abhorrent to me."

Patricia Bennett, general manager of KWMU, said the station's license requires it to serve in the public interest. Bob Samples, a spokesman for the University of Missouri-St. Louis said the station "used our editorial judgment. Our feeling was it was in the best interest of the public not to air their underwriting message."

Asked what criteria the station used to make its decision, Bennett and Samples would only say "it was not in the best interest of the public."

This Klan faction has not approached KETC (Channel 9), KDHX or WSIE about underwriting, said their general managers. Of those, only WSIE is licensed to a government entity, Southern Illinois University.

None indicated whether they would accept underwriting from the Ku Klux Klan. For example, Michael Hardgrove, general manager of KETC, said, "We have no specific rules that say the Ku Klux Klan couldn't underwrite a show." However, he added, the station management evaluates each applicant on a case-by-case basis. He did say that KETC does not accept underwriting "that is issue-oriented. We just as a rule don't permit our air time to be used for unbridled advocacy."

Dennis Cronin-Doyle, general manager of KDHX, said that if the Klan called and asked to underwrite a show, "the first thing I'd do is call our attorneys." He said he believes KDHX can use its own discretion in selecting underwriters. "It's not like public access television," he said.

WSIE doesn't have guidelines for weeding out undesirable underwriters, said Frank Akers, general manager at WSIE.

That's okay for KETC and KDHX, but not KWMU and WSIE, Herman said. Private, not-for-profit corporations own KETC and KDHX, so they are entitled to exercise editorial discretion, at least according to Herman's reasoning.

How KWMU fares in court will probably depend on how the U.S. Supreme Court rules in Forbes v. Arkansas Educational Television Commission, Baker said. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit used similar reasoning to Herman's in a decision in that case.

Ralph Forbes, a former officer of the American Nazi Party, who once worked for David Duke, ran for Congress as an independent in Arkansas' Third District in 1992. Forbes sued Arkansas Educational Television because it excluded him from a candidate forum including the Republican and Democratic nominees. Forbes was on the ballot after gathering enough signatures to qualify. According to court records, the network of public television stations excluded Forbes because Forbes was not a viable candidate. A three-judge panel from the court agreed with Forbes.

"We hold that a governmentally owned and controlled television station may not exclude a candidate, legally qualified under state law, from a debate organized by it on such a subjective ground. To uphold such a defense would, in our view, place too much faith in government," the judges wrote in their decision. "A crucial fact here is that the people making this judgment were not ordinary journalists: they were employees of the government. The First Amendment exists to protect individuals, not government."

The court reversed a lower court decision and ordered it to empanel a jury to determine how much to award Forbes for damages. Arkansas Educational Television has appealed the ruling, and its lawyers argued its case before the U.S. Supreme Court this fall.

Baker, the FCC attorney, watched the arguments. He said that the justices' questioning of attorneys for Arkansas Educational Television centered around whether the network had established written criteria for whom to include and exclude from that and similar forums. He said it appeared that the justices agreed that government-operated media can't use the same kind of discretion that journalists in the private sector can.

One difference between the situation with the Klan and KWMU and Forbes and Arkansas Education Television is that Forbes was a candidate for federal office, while the Ku Klux Klan is not. Baker said the only exception to the rule is that no one has the right to be on the air if that person is a candidate for federal office.

It is possible the Supreme Court could rule that Forbes had the right to appear in the candidate forum because he was a candidate for federal office.

Some anti-racist activists argue that the Klan's speech is not constitutionally protected like other speech.

"When you're promoting violence against people and when you're promoting genocide against people, that's not free speech, that's hate speech," said Noah Chandler, a research associate in Atlanta for the Center for Democratic Renewal, a group that monitors racist organizations like the Klan. "They have a right to say what they want to say but they don't have the right to say that everywhere."

Chandler pointed out that no one has the right to threaten to kill anyone, and that promoting the Klan, with its history of violence against African-Americans, Jews, immigrants and Catholics, is on a par with threatening the lives of many people.

Chandler said the effort to underwrite public radio programs, like that Klan faction's earlier effort to adopt a stretch of Interstate 55, is an attempt to look more respectable, more mainstream. "The Klan is based on violence, and it's based on hate, and it always has been," he said.

Racism is so much a part of the fabric of this country, that giving the Klan access to the media is "extremely dangerous," Chandler said. "We are not beyond racism."

"Why shouldn't they attempt to look respectable?" Herman said. "Why should they be denied the opportunity? Do we have a lock on goodness?"

Herman said that Michael Cuffley, who represented the Klan in its application to KWMU for the underwriting, said his organization, the Missouri Realm of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, is not responsible for what the Klan did 30 or 40 years ago.

Then why does Cuffley operate using the name of the Klan?

Cuffley does not have a listed phone number, and, Herman said, does not want it given out to the press.

Cuffley's faction is descended from the one once headed by David Duke, said Mark Potok, of Clanwatch. It has since split into two factions, one headed by Thom Robb and the other by Dwight Murphy. Cuffley belongs to the one headed by Robb, a Christian Identity minister who preaches that Jews are the spawn of Satan, Potok said.

Herman, a Jew who first represented the Klan in their efforts to adopt a section of Interstate 55, said, "I find myself standing up for a group that causes me embarassment ... They have as much right to be wrong as we have to be right."

Herman said that just like the suppression of the video of the Tin Drum in Oklahoma dramatically increased the film's rentals, by suppressing the Klan, the government is potentially making it stronger.

"I like my wackos out front where I can see what they are doing," he said. "A lot of this argument is do we trust people to make choices or must we protect the great unwashed from ideas. I object to anyone telling me I'm too stupid to hear these things."

Chandler said that whether KWMU allows the Klan to underwrite a program or not, "they still got all the attention they wanted."

Chandler concedes that the law may be on the Klan's side. "It may be legally okay, but it's still wrong."

Post gets face-lift

By Ed Bishop

For the last five years, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has been literally reinventing itself. During that time it has had two different editors, three managing editors, a new editorial-page editor, a new assistant editorial-page editor, three different metro editors, numerous other job switches and a tremendous influx of new people.

It redesigned the old Calendar section into what was supposed to be a hip, alternative-type entertainment supplement and then redesigned it back to more of a calendar section again.

It changed the Saturday edition to a tabloid format.

It even added a new level of management between the newspaper's publisher and the newsroom-the position of general manager.

Then, on Monday, Nov. 3, it launched the most visible change of all-a redesign of the entire paper.

A quick poll by the St. Louis Journalism Review revealed a lot of positive reaction to the new design. People seem to think the format is an improvement in presentation and easier to read.

The most striking features of the new design are the six-column fronts and the multiple-decked headlines. Management at the Post hopes the addition of a column will allow more stories to appear on the section fronts and that the three-decked headlines will allow readers to more easily scan the high points of stories.

"We want to make sure that people know there's news in this newspaper-not just a big feature photo on the front page," says Cole Campbell, the Post's editor. "We want to connote that we have a bias toward news, not features."

In fact, the original redesign had seven-column fronts which made it look somewhat like The Wall Street Journal. But focus groups were cool to the idea and it was dropped.

Like many things at the Post, however, there's more to the new design than meets the eye. Sources say that the reason for the change is that Post management has been concerned for the last several years about the newspaper not being taken seriously. They say management is worried about the Post's drop in prestige, both nationally and locally.

They also say management's solutions are all cosmetic and have little to do with news gathering.

For instance, sources point out that with the new design there will be three headlines for each story instead of one. That, in turn, means either copy editors will have more work and therefore deadlines for reporters will be shorter, or reporters will have more work helping to write headlines for stories that could drastically change after the copy is turned over to editors.

Campbell admits that the copy desk will need more help.

"Maybe we'll need more people on the copy desk," he says. "But deadlines will not be shorter."

When asked if he will hire additional staff, Campbell says the Post is in the middle of budget discussions and the question can't be answered at the moment.

Assistant Managing Editor Bob Rose, who has been in charge of the nuts and bolts of the redesign, says in the long run the new format will be more efficient for both reporters and copy editors. He says, combined with new computer programs, the redesign will actually extend deadlines. Besides, he doesn't believe involving reporters in writing their own headlines is necessarily a bad thing.

"They'll think more about the big picture rather than just their little piece of the paper," he says.

Rose says the new format will provide the reader with a more serious presentation.

"There won't be a lot of art headlines, not a lot of color doodads," he says.

Dropping circulation

Sources at the Post also point out that, in the middle of all this change, one thing has remained constant-the paper's declining circulation.

Campbell says that the Post needs a better subscriber data base and possible changes in the way subscriptions are sold. He believes that a combination of marketing and an emphasis on local news will turn the decline around.

In fact, Campbell has hinted that practices he put in place at his old newspaper, the Virginian-Pilot, finally helped to increase that paper's circulation last summer, months after he left.

When asked if Campbell had been at least partially responsible for her paper's recent increase in circulation, Kay Addis, the Virginian-Pilot's current editor, says: "No comment."

She adds: "Cole did put in place a news strategy that put more emphasis on local news."

But she says the circulation increase was due to a "supreme effort" on the part of her paper's circulation, marketing and news staffs.

"They reduced reader complaints and therefore reduced the number of readers who stopped taking the newspaper," she says.

Public journalism had nothing to do with it, she volunteers.

Campbell seems to have backed off some, or at least slowed down, on implementing public journalism at the Post. He says no public journalism projects have been initiated since he arrived.

"Public journalism is an idea, not projects," he says.

He says some discussions on public journalism have begun, that the Post is exploring ideas and that some of the concepts of public journalism have been used on some stories.

"But they're all baby steps," he says.

When asked about the Peirce Report and its claim to be public journalism, Campbell says: "I won't take responsibility for the torpedoes already in the water when I arrived."

He does admit that the Post's image needs improvement but he says the changes he has started to put in place are far from cosmetic.

Campbell says he has already begun to improve three main areas at the Post: 1.) the role of the Washington bureau, 2.) the editorial page, and 3.) the return of the Post to what he calls "Pulitzer journalism."

The Washington bureau

Campbell has added no additional personnel to the Washington bureau. On the other hand, it hasn't reduced it. Some previous Post officials wanted to all but eliminate the bureau.

"I think there's a tremendous commitment to the bureau under the new regime," Washington bureau chief Jon Sawyer told SJR. "In the past, the bureau has brought national distinction to the Post and I think Cole appreciates that. I really have the impression that his goal is to make the paper one of the five best in the country in the next few years."

Sawyer says that under Campbell the role of the Washington bureau is changing. He says his staff does fewer "wire-service type stories" and concentrates more on enterprise reporting with an emphasis on connecting the effects of national stories on St. Louis readers.

But critics point out that if the staff of the Washington bureau hasn't been reduced, its work load has certainly increased. For the last year or so, bureau reporters have been asked to file television reports for Pulitzer's TV stations around the country. A good amount of time is spent filing these reports.

But Sawyer says he sees those reports as assets. He says the bureau staff has a better idea of regional reaction to issues in Washington because of the TV reports.

The editorial page

Look at a Post editorial page from just a year ago and then look at one today. The change in writing, points-of-view and graphics are enormous. And, depending on your own point-of-view, your reaction can range from indifference to delight to horror.

Campbell says he wanted an editorial page that was more dynamic while remaining true to the Post's liberal tradition.

SJR asked former Editorial Page Editor Ed Higgins to comment on the changes but he said he didn't think it would be fair for him to do so.

Others, mostly off the record, say they think the differences are all to the better. Many believed that Christine Bertelson's appointment to editor of the page was bizarre and "came out of left field." Bertelson was a columnist who had never written for an editorial page and had no managerial experience. But many believe she is doing a good job.

On the other hand, many also believe Campbell is closely involved in the day-to-day decisions on the editorial page. For the first time in Campbell's experience, an editorial-page editor reports directly to him and many believe Bertelson doesn't make a move without consulting Campbell. This is, of course, contrary to the old idea that the editorial page and the newsroom should remain at a respectful distance.

Pulitzer journalism

Campbell says the Pulitzer Platform should be the guiding light for how the paper reports the news.

"I don't mean that we should use it as a kind of litmus test to beat up people," he says.

But rather he wants his editors and reporters to remember the paper's crusading tradition when they go about their daily work.

If Campbell truly succeeds with investing the Post with more energy and courage, and marries that to what seems to be a successful format change, both circulation and prestige could rise once again at the area's only major daily.

Most media missed mark on Regional conversion

By Dan Hellinger

For the first time in decades no guarantee of health care exists in the City of St. Louis. Community activists say this is a crisis. A few reporters agree. Other reporters see a crisis brewing. But most of the media have devoted little coverage to the final dismantling of Regional Health Care Center and problems with getting ConnectCare-the Harmon administration's replacement for indigent care-up and running.

As city officials implemented stop-gap measures, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch provided bursts of coverage including some good feature stories and background pieces during the last few months. But, when the deadline, Sept. 30, for ConnectCare to be implemented arrived, reporters behaved like stenographers with amnesia. Issues raised in prior coverage were largely ignored and other reports were riddled with inaccuracies. Although Post editorials on May 23 and Sept. 10 questioned Mayor Clarence Harmon's handling of the issue and warned of an impending crisis, the paper's news coverage remained low-key.

Some at the Post defend the paper's coverage. They point to confusion at City Hall and staff shortages at the paper as the causes of errors and lack of coverage in recent weeks. Metro Assistant Editor Adam Goodman acknowledges problems with ConnectCare coverage but says there is no evidence of a crisis in providing services to the poor.

Television news has largely ignored the issue.

But one radio reporter has provided sustained coverage and raised questions about the claims of some in Harmon's administration. Ollie Dowell, a general assignment reporter for KMOX, says the issue has not received sufficient attention from the Post and other media because "this deals with people, African-American people, who don't have a whole lot of money. Sometimes spending money on these people is looked at as throw-away, a waste of money."

We've been here before

Handing responsibility for public health care in St. Louis to private entities has proven nothing less than disastrous. When Mayor Vincent Schoemehl closed City Hospital and acquired the facility on Delmar Avenue which became St. Louis Regional Medical Center, media coverage of the transition left many questions unanswered. That was the conclusion of Peter Downs of SJR in his report, "Hard Questions About Hospital Unanswered," August 1985. The problem, however, was not lack of coverage. Downs cited week-long series on the hospital transition on both KMOX radio and KSDK (Channel 5), day-to-day coverage in the Post and the St. Louis Globe Democrat, and articles in the suburban Journal weeklies. The problem was shallow and inaccurate coverage.

In late 1995 and early 1996, a short series of articles in the Post focused on allegations by Rep. Quincy Troupe that then-Mayor Freeman Bosley Jr. was de-funding Regional hospital. These stories focused more on the running feud between Troupe and Bosley and its implications for politics among African-American political leaders than on the hospital issue itself.

Between May and September 1997, the Post devoted considerable attention to the closing of Regional in articles by six different reporters and two editorials. These reports seemed to vindicate Troupe's concern that reduced public funding, in an era in which private hospitals are eager to attract Medicare and Medicaid patients, would put Regional at risk-although they omitted mention of the Troupe-Bosley dispute. With Bosley having been replaced by Clarence Harmon in the mayor's office, though, the dispute held little interest. Many community activists think the paper has pulled punches because of its support for Harmon.

But one source thinks that might end. "Now that they used Harmon to get Bosley out, they don't need him any more," the source says.

Do reporters read their own newspaper? As late as Sept. 3, the Post's Mark Schlinkmann reported that St. Louis ConnectCare Corporation, the organization set up by the Harmon administration to take over Regional and contract for acute and ambulatory care, still did not have a board of directors. Nonetheless, when the Sept. 30 deadline was reached, Post reporters repeated, without investigation or follow-up, claims by Chester Hines, the mayor's point man on health care, that he would soon be naming such a board. Jo Mannies' story on Sept. 30 ("Consortium Poised for Takeover of Control at Regional") relayed administration assurances that Hines had contacted potential board members with an eye toward racial and gender diversity, and that ConnectCare would be contracting for services with a "consortium" of private hospitals.

Regional was indeed turned over to a corporation called ConnectCare Corporation on Sept. 30. Former employees of Regional continue to receive paychecks, provide a variety of services, and refer acute-care patients to area hospitals. But there is not much more to define ConnectCare's structure and function than a filing with the Secretary of State's office in Jefferson City. According to its articles of incorporation, the "name and address of the sole incorporator" of ConnectCare is Samuel B. Sterrit, an attorney for the Washington, D.C. law firm of Foley & Lardner. The articles list no health-related (or any other) purpose for the corporation's existence.

Hines and one other mayoral aide fill the requirement that a corporation have officers, but otherwise ConnectCare is little more than a name. It does have a fund for its payroll and to cover vouchers for services rendered to indigent patients by private hospitals.

Lizz Brown, who has followed the issue closely in her morning, drive-time program, "The Wake-Up Call," on WGNU, says the city administration refuses to answer her questions about who will ultimately run ConnectCare or how two city employees can monitor the operations of a corporation spending $3 million per month.

KMOX's Dowell has been able to get commentary from Hines, but she is not satisfied he has answered City Comptroller Darlene Green's concerns that the city may not have the money to meet ConnectCare's fiscal obligations. These concerns were raised by several reports in the Post during May. But the concerns seemed to disappear after Green and Harmon agreed on a plan to sustain services at Regional and city clinics. The Post has largely ignored the issue since that time.

How much ConnectCare may actually spend is not known because without a board ConnectCare has no budget. Eventually a budget will have to be submitted to the Board of Estimate and the Board of Aldermen. Critics fear the aldermen will be panicked into approving a budget without assuring adequate oversight of the system.

Reports placed the amount of money authorized by the mayor to sustain services between May 30-when Regional's operations as a hospital ceased-and Sept. 30 at approximately $8 million. Hines told Ishmael Lateef Ahmad of the St. Louis American (Sept. 4) that he estimates ConnectCare will need $3 million a month to operate. Robert Manor reported in the Post in May that Regional Medical Center was running at a deficit of $3.6 million and that its four city clinics lost $14 million last year. In 1996, the four clinics recorded 250,000 patient visits, of which 40 percent were from indigent patients. Federal aid covered most of the cost.

ConnectCare has still not signed a contract with area hospitals to provide services. Executives of six area hospitals sent a letter to Mayor Harmon on June 17 citing ongoing conversations with the administration and pledging to work with the administration to develop "an integrated health care delivery model." But the letter speaks of no "consortium," a term tossed about loosely in media reports. The Post acknowledged in an editorial on Sept. 10 that no agreement was ever reached, but its reports continue to assume planning for one is under way. In fact, two of the institutions-St. Louis University Hospital and Deaconess Incarnate Word-are passing under control of the national health care conglomerate, Tenet Healthcare Systems.

ConnectCare continues to meet payrolls and pay bills for acute care, ambulatory care, clinic services, long-term and home health care services, and transportation of patients between facilities. On this basis, Hines has told the media that there is no crisis in health care, that the former Regional facility continues to provide services as ConnectCare, and that employees continue to be paid. The last claim can be verified, but there is no board or other system of oversight to determine whether the money will be spent responsibly. No one is checking to make sure patients shuffling around in this system are getting care.

Post coverage disorganized

The transition to ConnectCare in September was "covered" in the Post by several different reporters, some with little background on the issue. The stories were done "catch as catch can," says one Post staffer.

"I''ll be honest with you," says Goodman, "the staff shortages and the delay in replacing Bob Manor has really made it difficult to do our job effectively."

Manor departed for a new job with the Chicago Sun-Times. Even so, some reporters say editors have not accorded the story a high priority.

On the day of the actual takeover of Regional by ConnectCare, the Post ran "Consortium Poised for Takeover of Control at Regional" under the byline of Post political correspondent Mannies. Mannies reported the "consortium" had been set up by Mayor Harmon and six area hospitals. Hines refused to talk to Mannies, so she relied exclusively on statements by Monica McFee, the mayor's spokesperson.

Asked about the phantom "consortium" and reports that Hines was close to naming a board, Mannies acknowledged to SJR that the information in her article was not accurate. But she says she checked the information closely with McFee before printing it. She says Hines later told her the information was inaccurate. Mannies thinks McFee was trying to be straight with her.

McFee says she checked her information with Hines. "At the time that information was accurate," she told SJR.

Gender and racial balance is still a goal, says McFee. She could not speak for Hines, who was out of town at the time SJR called, but she believed "there are still a lot of things to be ironed out" before a board could be named and contracts with hospitals signed.

Is anybody at the Post going to follow up? Mannies says the staff is currently stretched to the limit, and as for herself, she says her story was a one-shot deal. "ConnectCare and the whole issue needs to be covered. But TV is ignoring it and we're trying to do the best we can," she says.

While the departure of Manor, who had followed the issue most closely among Post reporters, may have hurt coverage, Manor himself often reported sloppily on ConnectCare. On July 1, Manor quoted mayoral Chief of Staff Mike Jones as saying, "We can move to the next level and finalize all the details in the new arrangement between ConnectCare and Regional." Manor described ConnectCare as "made up largely of the area's major hospital systems" and said Harmon was working with hospitals to develop a long-term plan to provide medical care for the city's poor. Presumably, this refers to the executives who signed the June letter to Harmon promising their cooperation in developing a health safety net.

Also, on Aug. 16, Manor, citing Hines, "interim chief executive officer of ConnectCare" as his source, reported erroneously that the corporation had a board of directors "mainly made up of representatives from hospitals and medical schools in the area." Manor cited critics' concern that these hospitals "are likely to deny care to the poor, uninsured patients," but added that, "Hines said safeguards are in place to make sure that does not happen." Manor did not say what those safeguards were.

Goodman says the paper is following the issue despite staff shortages and Manor's departure. Although no reporter has been assigned directly to the story, Mark Schlinkmann will watch the fiscal issues carefully at City Hall, Goodman says. As to shortcomings in the September reports, Goodman says they are a product of the confusion around the issue and the difficulty of getting information out of ConnectCare officials.

Goodman says he and Schlinkmann will follow the political and fiscal issues but he says the main focus of coverage should be on the quality of care being provided the poor.

Amy Smoucha, who heads up the Regional Coalition, is frustrated by the media's indifference to the issue. In a Sept. 15 letter to Mayor Harmon and other city officials, her coalition asked for a contractual relationship between the hospitals and ConnectCare, community representation on ConnectCare's board, and establishment of an ombudsperson to represent patient interests.

Smoucha suspects the Post has made an overt decision to ignore the issue. Smoucha says Post Metro reporter Carolyn Tuft told her during the election that she, Tuft, tried to convince her editors that Regional's closing would be the main issue in the coming Mayoral election. But she was rebuffed and told the paper would not run the stories she was preparing. Smoucha also says Tuft told her after the election that the Post planned no major stories on the health-care issue because Harmon had inherited the problem and the paper did not want to attack an African-American mayor so early in his administration.

Tuft says Smoucha is correct to say editors spiked a major story she was preparing on the financial threats to Regional. But Tuft says this refers to a story she wanted to do in 1996 because she thought health care would and should be the main issue in the upcoming election. She says her editors disagreed. Tuft says the story in question concerned the dispute between Mayor Bosley and Rep. Troupe.

Tuft faults her editors and the media in general, but she also criticizes activists for failing to focus on the story at the time Troupe was trying to raise the issue. Tuft also says Smoucha misunderstood her comment on Harmon having inherited the problem. Tuft says she was not saying the paper was laying off Harmon but pointing out that advocacy groups could have been more effective had they been willing to act earlier.

"Why weren't they out criticizing and demonstrating against the Bosley administration then?" Tuft asks. "I was just pointing out that I was trying to raise the issue before the activist groups were raising an alarm."

Another Post source expressed a harsher view of the Regional Coalition and other activist groups. Asked whether the lack of a board, a budget and oversight for ConnectCare didn't merit higher priority in coverage, the source replied, "We printed their criticisms, but they seem to think we have to repeat them again and again because they want to see their names in the paper."

Lizz Brown, whose radio program concentrates on concerns of the African-American community, says many critics of ConnectCare were suspicious of Troupe's views and saw them as part of an effort by Bosley's opponents to prevent his re-election.

Although Tuft is critical of activists in some respects, she says she respects their motives and shares their anxiety about health care. "Forgive the exaggeration, but it's a little like you were trying to report on the Holocaust in the early 1930s, but no one would believe the crisis would grow to the proportions it did," she says.

Peter Downs, who relied heavily on grassroots activists and Regional employees to research his articles for SJR 10 years ago, agrees with Tuft that reluctance to criticize Bosley limited public exposure of Regional's decline. But he also agrees with activists in the Regional Health Care Coalition like Smoucha who say that the media shouldn't have to rely upon them "to do their job."

Weekly papers indifferent

Neither the Northside press nor the Riverfront Times has devoted many column inches to coverage of ConnectCare. The only article to explore the issue in depth was Lateef Ahmad's report in the Sept. 4 St. Louis American.

The St. Louis Sentinel, although it devoted plenty of column inches to the feud between State Senator J.B. Banks and the Post, failed to print one inch of news or editorial content on an issue that deeply and disproportionately affects the African-American population. Neither paper covered the passing of the Sept. 30 deadline.

Safir Ahmed, managing editor of the RFT, pleads, "This is a very small paper with a very small staff. One person, D. B. Wilson, is covering airport expansion, urban sprawl, desegregation, and City Hall."

In recent weeks, the RFT has featured in-depth articles on the issues mentioned by Ahmed, as well as Monsanto's involvement with biotechnology, and MetroLink. Does ConnectCare merit such attention? Ahmed says, "We covered the hell out of Regional Hospital's problems, but since ConnectCare was created we haven't done as much as we'd like. We will do more."

An electronic search of the archives of the St. Louis Business Journal turned up an April 21 editorial which criticized efforts by Mayor Harmon to keep Regional open. A response on April 28 from Charles A. Lowenhaupt, Chairman of the St. Louis Regional Medical Center Foundation, did not dispute the recommendation but urged development of an alternative. Lowenhaupt cited "a committed religious community" and "the expertise of the Archbishop's commission" as assets in the search-a somewhat ironic reference in retrospect. Lowenhaupt also cited "a paper such as yours engaged in weekly analysis of health care." In fact, the only other article on ConnectCare and Regional found in SBJ was a response from Smoucha defending the concept of a public hospital.

Radio pays attention

Some reporters have been trying to do the job. Ollie Dowell, general assignment reporter for KMOX, called SJR in response to our general inquiry about whether the news staff had devoted any time covering the story. Dowell said she had filed stories weekly on the issue. Her tone reflected irritation that SJR was unaware of her reports, and she conveyed a sense of urgency about the issue.

Dowell says reporters have to work harder to get the story directly from city officials, like Hines, and not rely so much on mayoral spokespersons. Through steady work on the story she has established close connections with Jean Weaks, the facility's acting chief executive, City Comptroller Green, and Hines. Weaks and Green have at times been at odds with Hines, so it is not surprising they would serve as good sources for her critical reports. But Dowell says she has been able to reach Hines regularly and get commentary for her stories.

There is a positive side to the ConnectCare story, she says. She credits Hines, Green and other city officials for at least seeking to construct a health-care system for the indigent.

"They have a lion of a problem," she says. "But they do have it by the tail. But I've also heard Darlene Green say the city can't afford it, and I don't know how they are going to solve that."

Lizz Brown says she's done "a ton of stuff" on her daily WGNU talk show. Brown says she is trying to get to the bottom of Hines' claim to have individuals committed to serving on the board, but the Mayor's aide has been unresponsive. On coverage in general Brown says, "It's remarkable how little has been done." She credits Dowell with being among the few to cover the issue, but says KMOX needs to do more and treat the story more prominently than it has.

KTRS is another station which has sought to cover the issue. The station's Matt Murphy cites several stories in the last two months. Murphy says he views the story as a major continuing issue and that his news director has been completely supportive of his work on the issue. He says, "I think there's a growing frustration with what's come out of the Mayor's office. People are beginning to really wonder. Do they have a plan? Will ConnectCare ever really exist?"

McFee told SJR that nothing has changed and ConnectCare will soon be established. Smoucha has her doubts. "In the face of so much uncertainty, I hope ultimately the outcome will benefit consumers. But I wouldn't bet ConnectCare will last. I hope it does, because that will mean poor people will have health care."

Whose beat is it?

Activists like Smoucha believe the hospital corporations are powerful and intimidating the media, including the Post. Sources at the Post point to staff shortages and lack of experience of the part-timers and young reporters replacing departing veterans. WGNU's Brown suspects a pro-Harmon, anti-Bosley prejudice has influenced the media, though she thinks they may be shifting to a more aggressive posture. Smoucha and Brown say media interest in the last days of October has seemed to intensify, which may portend problems for ConnectCare.

In general, health care reporters, like the Post's John Carlton have begged off the story, citing it as a political issue more appropriately handled on the political beat. In response to a request to interview him, Carlton indicated a willingness to talk to SJR, but said he regarded the ConnectCare issue as outside of his responsibilities. Sonja Shin, medical affairs reporter for KPLR (Channel 11), is another reporter who says the Sept. 30 transfer of Regional to ConnectCare has been primarily viewed as belonging on the political rather than the medical beat.

In fact, medical reporters sometimes do the best coverage of business and political issues related to public health care. Examples would include a mid-September report by Shin about the tendency for hospitals to assign duties performed by resident nurses to non-medical personnel as a cost-saving device. Another would be Carlton's devastating series of investigative reports into failures in the City Health Department. But other Post reports have included no questioning of the wisdom of turning Regional over to private corporations.

And what of health care in the county, the other area originally to be serviced by Regional? While coverage of the city policy on hospital care has usually been inaccurate and sporadic, coverage of St. Louis County's efforts to replace Regional with a network of clinics and contracted services with private hospitals has been entirely null. The county budget for these areas exceeds $17 million. Carlton's Oct. 26 story about a patient denied a Tenet loan used as its example a woman who works in the city but lives in the county. Although Carlton indicates ConnectCare vouchers would have been an alternative to the high interest loan Med Fund denied her, it is not at all clear whether county residents will be able to count on ConnectCare in the future. And if the county's indigent poor need ConnectCare as their safety net, why has all the coverage focused on the city?

Repeating history

The media seem to be repeating the same mistakes made 12 years ago when SJR reporter Downs noted that "Post coverage may have been handicapped by the fact that two of the three reporters who had followed changes in the City's health system ... were on other assignments," creating a situation with little continuity in reporting.

Downs warned that problems with financial mismanagement of Regional Hospital threatened its survival. The lack of public oversight and the lack of media attention were cited by Downs as a major factor behind the segregation of poor women from paying clients in the obstetrics ward of Regional Hospital. Lutheran Medial Center, which was owned by National Medical Enterprises (NME), implemented a policy of withholding certain types of anesthesia from city obstetrics patients, Downs revealed in a June 1986 SJR article.

So poor was NME's performance that after it had used up the allotted public subsidy three months ahead of schedule, Regional's Board, made up exclusively of political figures and hospital administrators with no patient or grassroots community representatives, terminated its contract. At the time, St. Louis Alderman Geraldine Osborn blasted the city and the Board of Aldermen for failing to exercise oversight and establish transparent contractual relationships. Regional's cost-per-patient day was $311 in 1986 under the system of contracted care by private providers. City Hospital costs were only $183 the previous year.

But then that's old history-right? NME doesn't even exist anymore.

Right and wrong. NME was absorbed into the corporation that became Tenet Healthcare Systems, the corporation poised to buy out St. Louis University Hospital, one of the six members of the "consortium" providing acute care to the indigent since the closing of Regional Hospital.

LETTERS

Post editors need monitoring

SJR: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch ought to print an apology to State Senator Jet Banks for the one-sided report it printed about him in September.

As a loyal reader of the Post for 28 years, I was disturbed by the three-page negative article regarding the Senator's history. I cannot remember anything good that was printed about him in that article.

He has a long legislative history. He has been reelected many times by his constituents. He holds one of the most responsible positions in the State Legislature. A well-balanced report would have spent considerable paragraphs on this subject. I think it should be done now.

The St. Louis Sentinel newspaper called for a boycott of the Post. I understand the anger. I am angry too. But boycotts are not the best way to bring together the racially polarized St. Louis region. We need to keep working on the problem and not avoiding it by putting up more barriers to communication.

Let's make sure the Post prints articles that are fair and well-balanced. If the editors can't monitor themselves, then we need to help them do it.

Joan Botwinick,

St. Louis, Mo.

Housing authority fights back

SJR: On Friday, Oct. 17, 1997, HUD officials-Michael L. Tramontina, the Secretary's Representative in Kansas City, Patricia A. Straussner, Director of the Office of Public Housing in the St. Louis office, John Susi and Ken Lange-met with St. Louis Housing Authority ("Authority") officials-Janice Washington, Executive Director, Mildred Motley, General Counsel, Chairman of the Board, Dorothy White-Coleman and the Board's Vice Chair, Joan Bernstein-from 2 p.m. to almost 5 p.m. The meeting concerned HUD findings from an August inspection and the "Corrective Action Order" imposed by HUD upon the contracting functions of the Authority and the Resident Management Corporations ("RMCs"). The six-month Order may be extended, modified, or rescinded after HUD review. HUD officials outlined their concerns regarding the Authority's contracting procedures and oversight of the RMC's, and the Authority corrected certain misinformation circulating at HUD.

The Order covers three areas: (1) the Authority's contracting process and appointment of a contracting officer within the purchasing department; (2) the Authority's oversight of FMC contracts with the assistance of the St. Louis HUD office; and (3) a new 1996 conflict of interest HUD requirement that prohibits a person from serving in two policy-making capacities. A contracting specialist at HUD in Kansas City, Mark Murfield, will review and provide oversight for the Authority's contracts. Dennis Ratermann in the HUD St. Louis office will approve and oversee RMC contracting activity.

Although this is not the forum in which to discuss individual contracts, we feel impelled to respond to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch articles on Friday, Saturday, and Monday, since no one from your staff has spoken to any of the four Authority representatives attending the Friday meeting. The articles and editorial contain serious misinformation that leads to erroneous conclusions. Contrary to the innuendo in Monday's editorial, no HUD finding suggests that there has been "fraud" or "political shenanigans." The "dreary skeleton" remaining at Darst-Webbe, a characterization we can all agree upon, is directly attributable to HUD's failure to approve-until April, 1997-the Demolition Application submitted by the Authority in Sept. 1995, and its failure to take any action approving, rejecting, or modifying the contracts submitted to it on Jan. 15, 1997 for project manager and on June 25, 1997 for project developer and not to the authority's "play[ing] games with housing authority money." The specific contracts with Richard Gaines discussed in Friday's front-page article-which contained inaccuracies that will be addressed in a separate letter by Bertha Gilkey-were not contracts executed by the current Authority staff or Commission, but by the RMC of Cochran Gardens or were contracts issued in 1994 before the majority of the current Commissioners and Executive Director began serving.

Residents tell us that the Authority, under the directorship of Janice Washington, has significantly improved conditions in and around the properties controlled by the Authority in terms of upgrading facilities, providing amenities and landscaping. The Authority has introduced GED and back-to-work programs to assist residents to get off welfare. The Authority's Drug Elimination Program has won community accolades. The HUD performance indicators place the Authority in the highest ranking for financial management, annual inspection of systems, non-emergency work orders, and resident services and community building.

One of the purposes of the structure of Housing Authorities, which are primarily funded by federal dollars, is to insulate the Authority from local political pressures. The Board's reaction to the Corrective Action Order is not to resign, but to work to fix the problems. Anyone who knows the history of the Authority recognizes that it has long been fraught with problems, some of which can be directly attributed to political interference. Many of the problems cited by HUD in the Contract Review Audit have existed long before this Board came into existence: for example, insufficient skilled staff; lack of training; lack of computer capability; failure to follow established procedures. Our commitment when we assumed our roles as Commissioners, was to make the changes necessary to shape the Authority into the agency the residents and community deserve. The Board began that process months ago after completing its own internal audit of the Authority's activities. Problems which have festered for years, however, take time to resolve. What we intend to do now is work in partnership with HUD-and we hope the City-to continue our mission to make constructive and positive changes at the Authority. That is the challenge that HUD gave the Board. When presented with the facts, it is our hope that the Mayor will work with us to achieve our goals. Real change at the Authority can only occur if all of those involved work together in a cooperative effort.

At the Friday meeting, Michael Tramontina charged the Commissioners with responsibility for compliance and enforcement of the Order. The Commissioners accept this responsibility. We had already identified shortcomings in the agency's contracting process and set policy to correct those deficiencies. The Board also ordered a revised table of organization and job descriptions to ensure greater accountability for all Authority functions, which became effective Oct. 1, 1997. We intend to take advantage of Mr. Murfield's expertise and act quickly to correct the specific deficiencies after further consultation with HUD in a spirit of cooperation and good faith, and to do so within the six-month period under the Order.

The Authority will present a more detailed response after a thorough analysis of HUD's Oct. 17th findings.

Dorothy L. White-Coleman, Chairman;

Joan B. Bernstein,

Vice-Chairman;

Mary Ann Cunningham,

Treasurer;

Bertha Gilkey, Commissioner;

Loretta Hall, Commissioner;

Lew Moye, Commissioner;

St. Louis Housing Authority

Gass not after the money

SJR: If Mr. Bishop knew Mr. Gass or his books or the history of the St. Louis Journalism Review he would know that Mr. Gass does not write for money, the implication of which in the interview with Mr. Barnes in the July/Aug. 1997 issue is as offensive as it is wrong.

Lorin Cuoco,

International Writers Center

HERE

By Ed Bishop

Twenty years is a long time. If you were in pre-school 20 years ago, today you could be a parent. If you were in your late 20s in 1977, now you're pushing 50.

On the other hand, 20 years can seem to pass in the twinkling of an eye.

Saturday, Nov. 1, hundreds of people gathered in the cavernous upstairs rooms of the Beaux Arts Building to celebrate the Riverfront Times' 20th anniversary. They represented a good part of what could be called St. Louis' left-theater people, film people, journalists, environmentalists, academics, lawyers, progressive business people, political activists and assorted gadflies.

For 20 years, the cultural and political atmosphere has been extremely hostile to these folks. They've been called naive, soft, immoral, even dangerous.

None of them looked particularly dangerous. A lot of them looked middle-aged. But what struck me wasn't that some of them had graying hair or slightly rounded shoulders, rather I was struck by their continuing commitment to their idealism.

A lot is written about the change of attitude that supposedly comes with growing older. We're told that we now care more about mortgages and stock prices and paying for our children's college tuition than we do about the ideals of our youth. Maybe that's true for some people, but I don't think it's true for most of the people who attended the RFT's anniversary party. For them the last 20 years have passed in the twinkling of an eye.

Just like back then, they still believe in social and economic justice. They still believe in racial integration, pacifism, rock & roll, and an open, democratic society. Most of them are still willing to go to the wall for these things. Maybe they pick their battles more carefully these days, but they're still battlers.

And, for these folks, the RFT is a regular part of their lives.

For the best part of the last 20 years, they either worked hard at putting out the RFT or read it avidly. Many at the party were former staffers like myself. They still feel somehow connected to the newspaper and what it does for the St. Louis area.

The RFT's party was a physical manifestation of what a newspaper and journalism can do. They can help create a community-not simply through presenting shared ideas but by presenting insightful, new information and sometimes heated debate.

What seems bizarre to me is that at the center of this community that has gathered around the RFT stands Ray Hartmann. I've known Ray for going on 13 years now and I still can't figure him out.

Ray worked as a speech writer for Republican Kit Bond, he endorsed John Danforth over Harriet Woods in (I think it was) 1986, he editorialized in favor of both President Ronald Reagan's bombing of Libya and building the Trans World Dome, and he still believes in capital punishment.

He often makes mistakes on which he has to backtrack. He's one of the biggest publicity hounds I've ever known. And his ego is enormous.

But, along with those traits, Ray also has the courage to admit mistakes. He's willing to forego publicity for the greater good. And he can invariably set aside his ego to comfort others. Basically Ray is a good friend and a good guy. During the years I worked at the RFT, we often argued. A lot of times I thought he was an ass. But he was mostly fair and always loyal. You could always count on Ray.

But the thing I like most about Hartmann-and the thing I think that is often overlooked-is that at his core Ray is a great journalist.

As an editor, Hartmann has a drive to go deeper into a story, to connect the dots, to find out what's really going on. Sometimes he misses the mark but he's never boring and he's never shallow. That's also true for his newspaper. And, like all good editors, Hartmann can readily see the holes in a story and, more importantly, he knows how to fix them. His ability to see a story where others only see meaningless details is uncanny.

Hartmann may have turned the editor's title over to Safir Ahmed a year or so ago, and I'm sure he has the utmost confidence in Safir and that Safir calls most of the shots, but Ray will always remain the RFT's editor. He couldn't not be. That's who Hartmann is. He is the embodiment of a journalist.

That's not to say that the RFT is necessarily a great newspaper. In the early days, it made too many technical mistakes. More recently it seems to be lacking fire, to be a little too mainstream. But it has always remained true to its core values-the importance of good journalism.

So, maybe it's not so bizarre that Hartmann stands at the center of this city's leftist community. Like him, no matter how much more money, responsibility or gray hair they have, they're not willing to give up on their ideals. It's been a good match.

***

For the last 13 months, Becky Mollenkamp has worked at SJR, first as an intern, then as a production manager and reporter. She is a good young journalist. Too good to keep on what she can make here. On Nov. 3, she began her new job as courthouse reporter for the Pulitzer-owned Napa Valley Register. All of us at SJR wish her good luck.

THERE

By Charles L. Klotzer

Afrightening report was published in the Oct. 20 issue of The New York Times. According to Tom Rosenstiel, a former media critic for the Los Angeles Times (LAT), now director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, the LAT has instituted a "market-oriented approach to news."

Mr. Rosenstiel's op-ed piece is one of the best summations of the interaction between the business and the news sides. It offers both a warning for corporate owners as well as a hope that they wake up to the fact that messing with the news is the worst they could do, not only to readers, but also to shareholders.

The message is so important that , with permission, we reprint the article in full below.

• • •

Journalists last week criticized a reorganization of the Los Angeles Times, which appears to be the most important merger ever of the business side and news side of a major American newspaper.

If it succeeds, critics worry, it will mark the beginning of the end of the independent newsroom-one free of partisan or economic ties-a principle that has governed quality American journalism for most of this century. But if history is any guide, the makeover at the Los Angeles Times may not succeed. A market-oriented approach to news has been tried before, and the result has often been disastrous.

The plan for the Los Angeles Times, instituted by Mark Willes, the publisher, calls for the paper to be structured along the lines of consumer brand companies like General Mills, where Mr. Willes formerly worked. Each section of the paper, like Sports or Metro, will now be run as an independent business unit, with editors teamed with business partners. If a section can't pay its way by attracting advertising revenue, it should at least justify itself by attracting readers.

Mr. Wille's plan also diminishes the role of the newspaper's new editor, Michael Parks, who got the job after Shelby Coffey III, the longtime editor, resigned. Mr. Parks no longer reports only to the publisher. For many tasks he reports to the paper's president, and Mr. Parks also has a business-side partner, a general manager for news.

It is not entirely clear to what degree editorial independence is being renounced. The comments are contradictory. While Mr. Willes is touting his new plan, he also says that he does not expect each section of the paper to be profitable, and he talks about the need for independent news judgment.

Certainly journalism needs to change. Newspaper circulation is down nationwide by 10 percent in the last 10 years. The audience for network news has dropped 18 percent in four years. Yet the models for success in journalism, even recently, are not grounded in giving up editorial independence for a market-driven approach to news.

The tradition of the independent newsroom was originally developed for economic reasons. At the end of the 19th century, newspaper publishers like Joseph Pulitzer of The New York World found they could attract bigger audiences, and make more money, by stripping their newspapers of ideological taint.

In time, companies erected walls between the editorial and business sides as well. The spirit of independence led to a more professional, more ethical and bolder press, all of which proved good for business. Separating news from business was a pragmatic necessity. The journalist's first obligation is to the citizen. The business person's is to the shareholder. If you mix up the journalist's tasks with the business person's you get muddled and suspect journalism, and readers resent it.

History has proved the theory over and over. In the newspaper wars of the 1950s, many thought the tabloids, with their bigger circulations and their smaller news operations, would put the more serious broadsheets out of business.

Yet in city after city, the opposite occurred. Papers like the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times prevailed, in my view, because they covered news that people couldn't get anywhere else-and the closer they got to relating it without fear or favor, the better it was for business.

The history of television news tells the same story. In the 1980s, CBS tore down the walls between the financial and news sides. After Laurence Tisch bought the company, he slashed the news budget in a short-sighted preoccupation with the company's quarterly stock performance. In the process, Mr. Tisch seriously ...

EVERYWHERE

Frosted L.A. Times and milk

Will the methods used to sell cereal work to sell newspapers? Will people read the fronts of newspapers the way they read the backs of cereal boxes?

We may find out pretty soon, if Mark Willes, chief executive officer of the Times Mirror Company and publisher of the Los Angeles Times, long one of the nation's preeminent newspapers, has his way.

Willes came to Times Mirror two years ago from General Mills, maker of Cheerios. He promptly shut down New York Newsday, throwing many people out of work, but tripled the value of Times Mirror stock, which must have pleased stockholders and executives. Last month, obviously having learned all he needs to know about the newspaper business, he became publisher of the Times following the sudden resignation of Shelby Coffey III, who obviously disagreed with Willes.

The Times has a daily circulation of 1.07 million, down from its peak of 1.36 million in 1991. Willes has visions of 1.5 million, and a plan to reach the goal-the general manager for news is a marketing executive, and a business executive has been assigned to each of the paper's six sections. These executives' functions are not clearly explained, but they certainly blur the long-defined lines between news and advertising. In other words, marketers, ad executives and other suits will have a loud voice in dictating the news that gets into the paper, sitting in on departmental events called-no, not Odyssey-"vision meetings." As far as can be determined, reporters will not offer consultation or advice in advertising and marketing meetings.

Reporters and editors at the Times are concerned, for example, that a visiting executive could express concern that a projected investigative series might offend a major advertiser. Then what happens?

Guess!

An early example of Willes' new approach was discussed recently in a New York Times article. Willes and the L.A. Times have plans for a special section aimed at Los Angeles' Latino population, now about 40 percent of the county's nine million inhabitants. The object, of course, is to increase circulation among this large minority. A delegation of reporters and editors met with Willes, pointing out that if the Latino readers were so important, why not increase space devoted to them in the main sections of the regular newspaper, instead of building what they called "separate but unequal" segments.

Willes reportedly responded that his studies show only 20 percent of Latinos read the Times, and that to increase circulation, the marketing types decided a special section was necessary and would go forward, regardless of its content or Times reporters' concerns.

End of meeting.

Willes insists that it was important, for continued good corporate health, to lower some of the barriers between the news side and the business side, and that the ultimate responsibility for separation remains with the individual reporters and editors.

-Joe Pollack

Ban goosebumps, not AIDS?

Earvin (Magic) Johnson's 1992 book, "What You Can Do to Avoid AIDS," and R.L. Stine's 15-year "Goosebumps" series of juvenile thrillers are unfit to read, say Americans who have objected to libraries shelving them.

They were among books added this year to the annual 100-book list that the American Library Association has maintained for 16 years. They joined such classics as "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker, "Moby Dick" by Herman Melville and "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Judith Krug, director of the association's office of intellectual freedom told the Associated Press last month that the listed books have been subjected to formal, organized attempts at censorship by parents or other groups-demands ranging from restricting access to banning by schools, public libraries or bookstores.

And some Americans still object to circulation of Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn" and John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men."

-E.S. Evans

Is it or isn't it?

Who knows most about what's going on at USA Today? Is it Washington-based journalist James McCartney, writing in high praise about the newspaper in the September issue of American Journalism Review?

Or is it the Gannett advertising agency, in copy prepared for the back cover of the same magazine? By the way, Gannett owns USA Today.

McCartney's piece, congratulating McPaper on its growth in several areas, including length or stories and investigative work by a special enterprise unit, says in a sidebar: "In investigating reports of numerous black church burnings that appeared to be spreading throughout the South, suggesting the possibility of a massive conspiracy, the paper found none. In fact, it found that the burnings were coincidental. There was no evidence of a 'conspiracy to target black churches,' the paper reported. Soon church burning stories began to die in other papers."

Meanwhile, advertising copy on the back cover of the magazine may not disagree in the basics, but certainly puts a different spin on the actions of USA Today by proclaiming, "The trend was unmistakable-and alarming: A series of fires set at black churches throughout the South.

"Led by reporter Gary Fields, USA Today jumped on the story in early 1996, examining the cause and effect of such arsons.

Reporters conducted more than 500 interviews, probed fire records in every Southern state, visited the scenes of 45 church arsons and reviewed more than 250 other fires dating back to 1990.

USA Today has published more than 100 stories since February 1996, gaining national attention. As a result of the newspaper's investigation, Congressional hearings were held and President Clinton created the National Church Arson Task Force. Periodic updates on arson investigations and the rebuilding of churches continue in the newspaper."

Clever writing. Never a mention of the evil word "conspiracy," never a mention that USA Today really went against the popular grain, but copy that makes it seem as if the newspaper stood on Main Street, arms crossed, and held off the fire-bent mobs.

Very inflammatory about what was going on, but also truthful, if you hew to the letter of the truth and don't worry about the fallout from the imprecise language.

-Joe Pollack

Knight-Ridder, NationsBank dropped for lack of social progress

The motto of the Citizen Trust, a mutual fund, is "Performance with Responsibility." Companies selected for investment by the fund are monitored as to their social progress.

Sometimes, reads the fund's newsletter, "improvements don't come and the company must be dropped from the Approved list."

Among recently dropped companies are Knight-Ridder, NationsBank, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing and Nucor Corporation.

Following are the reasons given by Citizen Trust for their decision:

Knight-Ridder

As with most newspapers, Knight- Ridder has had problematic employee relations in the past. However, unlike many newspapers, Knight-Ridder has failed to develop a more positive approach to negotiating with its unions and providing for a more satisfactory work environment. Recently, NLRB ruled against the company in its dealings with the union.

Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing

Although the company is making continuous attempts to improve its environmental record, it is still one of the worst polluters in its industry. In the past we have favored the company because of its good employee relations, useful products and a concerted effort to promote women and minorities. Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing made strides in improving its environmental record by developing numerous projects to aid in reducing the quantity of pollutants it discharges. However, despite these continuous efforts, the company did not substantially change its environmental record over time and remains ranked at the bottom of its industry.

NationsBank

NationsBank has not made satisfactory improvements in its fair lending programs. Although some signs of improvement are evident, we believe that the overall picture remains bleak. Our research revealed that the company's overall record of fair lending is selective and does not conform to our criteria. In addition, its hiring practices do not genuinely conform to established EEO policy. A recent controversy with the Department of Labor and EEO hiring violations in some of its branches are examples of this behavior.

Nucor Corporation

Although Nucor Corporation made satisfactory progress in most areas, a pattern of controversial EEO behavior recently came to light. Before the last shareholders meetings, Nucor's Board recommended that stockholders vote against a proposal to add women and minorities to its board of directors. In addition, the company's Nucor Yamato Steel division was found guilty of serious sexual harassment complaints. Although the company satisfied most of our other criteria, Nucor failed both the letter and the spirit of Citizen Trust's EEO screen.

-Charles Klotzer

$1 billion could silence local voice

For many years, the Cowles family owned two great newspapers. The Des Moines Register, a true statewide daily paper, was a pioneer in many areas, and its famed "Sunday Peach," a sports section printed on peach paper, exemplified superb football coverage.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune-the Star and Tribune in the days when cities had both morning and afternoon newspapers-is strong enough to stand tall against the state's winter winds and has long been a solid performer, mirroring Minnesota social liberalism and grooming fine writers in all areas.

But in 1985, the Cowles family sold the Register to Gannett, with the usual negative results. Once a paper that made strong national statements, it's now much like the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a major moneymaker but not a newspaper with influence, even in its own state. And now the family has indicated that it will entertain buyers for the Star Tribune. A purchase price of a billion dollars (for television and newspaper properties) has been mentioned, and stock now in the mid-$50 range could leap to $70, according to a recent report in The New York Times.

As is to be expected, staffers are nervous. Or angry. Or disappointed.

Eric Black, a longtime national reporter, told The New York Times, "We're worried about our contracts as Guild members and about the quality of the journalism that will be practiced by the future owners."

Black recently wrote a story about the Register since its sale and noted: "Its decline from journalistic excellence, at least as judged by many observers, should be of interest mostly to folks in Iowa and folks in journalism, except for this: The family that used to own it is named Cowles."

As far as buyers are concerned, rumors begin with the Washington Post, which already owns 28 percent of the newspaper's stock. The Los Angeles Times is a possible; Mark Willes, the Times Mirror chairman, used to work in Minneapolis in the cereal business, which obviously provided all the acumen necessary to run a newspaper, and while the Times is in a cost-cutting, cuddle-up-to-business mode, it might see the Star Tribune as a worthy investment. A. H. Belo, which owns the Dallas Morning News and the Providence Journal, may be strapped at the moment. Knight-Ridder is not in the market because it's already in the market as owner of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, causing an antitrust problem. The New York Times may move in, and one never knows about Gannett, Murdoch and others of that ilk.

Interesting-but sad.

-Joe Pollack

Bad luck follows Richard Amberg

After leaving his troubled position of publisher at

the now-defunct St. Louis Globe-Democrat in 1986, Richard Amberg, Jr. headed to the Montgomery Advertiser and more problems.

According to the September/October issue of the Columbia Journalism Review, the Advertiser recently paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by subscribers.

The subscribers charged that over a 10-year period the Advertiser had deliberately deceived and defrauded them by systematically shortening the period for subscriptions paid in advance. But the Advertiser said that it had made the news of the shortened subscription periods known by publishing the details in the newspaper. That news, however, was printed at the back of the paper in the agate type of its legal notices section and apparently the paper's lawyers didn't think they had a sound case.

Amberg has been publisher of the Advertiser for more than a decade, the same period mentioned in the subscribers' lawsuit. His name, however, did not appear in the CJR blurb.

Flowery stories in the Advertiser recently mentioned that Amberg brought traditions to the Advertiser from St. Louis, such as the annual "old newsboy" day for publicizing the newspaper.

But maybe Amberg brought other traditions.

Could it be that bad luck and unhappy subscribers just happen to follow Amberg wherever he goes? More likely, Amberg's management style added to the troubled waters at the already shaky Globe and that tradition has followed him to Montgomery.

-Becky Mollenkamp

Becky Mollenkamp is a St. Louis free-lance writer.

SPORTS/MEDIA

Albert case displayed media hypocrisy

By Joe Pollack

I feel sorry for Marv Albert. Either no one ever told him he should not be wearing Howard Cosell's old, ill-fitting toupees, or else he was too stubborn to change.

Or perhaps, like many a wandering male, he thought no one noticed.

Maybe he should not have treated his girlfriend the way he did, but if a little chewing, or a spanking, or even a touch of the whip, had been a long-running part of their sexual activity, why did she suddenly call the cops? After all, they were both over the age of consent and had been fooling around for about 10 years. I'm sure their games and fantasies were a source of pleasure to them, and to anyone who joined them, as they whiled away the hours in hotel rooms throughout the National Basketball Association.

What amazes me is the hypocritical approach by the American media. Commentators, columnists and editorial writers of all sexual persuasions and sexual appetites went roaring off to heap opprobrium on Albert. Unfortunately, his sin was in getting caught, not in being involved in an adulterous relationship. I don't know that Albert was doing anything illegal or fattening, and I don't think consensual sexual acts between adults are immoral, either. I spent 16 years on the two sides of the wall (more like a faint chalk line) between sports writers and sports p.r. types, and taking a visiting writer to a no-longer-extant brothel at Pershing and Lake avenues was rare, but not unknown.

I don't know Marv Albert, but I know that other media types around the NBA had to have seen Albert and Vanessa Perhach here and there in hotel lobbies, bars and press areas. They probably saw his fiancee, Heather Faulkiner as well.

Mostly, his male friends and peers didn't care. Through the years, I've noticed that men are largely nonjudgmental about what their colleagues do, though they look more admiringly upon those whose companions are startlingly beautiful. At the same time, the sinner whose wife expels him from their home cannot look for much sympathy from colleagues, though he usually can get a spare room for a few nights.

And, hard as it may be to believe, looking at the faces and figures of most sports writers, they do attract groupies, just as rock stars or actors or athletes do. Wearing a press badge is a symbol of power, and Henry Kissinger had it right when he pointed out that power was the ultimate aphrodisiac.

There used to be a woman whose NFL headquarters contacts got her into press hotels in Super Bowl cities, and she'd visit the press room, checking off a roster. She's also the subject of one of my favorite stories. I met her at a Super Bowl when it was numbered in single digits, and a year or two later, when the game was played in her hometown, she invited me to her house. On her coffee table was a book, written by a sportswriter I knew quite well. I opened it, and it was inscribed by him to her. I recognized the inscription, too, because I had seen it the previous summer, in the same handwriting, in a copy of the same book owned by a young woman I knew in St. Louis.

I didn't snitch to either one. Besides, my inscription is different.

There's a great story, too, about a major, major St. Louis media mogul who has shuffled off this mortal coil, as Shakespeare put it. I don't know positively that this is true, but it's too good not to be. Anyway, he was a rich media mogul, which meant he could afford an apartment for his tootsie. The word got out, and so did she, and she met another major, major St. Louis media mogul, who started visiting her apartment-but he was not paying any of the rent.

Eventually, the mogul with the rent receipts discovered the truth; the rivalry, already heated, blazed like a meteor from then on.

Gifts to media types are fewer, and less opulent, these days, but the NCAA insists-even today-that the host city of the Final Four present gifts of considerable value to all NCAA officials during the tournament, leaving Steuben glass, Wedgwood china and other things like that in front of hotel room doors under the cover of night.

I was a young sports writer with the St. Louis Globe-Democrat during the time of a championship boxing bout at the Arena, and I was assigned to do a couple of stories on the event. Press headquarters was at the old Ambassador-Kingsway Hotel, now the site of a parking lot at Kingshighway and West Pine. The press room, on the second floor, was open 24 hours a day. A poker game was continuous and so was the bar. Writers from all over the country hung out there-this was before newspaper reporters jogged or went to gyms. They stayed in shape by drinking, playing poker and swapping stories, with great sports literature the result. Anyway, on a table near the door lay a handful of keys. Writers tired of poker or interested in other forms of exercise could take a key and go upstairs. Each key opened a different room, but unlike television quiz shows, there was a prize-a living, breathing prize-behind each door.

In some respects, sports media types on the road can make ideal dates-they don't come back often enough to become boring, they have expense account money and know the better restaurants. They have sports stories to tell, and free tickets to the games.

I provided some football tickets to a young woman once, for a game when the Steelers still played at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. The woman was charming, and exciting, and the tickets also helped secure a meeting with one of our media types after the game was over. Those were the days before NFL Films, when quality was far below what it is today, but who knew. The style was for the cameraman to pan the crowd, providing some identification of the city and some local color before getting down to action. A few months later, I was looking at a rough cut of the highlight film, preparing to work on the sound track. We were in Pittsburgh, in Forbes Field, and I was remembering a classic hangover as the camera swept the stadium then suddenly stopped on a stunning blonde accompanied by a little girl.

"I'll be darned," I said to myself. "She meant it when she told me she wanted the ticket for her daughter."

But don't worry about Marv Albert. I think he'll be behind the mike again on a national level, or at least a regional one, in less than a year. And he's certainly part of the language. I was at Riverport in September for the entertaining "Lord of the Dance" program, starring Michael Flatley. At one point in the show, he dances toward one of the women (another blonde) and ducks his head into her neck, where he may (a) kiss, (b) nuzzle, (c) bite, (d) all of the above or (e) none of the above.

And a murmur (like a titter only smaller) ran through the crowd with the speed of sound, if not light.

"Just like Marv," was clearly distinguishable.

• • •

As the good ship Rams sank slowly into San Francisco Bay recently, the

U. S. Navy came to the rescue of analyst John Madden. The Blue Angels suddenly roared overhead, as low as a Rams pass-rusher, but with a lot more speed. But they gave Madden a new topic for conversation. Madden, who doesn't fly any more, now that he can afford a fancy bus, was quite obviously shaken by the flyover.

"Can they fly that low?" he kept asking his companion, Pat Summerall.

"They won't do it again, will they?" he wondered.

But they did. At least the airplanes and Madden got our minds out of the stadium and away from the Rams for a little while.

But I'm sure glad Dick Vermeil found the team's problem-a day after the 30-10 defeat, he fired the punter. Wise move, Coach.

• • •

Tony LaRussa showed some of the same wisdom when he fired trainer Gene Gieselman and surgeon Stan London during the league championship series, when the press would be worried about the games in progress. I don't think the Cardinals' medical staff covered itself with glory in the Brian Jordan affair, but the baseball Cardinals acted a lot like their old neighbors across the hall, the football Cardinals, in that sort of back-door action. I wonder if they brought someone in under cover of night and changed the locks on the doors of the training room and London's office, the way Bill Bidwill used to do.

MEDIA ON MEDIA

By Frank Absher

Talk top

The news/talk radio format continues to be the nation's most popular among listeners, with 15.6 percent of the total audience, which is down a point from the previous quarter. Second place adult contemporary is narrowing the gap at 14.8 percent. The R&B/urban music format has its highest share ever at 11 percent. (Broadcasting & Cable, Sept. 8)

Football down

How now, football? Ratings for NFL game broadcasts are down 7 percent this year for games on Fox, 11 percent on NBC and 12 percent on ABC. Observers say the drop in viewers won't make much difference in the cost of advertising, though. With CBS out of the loop and apparently anxious to bid for TV rights, the prices for the rights will remain high and will be passed on to the advertisers. (Electronic Media, Sept. 29)

Working radio

Do you listen to the radio at work? Recent Arbitron numbers indicate 40 percent of full-time workers say they listen while on the job. Those who listen as part of a group say they reach a consensus on which station to have on, and the most listened-to format at work is adult contemporary music. (Broadcasting & Cable, Sept. 22)

Selling out

A public radio station in the nation's capital found a new way to raise money. Management sold the station to C-SPAN. They originally considered selling to a religious broadcaster, but the Corporation for Public Broadcasting threatened a lien of $1 million on that transaction to recover its past donations to WDCU-FM. The station's licensee, the University of the District of Columbia, is one of many institutions needing money and eyeing the possible income from such a sale. C-SPAN paid $13 million for the station. (Electronic Media, Oct. 6)

Digital problem

Digital television apparently has some flaws that are making it less desirable in some markets. Recent technical experiments have found that high-rise buildings and nearby mountain ranges wreak havoc with signals. And there's another weakness that may harken back to TV's earlier days. Viewers have reported picture wavering when a plane flies over their digital television receivers. The three little pigs could also face problems. Digital signals have trouble penetrating brick homes as well as buildings with aluminum siding. Testing will continue. (Electronic Media, Oct. 13)

Net news

CBS is offering its television affiliates a localized spot on its newest website. CBS now will package news, sports and entertainment news along with kids' features. Some 140 local TV stations have signed up to provide material on a regional basis. When the site becomes operational in January, web surfers who log on will enter their zip codes to gain access to local information. (Media Central, Oct. 16)

Late too soon

If you've chafed at paying late fees to your cable company, there may be a bright spot ahead. TCI has recently failed to defend such fees in two court challenges and has been forced to repay millions of dollars to customers. Attorney Philip Friedman says TCI assesses the fees much earlier in its billing cycle than other companies, and he estimates TCI makes $15 million a month nationally on the fees. The company has won similar cases in three states and a spokesman defends the fees by saying, "It's not a moneymaker for us." (Broadcasting & Cable, Sept. 29)

Network decline

The number of people watching news on ABC, CBS and NBC is declining. The total viewers in 1996-97 dropped by 650,000 homes, or roughly 3 percent. Nielsen surveys showed the NBC Nightly News in first place up 1 percent, ABC World News Tonight in second but down 8 percent, and the CBS Evening News in third place off 3 percent. (Broadcasting & Cable, Oct. 6)

Man handled

A former Nebraska TV reporter is suing his two former employers there claiming sex discrimination. Jason Fredregill says female reporters were given photographers to accompany them on assignments, but male reporters were expected to do their own shooting. He says this put the males at a disadvantage and he claims station managment admitted the problem privately. (Broadcasting & Cable, Oct. 6)

Local network affiliates remain off-line

By Becky Mollenkamp

The Internet is huge. So huge, in fact, that it feels as though everyone and their dog has a website. That includes most local media. Everyone from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to the St. Louis Chinese Association Magazine are on the information superhighway.

But not all local media have followed suit. None of the four St. Louis TV stations with network affiliations (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox) have websites. Although there are national websites for each network, no links or individual websites exist for the local affiliates.

Websites do exist for KPLR (Channel 11), KETC (Channel 9), KNLC (Channel 24) and HEC-TV (consult listing).

Newspapers, large and small, have been starting websites for years.

Frank Quitoni, general manager of KDNL (Channel 30), says newspapers were quicker to jump on the Internet bandwagon than were television stations because a web page is "a logical extension" of a newspaper, where the audience can read the paper in their hands or on their computer in much the same way.

Television stations, however, are a different breed altogether, he says. Quitoni's concerns about starting a website are similar to those of Spencer Koch, general manager of KTVI (Channel 2). Both wonder if the Internet does anything to help a medium that relies on viewers, not readers.

"I want people to watch my show on television," Quitoni says.

With the emphasis suddenly being put on having a website, Koch says there are too many sites that are "all fluff and no substance."

He and Quitoni say their stations are looking into developing sites, but say they won't start a web page just to have one.

"I know all the buzz is about the Internet, but what's the real value? Advertising dollars are tough to track down," Quitoni says.

Quitoni says he sees a network's website as an educational resource for the community, but not a good substitute for the newscast.

Quitoni and Koch say Channels 2 and 30 should be on-line sometime in 1998.

Allen Cohen, general manager of KMOV (Channel 4), says he expects his station's web page (which is being developed in conjunction with CBS) soon after the start of the new year.

Representatives for KSDK (Channel 5) could not be reached for comment.

The following is a listing of local media websites:

Radio

FM

WKKX (106.5) www.steveanddc.com

KPNT (105.7) www.kpnt.com/105.7/

KMJM (105) www.majic108.com

KSLQ (104.5) www.kslq.com

WALC (104.1) www.steveanddc.com

WVRV (101.1) www.com/wvrv.101

KFUO (99.1) www.classic99.com

KYKY (98.1) www.icon-stl.net/y98fm/

KXOK (97.1) www.kxok.com

KHITS (96.3) www.k-hits.com

WFUN (95.5) www.netradioaahs.net

KSHE (94.7) www.kshe95.com

KSD (93.7) www.ksdfm.com/

WIL (92.3) www.wil92.com

KWUR (90.3) http://kwur.wustl.edu/

KWMU (90.7) www.umsl.edu/~kwmu/

WSIE (88.7) www.siue.edu\wsie

KDHX (88.1) www.kdhxfm88.org/

AM

WRTH (1430) www.wrth-am.com

KSLQ (1350) www.kslq.com

KMOX (1120) www.kmox.com

WGNU (920) http://mo.net/~wgnu/

KFNS (590) www.kfns.com

KTRS (550) www.550.ktrs.com

Television

KPLR (Channel 11)

www.kplr.com/

KETC (Channel 9)

www.ketc.org

KNLC (Channel 24)

www.hereshelpnet.org

HEC-TV (Consult listing)

www.hectv.org

Newspapers

Affirmative Action Register

www.aar-eeo.com

Alton Telegraph

www.thetelegraph.com/

Community News

www.stlcommunitynews.com

Courier Post

www.dailywatch.com\StLouis

Edwardsville Intelligencer

www.edwpub.com/Intelligencer/

default.com

Intermission Magazine

www.intermission.org

Ladue News

www.swbell.net\laduenews

MetroVoice

www.intecnet.net\fish4men\

stlmv.htm

Missouri Lawyers Weekly

www.lawyersweekly.com

Progressive Woman

www.prgwmn.com

Riverfront Times

www.rftstl.com/

Sporting News

www.sportingnews.com

St. Charles County Record

www.dailywatch.com\StLouis

St. Louis Business Journal

www.amcity.com/stlouis/index.html

St. Louis Chinese Association

Magazine

www.geocities.com/~lanshi

St. Louis Computer User

www.stlcu.com

St. Louis Countian

www.dailywatch.com\StLouis

St. Louis Daily Record

www.dailywatch.com\StLouis

St. Louis Magazine

www.rftstl.com/

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

www.stlnet.com/

St. Louis Small Business Monthly

www.sbmin.com

Suburban Journals

www.yourjournal.com/

Watchman Advocate Daily News

www.i1.net/~watchman

Webster-Kirkwood Times

www.timesnewspapers.com

West End Word

www.iwc.com/wordpub

West Newsmagazine

www.stlinfo.net

CHANNELS

Local Emmys only serious fun

By Tripp Frohlichstein

So what's a regional Emmy award worth, anyway? Not much, many feel. Oh, sure, the NATAS (National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences) honors are fun to win. But to see KTVI (Channel 2)'s Dave Murray in the same group as Kansas City weathercaster Brian Busby or KMOV (Channel 4)'s Joe Petrovich-who is generally considered average-doesn't make sense. And Trish Brown wasn't even on the list. She should have been.

On the other hand, Murray won the award for seven years running against some of the same people. So why the change?

Simple. What this means is the judging of talent is completely subjective (big surprise, huh?). Subjectivity, however, is not bad in itself. One person's junk is another person's art. I think Karen Foss is a great anchor. One friend I have wouldn't watch her for anything.

What is more revealing is the judging process. Not only who judges tapes but when they are judged.

In the "who" category, the tapes were judged by people in Nashville. This is a medium-sized market, which may explain why Kansas City, another medium-sized market, did so well in the awards. It's not that they aren't skilled in KC. They are. But to dominate the awards shows that perhaps the judges like Kansas City's efforts more because their efforts are similar to Nashville-type efforts.

Looking at a sampling of the judging panels, they appear to be qualified within the field. The best newscast category was judged by a director of operations, a production manager, a producer/director, an executive producer and two reporters. The weathercast panel was made up of a producer, a weather anchor, a reporter, two directors and a weather-research assistant. The anchor category was judged by an anchor, a weekend anchor (NATAS makes the distinction), two producers, an assistant news director and a director. Although the panels don't always exactly meet NATAS standards (Dick Thrall, Chairman of the National Awards committee for NATAS says a person who judges must be a "person who has performed or supervised the kind of work being judged"), they come close (weather-research assistants or reporters may not have performed the work or supervised it, but that would be nit-picking).

The time at which a tape is judged also makes a difference. Often, early in the process people watch more of a tape than later in the day when they are tired or perhaps just running out of time. Good talent or stories can be overlooked when the clock says it's time to go, but there are more tapes to watch.

So is KSDK (Channel 5) the best local news or Mike Bush the best sportscaster? They won the awards. And I agree with the choices. But others don't. Some people wouldn't watch Channel 5 and Mike Bush for any reason.

I was asked recently if all this whining meant I thought the awards should be eliminated. My answer was simply, "No."

Even though they may or may not reflect the best work or people (not every person or every story is submitted), they spur people to greater heights and give television folks a fun evening and an excuse to get together and talk shop.

Most importantly, it raises funds for NATAS, several thousand dollars of which goes to scholarships. Now there's a great reason to have an awards night.

My recommendation is keep the awards, but realize it's time to at least double the amount of money going to scholarships for students who want to make broadcasting their career.

• • •

Julius Hunter, who sometimes stumbles as he attempts ad libs, did it again on the Oct. 10 10 p.m. news. After a story about a recall, Hunter came up with, "Some good news." He then paused, seemed to realize he said the wrong thing, and attempted to cover with, "and some interesting news."

Interesting? Perhaps. Good? Not for people who relied on the product.

Hunter has been doing this long enough now to realize he should keep his ad libs to a minimum.

At the top of the same newscast, we also heard the anchors say, "Our top story is" and then proceed to give a sentence about it. Next, we heard "But first ..." and then a whole different story from the "top" story.

Doesn't that mean the top story is no longer the top story but the second story?

• • •

Since this is "pick-on-Channel 4-time" let's complain about one of its newest promotions with the theme "Channel 4 was first to tell you." Most of the formal research (and all of my informal non-scientific research) says that for the most part the audience doesn't care who tells a story first.

What makes a station best is a combination of talent (on and off the air) and the ability to be good storytellers.

• • •

It was a tough 10 o'clock newscast for a couple of the local weather prognosticators on Oct. 8. Paul Goodloe, who makes frequent errors in his weathercast, told viewers it would be "clearing tomorrow afternoon turning sunny in the evening."

Meanwhile, at Channel 4, Trish Brown committed one of her fairly frequent misplaced modifier statements telling viewers there was a "light band of showers." Actually, the band is not light, the showers are. Technically, it's a "band of light showers."

• • •

It was a crime story reported like it oughta be reported. That's how to describe Ruth Ezell's 10 p.m. Oct. 17 follow-up report on the shooting of former Vashon basketball star Sean Tunstill.

The story provided details yet it was sensitive in its approach. There was good file video of him as well. Ezell talked with a couple of people who knew Tunstill and picked excellent soundbites. There is a subtle, yet key, reason, the sound worked so well. They were not cut too short. The one- minute-and-forty-five-second story contained fairly lengthy soundbites.

Too often, in the effort to cram more

in a newscast and satisfy a producer, soundbites are cut so short as to be virtually useless. Sometimes, the soundbite simply repeats a fact (instead of getting into the emotions of the interviewee) that could easily have been read by an anchor.

Given the writing, reporting and proper use of sound, Ezell's story was effective. Most murder stories report the murder and leave it at that. Too often forgotten are the family and friends of a victim and how they were affected.

• • •

And to steal an old Max Roby line, that would be all the column if it just hadn't been for the Emmy bloopers.

One of the highlights of the past three years at the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences regional awards shows has been the blooper tapes. Put together by Creative Producers Group, the tape had plenty of chuckles. Probably the highlight was a young boy (perhaps six) who asked what he thought after what appeared to be a building collapse. His response was, "Holy sh--."

Also quite entertaining was Channel 5's Wendy Erikson who simply couldn't get her stand-up right-sure it happens all the time but it's still funny. As she said on the tape, "no more one-take Wendy."

Cree Craig was supposed to talk about an obesity drug but told viewers it was an "obscenity" drug.

You had to love Channel 4's John Mills introducing a report from the field. When it didn't play, Mills told viewers "It's really good. I promise." But when no report showed up, Mills added, "Maybe not. Maybe we should throw it back (to the studio)."

Reporters and photographers could appreciate the reporter who hears the loudly whirling helicopter blades, looks up to the sky and mutters, "Our chopper is really pissing me off."

Channel 4 weathercaster Trish Brown was reporting the current conditions over a static shot at Busch Stadium when a rather large woman ended up in the shot. What made it especially funny was the sound of Julius Hunter in the background. He couldn't stop laughing.

It was also hard to stop laughing when at the beginning of a newscast, nothing went right for Art Holliday and Sharon Stevens. Holliday looked completely lost. Stevens finally saved the day with a BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious) as she pointed out, "These things do happen sometimes."

And finally, there was Mike Owens getting tangled in microphone cords.

The great thing about the bloopers is they are all in fun and yet often remembered for some time. There are still several of us who recall former Channel 4 reporter Kathi McDonald's gaffe many years ago during a report on hunger as she uttered, "Every night, 20,000 people go to bed without having been eaten ..." What made that especially funny is she didn't realize what she had said.

Channel 11 sale terminates local television ownership in St. Louis

By David Jackson

With the pending sale of KPLR (Channel 11) none of St. Louis' major television stations will be locally owned. While this may be seen as the latest step in the evolution of the medium, it is nonetheless an important milestone for those of us who watch the industry.

When television was in its infancy from the late 1940s to the early 1960s, it was uncommon for a television station not to be owned by local interests. The local newspaper often got into television, as an extension of the radio station it had started years earlier. In many communities local car dealers or department stores owned the local television stations. St. Louis was no exception. But it was also one of the first communities in which outside ownership became predominant. CBS led the parade with its KMOX ownership.

Today, giant media companies run St. Louis' television stations. Rupert Murdoch-controlled Fox owns KTVI (Channel 2), Dallas-based A.H. Belo Corp. owns KMOV (Channel 4), KSDK (Channel 5) is owned by USA Today publisher Gannett, and Baltimore-based Sinclair Broadcast Group owns KDNL (Channel 30).

Channel 11, which has been owned by the Koplar family since it signed on in the late 1950s, is being sold to Acme Television Holdings. Acme is controlled by Jamie Kellner, the CEO of the upstart WB Network, whose programs are aired on Channel 11. As part of the deal, KPLR's former owner Ted Koplar will hold nine percent of the stock in Acme and continue to be involved in the station's management. Acme Television Holdings will move its headquarters to St. Louis, according to information contained in the prospectus for a $115-million bond offering by Acme. The prospectus also provides some insight into Channel 11's operations. According to the document, the 1990s have not been kind to Channel 11. The station had a net loss of $9.2 million in 1992, and a net loss of $6.9 million in 1993. No figures were provided for 1994-a year in which the station's finances were restructured. In 1995, the station recorded a net profit of $1.9 million. But in 1996, the red ink returned. Channel 11 lost $800,000 on revenues of $27.5 million.

Despite Channel 11's poor financial performance, the station has the best ratings of any WB Network affiliate. It is also the only VHF station among Acme's group of five television stations. Acme owns UHF stations in Portland, Oregon; Knoxville, Tennessee; Salt Lake City; and Albuquerque.

In addition to the ratings performance, Channel 11 is also the only Acme station with a local newscast. Station officials indicate that won't change, but the documents contained in the bond offering note that Channel 11's 9 p.m. newscast is a "break even" proposition. In itself, that is not unexpected for an "independent station," but a station affiliated with one of the major networks looks to its local news as a significant contributor to the station's profits.

KPLR's newscast is generally an informative hour, when not rescheduled or truncated by Cardinals Baseball or Blues Hockey telecasts. But the newscast often becomes a prisoner of its hour-long format. Unless there is major national or international news, KPLR's news is too often dominated by reports from CNN. This reflects the size of Channel 11's staff. While they work hard and exhibit an energy that some of St. Louis' other stations could emulate, there are simply not enough reporters and camera crews on the street to provide the solid local and regional report that would be an attractive asset to the station-and one that would provide a compelling reason for viewers to tune in on a consistent basis.

It is heartening to hear that Channel 11's new owners will keep the newscast. I would hope that they would also continue to invest in the station's news operation so that it can compete against Channel 2's new 9 p.m. newscast and solidify its niche for the 9 p.m. newscast in St. Louis.

Acme Television Holdings paid $146 million for Channel 11. It will need to invest many millions more to upgrade and replace the station's facilities in preparation for the move to digital broadcasting. The deal is the latest in the past several years that have seen the ownership of all of the city's major television stations change hands.

There is a mixed record around the country on out-of-town ownership of television stations. Some owners invest heavily in their stations, others use them as building blocks to buy more stations in more cities. St. Louis has fared about average through these sales. But our long-held belief that television news in St. Louis could become more dynamic, more compelling and more comprehensive still holds-and that requires an investment that out-of-town owners may not be willing to make.

• • •

When is the best time to announce the sale of a venerable local institution? How about on a weekend.

When the sale of St. Louis University Hospital was announced several weeks ago, the deal was announced on a Saturday afternoon. The timing guaranteed front-page coverage in the Sunday newspaper, and very thin coverage on television.

Like most cities, St. Louis' television stations have small staffs on weekends. Often, a single reporter and camera crew will be on duty at a television station on Saturdays and Sundays.

During the week, the SLU Hospital sale would generate "team coverage." It was a story that merited that designation even on a weekend. And with the controversy generated by the difference of opinion on the sale, between the president of the University and the local Archbishop, there was much more information to report on that should not have waited until full staffing returned on Monday.

The sale of a Catholic hospital is not a phenomenon limited to St. Louis. Similar institutions are up for sale in other cities and they are generating similar controversies as well. It might have been interesting for St. Louis television to take a look around the country and see how the stories are being handled in those cities. In this case, a pooling of information with stations in other cities could have provided a less than parochial (pun intended) and more complete perspective on the story.

Granted, the story is not an easy one to report. The prime participants are not easy to pin down, and resist the traditional "villain and victim" approach to television news. But, this doesn't minimize the impact or importance of the story, or the need for newsrooms to develop, report and explain the story. It will be interesting to see how the story turns out. It will also be interesting to see how the television newsrooms of St. Louis report it.

The sale of St. Louis University Hospital is one of those stories that touches almost all of the community. It is a story of a difference of opinion between two special community leaders. It is a story of traditions and memories. It is the story of the changing nature of health care. And more. Simply, it is a story that can define the community. And that is something that deserves a lot of attention.

David Jackson is the pseudonym of a TV industry insider.

4,000 high school journalists to meet here

By Don Corrigan

On Nov. 13-16 more than 4,000 high school journalists from across the country will come to Missouri, the state that gave them the Hazelwood Case limiting their rights to free expression.

The high school journalists will be in St. Louis for their annual student newspaper convention sponsored by the Journalism Education Association (JEA). They will hear from a number of local and national figures who work in journalism or who have appeared in the news media. Among them:

• Stone Phillips, NBC reporter for the Dateline newsmagazine.

• Harry Smith, network reporter for CBS television.

• Debbye Turner, co-host of KSDK-TV's Show-Me St. Louis local afternoon feature show.

• Cissy Lacks, former high school language arts teacher, whose firing and recent court battles over academic freedom have attracted national attention.

Ed Donnelly, local convention chair and high school newspaper adviser at Lindbergh High School in St. Louis County, said most of the students will be interested in national journalism award competitions and on-site critiques of their publications. He said many high school newspaper advisers will be interested in discussing freedom of expression legislation in statehouses across the country, bills meant to counteract the U.S. Supreme Court's 1988 Hazelwood decision.

"We will definitely be talking about student free expression bills in our advisers' workshops," said Donnelly. "We want to talk to our peers in Iowa, Arkansas and Kansas on how they were able to get their legislatures to pass such bills. It's just been a very frustrating process in Missouri."

A journalism advisers' luncheon at the convention being held at the Adam's Mark Hotel will be addressed by Franklin McCallie, Kirkwood High School principal and an active Missouri Student Free Expression Bill supporter.

"We've been disappointed by the support we've received from our local news media in the state," said Donnelly. "We would like to enlist national reporters like Stone Phillips and Harry Smith to take a look at the student free expression bills and how they can counteract Hazelwood."

Hazelwood's impact

The 1988 Supreme Court ruling on Hazelwood allows for principals, superintendents and school board administrators to censor or "edit" the content of high school newspapers. This "editing" can go beyond what might be deemed as potentially libelous or defamatory, to what might be considered as too mature or too controversial in the opinion of administrators. Student expression decisions prior to Hazelwood placed a much greater burden on school administrators to justify any actions that would curtail student press rights.

Mark Goodman, who directs the Student Press Law Center in Washington, D.C., said Hazelwood has been abused by administrators in schools across the country. Goodman said that complaints of administrative censorship from students and newspaper advisers have more than doubled in the years since the 1988 Hazelwood decision.

"We've chronicled many cases of blatant abuse of freedom of expression for students," Goodman told SJR. "One case that's amazing because it's so frightening occurred in an Arizona High School. A student there wrote an article about AIDS that was approved by both the adviser and the principal. But the superintendent decided that anything having to do with sex should not be discussed in the school newspaper. So, he deleted any reference about AIDS being a sexually transmitted disease, which resulted in an extremely misleading article."

Goodman can cite numerous examples of articles butchered and newspapers censored because school administrators felt publication of the material in question might cause controversy or upset school board members.

The Missouri Student Free Expression Bill mandates that student publications shall not be subject to prior review by school administrators of the board of education. The bill for high school newspapers further emphasizes that expressions made by students in the exercise of free speech or free press rights shall not be deemed to be an expression of school policy.

Drafters of the Missouri bill emphasize that the legislation makes clear what is not protected student speech, such as expression that is obscene, libelous, slanderous, incitant to unlawful acts, contrary to lawful school regulations or substantially disruptive to school operations. Advisers can step in to restrict students from such expressions in school publications.

Local free expression fights

"This is not just a Missouri issue. We've got states all over the country who've either passed a student free expression bill or who are working on passing it," said Lindbergh's Donnelly. "In Illinois, it has passed by lopsided votes in the legislature, but has run into trouble with the governor.

"In Missouri, we've had trouble getting it out of committee for several years," continued Donnelly. "When it has been voted on, it's gone down. Many legislators in this state are confused as to what the bill is about.

"As someone who has lobbied on behalf of the bill in Missouri, I've had to listen to our state's legislators tell me how our state has terrible teachers and journalism advisers who can't be trusted to stop kids from putting trash and obscenities in the school paper. I've just had to bite my tongue hard."

In Illinois, a student free expression bill received overwhelming support last spring. In the Illinois Senate, the vote was 57-0. In the House, the vote was 109-4. Gov. Jim Edgar vetoed the bill Aug. 10, and a three-fifths vote in both houses will be needed to override when the Illinois legislature convenes its veto session later this year.

Members of the Illinois division of the Journalism Education Association said they will fight for an override of the Edgar veto. In Missouri, Journalism Education Association members have vowed to once again fight for passage of such a bill in the Show-Me-State.

Rep. Joan Bray, D-University City, introduced a student free expression bill last winter for the fourth time. The bill did not make it out of the education committee. Bray plans to reintroduce the bill in January.

When the Missouri House had an opportunity to vote on the bill in April, 1993, it was defeated by a vote of 76 to 55. Opponents of the bill called it an "ivory tower amendment" and suggested that it was tantamount to "giving kids loaded machine guns."

At the time of the vote, Bray told SJR that she was flabbergasted by reaction to the bill by some of her colleagues and by their rhetoric. She noted that even though the bill spells out very clearly that students may not publish or broadcast obscene or slanderous material, some legislators were insistent that the bill would give students license to commit libel and to disrupt the educational environment of schools.

Catholic newspaper one-sided on sale of St. Louis U. Hospital

By Dan Hellinger and Harry James Cargas

What happens when the two most prominent Catholic leaders in the St. Louis metropolitan area square off against one another in a high-profile, high-stakes argument? What role does the Archdiocesan newspaper, the St. Louis Review, take in reporting the controversy?

The dispute between St. Louis Archbishop Justin Rigali and Rev. Lawrence Biondi, the president of St. Louis University, has legal and theological aspects which the media have not reported. Biondi, backed by a unanimous vote of the board of trustees of St. Louis University Hospital, has chosen to sell that institution to Tenet Healthcare Corporation, the second largest for-profit health care system in America. Tenet bid about $100 million more than either of the two Catholic organizations hoping to buy the hospital.

The major issue is whether a secular buyer will keep its promises not to practice procedures contrary to Catholic moral principles, such as abortion and euthanasia. There's also the question of whether Biondi has a right to sell the hospital or whether he needs authorization from Rigali and/or the Vatican.

Rigali has received much support in his opposition to the sale from Cardinals Bernard Law (Boston), James Hickey (Washington, DC) and Adam Maida (Detroit).

Radio and television news carried reports of the story and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch featured wide coverage while the St. Louis Review, which Rigali publishes, printed non-by-lined stories in two consecutive weekly issues plus an editorial. All of these seemed to be written without interviewing Biondi.

A notable feature of the Review articles during the first two weeks of coverage was the lack of commentary from St. Louis University officials. One brief comment defending the decision by SLU Board Chairman Michael Shanahan was included, but Biondi was not quoted or cited as a source in either report. Overall, the articles carried little contextual information noting, for example, precedents for the sale in other parts of the country, as did several reports in the Post.

One aspect entirely overlooked in the proposed sale is that St. Louis University Medical Center was to be a major player in the new system of ambulatory and acute care to replace Regional Hospital.

The articles in the Oct. 10, 17 and 24 editions of the St. Louis Review ran without a byline. Monsignor Dennis Delaney, editor of the Review, said this was at the request of the writer, one of three regular staffers for the paper. SJR asked Delany to relay questions to the staffer, but the staffer preferred to remain anonymous and did not wish to explain his/her reasons.

Delaney said Biondi had not been quoted or cited because he was out of town. Father Paul Reinert had been asked to comment, says Delaney, but Reinert declined to comment. All inquiries to SLU about the proposed sale were being routed to John Kerr, associate vice-president of the public relations office.

Delaney was asked if the Review could cover this story fairly when the publisher is on one side of the dispute. He responded, "As the question unfolds we're hoping to see a resolution of the basis of the three concerns raised by Archbishop Rigali. These concerns will remain the reference point for our coverage."

Kerr was asked by SJR what he thought of the objectivity of the Review reporting and media reporting in general. He said, "We don't have any particular opinions right now regarding any professional media coverage or in regard to the St. Louis Review."

Neither the Review nor the Post mentioned a 1990 50-page article in the Jurist by Robert Kennedy, a professor of canon law at the Catholic University of America, which found flaws in the writings of Maida as well as John McGrath (also of Catholic U.) and Gommarua Michiels, another authority on canon law. The issues are complicated regarding the civil-law status of Church-related institutions and Kennedy gives praise to Maida, McGrath and Michiels for "raising and exploring issues of considerable importance to the Church." But, he insists, the issues are not clear and need to be further analyzed.

The National Catholic Reporter-a lay, independent publication-quotes Sr. Alice Gallin, former executive director of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, as saying that the understanding has been that educational institutions owned by religious orders were not Church property. In the same article (by former Post writer Pamela Schaefer), St. Joseph Sister Jean DeBlois, the vice president for mission services at the Catholic Health Association, said that she did not believe Tenet could run the hospital and retain its Catholic identity. "It won't and it can't," she said.

More recent revelations add to the complexity of the issue. In his article in the Post on Oct. 26, John G. Carlton discussed huge lawsuits against Tenet (a $160 million settlement in Texas alone-over a problem in the psychiatric division which a Tenet spokesman says has been corrected). Carlton wrote that the company has set aside $134 million of last year's earnings "to pay claims and defend itself against such suits."

While media sources other than the Review have tended to represent the university's position more completely, they have not entirely explored the history and context of the issues either. One St. Louis Sister of Loretto noted that while Biondi has come under great criticism for making a business-oriented decision, no one has asked Rigali how Biondi's criteria differed from those used by the Archbishop in defending the Archdiocesan schools' refusal to allow teachers to organize, or to close churches and facilities in poor areas. When Incarnate Word Hospital was sold to the same Tenet Corporation, officials from the archdiocese were basically silent.

Harry James Cargas is a professor of language and literature at Webster University.

Commentary

St. Louis needs to turn words into action

By Dennis Judd

If words were bricks, mortar and steel, within the last year St. Louis would have been able to reconstruct its downtown with plenty of material left over for a healthy export industry.

The dialogue about the future of downtown began to change from collective self-flagellation to a narrative promoting regeneration on Jan. 17, 1995, when Rams owner Georgia Frontiere announced that the Los Angeles Rams were moving to St. Louis.

Whatever concerns might be raised about the high cost of landing the Rams-and I willingly confess I continue to ask a few questions-it took an extraordinary show of civic cooperation to carry it off.

The magnitude of what Tom Eagleton and FANS Inc. accomplished is best understood in the light of the embarrassing and demoralizing fiasco that immediately preceded it.

Despite the fact that the Missouri state legislature had passed a bill for state/city/county funding of a new stadium in 1989, a nasty public fight among the partners seeking an expansion team moved St. Louis from a nearly certain choice to civitus non-grata status. It appeared that St. Louis would build a $300 million facility for tractor pulls and religious revivals.

Recrimination, scorn and ridicule dominated news stories for weeks. Eagleton truly snatched the region's psyche from the jaws of despair, but to do it required an unprecedented outpouring of fiscal largesse and civic participation.

Critics could call the idea of Personal Seat Licenses an artful scam all they want, but there were 70,000 fans willing to bid on 52,000 seats. It simply won't do to label the fans fools or rubes. Something else was going on. Theirs was the first voice heard in the current dialogue about St. Louis' future, and it said, "Shut up and play ball!"

On Sept. 6, 1996, the members of the Mayor's Advisory Committee on City Governance held a press conference on the steps of the City Library, on the occasion of their report on the state of city government. The committee recommended an overhaul of St. Louis' government structure, with the central aim of giving the mayor more authority over budgets and personnel.

Possibly because their report received a cool reception from Mayor Freeman Bosley Jr. and most people thought its chances of being implemented were nil, their recommendations were met mostly with indifference.

The dialogue about St. Louis' problems soon picked up again, however. In late September 1996, 75 of the "civic leaders" designated as such by the Regional Commerce and Growth Association (RCGA) visited Cleveland "exploring the reality behind the hype" of Cleveland's much-publicized renaissance.

What they found was that downtown Cleveland had transformed itself from the "disaster by the lake" to a place where the downtown had become a tourist destination and a home for young professionals, and where even "those perennially pathetic Indians have become legitimate contenders." The conflation of the downtown's fortunes with the won-lost record of a baseball team could give one pause about the value of the lessons learned from the Cleveland trip. Nevertheless, three important lessons seem to have emerged.

The keys to Cleveland's revival seemed to reside in (1) leadership provided by a charismatic mayor, Kevin White, (2) public-private cooperation, and (3) city-county cooperation to help pay for a downtown arena and a baseball park. One might question whether a trip to Cleveland was required to come to these conclusions.

In the months following the Cleveland trip, media coverage of the state of St. Louis' downtown seemed to reach critical mass.

On Nov. 18, 1996, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch carried a page-one story highlighting a study commissioned by the International Downtown Association, which labeled St. Louis' downtown a "near disaster."

The Post's Charlene Prost followed up on Dec. 8 with a story headlined, "Silent, Empty, Shabby." According to the people she interviewed, St. Louis' downtown was in a near-terminal state of decay and abandonment.

A month later, on Jan. 2, The New York Times printed a major story framed around the loss of St. Louis' historic "treasures," and pronounced that there was "little hope" of saving them.

This was the atmosphere within which the mayor's race was fought. Bosley was quoted in the Times article to the effect that downtown St. Louis had too many buildings and that some of them should be torn down.

As everyone in St. Louis is painfully aware, even though both of the principal candidates were African-American, it was a racially divisive campaign, which explains why the civic leadership pretty much avoided taking sides, even though a great deal was at stake. The candidates talked about their plans for downtown, but, eerily, almost nobody else did. It seemed as if everybody in the overwhelmingly white establishment was holding their collective breath until the air cleared.

Hardly had the votes been counted when the dialogue about the downtown resumed, but this time with a new fever-pitch of intensity that has yet to run its course.

The previous October, Neal Peirce and his sidekick Curtis Johnson had come to town to diagnose the city's ills. St. Louis was the 14th metropolitan region to come under the Peirce-Johnson microscope. Paid in part by the Post, the resulting Peirce Report, published after the election, was expected to be a much-needed stimulus for a fresh look and a broad discussion of the St. Louis region and its problems.

On Sunday, March 9 the Post published the first installment of a seven-part series, under the banner headline, "A Call to Action." In the last few months, rivers of ink have been spilled analyzing Peirce's recommendations, and more is sure to flow. Measured by the outpouring of analysis-that is, by the volume of words-the report must be considered an unqualified success.

The flow of words on St. Louis' downtown continues. Recently, 100 civic leaders (again as defined by the RCGA) visited Seattle to see what lessons in downtown revitalization that city could yield up. And according to Richard Fleming, RCGA president, more trips will come.

Not only on first blush but also on deeper reflection, Seattle would seem to be just about the most unlikely place a delegation from St. Louis would visit.

Over the past decade, Seattle has been one of the nation's fastest-growing large metropolitan regions. If St. Louis suffers from slow growth, Seattle suffers from its exact opposite.

Seattle fairly teems with yuppies who are drawn there by a multitude of hi-tech industries and services. Though it rains a lot in Seattle, this inconvenience is more than offset by the fact that the city is squeezed between Puget Sound and rain forests on the left, and by the Cascades on the right. It is a city of hills and lakes; almost everyone has a spectacular view.

Still, ideas are important, and they might be found in unlikely places. In the Post's account, one of the most important lessons learned was that middle-class housing and the rebirth of retailing in and near the downtown area is crucial to revitalization. As with virtually every city that has a comeback tale to tell, the waterfront has been the linchpin of downtown renewal in Seattle. Finally, public space and amenities are necessary for making the downtown livable, as well as attractive to tourists.

Fortunately, the dialogue about St. Louis' downtown has gone beyond an elite group of civic leaders. It is said that 10,000 people have attended the community forums sponsored by St. Louis 2004. The multiple counting of participants that undoubtedly adds up to this figure is, in this case, not unjustified; the people who attended two or more forums are highly motivated, and their participation probably ought to be given extra weight.

Several forums were also conducted in connection with the Peirce Report, with Peirce and Johnson on hand to field questions. Hundreds of people attended these events, and there was an undeniable enthusiasm in the air-along with an oft-expressed skepticism and frustration about these exercises, with people often complaining that it was just a lot of useless talk.

Perhaps the best indicator of the high level of community interest in the future of downtown came on Oct. 22, at a community forum held at the Missouri Botanical Gardens, and sponsored by Webster University, the St. Louis chapter of the American Institute of Architects, RCGA and the Post. When I arrived I was surprised to see the parking lot nearly full. A standing-room-only crowd of at least 350 people listened intently to host Greg Freeman and the six speakers talk about downtown's problems and possibilities. A film highlighting the turnaround successes of Portland and Chattanooga was shown.

But an air of impatience pervaded the forum, and the speakers caught the mood too: Enough talk, let's do something!

When Richard Baron mentioned the importance of developing the riverfront, he said, "We know what we have to do, let's just do it!" And when he suggested that it was time for the Park Service to stop protecting the pristine Arch grounds from frisbee throwers and other of their ilk who might spill over from the city, the audience responded with applause and shouts of approval.

Will there be action?

Will the torrent of words be translated into action in the cause of revitalizing downtown St. Louis? In the past, racial divisions, an antiquated and badly organized governmental structure within the city, and metropolitan sprawl and fragmentation have made coordinated, sustained action almost impossible. In effect, Neal Peirce gave up on local government when he identified St. Louis 2004 as the key visioning and coordinating mechanism for downtown renewal. The problems with that approach already have been skillfully analyzed in the pages of the St. Louis Journalism Review.

Put simply, 2004 was never established to actually implement anything. It may be a useful visioning exercise and some of the participants may come away from their experience in 2004 with the ideas and contacts that lead to action but it can't lead the process.

The ecology of institutions in St. Louis is changing, and may soon be capable of leading a downtown renaissance.

On the private-sector side, the RCGA is a revitalized institution under the leadership of Richard Fleming-it should be noted that Fleming helped lead the extraordinary revitalization of downtown Denver, before coming to St. Louis. Though Civic Progress continues to be an overly secretive and closed organization, its economic and political muscle is still available, if direction is provided.

The nonprofit sector has also gained strength behind some good leadership. Under the leadership of Carolyn Toft, the Landmarks Association has been singularly effective in promoting historic preservation in the downtown. The local chapter of the American Institute of Architects represents a great deal of local design talent, and has cosponsored a series of community forums. Washington University and St. Louis University have contributed substantially, in the one case to neighborhood redevelopment, in the other to the Grand Center cultural district. Webster University has now weighed in by cosponsoring the first of several community forums. Only the University of Missouri-St. Louis is still missing in action, a particularly glaring absence in light of the fact that UMSL is the region's public four-year urban university.

The fact that UMSL is proposing to build a regional performing arts center in direct competition with the Grand Center, and that it has located two satellite programs in Jefferson and St. Charles counties, reveals an institutional obtuseness about its responsibilities to promote the health of the city. If it can be shamed into joining the downtown effort, it could bring significant resources to bear.

Not much can happen without public leadership and resources, and here mayoral leadership is absolutely crucial. What government brings to the table are planning and coordination, land assembly, public spaces and amenities, building regulations and land use planning, transportation links, and crucial services. For them to work well, all of these powers must be coordinated, and no one can do it without leadership from City Hall. Mayors possess the unique ability to promote a vision and to speak for the collective interest of a city. Other interests, no matter how powerful, cannot do that. It has been a half century since a mayor, Raymond Tucker, was presented with such an opportunity to rebuild the urban core.

There are signs that Mayor Harmon may be about ready to step forward. His recent announcement that he will reconvene a mayor's downtown task force to do planning for downtown development is a positive step forward.

Harmon must next utilize and strengthen the city's Community Development Agency so that it can provide the technical support for a planning effort. Somehow he needs to find the political will and support to jettison some of the political hacks that keep St. Louis' departments from being fully professional operations.

In this regard, Harmon's call for the resignation of the director of the housing authority is a good first step.

In addition to building this institutional capacity, a connective tissue is crucial to bring key players together outside of ordinary processes and power structures. The mayor's task force should be formalized into an institution for formal public-private coordination, on the model of Central Atlanta Progress in Atlanta.

Other "connective tissue" institutions of this kind can supplement and reinforce the mayor's efforts. St. Louis 2004 can play a crucial role in mobilizing elite groups and citizens behind common goals. Focus St. Louis is an immensely important organization; it has the capacity to conduct independent research and to make recommendations outside of partisan and political channels. The newly formed Economic Development Council can facilitate planning and project coordination among key public and private actors, again outside of the usual channels. In sum: for the first time since the 1950s, when the Urban Renewal Authority provided the context for cutting through institutional gridlock, St. Louis is putting in place a leadership structure sufficient for renewal.

The movement to bring St. Louis' downtown from the brink is building momentum. The signs are everywhere. There is obviously a growing popular interest in the future of the downtown. I am willing to predict that over the next few months, public forums will grow in size, and enthusiasm will build.

If Mayor Harmon has been slow to seize the initiative up to this point-as many people claim-he is now being pushed into the leadership role that people want him to assume. Already, it is apparent that the dialogue about downtown renewal is resulting in some action, with more to come. Recently, the Missouri legislature passed a tax credit that will allow developers and individuals to deduct up to 25 percent

of the costs of rehabilitating historic buildings. This places Missouri-of all places-at the cutting edge, the first state to provide tax credits for historic residential and commercial properties. The mayor's recent action in saving historic buildings from being destroyed in favor of a new jail is symptomatic of a new mood and a new philosophy in City Hall.

The renewal coalition of the 1990s has a solid foundation to build upon. Union Station is a brilliantly managed and unquestionably successful anchor for the redevelopment of the southwest quadrant of the downtown, and the new federal courthouse will strengthen the existing corridor of government buildings that lead toward downtown from there.

With appropriate pedestrian corridors, Soulard Market and the surrounding neighborhood could become an anchor for the development of downtown south past Highway 40, and provide the kind of amenities for tourists and visitors that is now notably lacking.

Along Washington Avenue, loft apartments and night spots, and the new City Museum, may well grow into an anchor for the problematic northwest corner of downtown St. Louis.

The key to any effort to revitalize the downtown, however, is riverfront development. For a long time Laclede's Landing and the Gateway Arch have been lost opportunities. Both must be tied intimately into the downtown and, of course, the river itself must become the singular focal point. If developed into a pedestrian mall, Eads Bridge could become a link between the west and east sides of the river, a magnet for tourists and visitors.

Downtown St. Louis is on the brink -of further decline, or a regeneration -not seen since the 1950s. For the first time in half a century, a leadership and institutional structure is emerging sufficient to carry forward ambitious schemes. Civic leaders best not squander the opportunity to translate words into action.

Are underwriters really advertisers?

Although the Federal Communications Commission has no rules governing what groups can and can't underwrite public radio and television programs, it does have rules governing what underwriting messages may say. In addition, National Public Radio, the Public Broadcasting Service and individual stations can set their own rules governing who can underwrite, what the messages can say and what format they might take. FCC rules state,

"No promotional announcement on behalf of for-profit entities shall be broadcast at any time in exchange for the receipt, in whole or in part, of consideration to the licensee, its principals or employees.

However, acknowledgements of contributions can be made. The scheduling of any announcements and acknowledgments may not interrupt regular programming."

Doesn't that seem to rule out many often-heard and -seen underwriting announcements?

Not according to guidlines the FCC issued in 1984. The FCC stated then that the on-the-air acknowledgments of underwriting could be "enhanced" to include, "(1) logograms or slogans which identify and do not promote, (2) location information, (3) value neutral descriptions of a product line or service and (4) brand and trade names and product or service listings."

Those announcements could not include "qualitative or comparative language," nor could they include price information, a call to action- "visit our showroom today"-or an inducement- "six months free service."

Stations and networks often issue guidelines as well. For example, the Public Broadcast System limits underwriting announcements to 15 seconds, while individual stations, like KETC (Channel 9), often air underwriting announcements longer than that.

"Our audience research tells us that viewers have had no objections to enhanced underwriting messages as long as they are tasteful and are confined to the space between programs and don't interrupt programs," said Michael Hardgrove, general manager of Channel 9.

KWMU won't use words like "you" and "your" to imply a relationship and won't use preproduced underwriting announcements beyond a single voice reading a statement, said Patricia Bennett, general manager of KWMU. She said the station limits announcements to 15 seconds.

What about products mentioned in underwriting announcements? KWMU aired an underwriting announcement from the Wine Merchant that said the store sold cigars. Did KWMU have any second thoughts about promoting a carcinogen like tobacco?

Bennett said no.

Advertising most cigars on the air is legal, said David Fiske, a spokesman for the FCC. The 1965 federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act made advertising cigarettes and small cigars illegal, but did not affect cigars if 1,000 units weigh more than three pounds.

No station has ever announced that an underwriter sold or manufactured cigarettes, Fiske said, so no court has ruled whether the law applies to underwriting on non-commercial stations.

Hardgrove said that tobacco-producer Philip Morris has underwritten PBS shows without mentioning cigarettes.

-Benjamin Israel

AM/FM

KTRS suffers low ratings and turmoil

By Larry Hoffman

Turmoil erupted at KTRS following the announcement of schedule changes apparently made in the wake of dismal ratings. Sources close to the newstalk station told SJR that at one point proposed cutbacks included paring John Carney's show to two hours and teaming Kevin Horrigan with news veteran Jim Befaro.

But that's not what happened.

The new lineup, as posted on the station's attractive and well-maintained website (www.550ktrs.com), has Carney retaining his original slot from 9 a.m. to noon, Bafaro remaining in the morning show as newscaster, and Kevin Horrigan assigned to one hour from noon to 1 p.m., occasional morning commentary airing at 8:20 a.m. weekdays, and election coverage. Dianna Proffitt, who previously was joined with Horrigan in the early afternoon, returns to the 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. position with longtime partner Debbi Allen. The realignment was verified by KTRS Program Director Fred Zielonko.

KTRS has opted to use the highly acclaimed syndicated show hosted by Dr. Laura Schlesinger as a lead-in to Frank O. Pinion's three-and-a-half- hour afternoon shift. It's a good strategy, especially since Pinion pulls the best ratings on the station. Unfortunately for the fans of Schlesinger, formerly heard on WIBV for three straight hours, KTRS will only run the first two hours of her show in the afternoon, awkwardly picking up the third hour later in the day from 8-9 p.m.

The internal discord has temporarily abated, and the station looks forward to the mid-November exit of two Emmis stations currently sharing the Westport Plaza facility. Both WKKX-FM and WALC-FM are expected to join corporate sibling KSHE in the same building on the southeast corner of the Union Station development, leaving KTRS with spacious quarters and a state-of-the-art technical facility all to itself.

• • •

The first monthly issue of Hartmann Publishing's incarnation of St. Louis Magazine kicked off with a cover piece by editor Harper Barnes on KTRS morning show host John Carney. The article covered Carney's unsettled upbringing as son of legendary KMOX air talent Jack Carney, as well as his radio career. Barnes addressed KTRS' ratings problems directly, but underscored station chief executive Tim Dorsey's consistent commitment to John Carney's abilities. Dorsey was quoted as saying, "We like John ... he's here to stay." That sentiment was borne out as Carney kept his entire shift in the face of a disappointing summer ratings book.

• • •

Destined for the top 5 in its first book, Jacor's newly minted rhythmic/CHR outlet KSLZ-FM (107.7 FM) hit the air in early October with a hard-driving energetic return of top 40 radio to the St. Louis market. This station has success written all over it and is run by a company which has excelled in the format nationwide.

The call letter officially changed from KMJM-FM to KSLZ-FM on Halloween, though the station remains jockless and commercial-free as the parent company goes through the process of hiring an air staff and appointing key personnel. Top Jacor official Lee Clear was unavailable for comment as this issue went to press, though there was apparently not much to report until a budgetary meeting occurred, finalizing the operational resources for the new St. Louis property.

The station could not sound better as it booms from the 1042 foot Lodestar tower also known as the community FM tower in South St. Louis County. As pointed out by Mike Batchelor of the Missouri Radio Page on the Internet, Jacor will now have excellent coverage of suburban areas which were outside the demos of the former occupant of the signal, KMJM-FM. Batchelor writes, "For (Jacor owner) Rany Michaels, it's a smart move from both the listenership and dollars and cents standpoint."

This is a spot on the dial which features many current hits not heard anywhere else on the dial in St. Louis. In it present robotic, autopilot mode, "Z-1077" is running a tight rotation of approximately 90 minutes with some dayparting and a heavy sprinkling of recurrent songs such as "Another Night" by Real McCoy, "Missing" by Everything But The Girl, and "Lovefool" by the Cardigans. Because of the new music, it is far less annoying, at least initially, than was WALC-FM (Alice). When Alice had its debut, it merely grouped the most popular adult contemporary songs into a similarly repetitious pattern, in a market already tired of Hootie and the Blowfish, Alanis Morissette, and Blues Traveler. The postscript on Alice is that it's doing well.

The variety of music on Z-1077 is also appealing, covering artists from the U.K.'s eight-member outfit Chumbawamba to Puff Daddy. With a topnotch air staff in place, the station should zoom past perennial local contenders and grab considerable market share.

The last CHR outlet in St. Louis was the lackluster WKBQ-FM, formerly KWK. Previously, there were two competing top 40 stations when CBS' KHTR hit the air shortly after the advent of MTV in the early '80s. CHR programming prodigies who buzzed through town during those days included Steve Perun, Brian Bridgman, C.C. Matthews, the late Bobby (Oxenhandler) Hattrick, and Cruze.

KSLZ continues to run a promise to play 10,000 songs (which would take approximately 35 days ... enough time to have its staff in place) or pay listeners $100,000. It sounds like an amusing parody of a serious offer from KSD-FM where a listener who catches the station playing fewer than seven songs in a row wins $7,000-a deal it has made good on several times since its inception.

• • •

On to KSD, which after restyling its jock lineup, sent longtime afternoon personality Drew Johnson packing and replaced him with St. Louis favorite Asher Benrubi, also known as "Smash." Mark Klose replaced morning newsreader Jamie Allman, then continues in his own shift a la KSHE's John Ulett, from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. It's an effort to lift the station from a long stretch of low ratings, even as it experiences yet another change in ownership. Sources close to KSD-FM told SJR that approval for the new air personalities came directly from CBS, which will own the station as of the second quarter of 1998. This could fuel speculation that CBS may once again shed KLOU-FM in order to comply with FCC guidelines for market dominance, primarily because its annual gross revenue is less than KSD.

KSD's jock lineup is rounded out by newcomer Sam Prowler from 1-3 p.m. weekdays, Debbie Alexander from 7 p.m. to midnight, and Jonathan Breier in the overnight slot. The Breakfast Club, which commands the best ratings on the station, continues to feature headliner J.C. Corcoran, sports director Steve Schlanger, and Lance Hildebrand with traffic.

• • •

Last month's column touched on the Brill Media stations in central Missouri. On Oct. 27, the Zimmer Radio Group, former owners of WKKX-FM and WKBQ-FM in St. Louis, announced their intention to buy KLIK-AM and KTXY-FM, Jefferson City, both owned by Brill Media. Separately, another company owned by David and Tom Zimmer announced the planned acquisition of Brill's country-formatted KATI-FM, Jefferson City.

When the deals are complete, Zimmer stations will reach nearly half of mid-Missouri listeners. The company will eventually have a total of six FMs and two AMs in the state, according to another item posted by Mike Batchelor on the Missouri Radio Page.

• • •

The local chapter of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) celebrated its 60th anniversary with a reception in the Culver Gallery of the Central Library in St. Louis on Nov. 3. Both the Harry Fender and St. Louis Media Exhibits were open for viewing during the event.

Arbitron arrives; stations make changes

By Frank Absher

On the surface, it appears management of several radio stations have made changes in their lineups following the issuance of the market's latest Arbitron figures. KSD has replaced its afternoon drive announcer and is trying to bolster sagging morning numbers by bringing in a second announcer. KSD's listenership has been dropping off at a consistent pace with its format and previous announcer lineup.

On the AM dial, KTRS cut the hours of two of its announcers after mid-day listening failed to keep pace with the other day-parts and is putting a syndicated show on from 1-3 p.m. The addition of Frank O. Pinion brought a jump in the station's afternoon drive numbers, and the morning drive team is approaching the high-water mark they achieved on their previous frequency before moving to 550.

Across the dial-when compared to the shares of a year ago-KIHT, KMOX, KSD, KSHE, KXOK, KYKY, WBCW and WIBV saw overall audience losses. KATZ-AM, KLOU, WIL, WKKX and WVRV posted gains. As might be expected, many radio stations have one day-part that is much stronger than others in terms of audience share. On KATZ-FM, KMJM, KMOX, KXOK, and WALC, it's evening while mid-day reigns on WIL, KEZK and WRTH and it's mornings on WKKX. Notably weaker day-part shares were registered in morning drive on KATZ-FM and KMJM, afternoon drive on KXOK and KMOX, and nights on KEZK, KFNS, KSHE, KYKY, WIL, WKKX and WRTH.

RADIO HISTORY

By Frank Absher

When Edwin Armstrong provided a demonstration of FM broadcasting to RCA's David Sarnoff in 1933, he was successful in showing off "staticless" radio, but RCA and CBS were both eyeing a technology with even more commercial promise-one that sent live, moving pictures through the air.

Realizing that his project was not a corporate priority, Armstrong continued to develop FM on his own, and in 1941 the federal government authorized commercial FM broadcasting. It would be several years before St. Louisans heard regular broadcasts.

Part of that delay is due to the fact that the country was involved in World War II, but many other cities, some which were significantly smaller than St. Louis, were active in FM development. It wasn't due to any lack of support from Washington.

As early as 1939, several existing AM stations in the U.S. had been designated as Apex station operators, and two of them were in St. Louis: W9XPD, KSD owned by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and W9XOK, KXOK owned by The St. Louis Star-Times. Many of these stations around the country evolved into FMs.

The FM band, like its predecessor AM, also underwent technical changes on the way to its current incarnation. Early frequencies ranged from 41.02-43.98 MHz for the Apex stations with 40 kHz separation and by May of 1940, 15 FM stations were on the air in the U.S. A year later the number had risen to 24. In 1945 the Federal Communications Commission reallocated FM stations to higher frequencies, 84-108 MHz, with the lower end, 84-88 MHz set aside for noncommercial stations.

There were several false starts here. WIL-FM was authorized at 92.1 and later moved to 97.3; KMOX-FM was allocated 45.9 MHz but later dropped its application; KWK-FM was assigned to 95.3; KXOK-FM was as 93.7; KXLW-FM was at 101.1; KSD-FM went on the air in September of 1948; KWGD-FM became a reality in December of 1948 in studios now occupied by Sinclair Broadcasting.

WEW applied for an FM station in 1942, received a frequency of 45.1 MHz and was later given 95.1, WIL-FM was also on the air in 1948, as was KFUO-FM.

The early days of FM in St. Louis were not as exciting as the early days of AM. Government control precluded a lot of the unauthorized experiments which had been the rule in the early 1920s.

The first programs on AM consisted of whatever stations managers could find to put on the air. Most FM stations here provided simulcasts of what their co-owned AM stations were broadcasting.

By 1950, several stations had already pulled their literal and figurative plugs here, but some new ones had been added. The dial included KSLH (91.5), KXOK-FM (93.7), WEW-FM (95.1), KWK-FM (98.1), KFUO-FM (99.1) and WTMV-FM (102.5). FCC records in 1958 list only three FMs here, KFUO-FM, KCFM (93.7), and KSLH. It appeared the fad of FM radio would not take hold in St. Louis.

MEDIA/LAW

Privacy laws protect little, raise constitutional concerns

By Mark Sableman

Consider, for a moment, the most intimate and private facts about yourself-the facts you want to be confidential.

Now, thank your representatives in Congress for protecting your privacy. Yes, as of a few months ago (at least in most states), Congress gave you greater control over the following intimate and private facts about yourself:

-your name

-your address

-whether you wear glasses

-whether you use a wheelchair

What? These facts are not your innermost secrets? You actually tell people your name and where you live? And you let people see whether you wear glasses or use a wheelchair? Shhhh! Don't let Congress know that you are ungrateful for its protection of your privacy.

• • •

The law of "privacy" presents many conundrums. Practically everyone favors privacy and a right to privacy, but everyone also needs information, and society depends on a broad sharing of information. "Personal information," viewed in the abstract, seems like something that deserves and needs protection-but in fact information like our names and appearances, where we live and what cars we drive, are not secrets at all, for we willingly reveal them every day. And those who research or analyze social or political information, or who attempt to reach or influence consumers, frequently and necessarily use personal information of others.

As The New York Times pointed out last month, though, there seems to be "a rising tide of public concern about the loss of privacy in an electronic age," there is also a "deep ambivalence" about protecting privacy by law. The Times opened its analysis with a quotation from Sen. Diane Feinstein, expressing outrage over the ease with which her Social Security number could be found on the Internet, and proposing a "Personal Information Privacy Act" in response. The Times then went on to itemize all of Sen. Feinstein's own past proposals on federal record-keeping and monitoring. She has proposed bills that would establish and maintain fingerprint, voiceprint or retinal image records on all workers and benefit recipients in the nation; command voters to disclose their social security numbers; and require employers to submit personal information on all their employees to a new federal databank.

Everyone, the Times found, wanted to have it both ways-personal privacy for himself or herself, but "the benefits of quick, computerized access to personal information for fighting crime, fraud and waste, or promoting growth in the information economy." The same dilemma emerged in recent hearings regarding disclosure of health care records without the patient's consent. Though everyone gives lip service to the patient's need to control the information, in fact many persons and groups feel they have legitimate needs to review such information.

Take heart, privacy seekers. Congress gave you some protection in the Drivers' Privacy Protection Act of 1994, the act which became fully effective just this fall, attempted to put state drivers' license records off limits.

But does this act really do what it advertises? Three little problems stand between the act and its privacy protection goals:

1. It protects information that really isn't private.

2. It is full of loopholes and allows states to create even more.

3. It may be unconstitutional.

Let's take these little problems one by one.

First, most of what the act protects is hardly secret or confidential information. The act protects "personal information," meaning things like an individual driver's name and address, phone number, photograph, Social Security number, and medical or disability information relevant to driving. Most of this information is readily available to anyone who follows Yogi Berra's sage advice that "you can observe a lot just by watching." What one might consider the more confidential part of a driving record-accidents and violations, for example-aren't covered by the "privacy protection" act at all.

Second, the act doesn't really make covered information inaccessible. To oversimplify a bit, it makes it readily available to the bad guys while it makes it more difficult for the good guys to obtain access. Are you afraid of Big Brother in government? The act is no help here; "any" governmental agency can look up your drivers' records. Concerned about prying by your employer or creditor? They continue to get your drivers' information. Worried about your insurance company, or someone suing you? They automatically get the information, too.

These are just a few of the automatic exemptions; there are more, all oriented to particular businesses (towing lots; private investigators; taxi companies, etc.). An interesting note: in the many decades that drivers' records have been publicly available, only one strong case of misuse of the records and resulting harm has emerged-the stalking and murder of the actress Rebecca Schaeffer in California. The killer got the records through a private investigator-a route left fully open in this new federal "privacy protection" act.

Indeed, the only persons who don't have automatic exemptions are certain nongovernmental non-commercial users. Scholars, public interest groups, and news reporters get no specific exemption, and could well lose under this act access that they have had for decades to drivers license records. So the act ultimately protects state records from eye-shaded do-gooders while it distributes your "personal information" to the Gotcha Towing Company and Sam Spade's shady client.

In another way the act is less effective (or less harmful, depending on your point of view). Since drivers' information has long been treated as public information by most states, the act permitted states to "opt out" of the act. So long as states permitted individual drivers to keep their personal information private, they could continue to make the information available on those drivers who consented to disclosure. Missouri and many other states opted for this procedure.

The final problem with the act, identified by a federal judge in South Carolina in September, is that it may be unconstitutional. Essentially, by the act, the federal government imposed a duty on states to handle their drivers records in a certain way. In Condon v. Reno, federal district judge Dennis W. Shedd of Columbia, South Carolina, relying on recent Supreme Court decisions protective of state powers in core areas of state concern, held that Congress exceeded its powers when it sought to control the dissemination of state drivers records. Among other things, Judge Shedd specifically held that the constitutional privacy interests protected by the act were minimal.

Judge Shedd's ruling invalidates the act, for now, in South Carolina. A similar challenge to the act is pending in Oklahoma, and some news organizations have attempted to raise First Amendment challenges as well to the act in several courts. At this point it is unclear whether any or all of these challenges will ultimately succeed.

The Drivers Privacy Protection Act of 1994 was meant as a simple first step at protecting personal privacy. As it turns out, it was not a simple measure at all, it covers little that is truly private, it provides minimal protection even for the information it covers, and even this tentative first step may be unconstitutional.

If this is "privacy protection," do we really need or want it?

In SJR

10 years ago:

• A poll commissioned by SJR found 67 percent of city and county residents were against a ban on X-rated videos for rent or sale in stores, and 87 percent said people should be allowed to watch whatever they want in their own homes. County counselor Thomas Wehrle commented on high profile prosecution of such stores, saying, "I do not make the law. I have to enforce the law."

• The Cardinals lost the 1987 World Series to Kansas City, but management of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was basking in the large spike in circulation the series provided, in excess of 400,000 each day for two successive weeks.

• KMOX boss Robert Hyland moved Anne Keefe to evenings in an effort to bolster Jim White's listenership now that the World Series was over.

5 years ago:

• Hartmann Publishing introduced Vision, which it called "a magazine of style and substance." Initial plans of a $10 subscription fee for four issues were scrapped and the publication was included free in the Riverfront Times.

• The State of Missouri approved cameras in courtrooms, with State Appeals Courts the first to be opened. Trial courts would be open for cameras after Jan. 1, 1993.

• For the first time, KSHE led the St. Louis market in listeners 25-54, grabbing the top spot from KMOX.

Tom Langmyer: 'Overall listenership still makes KMOX number one'

By Frank Absher

Five years ago, Tom Langmyer was hired as program director at KMOX. By putting him in the position, Rod Zimmerman, the station's general manager, gave Langmyer responsibilities and power which previous program directors hadn't had under the late Robert Hyland.

Recently SJR spoke with Langmyer about his five years on the job.

SJR: In five years we've not seen an increase in KMOX listenership. We've seen a continuing decline. Is this something you're concerned about?

Langmyer: A lot of factors need to be considered. The overall listenership of the radio station still makes KMOX number one in the market. Nearly a third of everyone over the age of 12 tunes in at some point during an average week. That's an incredible figure. From a share standpoint, KMOX is the only station in the city that has double digit shares, and that's really unheard of in major market radio in 1997. In fact, in most major markets the number one station is lucky to have between a five and an eight share.

Radio listenership is higher overall than it was years ago, but the bottom line, there are now 27 stations in this market, along with CNN, The Weather Channel, ESPN and C-SPAN, the Internet-they're all competing for people's time, and a double digit share for a radio station is a pretty big accomplishment.

My job as program director is a lot different now from what a program director's job was in the past. Along with being responsible for the on-air product, I'm more involved with the overall business goals of the station, and we've hit all of our business goals. We're always concerned about our listeners, but we now have to consider how much time people have to listen, and ultimately we need to be conscious how we are operating from a business standpoint. The better we do as a business, the easier we can invest in talent, equipment and services to our listeners.

SJR: In 1992, the KMOX profit margin was rumored to be less than seven percent. Now I hear it's over 30 percent. Since generating profit is part of your job, what do you have to do on a daily basis to achieve the profit goals?

Langmyer: Today's program director has to be a business person first. Day-to-day programming is an important aspect of the job, but you need to produce profitable programming and that means keeping an eye on costs. Sometimes you have to make decisions for the long term that may show a variation in listening numbers in the short term. We've done a good job of targeting our audience and we're very happy with the ratings. We're looking at a record year for revenue and profit for KMOX.

SJR: What have you done here in the past five years that you're proud of?

Langmyer: I'm extremely proud to be a part of developing the people of our news, sports and programming teams. We're now growing because we have people who are excited to be here. They're always looking forward and working to make our programming better every day. I'm also proud of the people we've been able to attract to the station-people like Charles Jaco-and having the privilege to work with people who've made KMOX great for years like Jim White and Jack Buck. I take special pride in being able to help new broadcasters grow and pushing them to be the best they can be. Growing up in upstate New York as a huge hockey fan, I listened to KMOX at night and idolized the late Blues' broadcaster Dan Kelly. It's very gratifying to now have the opportunity to work with Dan's son. The younger Dan and I worked almost daily over the summer to prepare him for his new job as the Blues' play-by-play announcer. He's got tremendous raw talent, works very hard and is also a great guy.

SJR: Any mistakes come to mind?

Langmyer: Well, we've tried a few things and hired a few people who didn't work out, but I believe you have to experiment and try new things or you'll go stale. That's why KMOX has been successful over the years.

SJR: You've completely revamped your news department.

Langmyer: John Butler has done a great job with our news product. We have more stories, a great reporting team which we'll be adding to, and we've received numerous awards and earned the respect of the community. It's not often that listeners, unaided, will tell you that they think the news product has improved, but that really captures what we've done.

Every day Charles Jaco amazes me. He is such a talented broadcaster and a journalist in the KMOX tradition. He has "become" KMOX in a short time and we're using his talents and knowledge to expand the station's services to listeners. He recently broadcast live from Washington and we're sending him back in December, and we're planning to send him to Cuba for a series of live broadcasts from Havana.

Another area that's really improved is the inner workings of the station. Our sales manager, Clint Hasse, has experience on the programming side and we work very well together. Sales have increased and the station is financially healthy. In the past, sales managers tended to be independent of the rest of the operation. And we've returned to the true "At Your Service" tradition on the weekends with experts in various fields providing advice the listeners need. In the offing, we plan to offer expanded news coverage from St. Louis County and St. Charles, as well as major population centers in Metro East. If something is going on in the St. Louis area, people know they can hear about it on KMOX.

SJR: Are you surprised you've been here in this job for five years?

Langmyer: This work has been extremely gratifying. Rod Zimmerman has done a lot for KMOX. He's a driven manager and has pushed me to be better at what I do. From a personal standpoint, this is a home for us. My family has really settled in to St. Louis. My wife is also very involved in the community. On the professional side, KMOX was always a Mecca for me. I'm a company person and I'm very happy. I'm looking forward to growing within CBS.

SJR: Five years ago I asked you if you thought the St. Louis market is unique, rather than a cookie-cutter market. How do you feel now?

Langmyer: I feel the same way now. St. Louis is a special place. KMOX is truly unique in its history and tradition. It's been the standard of quality over the years. There are similar markets, but they're different because they've never had a station like KMOX.

OF NOTE

Christian Coalition in jeopardy

Churches are traditionally exempt from taxes, but churches are also supposed to stay out of the political arena. They are forbidden from partisan politicking, as ministers are precluded from telling their congregations how to abuse the punch card in the voting booths.

Penalties for crossing this line include loss of tax-exempt status, both for the church and for the members' contributions-and Americans United for Separation of Church and State has complained to the Internal Revenue Service that both Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition and Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church of Lynchburg, Va., have violated these rules.

Falwell, campaigning for Mark Earley in the Republican primary race for attorney general of Virginia earlier this year, suggested a way for preachers to stay within the letter of the IRS regulations. In his " Falwell Fax," a newsletter for fundamentalist clergy, he advised preacher-readers to say to their congregations, "I intend to vote for Earley," and let the chips fall where they may.

Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State and editor of its publication, Church & State complained to the IRS about Falwell and the Rev. George Sweet, whose Virginia Beach, Va., Atlantic Shores Baptist Church uses Earley as a Sunday School teacher. Earley eventually won the nomination. Sweet denied breaking the law, but not long after the primary, he resigned as pastor of the 4000-member church, citing a "tragic mistake" in his past.

Said Lynn, "I believe their actions clearly violate the prohibitions contained in the IRS code, which imposes an absolute ban on participation in campaigns for political office by exempt organizations."

Four years ago, Falwell and the IRS collided over Falwell's "Old Time Gospel Hour." The program was accused of forwarding contributions to the "Gospel Hour" to a political action committee, which is not tax-exempt. Falwell was fined $50,000 and the tax-exempt status of the program was pulled retroactively for 1986-87.

Lynn's complaint against Robertson is more recent, and based on a speech Robertson made in September to a Christian Coalition convention in Atlanta.

Robertson spoke in detail about organizing on the grass-roots level, and suggested that the Christian Coalition adopt the machine-building tactics of such political organizations as Tammany Hall in New York, Mayor Hague in Jersey City, Mayor Daley in Chicago and Robert Byrd in Virginia.

During his speech, Robertson said, "I told Don Hodel (president of the Christian Coalition) when he joined us, 'My dear friend, I want to hold out to you the possibility of selecting the next President of the United States because I think that's what we have in this organization.' And I believe we can indeed. I don't think there's any question that Ozone Al is out of it."

The Christian Coalition's tax-exempt status may already be in jeopardy, with continuing investigations under way by both the IRS and the Federal Election Commission.

-Joe Pollack

Catholic school teachers win in New Jersey

The Catholic Diocese of Camden, N.J. has argued that forcing parochial schools to negotiate with a teachers' union would violate its religious freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment, but the state's Supreme Court recently ruled unanimously that private school teachers have a right to form labor unions.

Similarly, teachers in the St. Louis Archdiocese's parish schools are similarly seeking archdiocesan recognition of their new Association of Catholic Elementary Educators. The St. Louis Review (Oct. 10), the archdiocesan newspaper, reported that an ad hoc archdiocesan commission had submitted its report on the issue, but did not disclose its content.

Unlike the Camden Diocese, however, Catholic officials here have contended that the teachers are hired by the parishes rather than the archdiocese, although it sets standards for their pay and benefits.

Church & State, the Americans United for Separation of Church and State's monthly (Sept. 1997), quoted the New Jersey high court's decision as declaring that the state constitution guarantees private employees the right to unionize and that the state has a "compelling interest" in enforcing the provision. The court held that collective bargaining of wages and other employment issues can take place without interfering with church leaders' control over the religious character of parochial schools.

-E.S. Evans

Advertising and the end of the world

One of the most precise arguments for the shortcomings in a culture based on consumer advertising is offered in a promo for a video by Sut Jhally, professor of communications at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

The average person, Jhally contends, is exposed to 3,600 commercial impressions per day, "making advertising the most pervasive message system in the consumer culture."

These messages originally claimed that material things will make you happy. Research found, however, that "meaningful human relationships (friendship, love, family) rather than commodities" are more desirable for people.

As a result advertisers have stopped talking about goods alone and "have connected the images of a deeply desired social life, the 'dreamlife' of the society to the world of commodities."

Our desires, our dreams are linked by the advertising industry to material things and "debate about crucial collective issues such as poverty, education, healthcare, housing, and the environment, is deflected to the margins of the society." Our vision of the future has been corrupted.

That link in our mind, in our culture, forecloses us to even talk about pressing concerns; we all seek "immediate rewards with no thought to future costs."

Our collective vision of the future must change, concludes Jhally.

The video can be obtained from the Media Education Foundation, 26 Center Street, Northampton, MA 01060. (Tel: 413-584-8500) $195 plus $5 for shipping and handling (10% discount for prepayment).

-Charles Klotzer

A Post editorial oversight-or an intended slight?

The redesigned editorial page of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch lists the editors and publishers on the top of the page-except it fails to list any editorship between 1986 and 1996.

The editor during that period was William Woo, who was listed in that capacity on the editorial page before the redesign.

SJR queried the editorial page about the omission at press time, but failed to receive a response.

-Charles Klotzer