Radio roundtable: Insiders discuss radio's future

By Frank Absher

St. Louis, like every large media market around the country, is in the throes of a sea change. Newspapers are undergoing total makeovers in an effort to stem circulation erosion. Television stations are dropping local news broadcasts and replacing them with syndicated reruns as they try to maximize profits. Radio stations everywhere broadcast live morning programs originating in distant cities because it costs less than hiring local talent. But of all the media, radio may be changing the most.

SJR asked radio professionals to predict what the future holds for the business, both in St. Louis and on a national scale. The participants were Mike Batchelor, Web master of Missouri Radio Web; Karen Carroll, vice president/general manager, KMOX Radio; Lee Clear, vice president/market manager, Clear Channel St. Louis; Joel Denver, president/publisher of All Access Music Group; Bernie Hayes, former St. Louis radio announcer/news director; Al Hofer, KSHE music director; Charles Jaco, program host on KMOX; Jeff Kapugi, program director of KSLZ; John Moody, Web master of Downstate Illinois Radio Watch, and Dennis Stortz, director of station operations for KFUO-AM & FM.

SJR: What changes do you expect to see in radio in the next couple of years?

Hofer: Fewer small radio groups, the big ones will get bigger. Single-owner operations will be few and far between in the medium and large markets.

Batchelor: I also expect to see the consolidation trends continue, with the large groups getting larger or banding together with other groups, like the merger of Clear Channel and Jacor.

Stortz: I expect to see continued station swapping as group owners search for the right combination of stations.

Denver: The biggest changes will come from groups that were big buyers that are now big sellers. The best example is Sinclair, which is way over-leveraged in its radio holdings and is selling out to Entercom, with the St. Louis stations apparently going to Emmis. Also, the advent of satellite radio will have some impact on in-car listening when it rolls out at the end of 2000.

Jaco: In the next couple of years I would expect the few small radio chains and independent radio stations to be gobbled up by the conglomerates. I would also expect that radio everywhere will start sounding even more the same. Travel from St. Louis to Seattle or Boston or Atlanta or Dallas. You'll find the same heavy rotation of Ricky Martin, Puff Daddy and Smashmouth. You'll get traffic and weather together every five, eight or 10 minutes. You'll find the remaining all news or news/talk station in town running Limbaugh or Dr. Laura and pelting you with 18 or 20 minutes of commercials an hour. It all sounds the same because the new broadcasting mega-corporations are about sales and profit, not programming.

Clear: On the sales front, more stations will utilize "cluster-selling" techniques. For example: All our stations are pitched to a client for one buy. The combined ratings and format mix makes for a strong advertising medium.

Carroll: Our jobs are really defined much differently because radio as a market has gone beyond just the radio commercial. We now produce events. We do more with our Web site. We have done direct mail. We create charitable fund marketing events. So we've expanded beyond just a radio station operation into more of a marketing company. All the entities of the CBS family can now work together to offer services to each other, so we can offer Internet or even television to our clients, giving us a one-stop shop capability.

Batchelor: I expect the use of station air staffs will be maximized more and more via the use of voice-tracking systems. This will allow stations to fill off-peak times like overnights and weekends, which have traditionally been staffed by sub-par talent, with the station's better talent or talent from co-owned stations.

Kapugi: The cream of the crop will float to the top as there will be fewer jobs available due to consolidation. Programmers will hire jocks with music and promotions experience. Jocks will be required to bring more to the table. If you're not holding down p.m. drive and a music director or promotions director title, you'll be voice-tracking a shift for a smaller market in the company.

SJR: What changes will come that will be most evident to the radio audience?

Jaco: The audience in major markets will have the same choice of formats they have now. But all the stations within a format will sound more and more alike.

Stortz: Radio listeners will hear more spots, the formats will become more predictable. I do think some version of low-power FM will happen, perhaps giving a minor opportunity for local or specialized listening. It appears satellite car radio is about here, but I just don't see it challenging over-the-air broadcasters for awhile.

Moody: Certainly, the ever-increasing number of spots has been obvious. Listeners are tuning out, radio companies will lose money eventually and the pendulum will swing back toward fewer spots.

Hayes: Local issues will not be a priority to absentee owners and managers who have no affinity to the region. I think this will especially affect the African-American community because the only news and information they will receive will be what others allow them to hear.

Denver: On talk-formatted radio stations, they will continue to push the envelope in terms of content in an effort to be heard above the sea of so many talk programs.

Carroll: I think there'll be better product available-a lot more information. We'll give listeners many more ways to interact because of new technology.

Batchelor: Stations will probably sound better, as computerized systems will eliminate a lot of operator errors like misplayed songs, miscued commercials, etc.

SJR: Which formats will be most predominant in the coming years?

Carroll: I think there'll be a growth in the information field. The music stations will get more competition because the public will be able to "create their own radio stations" on the Web.

Moody: Noncommercial Christian stations have been popping up all over lately. Large non-profit religious groups with plenty of funding can put together large national networks with these stations. Since most of the funding comes from donations, they don't have to worry about ratings ... The current "safe" formats like AC, news/talk, and country will probably continue to do well.

Clear: Youth formats such as hip-hop and rap will show tremendous growth. As Generation Y grows up, it will listen to the stations that play its type of music.

Hayes: Adult contemporary, country, talk, oldies, rap and hip-hop will be the most predominant formats.

Hofer: You'll see the same ones that have dominated for years-rock, country, urban and adult contemporary.

Kapugi: Companies will control demos with formats, like owning men 18 to 34 with a country station, an alternative station, an oldies station and a classic rock station. As far as predominant formats, I think operators will continue to fill holes in markets, but I don't foresee another "Alice" or Jammin' Oldies type niche.

Denver: Top 40 will continue to grow as the teen/18 to 34 population swells through 2007, according to the census information I've seen. Talk formats will continue to flourish.

Stortz: We might see an FM talker, particularly as the audience ages.

Jaco: FM talk will be a sharper-elbowed version of what AM talk does now, sort of rock stations without music. Country, but only in selected markets, St. Louis being one. Talk radio will be even more finely targeted-female-oriented talk, for example.

SJR: What developments will we see regarding Internet/radio?

Clear: I think satellite radio could grow faster than Internet radio. The major auto makers have all agreed to start offering the receivers next year.

Batchelor: In my opinion, the Internet will continue to be a great promotional tool for stations. While streaming audio will continue to be popular and show growth, it will not ever see the kind of listenership that traditional radio does until the sound quality of the audio gets better and the tags and hiccups in the audio stream can be eliminated totally.

Jaco: Internet radio will be the place to find innovative niche programming.

Moody: I don't see Internet radio/Web casting going anywhere in the long haul. Its audience is limited to people who are online. Supposedly there are products on the way that will let us listen to Web radio in the car, but that doesn't solve the problem of an over-cluttered market.

SJR: When corporate comes down demanding more expense cuts, what will be cut?

Jaco: Probably from programming, especially news. News is expensive because you have to pay people to cover it. In most markets, radio stations leave news coverage to the one or two all-news or all-talk stations in town. And even those stations have brought in new hires for the news department at salaries so low that many of them have to hold down second jobs. Anything that can be outsourced will be.

Kapugi: Since the programming and promotions departments control the majority of the expenses at a radio station, that answer is obvious. Programmers will have to get more and more creative to develop promotions that catch listeners' ears and keep costs down.

Moody: Promotions is a possible area, especially at major market stations that have large giveaways and such.

Hofer: Promotion budgets, support staff, learning to run lean and smart.

Denver: Talent, marketing, and promotion sectors will continue to suffer until management begins to realize those are the backbones of any station.

Batchelor: Lots of part-time talent, as well as full-time talent in off-peak times will be eliminated. Smaller market stations in corporate chains will be voice tracked more and more by air talent from larger markets.

Clear: Expense cuts won't be the issue of concern. Operators are already cutting expenses by consolidating services and jobs.

Carroll: Well, they don't really say, "You need to cut expenses." What they say is, "You need to produce a certain amount of cash flow." So it's up to the manager to be creative, increasing revenue instead of cutting expenses.

SJR: What is your opinion of the growing audience fractionalization? Will it continue?

Batchelor: I believe stations want to appeal to the widest audience possible. Therefore, formats with mass appeal like CHR, A/C, talk, gold and Jammin' Oldies will continue to grow.

Denver: The audience will continue to splinter due to the increased choices they have via radio, Internet and satellite.

Clear: Audience fractionalization will continue. As we become a more diverse marketplace, the radio dial will move to serve these special or unique segments. It is crazy to have four or five stations programming "rock" music with none offering jazz, polka or Hispanic music.

Hofer: If the recording industry sees money in a fragment of a format they will pursue it. However, the nature of fractionalization is that your slice of the pie gets smaller and smaller until you've niched yourself to death.

Hayes: Audience fractionalization will continue because it is profitable. Companies profit from demographics and the more they can fragment a community, more time will be sold to particular "targets."

Stortz: I don't think there is any way around fractionalization. Supply and demand will deal with it.

Kapugi: Niche formats are the way of the late '90s. Operators see a successful format and then try to shave off a few shares with a niche of that format.

SJR: What changes do you see coming on the radio job scene?

Clear: Sales is the place to be. No matter what form of delivery radio takes, someone will have to sell it. Our industry is not producing enough sales talent. Everybody wants to be a DJ.

Denver: I see the need for folks who can do two tasks well to be able to do five tasks great. The more diversified your skills, the more money you will make in the coming years.

Carroll: We need great people. I think extremely talented on-air staff will always be needed. The personal connection people have with the radio is through those personalities. We need to develop more good people.

Hofer: Radio will demand more skills from entry level people. The more you know how to do, the more hats you can wear, the more valuable you are to the operation.

Kapugi: Fewer jobs, better quality people doing more.

Batchelor: It is definitely going to be harder for newcomers to break in. With so many small market stations using either satellite networks or voice tracking/automation to deliver programming, and larger market stations eliminating part-timers in favor of voice-tracking systems, many jobs are being eliminated. They were the jobs that traditionally went to newcomers.

Jaco: There'll be fewer jobs at lower pay. It's like the diminishing middle class in America. You'll have a few local and syndicated stars making big money, and the rest of the staff will be paid less than what people in their positions earned 20 years ago, taking inflation into account.

Moody: Of course, sales and engineering positions will remain relatively safe. Eventually the live air staff will return when listeners in, say, Decatur, Ill., get tired of hearing the person behind the mike in Texas.

SJR: Will radio end up getting a larger percentage of available advertising dollars? How?

Denver: Radio will survive just fine as it's a medium that is portable, and radio's ad share is still climbing.

Clear: Radio, in cooperation with outdoor companies, will get more money. Many of the major radio companies now own outdoor divisions. Many are utilizing cross-selling proposals that include radio spots and billboards. In the last two years since radio dereg, the radio dollars in St. Louis have increased significantly.

Stortz: I don't think radio will get any less percentage of the ad dollars. Stations that serve the needs of the clients will succeed.

Hayes: They will get a larger percentage of ad dollars because most major buyers in ad agencies are young white females. These are the listeners to local pop radio stations.

Carroll: It's got nowhere to go but up. It's always been the smallest medium in ad share. We've been in a growth mode for the past five years and I don't see that changing. The night Mark McGwire hit number 500 we had a fan festival and we sold booth space, giving clients access to all these great sports fans. Those are sources of revenue being added to the revenue pie.

Moody: The way things are going now spells trouble for radio in the future. Younger people are tuning out. Some say they're being driven away by the ever-increasing number of spots.

Jaco: You can start disguising commercials as something else. Live remote broadcasts, for example, will be bought and paid for by some advertiser, so the live remote, in essence, turns into an infomercial. You can start selling brief advertising mentions for small program segments-traffic, weather, sports scores. Or stations on the Net can sell ads on their home pages. Netcasting will probably turn into the fastest-growing revenue stream for radio companies nimble enough to get moving now.

Batchelor: Traditional radio will have to fight harder for a lower percentage of ad dollars over the next several years, perhaps harder than it has ever fought before due to increased competition from online media, which can reach a much larger audience.

SJR: When it comes to the radio business, what aspect of it will we never see again?

Hayes: We will never see personality radio again.

Stortz: The first and second generation radio people are gone. People who shaped, and in many areas created, the business over the last 50 years are gone, including those who simply left the business. I really miss some of these guys. It's just a different world and business today. The pace and demands will probably not allow for a return to a more serene setting. I don't know if it's gone forever, but locally owned stations bring a flavor to any market. I'm happy to be associated with one.

Carroll: It's just like the corner drug store. We're never going to see the mom and pops. The industry has outgrown them.

Hofer: Never? Mom and pop stations in medium and large markets; free-form radio.

Jaco: The independence of a radio station from advertising pressures. On many stations, programming is often determined by what advertisers want, or don't want. Sales and advertising-not programming-have become the most important part of the business.

Clear: We will never see super successful single station operators again.

Batchelor: Mom-and-pop ownership of high-powered stations in major markets is history. Corporate owners, for the most part, want to run their stations as cost-effectively as possible. A lot of the local flavor that stations once had is gone. In place of local announcers is a voice track staff, many of whom have never been to the cities where their voices are heard.

SJR: Any left field predictions?

Kapugi: An operator with 1,000 stations by the end of 1999.

Denver: Look for continued sell-offs from major chains in markets where they have reached ownership limits and are finding that operating that many stations is not profitable. You will see some of the medium-sized groups get larger in the process.

Jaco: You may see more unionization of radio station employees. If the push for greater profits makes conditions worse at many stations, unions may find a fertile ground for organizing.

Batchelor: I really do think this low-power FM proposal is going to pass. If so, you will see a lot of audiences, who weren't being served, getting their own stations. This will be especially big in areas with large ethnic populations who are presently underserved.

SJR causes stir at AEJMC

By Don Corrigan

Did the St. Louis Journalism Review go too far when a critic of public journalism called the new movement "an intellectual circle jerk" in a March 1998 article?

Some public journalists think so. And they said so at the 82nd annual convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) in New Orleans in August. SJR was singled out for harsh criticism at several public (civic)-journalism sessions at the AEJMC convention for professors of communication.

In a panel session entitled, "Civic Journalism: Taking Risks in Reworking Journalism," St. Louis University Professor John Pauly said criticism of the public-journalism movement in SJR has been especially disturbing to movement leader Jay Rosen, longtime head of the Project on Public Life and the Press at New York University.

Pauly said Rosen and other public-journalism advocates are upset by the seeming inability of many journalists to accept criticism from outside their profession. He said they also are disturbed by journalists' knee-jerk reactions to the public-journalism movement, as well as the tenor of their responses, such as using the "intellectual circle jerk" descriptive that appeared in SJR.

Pauly said Rosen's discomfort with SJR was compounded when he had to define "circle jerk" for his wife, who was unfamiliar with the term.

In fact, the "intellectual circle jerk" comment did not originate with SJR in the 1998 issue. SJR quoted the comment by a Boston radio reporter from a book largely favorable to the new movement. The quote from journalist Bruce Gellerman first appeared in a 1997 book, edited by Jay Black, entitled, "Mixed News: The Public/Civic/Communitarian Journalism Debate."

It was pointed out to Pauly that St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporters were now using even spicier phrases and expletives to describe the brand of public journalism brought to the daily by Editor Cole Campbell. Many such expletives are in response to the dictate that journalists turn in their resignations at the Post, and then reapply for their jobs.

Pauly said the resignation/reapply dictum at the Post had nothing to do with creating a civic culture or promoting a public-journalism climate at the newspaper, and was simply a regrettable example of "bad management policy."

Reactive or interactive?

In another AEJMC session held by the Civic Journalism Interest Group (CJIG) in New Orleans, panelists took up the question: "Reactive or Interactive? Designing Entry Points for Citizens: Where Are the Lines?"

Marty Steffens, editor of the Press & Sun-Bulletin in Binghamton, N.Y., described her paper's public-journalism efforts to involve the citizenry in turning the economic fortunes of her city around after several big companies left the area in southern New York.

Steffens and panelists like Jeremy Iggers of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune talked about the ways that a newspaper can determine a "citizens' agenda" for reporting purposes. Focus groups, town hall forums and informal deliberative conversations have been used in the past by public journalists to determine what readers want in their newspaper.

The panelists were brought up short in the Q&A portion of their CJIG session, when John Merrill, a professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, chided them for not having more confidence in their own professional training and experience. He said good journalists should always be in a better position to determine what goes into a paper than a group of ad hoc citizens.

He also suggested civic-journalism panelists were hypocrites for not holding an audience forum to determine what their panel session should be about. "But, of course, you had your agenda for this meeting before you came in here," Merrill declared.

Merrill has been a strident voice against public journalism, which he contends will limit journalistic autonomy in favor of reporting that is subordinated to promoting societal harmony. Jan Schaffer, director of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism and moderator of the CJIG panel session, chose not to pursue Merrill's line of thought.

However, Schaffer appeared rattled after Merrill's entry point into the session, and she followed his comments by asking the panel whether "good journalism is good for a community?"

Mapping the swamp

Schaffer moderated another CJIG panel at AEJMC entitled, "Mapping the Swamp: How to Penetrate a Community's Uncharted Civic Layers." The panel sported several experienced civic (public)-journalism mappers, including Lew Friedland of the University of Wisconsin and Chris Peck of the Spokesman Review of Spokane, Wash.

Also on the panel was Teri Pinney of the Harwood Institute, a consulting firm that has pioneered some of the best thinking on civic mapping, according to public journalists. Pinney has instructed journalists at a number of dailies on the methodology of reaching various strata of the community.

Pinney identified and explained the different layers of civic life for AEJMC professors. These include the official layer, such as city council meetings; the quasi-official layer, such as advocacy groups; the "third places" layer of barbershops, child care centers and diners; the incidental layer of sidewalks, the market and backyards; and the private layer of people's homes.

Too many reporters concentrate on the top two layers of the societal cake, rather than digging into the layers where citizens actually live and interact, Pinney noted.

Pinney described how Harwood coaches reporters on how to have good conversations and interviews in the "third places" layer. Pinney concentrated on "third places" because reporters are often awkward in engaging citizens in these informal venues.

According to Pinney, reporters should avoid the temptation to take people back to the private layer when in a "third places" setting. Reporters in this setting should always focus on values, principles and pathways for change, rather than asking story subjects about specific laws and policy solutions for a community.

In the Q&A portion of the CJIG session on civic mapping, Pinney was asked how Harwood consultants are typically brought into a newspaper to help journalists: Do editors who advocate civic journalism bring them into the newsroom, or do reporters who recognize deficiencies in "third place" reportage ask management for help with the appropriate coaching sessions?

Pinney at first dismissed the question, joking that Harwood consultants do focus groups in the women's restrooms at newspapers to find out if they're needed. But she quickly asserted that Harwood Institute consulting is top-down. But she said reporters seek help and are usually surveyed in some fashion to determine their needs before Harwood conducts its newsroom reporting seminars.

Teaching civic journalism

In yet another AEJMC session on civic journalism, several editors who practice public journalism, as well as representatives of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, conducted a workshop on how educators and practitioners can bring public journalism into the classroom.

Cheryl Gibbs of Earlham College, who co-chairs the Civic Journalism Interest Group of AEJMC along with Schaffer of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, told the assembled that as a college journalism teacher she has abandoned traditional texts for teaching reporting in favor of handouts and materials that were more civic-oriented.

The educators' workshop examined public-journalism courses now being taught at the University of Missouri, University of Kentucky, Wichita State University, Ithaca College and the University of California at Berkeley. Materials were also provided on teaching civic journalism at the secondary level.

Instruction in civic journalism at Warren Central High School in Indiana includes a 10-step quiz for newspaper editors to see if they are "civic-minded." The quiz asks if the role of the high school publication can be categorized as: A. Entertainer; B. Community-builder; C. Watchdog; D. Cheerleader/advocate. The preferred "civic" answer is B.

In a break-out session of the workshop, educators formed small groups to talk about civic-journalism instruction. The question came up as to how public journalism can be brought into a college curriculum if some faculty members in the school department were adamantly opposed to its practice.

After the break-out session, Pew's Schaffer explained that opposition to public journalism has dwindled and criticism has moderated. She said public journalism was at first opposed because it was viewed as boosterism; then there was concern about "these sinister foundations" getting a foot in the newsroom. She said the main complaint today is that "if it's good journalism, why not just call it journalism."

Also after the break-out session, Schaffer warned educators that an SJR reporter was in their midst. She said they might want to be careful because their comments about civic journalism might be on the record. She asked the reporter if he was going to be taking down quotes.

As a traditional journalist, the SJR reporter responded that examining quotes on a scale of one to 10, he would be taking down quotes at the extreme ends of the scale, but quotes in the three or seven range would probably not find a place in his notebook.

The response references public journalism advocate Cole Campbell's criticism of traditional journalism practice: "Journalists keep trying to find people who are at one and nine on a scale of 10, rather than people at three and seven where most people actually are. Journalism should say that the people from three to seven are just as newsworthy and quotable as those at either end of the spectrum lobbing bombs toward the middle."

On hearing of Schaffer's advisory to workshop educators about being quoted on the record by SJR, public-journalism critic John Merrill asked: "What are they doing now-private journalism? Everything that goes on at AEJMC should be on the record."

Civic conclusions

And so we return to some of the fundamental questions posed earlier in this article: Did SJR go too far when it used the descriptive quote, "an intellectual circle jerk" to characterize the public-journalism movement? Is public journalism interactive or reactive? And how do we map that civic swamp out there beyond the official layer of news sources?

Perhaps even more important are the questions SJR posed to a number of members of the Civic Journalism Interest Group (CJIG) at AEJMC.

Among those questions:

• Why was every CJIG panel session based on the premise that public journalism is good for the practice of journalism? If, as advocate Jay Rosen insists, public journalism requires a "paradigm shift" in journalism practice, are we not still at a stage where its ideas require more intense scrutiny?

• Why is the director of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism acting as co-chair for the division of AEJMC scholars studying public journalism? While Jan Schaffer is an excellent resource on the topic of civic (public) journalism, does she possess, dare we say, the proper detachment to lead professors in a critical study of this controversial journalism movement?

• Why is the director of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism acting as moderator for AEJMC panels comparing traditional journalism techniques with public-journalism approaches? Would the director of the Hearst Foundation be solicited to moderate panels comparing Hearst newspapers with Gannett newspapers?

SJR was gratified to find that many professors in CJIG thought these questions had merit. There was even a hint that, in the months to come, they will be thinking about more than public journalism's much-vaunted "proper connections." They may, instead, give some thought to the need for "proper separations" in analyzing and discussing the efficacy of public journalism.

Police block Hwy 40 exits, restrict late-night traffic

By Charles L. Klotzer

St. Louis police are blocking exits on Highway 40 on some Sunday nights into the early hours of Monday morning from downtown to Skinker Boulevard, a stretch of about six miles.

They are restricting cars from exiting into the city, causing problems for thousands of motorists, including young, African-American drivers, who can only exit at Big Bend Boulevard located in Richmond Heights outside of the city limits.

This keeps hundreds of car cruisers after they have been corralled into Highway 40, from reentering into the city and assembling somewhere else.

St. Louis Chief of Police Ronald Henderson told SJR that he did not know exactly about the closing.

"I gave the captain of the 4th District a challenge because he was catching a lot of heat from the business community about doing something (about the cruising). I wasn't totally aware of these initiatives," says Henderson.

Ron Pfeiffer, chief of police of Richmond Heights, called Henderson and complained about the closings as did other citizens. Pfeiffer told Henderson that he had only three officers working at night. Big Bend in Richmond Heights was the first exit where drivers could get off of Highway 40.

"They are taking over (Richmond Heights)," Henderson said Pfeiffer told him, "What are you doing?"

The closing of highway exits has stopped, says Henderson.

"I agree we have to find some other way," says Henderson.

The St. Louis Journalism Review (SJR) tracked the barricading of downtown streets at various intersections and on Highway 40 for several months. We saw the westbound exits of the highway blocked on June 6, June 21, and Aug. 1.

The eastbound exits are never blocked.

The closing is accomplished by placing bright red flares at each exit as well as a police car with flashing lights and an officer.

Former Missouri Supreme Court Justice Charles B. Blackmar considers this blocking an abuse of power. "Based on what you told me, I don't know what gives the police the right to block exits." Blackmar, now a resident of Jefferson City, served on the Missouri Supreme Court from Dec. 1982 to April 1992.

Many young African-Americans who live in the area know all about the closings. But when we asked scores of well-read, highly intelligent and involved citizens-both black and white-they knew nothing about it. Sunday evenings and going into the wee hours of the morning, the St. Louis police and car cruising young blacks have played a cat and mouse game for four to eight years, depending upon whom you talk to, on streets, parking lots and on one of the main arteries in St. Louis.

Alderman Bernice Jones-King introduced an anti-cruising Aldermanic Board Bill #80 on June 11, 1999 which was co-sponsored by Alderman Phyllis Young. When it came up for a vote only Jones-King and Young voted for it. It is now resting in the Street Committee headed by Young.

Chief Henderson doubts the value of an anti-cruising ordinance. "Quite frankly it takes on a racial tinge because the cruisers are mostly African Americans and it looks like we don't want you to come down here."

He also thought that such an ordinance could not be enforced. "I did say I am not opposed and I am not in favor [of the ordinance], but we will police this and use some initiative to do it peacefully."

The language of the bill most likely would have made the measure unconstitutional. Its key section prohibits, "The driver of any motor vehicle from driving past a police traffic control point established on any public right of way, within the City of St. Louis, on more than two (2) occasions with (sic: within) a three (3) hour time period at a speed of less than twenty (20) miles per hour. . . ."

It also stipulates that "The person operating the motor vehicle at the time it is stopped for a violation of this ordinance is presumed to have been the operator of the vehicle at all times. . . ."

However, the ordinance exempts emergency, commercial or passenger vehicles. According to these provisions the police on the beat are required to make all types of crucial decisions: The frequency of passage, the speed of passage, the type of vehicle, and the purpose of the driver. Such a burden is unfair to the police and would inevitably invite arbitrary actions.

Young said the bill was based on a St. Louis County measure which was adopted.

Police officers on the scene from the 4th District which covers downtown readily admit that the purpose of the highway blocking of exits is to discourage the hundreds of black men and women from reentering the city and again congregating at other places. The assumption is that once car cruisers are channeled into the highway and allowed only to exit in St. Louis County, they will disperse and go home.

The blocking of the 11 highway exits at 21st Street, Market, Forest Park, Boyle, north and south at Kingshighway, Hampton, Skinker and north and south at McCausland was organized by a special section of the St. Louis Traffic Division. One officer called it the "cruising detail."

An interview with St. Louis Mayor Clarence Harmon was requested, but because of minor surgery he was unable to meet with SJR.

They would be welcome

Owners of the Laclede's Landing bars, restaurants and entertainment industry fear that hundreds of cars driven by blacks will scare off white, county residents. "If they would just park and visit some of these places, they would be more than welcome," says Thomas W. Purcell, president of the Laclede's Landing Redevelopment Corporation which also owns the Wharfside Redevelopment Corporation.

No doubt to keep cruisers from parking on the Leonora K. Sullivan Boulevard and other streets in Laclede's Landing most have "no parking" and "tow-away" signs.

Purcell proudly recites the many assets of the Laclede's Landing area. His literature claims that the 600,000 square feet of space makes the area the largest office rehab project between Chicago and New Orleans. Sales exceeded $24 million in 1998 and the area employs 3,000 people. Under consideration are hotel, residential and commercial projects within the next two years. Most important, the area hosts 3.5 million visitors a year, with two-thirds coming from the St. Louis region. To make these visitors welcome is crucial for the area, says Purcell.

Purcell accuses the St. Louis City administration and the St. Louis City police of ignoring pressing social and economic problems. Purcell's motivation - some call him the Mayor of the Riverside - may well be linked to the economic interests of the riverside entertainment industry, but his concerns are echoed by a wide spectrum of citizens.

Earl Wilson, president and executive director of the St. Louis Gateway Classic, recites similar concerns. "We have a problem, we have systematically failed to attack these problems. Conditions are now worse than before the civil rights movement."

Their charges and those of many others zero in on the lack of recreational and social facilities for young people in the metropolitan area. While decades ago most neighborhoods hosted facilities for the young, says Wilson, nowadays nothing is provided for them. The net result is that the young frequent the places which are open to them: whites and some blacks congregate in shopping malls and blacks primarily take to car cruising.

Joan Horn, head of the St. Louis Community Development Administration, agrees, "We do not do a good job for young teenagers." While there are some recreational and sports facilities available during the day and sometimes on weekends, there is nothing open for them on Saturday or Sunday nights.

Except for two columns by Greg Freeman in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, none of the St. Louis media have discussed the issue. Purcell is incensed that the cruising problem and what it does to the downtown entertainment industry has not been featured. "Why hasn't the Post written about this," he asks.

The second of Freemans' columns was opened to reader responses. One of the most creative comments was by Richard Callow, who wrote: "We have a large and enthusiastic crowd of people coming into the city on a predictable basis. This sounds like more of a challenge than a problem. In some cities of Europe and Central America, large gatherings of people on warm weekend evenings are considered colorful and harmless expressions of youth, local pride and ceremonial courtship. Cottage industries of food and clothing vendors and musical groups spring up around the gatherings. Why, then, can't St. Louis do the same? Our able police department, cadre of alert city planners, farsighted leaders in the downtown and riverfront neighborhoods and clever local merchants ought to be able to figure out how to create a safe venue for a couple of hours on warm summer nights."

SJR joins the cruisers

For a first-hand look, SJR decided to join the cruisers on Sunday nights, in June, July and August.

After cruises begin to assemble late afternoons in the Natural Bridge and Kingshighway area, they ultimately drift to the parking area between Laclede's Landing and Leonora K. Sullivan Boulevard about 11:30 p.m. to 12 a.m. They socialize, chat, play some music and have a good time.

On several occasions we left our car and questioned the youngsters as to why the police were blocking some streets and made them move from place to place. Routinely the response, "We're blacks" sums it up for most. One young man, an architecture student from the University of Arkansas explained, "The police aren't really so bad. They have to do their job whether they like it or not, although it really doesn't make any sense what they do."

On Sunday night, July 25, anyone wishing to drive to the Soulard district on Broadway was blocked at the Highway 40 exit. The only choice drivers had was to enter the highway. Similarly, on Aug. 15, an officer forcefully directed all cars with black residents onto the highway, but when he saw a white couple slowing down, he came over and asked whether they wished to proceed on Broadway, "We are just trying to control the cruisers," he said, "but you are free to proceed." He obviously tried to be nice.

The temperature during the Sunday August nights was mellow; driving in a car with windows down was a pleasant experience. The cruisers and the police cars circle around each other and it is not always clear who chases whom. The police are powerless to stop the drivers, but they pounce on any cars parked on public or private lots and make them move back into the streets. Tickets are frequently issued, but these do not deter the cruisers on their merry ways.

On Aug. 8, cruisers started to move around 12:30 a.m. from the original assembly point near Laclede's Landing. Driving south on Sullivan Boulevard toward the casino, they were stopped by a policeman, and ordered to move west into Laclede's Landing at Morgan Street. When asked why the street was blocked, he said, "There had been a shooting." (When we checked later with the 4th District police, we were told that no shooting happened that night in that area.)

Most of the cruising cars ended up on Broadway going south and parked on a Taco Bell lot at the corner of Chouteau and Broadway. Other cars were parked along Broadway with some drivers calmly sitting inside their cars, others car-hopping, conversing or waiting at a White Castle drive-in apparently to place orders.

South of Chouteau officers from the 3rd Police District, kept watching the cruisers who stayed north of Chouteau. When SJR pulled into a gas station on the southwest corner of Chouteau and Broadway, one friendly police officer pulled up and asked whether we were lost.

The other officer told us that he enjoyed the spectacle of the cruising. "They are all middle-class kids driving dad's and mom's cars. They come from miles around, Illinois and out of state. They are having a good time, but we are worried that someone might drive into a gas pump and race up the wrong side of the street and then we get blamed."

So, he explained, the police will arrest a few to discourage the cruising. He recalled that when he was young he had a trombone and bugged the hell out of a local Ted Drewes ice cream parlor whose manager chased him away. So he stopped buying ice cream there for a time.

While he recalled his youthful adventures, police cars came up Broadway with sirens blaring and started corralling the cruisers by blocking them from going further south on Broadway and blocking cars on Broadway from turning onto Chouteau and Taco Bell.

Again the cruisers started to move, going north on 6th street towards downtown. Some reassembled along Broadway and Washington, some tried to go to Wharf Street and others circled in other directions.

By then it was past 2 a.m. and these observations were abandoned.

"It makes no sense,"

patrol officer

On Sunday night, Aug. 15, because of a rap concert at J's on the Landing between Carr and Biddle Streets, cruisers assembled on an empty, private parking lot south of Carr Street.

We moved among them, they were sitting in their cars listening to the rap music (without having to pay) and socializing. At that point Carr street had some traffic, but was not blocked. It did not take long for a police car to start moving them out of the parking lot.

We questioned the officer as to why the cars had to move from a private parking lot. "These are my orders. I know it makes no sense. All these cars will shortly create a gridlock downtown whereas here they were sitting quietly." The officer received the orders from the lieutenant in charge.

That theme was repeated by another officer later that night who once again blocked cars from proceeding on Sullivan Boulevard to the casino. The officer, too, asked a white couple whether they would like to continue south to the casino, but he directed all other cars driven by blacks to move west into Laclede's Landing.

From Laclede's Landing to Broadway to 7th Street to 4th Street back to Laclede's Landing back to Taco Bell on Choteau and Broadway, round and round they went, a circular dance which must have been frustrating to the police as they were rushing from place to place trying to keep streets open while the cruisers, at least the ones we talked to, found it all amusing.

Not once over the five Sunday nights when we mingled with the cruisers, did we hear or see any rude, loud or unseemly behavior, except that a few cars exceeded the speed limit. The young men and women were well dressed, cheerful, intelligent, looking for fun times and, of course, trying to meet others.

Chief Henderson and the police department do not know how to accommodate either the entertainment business interests downtown or the car cruisers without upsetting one or the other. "We have tried everything we know. We don't want a physical encounter with these young people. It's just the volume of it and we get caught in the middle. We have the business community and then we have the young people who say we have the right to be here," says Henderson.

Henderson has met with the young people and they asked him, "What are we doing wrong?" Henderson told them, "You are doing nothing wrong, there are just too many of you doing it."

The police have reported very few incidents, Henderson says-for the most part there are pretty good. "All they really want to do is show off their cars, they want to mix and mingle."

On the other hand, says Henderson, businessmen rightly complain that customers can't get to their businesses because of the gridlock. At one time, recalls Henderson, they-police and business leaders-thought they found some open spaces on Hall Street where the cruisers could assemble, but the alderman of that ward objected.

Cruising since 1991

Detective Byron Pargo of the Kinloch police originally was hired by the St. Louis Police Department in 1991. Not too much earlier he was one of the car cruisers. "Instead of being harassed, I was doing the harassing," he laughs. At that time, the cruisers assembled in Forest Park, just west of Kingshighway.

When the word was out that Forest Park was off limits, Pargo says, the cruisers moved to O'Fallon Park. When the police began to block that park following complaints by local residents, cruisers moved downtown and some to Lincoln Park in Illinois.

When closing down an area, such police action is never done without the knowledge and approval of the Chief of Police, says Pargo. No local commander would dare to inconvenience local residents without approval from the highest authority.

On one occasion, SJR stopped at the Hampton exit and questioned the officer about the blocking. The officer indicated that too much cruising was going on in the city.

On another occasion, SJR stopped on the exit ramp at the Skinker exit to question the officer as to the cause of the blocking. SJR was told to move on. When questioned again, SJR was again brusquely told to move on. Then the officer was asked for his name. In response, the officer requested the driver's license and returned after a while with two summons one for obstructing traffic (the car was parked on the blocked exit ramp) and one for not obeying an officer.

When SJR contacted the traffic division that night, it was told that the purpose of blocking exits was to stop cruising.

On Aug. 6 at 3 p.m., SJR called the St. Louis City Traffic Division (Phone 444-2500) and questioned the officer, a lady, about the Sunday night blocking on Aug. 1. She was heard questioning another officer in the background who told her, "the police had a barbecue," which she told SJR. When she was repeatedly questioned why a past-midnight barbecue necessitates blocking all city exits, SJR was told, "I have told you five times that there was a police barbecue, so why do you question me" and hung up. In the background, others were heard laughing during the conversation.

The roadblocks have generated comments on the Metropolist chat room on the internet. One driver, Joe LeGrand, a 34-year-old businessman, returning from a trip to Indiana complained that he could not get off the highway until the Big Bend exit. "This was very annoying," he told SJR, because I live near Forest Park. I had to backtrack to the city to get home. I stopped at one exit and the police officer there simply yelled at me to move on and wouldn't answer my query about why all the road-blocks."

Other chatroom comments were critical of the police "cattle roundups" and one person described how a visitor from out of town left his hotel for a pack of cigarettes. "He got on 40 and couldn't get off (because of the road-blocks) until he was way out in the county. Being from out of town he became lost far from his hotel. He thought St. Louis was kind of stupid."

Loitering is a right

In the U.S. Supreme Court decision City of Chicago v. Morales et al., U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens upheld the Illinois Supreme Court decision that the Chicago ordinance which prohibits loitering in public places is unconstitutional.

The Chicago police ordered citizens to move-on if they were in one place with no apparent purpose and one of them was a suspected gang member. Such an ordinance is invalid on its face, the Court said. The freedom to loiter for innocent purposes is a constitutional protected right.

Before the Supreme Court reached its decision in June of this year, it is estimated that the City of Chicago had issued 89,000 "move-on" orders since enactment of the ordinance in 1992 and made over 42,000 arrests.

Former Justice Blackmar thought that the Chicago situation would also apply to St. Louis.

In his Opinion, Justice Stevens concluded that the Chicago ordinance wrongly criminalized harmless behavior by threatening arrest if a person is loitering in the company of a gang member in any public place in Chicago and fails to disperse after being ordered to do so. The police can do so only if the purpose of the gathering is not apparent to an officer.

Just as in the dispersal of cruisers by the St. Louis police, the Chicago police failed to give ordinary citizens adequate notice of what is forbidden and what is permitted. In Chicago the city had passed an ordinance on the basis of which police asked citizens to "move-on." In St. Louis the police asked citizens in cars to move-on without the backing of any ordinance. Asking various patrolman on duty in St. Louis why they harassed cruisers, their consistent answer was "we have orders to do so." They moved parked cars from private and public parking lots by intimidation of their presence and sirens without given any reasons.

Pressure from the

entertainment industry

The harassment of car cruisers both in downtown St. Louis and by blocking the exits is most likely the result of pressure from interests such as the Laclede's Landing businesses, the President Casino and similar enterprises. Whatever the intention of the police, their actions are totally ineffective and directly cause gridlocks downtown. This was confirmed by a number of police officers SJR questioned on the scene.

Car cruising is not an activity which fits into the hospitality plans of riverside establishments. Purcell says he has been in regular contact with both Mayor Harmon and Police Chief Henderson. Purcell has even prepared a video of the cruisers and distributed copies. He favored passage of the Aldermanic anti-cruising bill.

Car cruising is not too different from loitering as long as the traffic flow is not impeded. To avoid gridlocks on downtown and other streets, areas should be provided which welcome these cruisers to assemble and socialize. Such areas should, of course, be patrolled by police, but they should refrain from harassment as is now the weekly practice.

In August of last year, Mayor Harmon, Police Chief Henderson, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Dee Joyce-Hayes, U.S. attorneys Edward J. Dowd, Jr. and Charles "Chuck" Grace urged young people to renounce violence and promised help with outreach programs, educational opportunities and job training reported the Post (Aug. 5, 1998). The alternative to their "Ceasefire" message is "heavy prison time," said Dowd, Jr. Threats are one approach and depending upon the circumstances have a role to play. A more creative approach would be to provide an environment which abhors violence and creates an atmosphere of respect between citizens and law enforcement authorities.

In channeling traffic, the police, black and white, distinguish between white and black drivers. While controlling traffic and forestalling gridlocks does not imply racial profiling, the way the cruising problems are handled does have racial overtones. What stuns many observers is the fact that both St. Louis' mayor and chief of police are black, but ignore the needs of young blacks in favor of business interests.

Racial profiling is a nationwide problem, reports the Post (June 14, 1999). A 43-page report distributed by the American Civil Liberties Union based on police statistics and studies from 23 states shows that law enforcement agencies have systematically targeted minority travelers, minority pedestrians, motorists and airline passengers. They are stopped and searched based on the belief that they are more likely than whites to commit crimes.

"I don't think it is racial," says Henderson in reference to pressure by the business community, "but any argument concerning it will put a racial spin on it."

The weekly confrontation between police and the car cruisers is an invitation for trouble. Police actions, justified or not, often play a role in triggering riots. While peaceful car cruising in various parts of the city has been going on for many years, the potential for a serious confrontation is ever present and can be avoided with foresight by city authorities and collaboration by the police.

More defections from Post-Dispatch staff

By Ed Bishop

As SJR was going to press, it learned that five staff members at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch were announcing their departure. They are Charles Bosworth, Peter Hernon, Mai-Ling Hopgood, Monty Reel and Bill Keaggy. The five are the latest in what is becoming a vitural flood of resignations at the Post, and sources say that more are on the way.

Bosworth, who worked at the paper for more than 20 years, says that he no longer feels intune with the changes taking place at the Post..

"I still like what I do," he says, "and I thought it was time to leave while I still do."

Hernon's departure is significant not only because he is an excellent journalist but also because he was the last white male to be a team leader.

Editors have justified the reorganization of the Post into teams, in part, because they said they wanted racial and gender diversity. As of today, the 20 or so teams at the Post have almost entirely white female leaders.

One source in the newsroom tells SJR that many remaining staff members are hopeful that Publisher Terrance C.Z. Egger will notice the defections and do something to stem the tide.

LETTERS

Where's the news?

SJR: Just wanted to thank you for the stories on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in your July/August issue. You helped to reconfirm my belief that the "newPost" is a perfect example of what can go wrong when there is a lack of competition. As for Mr. Campbell, I regret to inform him that I have received my education and can solve my own problems, but would appreciate being informed occasionally.

Chris Seibel

St. Louis, Mo.

Allman responds to Farnen letter

SJR: It's not surprising that State Representative Ted Farnen would be the one to carry water for lazy lawmakers. As a "newspaper reporter" he was well known as an apologist for the powers that be, and it wasn't long before he was hired to write speeches for them and now is one of them.

Luckily, the journalism degree that he boasts about is packed away in his basement for, if it were still in his hands, it would be a lethal weapon. His obsession with trying to skip around the truth is alarming. And his attempts to twist the truth are embarrassing.

I've never been a big fan of term limits. But I do favor reducing the lengths lawmakers like Farnen will go to cover for each other.

The truth is:

• Too many lawmakers skip committee meetings. Senator J.T. Howard said he missed a committee meeting because he had others going on. He did not have other committee meetings going on. Farnen still lets him off the hook.

• The citizens who Farnen insultingly labels "visiting ladies" were from the Brem Catholic Social Ministry. No bill they have promoted for 12 years has passed. At least a dozen bills promoted by well-established lobbyist John Britton did pass last session alone. Farnen calls that "cynical" reporting.

• Farnen calls an interview with a citizen deceptive, and then explains his accusation by guessing what the man was commenting on. Farnen knows full well the man wasn't only commenting on the "few discarded empty beer cartons in the hallways," and yet he insists he was. Who's misleading here?

• Farnen says he dislikes what Rep. Brent Evans says in the reports. One example of Evans' so called offensive quotes: "I think attendance at committee meetings is a matter of personal responsibility."

• Farnen accuses us of breaking the rules by taking cameras into the upper level of the house. We did not see a sign posted there and, when we found out there was a sign, we left. By the way, the rule of no cameras was created after lawmakers repeatedly wound up being photographed sleeping during floor debates.

• Farnen throws around the words "unprofessional," "cynical" and "biased" like he just learned them for a debate class. Is it "unprofessional" to take pictures of empty committee chairs and beer cartons and lobbyists smoking in a senate office? Is challenging absent lawmakers "biased?" Is it really "cynical" to question why a lobbyist can boast on TV that he has more power than the average citizen?

The answer to all those questions is no. Unless you live in Farnen's world, where lawmakers can do no wrong and when they do wrong, they have excuses.

Farnen and his co-hort Rep. Gracia Backer like to decry us "city slickers" who "swoop" into Jeff City and ruin their little political hoedown. But it's only because someone is finally starting to ask questions that lawmakers like Farnen are crying like spoiled children and then purposely twisting the truth to avoid a spanking.

Farnen and others-like his buddy Rep. Backer who called me a "scumbag" on the house floor-brag about how they have the Jeff City press hypnotized by their shiny lapel buttons. No wonder they get mad when other reporters don't kiss their rings. With that said, here are two other truths: I'm not impressed, and I can't wait to go back to Jefferson City.

Sincerely,

Jamie Allman

Hard times at New Times

SJR: A big thumbs-up to Ed Bishop's July/August column on the Riverfront Times and his observation that New Times is not a chain of "alternative" newspapers, despite its affectations to the contrary.

I was fortunate enough to work for New Times when there was only the one in Phoenix and was still a true "alternative" one that viewed the world, and therefore determined what was newsworthy, from a perspective outside the mainstream. Unfortunately, Mike Lacey always was more driven by his need to be a player-one reason why New Times newspapers are so fixated on winning prizes, and, please God, let one of them be a Pulitzer-than is possible when you're working the margins. So, by the mid-80s he'd become more interested in beating the dailies at their own game than in redefining the game. And so it remains to this day.

I should add, in the interest of full-disclosure, that Lacey fired my ass after four years because I didn't adapt well to his changing, more market-driven sensibilities. The silver lining to my cloud was a sudden appreciation for organized labor, leading first to a decade of union activism at Dow Jones (where I reported for the Wall Street Journal and Barron's) and then to my current job, as editor of the monthly newspaper published by The Newspaper Guild. So, ultimately I can't complain too much about Lacey's capriciousness.

I can affirm, however, that New Times is more form than substance, a slick but formulaic chain of publications that clings to the "alternative" image because of its edgy connotations. There's much to be said on New Times' behalf. It can be fun to read, the papers do in fact encourage a lot of solid investigative reporting, some of the writing is first-rate, but the heart is missing.

That "alternative" business is marketing hype, as harmless as any other Madison Avenue jingle-as long as the public understands it for what it is. Your column suggests it will.

Andy Zipser

Washington, D.C.

Waking the dead

SJR: While I'm sure hearing Catullus voice his lament and serving as a war correspondent for the Emperor Constantine must have been highlights of E.F. Porter's early career in journalism, the fact remains that he confused the motto "per ardua ad astra" (Royal Air Force) with the motto "per aspera ad astra" (State of Kansas and Planetarium) in citing the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for poor Latin in the April SJR and in his subsequent letter to the editor in June. I didn't help by introducing my own errors when I called Mr. Porter to task in my own May letter to the editor; nonetheless, the distinguished reporter tarnishes his credibility by refusing to acknowledge his mistake.

The whole episode may be prime illustration of why one should not attempt to wake a dead language.

Joe Bonwich

St. Louis, Mo.

OF NOTE

1999 ABJ awards

On Aug. 7, the Greater St. Louis Association of Black Journalists presented its annual awards for journalism and public-relations specialists. The following is a list of recipients in the print category.

General News

(Circulation of 100,000+)

Yvonne Samuel,

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Blacks File Complaints

Against the Army"

Editorial

(Circulation of 100,000+)

Ray Hartmann,

Riverfront Times

"Integration Forever"

News Analysis

(Circulation of 100,000+)

D.J. Wilson,

Riverfront Times

"Meacham Park Blues"

Column

(Circulation of 100,000+)

Gregory Freeman,

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Lingering Dread of Nappy Hair"

Spot News

(Circulation of 100,000+)

Tommy Robertson,

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Three Graduates Mastered

Friendship"

Feature Story'

(Circulation of 100,000+)

Tim Poor,

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Tailoring His Legacy"

Political Coverage

(Circulation of 100,000+)

Melinda Roth and Safir Ahmed,

Riverfront Times

"Backlash"

Series

(Circulation of 100,000+)

Dan Mihalopoulos,

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"African Americans Resign From

Civic Progress"

Sports Story

D.J. Wilson,

Riverfront Times

"Goal Line Stand"

Photojournalism

Wiley Price,

St. Louis American

"Funeral of Dominique Evans"

Column

(Circulation of -100,000)

Sylvester Brown,

Take Five

"The Messenger"

General News

(Circulation of -100,000)

Victoria Anton,

Take Five

"Different Smokes for Different Folks"

Feature Story

(Circulation of -100,000)

Sylvester Brown,

Take Five

"Kid Gloves"

Political Coverage

(Circulation of -100,000)

Sylvester Brown,

Take Five

"Looking for a Reason"

Series

(Circulation of -100,000)

Victoria Anton,

Take Five

"Investigating the Gregory Bell Case"

Sports Story

(Circulation of -100,000)

Alvin Reid ,

St. Louis American

"Tiger Takes St. Louis by Storm"

A fuzzy line

Regardless of excuses, denials and obfuscations from vice-presidents and other network bureaucrats, the line between news and rumor (or news and nonsense, if you prefer) became even fuzzier during the summer as the ABC Radio network hired Matt Drudge as a syndicated talk-show host. Already heard on Sundays over WABC in New York, he now will be syndicated nationally by ABC and will run on the network's radio affiliates across the country.

Drudge, as we all know by now, rose to fame from his Web site when he broke the story about the sexual dalliances between President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Apparently, Drudge got the story from the Newsweek exclusive, before the magazine had fully checked the information, but Drudge trumpeted the story as news. However, when real reporters decry his techniques and tactics, his repetition of rumor and innuendo, Drudge claims he is not a real journalist, but an Internet reporter, whatever that is, and he ducks and evades criticism by saying he is not trained as a journalist and does not have an editor.

"He says he's not a journalist, but he plays one on TV," quipped Deborah Potter, former CBS and CNN reporter who now is executive director of NewsLab, a non-profit organization that advises local television stations about their news operations.

ABC has said it will not bill the Drudge show as news. ABC Radio and ABC News are separate entities in ABC, Inc., which in turn belongs to the Walt Disney Company.

-Joe Pollack

Radio ripples

Radio Predictions: Look for KSLZ to seek a replacement for the "M.J. and B.J." morning program. SJR has learned that local management is not happy with the ratings performance of the program. As with many morning drive shows here, "M.J. and B.J." originate in another city (Tampa), and the two announcers try to make the program sound local to St. Louisans. A quiet search is reportedly under way for a replacement for the show.

The proposed transfer of Sinclair's St. Louis broadcast properties to Emmis is still on track. No one is saying when the transfer will actually happen, nor have decisions been announced which radio properties would be spun off by the new owners. Those close to the situation have told SJR that at least three stations will be sold, possibly to another national radio player.

-Frank Absher

Headine follies

Headline writers may have a difficult task cramming a lot of information into a few well-chosen words, but sometimes they go a little too far when it comes to a grasp of the obvious. A New York Times editor showed that recently. A 344-pound Florida man, in the state's electric chair, bled considerably during his recent execution. Some witnesses said the blood came from his chest and mouth; a state spokesman said it was a nosebleed.

The Times headline: "An Execution Causes Bleeding"

-Joe Pollack

Good times

With the Los Angeles Times setting the pace in a major turnaround, Times-Mirror Company profits and those of its newspaper group each rose six percent in the second quarter of 1999. The L.A. Times, though up only two percent, showed a quarterly profit for the first time in more than a year and saw national advertising volume up by 33.5 percent.

Total advertising volume was up at the chain's three largest newspapers, with the Baltimore Sun showing a 30.5 percent gain to lead the group. The Times' ad volume climbed 8.4 percent, and Newsday was up 2.7 percent.

-Joe Pollack

In SJR

10 Years Ago:

• The St. Louis market lost a weekly conservative publication when the Globe Digest ceased production after several months of financial difficulties.

• KXOK, under the ownership and management of Michael Frischling, signed on with an all-news format. Sister station KHTK kicked off its new identity with a CHR sound.

• The new St. Louis Sun set Sept. 25 for its debut.

5 Years Ago:

• Mike Montgomery, editor of The Telegraph in Alton, was fired after a local editorial cartoon riled one of the paper's advertisers.

• Il Pensiero, the local Italian newspaper published by Antonio Lombardi, celebrated its 90th year in business.

• Network musical chairs ended in St. Louis as TV stations swapped affiliates. KTVI went from ABC to Fox and KDNL went from Fox to ABC.

Radio by the numbers

By Frank Absher

On the eve of a major consolidation of St. Louis radio resulting from a proposed ownership change, the Spring 1999 Arbitron numbers may foretell which stations will be undergoing makeovers.

Sinclair's stations, WIL, WRTH, KIHT, WVRV, KPNT and KXOK have a combined 12 plus share of 21.7. WIL leads that pack with 7.1, placing it third in the market behind the KMOX share of 13.1 and KEZK's 7.3. KMOX is down from 13.9 in 1998, and WIL is down from 8.6. Compared to last year's figures, KMOX showed an audience gain in morning drive during the 7 o'clock hour. It then drops off immediately and surpasses 1998 again only in the 6 p.m. hour.

Other dramatic jumps in this book over Spring 1998 include KATZ-FM up to 4.5 from 2.2 on a format change; KLOU to 4.5 from 3.9; KSLZ 3.9 to 4.6; KTRS 3.0 to 3.6; KXOK 1.9 to 2.9; and WESL no reading to .8.

Those stations trending down include KMJM to 6.0 from 6.6; KPNT 3.8 to 3.1; and KSHE 4.7 to 3.0.

HERE

By Ed Bishop

I don't know Carolyn Kingcade but I feel sorry for her. Folks say she's an intelligent, skilled, straight-up journalist. But she has an impossible task.

Kingcade was recently named the Readers' Advocate for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which doesn't actually mean she advocates anything for readers. It means she has to explain how a once-excellent newspaper has become a mediocre embarrassment. The impossible part is that she can't just come out and say it.

Apparently she can't say that the newspaper's top bosses have decided that publishing real journalism stirs up too much controversy, so they've decided not to publish any news. She can't say the Post has been captured by a movement called "public journalism" that now hates traditional reporting almost as much as Spiro Agnew used to. She can't say that most of her bosses haven't a clue about what news would be in the metropolitan area because they've only been here a couple of years and some of the younger reporters a lot less.

She's left with explaining that a writer was being a devil's advocate when he wrote a column saying that Mark McGwire was a drag on the Cardinals baseball team. She's left with telling readers that "emotions ... are facts" in the Bryan Murphy story. You see, a Post reporter and his editors turned a hard-news article about a Webster Groves teenager who was killed while spray painting on a railroad trestle into a sappy soft-news piece. The piece was filled with emotion but had very few facts.

In short, Kingcade is left with apologizing for a news organization that is quickly losing what's left of its credibility.

For the last couple of months, on an almost daily basis, SJR has been getting either a phone call, an e-mail or a letter complaining about the Post. The theme of these complaints is always the same: "Why isn't there any news in the Post?" The subtext of the complaints is always the same too: "Why is the Post talking down to me?"

Or as Philip M. Niblack wrote to Michael Pulitzer, chairman of Pulitzer Inc., and carbon copied to SJR recently: "I would suggest to you that I do not need the wiser instincts of persons in the executive suite to help me form my sense of either civic or national or international priorities, but the Post of late seems to assume that I do. Articles are too often seemingly written or chosen from the viewpoint that we need guidance in forming the public concern rather than the assumption that if given a wide range of truth the (reader) will find (his or her) own way."

Wouldn't you love to see Kingcade write a column saying that readers want more hard news and less condescending, agenda-setting tripe-and that she thinks they're right?

Of course, a firestorm would break out. But my guess is that a lot of editors and reporters at the Post would back her.

• • •

I'm not a big fan of the new format at the Riverfront Times. Not enough stories. Not enough news. Not enough local opinion. Not enough edge. And too much of that one, main article. Those things aren't in-depth; they're just long.

Having said that, I thought Eddie Silva's piece on Branson ("Strip Search," Aug. 25-31) was excellent. Instead of falling into the trap so many of us would have-looking down our big-city noses at the place-Silva let long-time locals talk about the effects of neon and glitter coming to the Ozarks. It was very effective. No cheap shots. No polemics. And everyone's dignity remained intact.

I only have one complaint-the piece was too short.

I wish Silva would have followed the old journalism adage and followed the money. I wanted to know more about the economics of the region, about the town's tax abatements and zoning, about the wages of the locals and if the budget of the local high school had gone up. In short, are the locals sharing in the bounty? And, if not, where's that $1.2 billion going?

So what if it would have added a page or two. Kill a couple of those sex ads.

• • •

With this issue, SJR is starting a new column about politics and the media. It's being written by Dennis Judd, a professor of political science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Dennis is no stranger to SJR readers. He has been writing insightul articles for this publication for years. But the new column will give Judd and SJR a chance to focus on local politics on a regular basis.

THERE

By Charles L. Klotzer

It seems unreal, but in the fall of next year the St. Louis Journalism Review will have been commenting on the local and occasionally on the national media scene for 30 years.

That is a milestone which deserves some special attention was the consensus at the last editorial get-together of SJR advisors. As our readers know, about 20 to 30 journalists from the print, broadcast and other communication media as well as academia meet once a month to critique the last issue and explore stories for the coming issue. For two to three hours they shed their regular, professional identities and become loyal SJR volunteers. The discussions are always lively, informative, irreverent and frequently irrelevant to media issues. Some of the members have attended these sessions since nearly the very beginning. (Some advisors are listed in the masthead, others prefer to help without wanting such credit.)

How shall we celebrate three decades of publishing? Webster University offers an ideal setting for an all-day conference which could include panel discussions, addresses by national personalities, visits to local media outlets (if they want us), media awards, competitions, and much else. Any ideas out there?

Staging such an event requires funding as well as volunteers. As planning will progress, SJR will contact various institutions and other sources to help us make this event or events a contribution not only to the media but also to this city and region.

Call us if you want to join in an exciting venture.

• • •

It is easy to forget how safe we are-especially, critics of the media. An item in Nieman Reports (Summer 1999) by Wilson Wanene tells the story of David Makali in Kenya. He edits a monthly media review journal, eXpression today.

"In every issue we want to make a special in-depth analysis of a topic that's not getting adequate coverage or is ignored by the regular media." the journal quotes Makali.

After he published a front-page story "Kenya Turned Into Haven For Drug Barons" he was kidnapped, shoved into a van, taken into a forest and badly beaten.

Did this event shut him up? No, the same day he gave a press conference about the incident, wrote a column about the affair, and exposed the person, he thought, who was behind the beating: Fred Gumo, assistant minister in the office of the President, who previously had earned a "thuggish" reputation.

The eight-part drug series which apparently caused this confrontation was financed by the U.S. Fund for Investigative Journalism (which in years passed had also financed some of SJR's stories).

"Makali believes that there needs to be more serious effort in investigative journalism by the major dailies," writes Wanene. In explaining eXpression today, Makali could just as well have written about the American scene.

"The idea is that ultimately we're trying to burst and expand the horizons of press freedom in this country by checking the excessive influence of the various forces such as the threat of advertisers to control content, and the threat by politicians to circumscribe the freedom of the press through legislation." In America, we are not only facing the intimidation of business interests, but also religious and other fundamentalists.

Continents apart, the issues are the same.

• • •

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch recently paid for 23 of its journalists to attend a convention attended by members of the National Association of Black Journalists, the Asian-American Journalists' Association of Hispanic Journalists. Some of the reporters attended to find recruits for the paper, but most just attended as participants. This is a welcome sign of outreach and deserves recognition.

• • •

Finally, it makes you wonder what is amiss on the American scene when one learns that Hong Kong with a population of 6.7 million has twenty, yes twenty, daily newspapers.

EVERYWHERE

Bill Woo's wrong road

Among the public journalism propaganda that was piled high on journalism academics at the annual communication professors' convention in New Orleans in August was the Pew Center magazine, Civic Catalyst. It heralded "Imagine St. Louis" as one of the most righteous and glorious innovations on the public journalism scene.

The gushing review of the Sunday section launched in April was entitled, "Shining a Light in Dark Corners." While the approach of "Imagine St. Louis" was new to Post readers, Civic Catalyst noted that it's an approach editor "Cole Campbell has pioneered, creating similar features at the Virginian Pilot before moving to St. Louis in 1997." (For the record, Campbell began shining light in dark corners at the Post in 1996.)

Toeing the line for Campbell in the Civic Catalyst article was section editor Bob Duffy, who declares that the Sunday feature "fulfills in rich and glorious detail Joseph Pulitzer's call to 'never be satisfied with merely printing the news.'" No one will argue with Duffy on that, since "Imagine St. Louis" is certainly not about printing the news.

Not content with merely singing change agent Campbell's praises, Civic Catalyst took some swipes at former Post Editor William Woo, who has refused to climb aboard the public-journalism bandwagon. In contrast to Campbell, Civic Catalyst stressed that Woo "was an avowed skeptic about including readers in the newspapers' pages," which "Imagine St. Louis" presumably does.

Civic Catalyst insists that Post reporters were wary that after Woo's departure, Campbell would simply continue with Woo's detached and elitist ways of newspapering.

Pew Center's Pat Ford writes in Civic Catalyst, "According to reporters who did not wish to be identified, the Post-Dispatch staff was wary of Campbell's appointment for that reason, fearing he would take them down a path Woo had led them to distrust. But, they say, Campbell acted slowly and deliberately in making changes."

Refusing to go down Woo's wrong road, Campbell's Sunday section experiment is anointed by Duffy in the Civic Catalyst article with superlatives such as "exciting" and "enriching." Declares Duffy: "The people responding to this feel like there's finally a way to have a great big civic conversation."

-Don Corrigan

Missing the point

St. Louis Post-Dispatch editors missed the boat on their "debate" on the labeling of genetically engineered foods. Instead of pairing a proponent of labeling with an opponent, they ran columns by two people with the same point of view, just expressed differently. And both of them missed the point.

Both columns were by proponents of genetic engineering. One column opposed labeling on the grounds that there is no nutritional difference between genetically engineered foods and unmodified foods. The other columnist supported labeling, as long as it promoted genetically engineered foods as superior to natural foods. Both columnists need to talk to some sociologists and anthropologists.

Food is not just about nutrition. It also is about religion, culture and politics. A kosher label doesn't mean the food so labeled is nutritionally better than nonkosher food. It just means it was prepared according to a certain set of religious dietary rules. An Agri Missouri label doesn't mean the food so labeled is nutritionally better than other food. It just means it was grown in Missouri. Such labels are common.

Six years ago, during the first labeling fight over genetically engineered foods, SJR quoted dairy representatives who pointed out that people have many reasons other than nutrition for wanting to know if their food contains genetically engineered ingredients. Recently, The New York Times picked up the same theme, reporting on a group of religious leaders, including Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists, who are suing the FDA and demanding labeling so they can follow religious dietary rules.

The FDA, at Monsanto's urging, banned voluntary labeling of food products as free of genetically engineered ingredients, citing the novel worry that it would imply superiority, a worry that doesn't apply to any other labeling.

That sort of clumsy, jackbooted censorship is one reason people wonder what government and the industry have to hide.

-Peter Downs

Post-Dispatch disconnect

St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorials never tire of hammering away at the outrageous salary packages of CEOs and other business execs. While the average working stiffs get a yearly salary of $33,424, the big guys in the executive suite pull down millions in salary and millions more in stock option bonuses. Columnist Bill McClellan has argued for a cap on CEO salaries in the low six figures.

All of this populist ranting must have rung rather hollow for readers on July 18, when the Post revealed the top 50 highest paid St. Louis executives. Five past and present Pulitzer executives made the top 50, which means that 10 percent of the highest paid execs are with Pulitzer Inc. Compensation packages for these media honchos ranged from $6,242,291 to a measly $2,096,269.

At one time, such an egregious breach between what a newspaper preached and what it practiced was called hypocrisy. In the new age of public journalism it is simply called "disconnect."

-Don Corrigan

Time warp

We've seen it enough times. A new bank takes over a local operation. It blitzes the media with ads telling us how wonderful it is to be in St. Louis. "We feel right at home. Please consider us family."

Firstar should have taken the time to hire an ad agency that knew St. Louis. Its print ads show a skyline shot of a city that doesn't really exist anymore. This fictional city has no Thomas Eagleton Courthouse, and there's a bevy of boats on the river that haven't been there in years. One even looks like a minesweeper (before it went to the bottom of the river).

Firstar's ads in the St. Louis American are even more panoramic. They show a large office building on the far left with the name "Pet" clearly discernible at the top of the edifice. On the far right of the photo, there is no evidence of a domed stadium, although some might say they preferred things that way.

Would you do business with a bank that is clearly living in the past, or worse, doesn't even realize it is?

-Frank Absher

"We cheated. So what?"

That St. Louis Post-Dispatch headline of July 16, in the midst of Jeff Gordon's mostly funny, often nasty, column, says it all. Athletes, regardless of their sport, have turned into even greater exemplars of the "Lie. Cheat. Steal." philosophy. Let the devil take the hindmost and to hell with being a role model or a positive influence on children.

This example, only the latest of that week, deals with the revelation that American soccer goalie Briana Scurry cheated when she sneaked up toward

a Chinese shooter, reducing the angle and making it easier for her to block the shot. By the rules, she was only allowed to move laterally along the line. Afterward, her comment was "Everybody does it." She added, "It's only cheating if you get caught."

Sorry, Briana. It's cheating regardless of whether you're caught-and I'm here to say you'll remember it every time you hear about the game or look at your trophy.

This comes on the heels of the Stanley Cup victory for the Dallas Stars. The goal was scored while Brett Hull's skate was in the crease, a violation that has voided several goals during the NHL season. The Post said that Buffalo fans "whined" at the action.

Remember, a couple of years ago, when an extra down allowed Colorado

to score and beat Mizzou in a football game? At the time, the Post had a vehement reaction-probably just righteous indignation.

Did anyone say "whine?" Probably just a question of interpretation.

-Joe Pollack

Death by preservation

The famous Newspaper Preservation Act, which legitimized the JOA, or joint operating agreement, has killed another newspaper, as it has killed many since its enactment in 1970. One of its victims, of course, was the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. The most recent looks to be the San Francisco Examiner, though it means the death of the famed San Francisco Chronicle as we know it.

The law is just one of many established to protect capitalists from their own stupidity and allow them to use government help to become richer while decrying the same sort of help for poor people. It fosters monopoly in the name of competition.

San Francisco's newspapers, the independent Chronicle and the Hearst-owned Examiner, have been working under a JOA, which allows two newspapers to share advertising and circulation revenue, along with printing and distribution costs. Theoretically, both newspapers would thrive. In effect, it has usually allowed the weaker paper to die more slowly while increasing profitability to owners of both. S.I. Newhouse got even richer in St. Louis when he-amazingly-persuaded Joseph Pulitzer Jr. to buy his building (then 28 years old, now 68), and then to give Newhouse half the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's profits plus the right to approve major capital expenditures.

Anyway, the Examiner has been staggering for years, as have most afternoon newspapers, but the Hearst Corporation, which does not have to answer to stockholders, offered $660 million for the Chronicle. The purchase is quite secure, though not final, so the Examiner is on the block. However, don't look for a buyer to invest in a newspaper whose circulation is one-fourth of its competitor and which does not have printing and distributing facilities. And if you buy the Examiner, you don't even get protection from any cutthroat competition from Hearst's new toy, the Chronicle. The JOA has expired.

Only a dozen agreements remain across the nation, and as two-paper cities vanish, so will they. Many call it a proper demise for a bad law. Bruce B. Brugmann, publisher of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, an alternative weekly, called the sale of the Chronicle "the assassination of a newspaper," a term many St. Louisans used when the Globe-Democrat folded.

Brugmann and other opponents long have argued that the act preserved only profits for publishers who do not wish to compete with other members of the same club. On the other side, Dennis Hetzel of the York Daily News (Pa.), called his agreement with the York Herald a deal that has allowed him to spend more money on staff and coverage, and told The New York Times that "both newspapers are better."

Of course, Hetzel is a publisher.

-Joe Pollack

Not equipped

If the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wants to capture those ever-elusive younger readers, its staff will have to study up on the pop idols of the day.

In the Aug. 3 Everyday section, the television "Highlights" department carried a teaser for that evening's broadcast of a taped version of the recent Woodstock '99 music festival. The teaser was accompanied by a photo of a young woman singing and sporting an electric guitar, over a cutline reading "Alanis Morissette." The problem is the woman pictured was Jewel, another of a handful of female vocalists who dominate the pop music charts these days.

A correction ran Aug. 4 on page two of the Metro section. In an interview, Readers' Advocate Carolyn Kingcade explained that the layout editor planned to use a photo of Alanis Morissette, wrote the cutline, then began searching for a photo. When she didn't find a suitable picture of Morissette, the layout editor chose the Jewel photo instead, but neglected to change the cutline. The copy editor on duty was not equipped to notice the difference between the two singers, Kingcade said. To complicate matters, the modern electronic layout system doesn't have the extra safeguard of an identification-bearing photo that used to trail along with the layout in the old system, she said.

"What the layout editor learned from it is not to write the caption ahead of time," Kingcade said. "When you're the only person doing the page, sometimes you just forget."

-Eileen P. Duggan

Only in SJR

An item in SJR Sept. 1998 about the dismissal of Fox Broadcasting affiliate WTVT reporters Steve Wilson and Jane Akre is still being talked about-this time in court. Peter Downs, who wrote the article, has been subpoened by Wilson and Fox to give a deposition about the story. Fox also subpoened all of Downs' notes about the story. Downs' story, which appeared only in SJR, was about the differences between Wilson and Akre's original story about Monsanto's bovine growth hormone and the story Fox eventually ran.

The deposition was Aug. 30.

-Holly Rauch

CHANNELS

Even this TV critic has stopped watching the 10 o'clock news

By Tripp Frohlichsten

Why don't I, like thousands of other St. Louisans, want to watch the local news anymore? The ratings show a dramatic drop-off, but what is behind it?

It used to be that I had a radar sense when it was 10 o'clock and time to turn on the news to see what happened in the city and the world that day.

That sense is gone. And, even if I do notice it is almost 10 p.m., there is no guarantee I will turn on the news. I might watch something on cable. I might go to the Internet. I might read a magazine or book.

I decided to ask others who said they were less likely to catch the local newscast (specifically at 10 p.m.).

"I tend to read and relax now. The way I organize my time is different. I don't get much out of local TV news," said an older adult.

A younger adult said, "I get more from the (St. Louis) Post-(Dispatch), as bad as it is. I can't tell you the last time I watched. They have so much less variety and the (local) news on TV is so predictable."

A man in his 20s noted, "I tend to already know the news by 10. There are also lots of alternatives like cable and the Internet."

A college freshman says, "I only watch for the weather. I don't like the news. I think it's too selective. They'll mention one thing about Washington D.C., but there's nothing in-depth. Or there will be a medical story. They will only do one minute about it. Then, you won't hear about it again for five years."

A mother of two says she watches less local news because the family got cable a couple a months ago and she started watching CNN. As to local news, she pretty well covered the gamut in her criticism. "They bug me," she says. "Channel 30 sounds like they are a gossip station. Channel 2 seems like they are amateurs and they report on lots of non-important stuff. Channel 5 goes for the blood and guts stuff first. I can't stand that." She says "Channel 4's anchor personalities aren't appealing-they seem kind of wimpy. What I hate about all of the stations are the claims of being first to report any given story. I really don't care who reported it first."

In my case, I realize I don't get much of a sense of what is really going on in the world. Not enough relevant business stories or, for that matter, consumer stories. In business, few television people seem to understand it. Only Channel 5's Bruce Barnhart has a business beat yet often his stories are filled with jargon only a person with an MBA can understand. Take a sound clip he used on a late August cover story. His interviewee, an economist, said, "The (U.S.) House would take the money and use it for current gratification or current consumption." What is he talking about? Barnhart never explained it. Since what's happening in business affects all of us each and every day, managers at the station ought to take more time reviewing those stories to make sure they have been translated into English.

In the consumer area, with the exception of Jill Farmer, we have no one protecting "the little guy" on the air. And many of Jill's pieces, while useful, are simply informational. What happened to going after the mechanic who cheated customers or the car dealer who promised the lowest prices but didn't really deliver? Elliott Davis does a form of that but only when it comes to government money. Maybe Channel 2 could expand his scope to rip-offs in any area.

Much of the problem rests with the fact that news is more of a business now than ever before. In the 1960s, local news was a requirement to keep your license to operate from the FCC. It was taken seriously and often done well with journalistic principles in mind (though the presentation was technically primitive compared to today).

To illustrate the change: in 1978, when the Pope died, Channel 4 news director Fred Burrows wasted no time in sending Julius Hunter, a technical crew and me to Rome to cover St. Louis Cardinal John Carberry and his activities surrounding the election of a new Pope. A month later, when the new Pope died, he again immediately sent people to cover the Cardinal's activities. I remember vividly after the successful coverage of both events, Burrows sitting in his office, laughing and asking out loud, "I wonder what that cost us?"

If that had happened today, the first question might be not, "Is this worth covering" but, "What will this cost us to cover? Is it worth the money?" The answer might be yes, but money is an upfront issue. Twenty years ago, the issue was almost completely the value of the story.

All that said, it's almost 10 p.m. as I write this piece. Time to go. Star Trek is on the Sci Fi Channel in a couple minutes and I have only seen this episode four or five times.

• • •

Channel 30 celebrated its 30th anniversary with an hour special in late July. Like so many other attempts of this nature, it was a good idea that fell well short of the mark.

The show, hosted by anchorman Patrick Emory (kind of, he disappeared in the middle of the show) and Andy Banker, and produced by John Harris Sheridan, did not offer nearly enough highlights of programs from the station which, for much of its life, was an independent station. We did see lots of pictures but not enough actual moments, with sound, from on the air. For example, kids-show host Leslie O'Brian's segment featured pictures of her with music (as opposed to sound and pictures from the Kids' Club). The same applied to Jack "Mr. Patches" Miller. We saw a few scenes but heard little from the show itself. There was a lengthy interview with Miller. While pleasant, there were many others who also might have been interviewed from the station's past (especially from behind the scenes).

There were also lengthy, boring segments of highlights (in print, not even visual support) of the last 30 years like "1974-Nixon resigns." Lots of those. And there were mistakes. Several people noted Mark McGwire's name was misspelled.

Another whole segment looking at price comparisons was interesting but misplaced in this program. For example, they noted, again in print only, that a stamp cost 6 cents in 1969 compared with 33 cents today. A quarter-pounder has gone from 49 cents to a buck ninety-nine. Incredibly, they messed up the newspaper section saying the Post has gone from a dime to a quarter. It's 50 cents. Makes one question the other figures. A feature on the newscasters was only a "Where are they now?" segment. Channel 30 only recently started news broadcasts. It was odd as they only focused on the departures of Leslie Lyles (no word, not even a picture or mention of her original co-anchor Jim Wicks), Don Marsh (now producing tapes for law enforcement and doing some work on KMOX), failed weathercaster Steve Jerve (moved to Tampa) and former weekend anchor Sherry Sissac (a mom). The vast majority of the station's news past and present was ignored. Thinking back, perhaps it is because it really has been that bad.

There were some highlights though. Watching out-takes of Steve Mizerany commercials was most enjoyable as was a segment with Frank O'Pinion. The part with O'Pinion (tape from his radio show saluting channel 30's anniversary and a brief interview) didn't necessarily fit in the show-it was just fun to watch. He is a genuinely funny and talented person.

• • •

Can someone "deperk" (in that sometimes she is just too perky) Channel 5 meteorologist Cindy Preszler? When the weather is nice, fine. Potential flooding, though, is not something to "bubble" over. Unfortunately she often does.

Speaking of Preszler, one day in mid-July at 4:56 p.m. (just before the news), Channel 5 aired a promo saying when severe weather was around, watch Channel 5 for "Storm Path 5," which tells you where the storms are heading and when they will hit. Scant minutes later, the station's lead story was about an approaching line of storms, some severe. Did they live up to their promise of just a few minutes earlier? Nope. Not a word about Storm Path 5. What are these people thinking? What a wasted opportunity to deliver what they promote. Instead, any viewer watching might have noted Channel 5, in this instance, appeared to be all talk and no action.

• • •

Channel 4 has been touting its new Sky Zoom 4 which is a camera mounted on a helicopter using a gyroscope to keep it steady. This greatly improves pictures from the air.

Channel 4 is again the first in the area to get a new device. Kudos to them for that. But, in fact, St. Louis is way behind when it comes to technology like this. It has been in other markets for years.

Channel 5 had not only a gyro mounted camera on order, but a new helicopter. It is due in the air around the time of publication.

Other stations say they are considering the new equipment but have made no commitments.

• • •

What a difference a job makes. Paul Goodloe, whose performance at Channel 5 was often dismal, left the station and moved on to cable's Weather Channel.

I can't tell if it was the change in scenery, good training or simply the idea of repetitive performances on air, but Goodloe has become much better. That's right, he is developing into a fine weathercaster. His delivery is usually smooth, his choice of words is more appropriate and his information understandable. Those qualities were all lacking at Channel 5. I hope he keeps it up. No doubt Channel 5 hired Goodloe sensing his potential. Unfortunately for them, he is now reaching it in his next job.

• • •

Channel 30 has a promo touting "more news." Who is it kidding? Only Channel 11 has fewer hours of news per week than Channel 30. If the station is implying "more news" within a broadcast, the promos do not make that clear at all. Even if that is what they mean, one could question the validity of that as well.

• • •

When Channel 5 sent Deanne Lane to report from Colorado after the killings at Columbine High School, I was (along with many viewers) highly critical of the need to send a local reporter to cover this story with no local connection.

Since then, I learned that Lane was requested to be sent to Colorado by Gannett (the company that owns Channel 5) to be a pool reporter and send stories to all of the company's stations.

That is a good reason for sending her. However, Channel 5 would have been better served by telling viewers the reason.

So now, one has to ask why Channel 4 had Myriam Wright in Hyannisport, Mass. to cover the story of the crash of the plane carrying John Kennedy Jr., his wife and sister-in-law.

During her reports, she added nothing to the story and, at the same time, actually hurt her own credibility.

On the 10 p.m. news on July 19, prompted by a question from Julius Hunter that, in hindsight, he should never have asked, she told viewers she once covered a story in which Kennedy showed up. He got out of the car right in front of her. She told viewers she was speechless. She says he winked at her and went on to the next reporter. Not very professional sounding, is it?

Unless there was a reason for Wright to be in Massachusetts that the station did not tell its viewers about (maybe she happened to be on vacation there), it appears her showing up there to cover this story smacks of shameless promotion and nothing else. I did not call Channel 4 to ask if there was a reason because if there were, it should have informed all of us on the air.

But other local stations around the country had their problems too. On one Los Angeles local newscast, the station spent more than two minutes on a story about a man who owned the same kind of plane that John F. Kennedy Jr. piloted. The man, who was not a pilot and didn't fly, said his engine had "mysteriously died" eight times in the last year and a half. There were no other reported problems of this nature on any other Piper Saratoga plane. None. Yet the station implied this might have happened to Kennedy. Even worse, although the plane's makers examined the plane, they were "unable to duplicate" the engine failure. The reporter never tried to interview the company.

• • •

Nationally, the broadcast networks should be ashamed of themselves for the initial wall-to-wall coverage of the crash. While a tragedy to be sure, was it worth hours and hours of non-stop coverage with no information? With all the networks calling in their main anchors, time was filled by repetition of information, erroneous news and unnecessary speculation. There are events that dictate solid wall-to-wall coverage. This was not one of them. Only CNN, which does cover many events extensively, had a right to keep this story going on and on.

So what caused the networks to do this? Most likely a fear of criticism if they did not stay on the air. Beyond that, more than one person suggested it is also the "East Coast mentality" of the decision-makers. A knowledge of Kennedy and his influence was greater there than the Midwest or West Coast. The decision makers and anchors hobnobbed in the same circles as the George publisher and also may have been influenced because they knew him personally. A story is often given more coverage when the subjects are known by the reporters on a personal basis.

TV columnist Howard Rosenberg wrote in the Los Angeles Times July 23, "This is all a bit crazy and hysterical, don't you think? If Kennedy was as grounded and straight-thinking as many now say he was, he would have despised all this. Now through television has come the wealthy celebrity journalist, the Diane Sawyers, Barbara Walters, Tom Brokaws, Peter Jennings, Dan Rathers and Mike Wallaces who find themselves covering the same VIPs they live near, socialize with and bump into at swank restaurants. In effect, they're reporting on themselves, royalty covering royalty."

• • •

Former Channel 30 Assistant News Director Carol Scheer has moved to KSTP (St. Paul, Minn.) "Channel 5 Eyewitness News" as executive producer, overseeing afternoon and evening newscasts. She is going to a news market generally considered to have some of the best local newscasts in the country. Scheer previously spent five years at the St. Paul station and another year at WCCO in Minneapolis.

Nancy Tully replaces Scheer with Linda Williams moving from Channel 5 to take over as executive producer. Williams spent 18 years as a producer at Channel 5. Jean Jackson, whose contract was not renewed by Channel 5, is currently co-anchoring the 5 p.m. news with Patrick Emory. She'll continue there until Gina Kurre gets back from maternity leave. Kurre will co-anchor both the 5 and 10 p.m. newscasts. Jackson will handle weekend anchoring duties. Need a program for that?

• • •

Former Channel 5 anchor Rick Edlund is now anchoring in Detroit. He is represented by Mort Meisner. Meisner, who now represents news talent and conducts media training, is a former assistant news director from Channel 5.

• • •

Chicago sportscaster Mike Adamle apparently isn't familiar with downstate Illinois as he recently talked about Jimmy Conners from Bellvue, Ill.

• • •

Quote from Channel 11 new weekend weathercaster Markina Brown's forecast one night in July: "Partly to cloudy to clear skies mixed in as well." Huh? And one weekend night in August, it was Diane Fresta who incorrectly told viewers that "St. Louis is along the New Madrid fault." Actually, the fault line is located in the Missouri bootheel and into Tennesee roughly 100 miles from here.

Major ownership shifts take place in St. Louis television

By David Cohen

In the old days, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had something called the 7-7-7 Rule. It had nothing to do with casino gambling. Under the rule, one entity-a person or company-could own seven television stations, seven AM radio stations and seven FM radio stations. One provision of this regulation was the "one to a market" clause. If you owned a television station, you couldn't own a radio station in the same market. An AM-FM combination was allowed, but not in conjunction with a television station.

The FCC rules were aimed at creating a marketplace diversity-having many voices controlling local media. That's why Pulitzer was forced to sell its local television and radio stations in St. Louis in the late 1970s.

But times change, and so do the rules. Beginning in the mid-1980s, the equation changed to 12-12-12, allowing a company to hold 12 of each type of broadcast station. Loopholes in the regulations were created to allow cross-ownership-a company could once again own a radio and television station in the same market. Then the regulations were relaxed even further; one company could own many radio stations in a single market. And later, specific numerical restrictions were eliminated. One company could own whole bunches of radio stations, as long as some diverse ownership existed. Today, in almost every city, one or two companies own the majority of the radio stations. But the rules for television, while relaxed, hadn't approached the apparent laissez-faire approach applied to radio.

The media conglomerates, having become accustomed to buying up all the radio stations they could get their hands on, began to pressure Congress and the FCC to ease up on the television ownership rules. These companies wanted to be able to own more than one television station in each city.

Until recently, the FCC refused to change the rules. It felt that multiple television station ownership in the same market, called a duopoly in the trade, was not in the public interest. Undaunted, the broadcasters found a loophole.

Something called the LMA, or Lease Management Agreement, came into existence. Under an LMA, one television station in the market leases all of the airtime on another station in the same city. There are LMAs in about half of the country's 211 television markets, but none in St. Louis. For example, the Fox station in Cape Girardeau operates the WB affiliate there. Both are in the same building, run by the same people. Sales staffs sell advertising on both stations. In other markets, the company owning the CBS affiliate operates the ABC affiliate. In cases like that, the stations also share a news department. There may be different anchors, sometimes the same newscast is seen on two different stations.

Broadcasters like LMAs, because they can program a second television station from the same facilities. In effect, they double their income, without doubling their expenses. They also make the point that LMAs help maintain the diversity in their markets by keeping smaller, less successful stations on the air, claiming the smaller station could fail or lack the resources to succeed in a traditional media marketplace.

Now the rules have changed again-and the broadcasters have gotten their way. In late July, the FCC voted to allow duopolies. Under the new rules, one company can own two television stations in the same market, provided that in the end, there are at least eight distinct television station owners. Unlike the LMA loophole, it looks like this change will have an impact on St. Louis. But look for what happens here to be driven by ownership consolidation in other markets. Dominoes will fall here, but only as a result of what happens somewhere else.

And, because St. Louis has nine television stations (including Channel 13 in Mount Vernon, Ill.-considered part of the St. Louis market), only one opportunity exists for duopoly. While there is no way to predict which way the one St. Louis domino will fall, we can offer a few scenarios on what could happen.

Under the new rules, the owners of Channel 5 could buy Channel 4. Channel 2's owners could buy Channel 30, or Channel 30's owners could buy Channel 46. However, as noted earlier what happens here in St. Louis will likely be the result of some station swapping somewhere else. For example, Belo could swap Channel 4 to Channel 30's owner, Sinclair, in exchange for some television stations in Belo's home state of Texas. Fox could do the same with Gannett in exchange for a station in some other city.

Regardless of who buys what, whoever winds up owning two television stations in St. Louis will make some changes in their operation. Because cost saving is the reason for consolidation, engineering, traffic and sales departments would be combined, and maybe news departments as well. It al in some cities where there are LMAs. Sometimes the anchors differ; sometimes they don't. If there is only one news department, there is only one assignment desk, with a set of common reporters, producers and photographers. There may be more hours of news on television in such cases, but certainly with fewer voices.

The ownership rules will no doubt continue to change. Look for the media conglomerates to demand that the new rules be further relaxed, to perhaps five or six "distinct voices" instead of eight. Broadcasters are big (in some cases, huge) contributors to congressional campaigns. The new ownership rules are as much the result of congressional pressure as they are from the broadcasters exerting their influence. That won't change.

And, the National Newspaper Association, a publishers' group, has filed an emergency petition calling for the FCC to lift in mid-1960s ban on newspapers owning television or radio stations in the same market.

So the merry-go-round could pick up speed, before the dust from the current rule change settles.

Et tu Channel 30?

The change in the ownership rules complicates what could be the pending sale of the Sinclair Broadcast Group properties in St. Louis. Sinclair sold its radio division, excepting the six St. Louis radio stations, to Based Entercomm. The St. Louis stations are likely to be sold to Indianapolis-based Emmis Broadcasting. Channel 30, the Sinclair-owned television station, would theoretically be included in the sale.

But with the FCC rule change, it may be more attractive for Sinclair to hold onto Channel 30 and (as described above) swap it for another station more valuable to them.

Channel 30 has been bait before.

Whose news?

When you see a reporter on television at the scene of a story, have you wondered who came up with the story? Sometimes news happens, and the closest or most available reporter gets assigned. That's easy to determine. But who comes up with the sweeps series or cover stories that dot the evening television news landscape?

Sometimes it's the reporter. But most of the time the story is dreamt up by someone on the inside-the news director, a producer, or an assignment editor. Fundamentally, there's nothing wrong with that. A solid newscast is the product of a team coming together.

Too often, too many stories originate inside the newsroom. Producers or managers see a story done in another city, and do it here, or they have some idea for a story and because of their position, the stories they want get on the air. And at stations with limited or skeletal reporting staffs, there is little room for enterprise reporting, let alone anything deeper or more substantial.

While not demeaning those reporters who develop their own stories and who have built a proven track record of good storytelling and occasionally good journalism, the top-down journalism we often see as a result cheats us of the sense a good field reporter develops in the field where the news happens. It doesn't always come from the wires or a press release.

The nice way

When reporters and anchors vanish from their customary positions on the airwaves, viewers often wonder what happened. Sometimes, after an absence, they return to the air, but at another station.

One reason for that is the local stations insert "non-compete" clauses in contracts for reporters, anchors and producers. These "non-compete" clauses often run for six months, sometimes for a year. And they become effective, no matter if the reporter, anchor or producer quits, is fired, or simply doesn't have his or her contract renewed.

Some stations ride their "non-compete" provisions hard. No exception is made for anyone under any circumstance. Dick Ford and John Pertzborn come to mind. But recently, an example came to our attention that was the exception.

Channel 5 chose not to renew the contract of weekend anchor Jean Jackson. But instead of dumping Jackson when her contract ran out, the station allowed to her keep working-and work out her "non-compete" clause. When that time expired, Jackson joined Channel 30.

We like that approach. Too often, the St. Louis community loses a talented journalist because the "non-compete" provision is strictly enforced. Face it, we've all got to work and support our families. And, we can't do that if we can't work. Let's hope other broadcasters take note of this and extend this humane action when other contracts come up for renewal.

Current station lineup

Channel Call Letters Owners

2 KTVI (FOX) Fox Television Stations

4 KMOV (CBS) A.H. Belo

5 KSDK (NBC) Gannett Company

9 KETC (PBS) Public Television

11 KPLR (WB) Acme Television

13/40 WPXS (PAX) Pax TV

24 KNLC (UPN) New Live Evangelistic Center

30 KDNL (ABC) Sinclair Broadcast Group

46 WHSL (Home Shopping) Roberts Broadcasting

SPORTS/MEDIA

Sex, sports and media-a bad mix

By Joe Pollack

There's certainly something sporting about sex-and a lot that is sexual about sporting events. The English language is inclusive enough to bring verbal foreplay into any sport or game, and the activities of athletes and fans often speed past foreplay and go right to the mat, or mattress.

There were sports groupies before rock 'n' roll was invented, and there are sports groupies today.

Recent newspaper stories, however, are now bringing sports writers into the sexual mix. Sports writers, like all other reporters and editors, in both print and electronic media, have high levels of active libido. Lots of young people went into the newspaper business because they followed the liberal libertinism of the '60s. But since they controlled the news, they often kept themselves out of the newspapers or gossip shows-even if not out of the divorce courts. Take people like Marv Albert and Frank Gifford; Gifford, of course, was a professional athlete, even when he tried to be a sportscaster.

The most recent story, however, wanders far from the bedroom and opens its own can of worms. While it does not add an issue of gender, it does compound some of the same ethical issues that always have been present.

Sports writer Samantha Stevenson, covering the Philadelphia 76ers in 1980 got sexually involved with Julius Erving, the great Dr. J, and became pregnant. Their daughter, now 18, reached the semifinals at Wimbledon last month, a sterling feat for an unranked, unknown player, and she seems to have a stupendous future.

During the Wimbledon week, however, questions arose about Alexandra

Stevenson and her parentage. Rumors flew, and one day the Fort Lauderdale

(Fla.) Sun-Sentinel, a member of the Chicago Tribune chain, printed a copy of her birth certificate. Julius Erving was listed as the father. He not only admitted it, but also said he had been sending money to help support the young woman ever since her birth, and that his family knew of the situation. Erving, a vocally public supporter of "family values," has been married since 1972, but didn't go any farther into the situation, nor did he discuss the reaction of his wife and children.

However, reading some out of town newspapers, I learned that Stevenson, now a free-lance writer-and a better-than-average one-whose work often appears in The New York Times, had been dropping hints for years about the father of her child. Her relationship with Erving apparently was an open secret on the tennis circuit. A Times columnist notes that he has known for years of the relationship, and I remember a Times piece she wrote several years ago, discussing the problems of rearing a precocious young athlete, and the pressures that surrounded both mother and daughter.

I certainly don't care who Stevenson spends time with, or goes to bed with. But if I were a writer covering the 76ers, and Stevenson was consistently beating me on stories, and I then learned what had been going on-I'd be mighty upset. How much information on the team did Erving share with her? And to toss a little more dirt, what other stories came to her from the bedroom rather than the locker room? Was Erving the only athlete with whom she was involved? Or was Erving spreading the news (and other things) in many NBA cities?

Of course, it wouldn't be the first time that a newspaper woman has figuratively screwed her competition by literally screwing her news sources. Back in the trenches of Korea, nearly a half-century ago, Marguerite Higgins of the New York Herald-Tribune consistently scored beats on her rivals. Only later did it come out (those involved knew it at the time) that Miss Higgins had a favorite general and he, very naturally, had a favorite war correspondent.

This becomes a very sticky wicket in the ethics departments, probably growing larger as more and more women become sports writers and sports broadcasters. Except for covering the White House, working in sports is an area where there is a great deal of up-close-and-personal contact between writer and news source, plenty of travel together, time spent on the road, more familiarity, and as anyone can tell you, familiarity breeds.

I don't know if there was more sex for sports writers many years ago, but in those days, the divide between writer and athlete was wider since the public-and the editors-didn't care what athletes did off the field, as long as they were able to show up-and stand up-on the field. Press agents often knew a number of ladies of the evening, and good press agents were imaginative when it came to writing expense accounts. Once upon a time, when Virgil Akins fought a championship bout at the Arena, press headquarters was the old Ambassador-Kingsway Hotel, and while a 24-hour poker game wore on in the press room, a nearby table held keys to rooms upstairs. All the rooms had beds for writers to nap, and willing companions under the covers. Similar activities

reportedly took place during Christmas parties given by East Side race tracks in the days before and shortly after World War II.

Although I won't criticize Stevenson's sexual behavior, I will criticize some of her comments complaining about racism and homosexuality in the tennis tour locker rooms. She sounds too much like a bad sports mom, and also a sports writer with a well-placed pout.

And of course she did not have to discuss her child's father, dropping little hints through the years. While we're looking, let's check one more point. Perhaps she decided to have a child, and she considered the available fathers, and Erving was at the top of her list. The genetics were good; he was a great athlete and he is a good man and an intelligent man. If she did this, then it is incumbent upon her to keep quiet about it, and not embarrass either the child or the father.

It's not the first time that has happened, either. I knew a woman many years ago who made a similar decision, and picked out the man she wanted, and became pregnant by him. The child grew up to become a fine person, with intelligence and talent. The mother never revealed the father's name.

AM/FM

Musical chairs for radio personalities

By Larry Hoffman

After searching the Midwest for the best overnight personality, KMOX Program Director Tom Langmyer hired McGraw Milhaven to host the 2 to 5 a.m. show, Monday through Friday. Langmyer did it the old fashioned way-he camped out in Omaha and sampled radio talk-show hosts until he liked what he heard, then made an offer to the KFAB veteran.

Milhaven spent five years at KFAB in many capacities, including evening talk-show host and sports anchor/director. He has already been heard on KMOX doing fill-in sportscasts. He was also producer of the weekly "Sports Line" program for KOXO-TV in Omaha.

Sampling Milhaven's first week on KMOX gave a very favorable overall impression. He capably handled guests and callers as he filled in for the vacationing John Carney, and drew compliments from listeners.

KMOX listeners deserve, at long last, a locally based, high caliber talent in this slot which, though unmeasured, pulls in a huge overnight audience. Milhaven sounds like the right selection.

• • •

Another new night-time jock has hit the airwaves in his largest market gig yet. Tommy Wacker was chosen to knock the annoying "Automated Disc Jockey" out of the box in August and will fill the 7 p.m. to midnight shift at KSLZ-FM (Z 107.7 FM).

Program Director Jeff Kapugi told SJR that Wacker has worked most recently at the "River" in Nashville, on Z-104 in Madison, Wis., and at WIFC-FM in Wausau, Wis. He's pretty obnoxious but he also fits the job description well and seems to be a suitable replacement for charter "Z" jock Danny Wright.

• • •

Z 107.7 welcomed the highly acclaimed teen singer, dancer and acrobat Britney Spears to the Old Glory Amphitheatre on Aug. 13. Appearing with her were several new acts who will tour the Midwest and Eastern seaboard through mid-September.

The promoters disappointed the "Z" when they pulled their offer for Spears to do an in-studio interview with the "Z's" deejay Boomer a few hours before the concert, which began at 7 p.m. Apparently, the logistics of transporting her to the station, especially during Friday evening rush hour traffic, precluded the appearance.

The highly polished show played to a sold-out crowd of over 10,000 at the Six Flags venue, and was most likely booked well before Spears became an international star. In fact, she was one of the three acts brought to the Z 107.7 first anniversary party at Incahoots in November 1998. Sources close to Contemporary Productions told SJR the Britney Spears tour could easily have sold out the Riverport Amphitheatre which has twice the capacity of Old Glory.

Things have changed drastically since last fall and she is all over top 40 radio, as well as the video cable channels. Before Spears hit the stage with her energetic dancers and backup singers (including one from St. Louis), the crowd heard emerging acts PYT, Michael Fredo, C-Note and Steps (from the UK).

PYT hails from Tampa, Fla. and performed before sold-out crowds with N'Sync before joining the 20-plus city Britney Spears tour. Their first single release, "Something More Beautiful," became available on Aug. 31. They have been described as a mainstream TLC meets EnVogue act.

Spears gave over 100 percent during her set, with the crowd standing on the amphitheatre's benches and screaming much of the time. She saved her first hit, "Hit Me Baby One More Time" until her encore, capping off an entertaining evening for the crowd of mostly early to mid-teens and their parents.

• • •

Emmis Vice President and Market Manager John Beck showed that he's all class by personally posting comments on the Internet which ended a swirl of rumors surrounding his company's takeover of the Sinclair radio stations in St. Louis, WVRV-FM (101.1 FM), KPNT-FM (105.7 FM) and The Rock at 97.1 FM. The usually unreliable radio boards on the Internet were filled with speculation about the LMA (local marketing agreement) between the two companies to the point where it seemed a certainty that Aug. 16 would be the changeover date. Those whose jobs may be on the line were acutely interested in this transaction, and Beck's post gave them some breathing room as the eventual deal is still formulated. Such a deal would result in Emmis needing to spin off two of its eight properties in St. Louis, in compliance with FCC rules which state that a group owner may have six radio stations and one TV station in a given market. Its other stations are KSHE-FM (94.7 FM), WKKX-FM (106.5 FM) and WXTM-FM (104.1 FM) along with former Heritage Group properties WIL-FM (92.3 FM), WRTH-AM (1430 AM) and KIHT-FM (96.3 FM).

• • •

KLOU Program Director Dave Michaels told SJR that former local personality and charter KLOU jock Mike McCann's "Oldies Countdown" show now occupies the 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. slot on Sunday nights. McCann is now based in New York with MJI Broadcasting, where he produces an oldies prep service known as "Hot Wax Fax" for a network of stations in the gold format. McCann is one of the most knowledgeable music historians in the business and his show is well worth tuning in.

• • •

The contraction in the radio news business continued with the Aug. 19 demise of UPI Radio, and the transfer of its contracts to Associated Press Radio. The UPI Radio Network ceased operations during the noon hour and by just after 12:30 p.m. there was Associated Press material flowing over the old UPI lines. The final hourly newscast was by Shirley Smith who told listeners: "On a personal note. This is the last day of operations at UPI Radio ... I know I speak for all of us in the broadcast division when I say it has been an honor to have been associated with such a professional and historic organization. I'm Shirley Smith ... and that's the news from United Press International."

• • •

The saga of J.C. Corcoran continues. Soon after the most recent issue of SJR hit the stands with its cover story on Corcoran's new gigs at KTRS (executive morning show producer and one of its three hosts), Corcoran was gone from the station. Sources close to KTRS told SJR that J.C. was most probably the victim of what might be called a one-man "jockotocracy" in the name of morning show host and KTRS investor Dan Dierdorf. Calls to KTRS Program Director Steve Moore weren't returned. However, apparent tensions between the players led to Corcoran's ouster.

Corcoran called SJR in late August to report that Dorsey was refusing to pay out his contract, which was a "two-page work agreement with a 90 day out." Under the agreement, which General Manager Tim Dorsey told Corcoran he never signed, Corcoran was to be paid for three months after any move which would relieve him of his duties.

Legal advisers to Corcoran said that whether or not the agreement was signed by Dorsey, the fact that he (Corcoran)began working on the morning show created a condition where the agreement was said to have been "performed" and was therefore valid. Corcoran said Dorsey's refusal to pay out the balance of the agreement "speaks to his malevolence out of the gate" and offered that Dorsey has "no legal ground to stand on." He warned that litigation is imminent if an amicable settlement is not reached.

• • •

Finally, the KMOX presence will be felt at the annual NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) convention in Orlando the week of Aug. 30. KMOX's Program Director Tom Langmyer will head a talk radio panel with a fascinating agenda. The group will discuss cross-media utilization, the increased volatility of show topics with the advent and success of such entities as MSNBC, and crisis coverage in light of the Kennedy and Littleton tragedies. Also on the program is the presentation of the Marconi Awards, one of which may go to KMOX star program host and author Charles Jaco.

RADIO HISTORY

By Frank Absher

When KSD, the radio station of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, took to the airwaves in 1922, the newspaper took great pains to make sure everyone knew about this wonderful experiment.

Even though the station had been on the air sporadically for four months, the big push came in anticipation of the "grand opening" broadcast, which was scheduled Monday evening, June 26, 1922. The day before, newspaper readers were treated to a tour of the station, complete with photos of the complicated broadcasting equipment. "On the left, a view of the transmitter with side panels removed, showing power tubes, choke coils and instruments for regulating frequency and oscillations. On right, top of the input speech panel, with monitor horn coming from the ceiling. The speech input panel will amplify feeble electric waves several hundred thousand times without distortion. The monitor enables the operator to hear loudly the exact quality of the modulation before it goes into the transmitter."

Also shown was a photo of a special brick building that had been erected on the roof of the Post building at 12th Street and Olive. It contained the "transmitting apparatus," as well as three units of a one-ton generator, which was housed in a soundproof room. Two 80-foot towers had also been constructed atop the building. The antennas were suspended between them.

It was with suitable fanfare that the paper-in an un-bylined full-page article-promoted the new facility and the upcoming broadcast. "Monday night, then, is the time set for the grand opening of the new station of KSD. What it will do, in the way of transmission, has been partly disclosed by tests already made. The full beauty and perfection of modern radio will be demonstrated for the first time ..."

And the broadcast was staged to promote St. Louis as well as KSD. Following a series of bugle calls, played by trumpeter John Klein of the 138th Infantry, the radio editor spoke briefly, saying, "In order that great communities, numbering hundreds of thousands and scattered over great areas, may enjoy the best music, receive important news and listen to entertaining and instructive lectures, it is necessary that someone should provide a costly and efficient broadcasting station. This the Post has done.

"Many a boy with simple household tools can make an efficient receiving set; to send broadcast voice and music perfectly, however, is another matter. For that reason the Post-Dispatch has had constructed for it the latest and most perfect of radio apparatus, and it gladly placed it at the service of the people of the Middle West. Its only purpose is to serve an immense community in a variety of ways without charge or income of any kind."

Listeners also heard the "Triumphal March from Aida," performed by the Hotel Statler Orchestra. Then came a speech by the president of the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce, F.W.A. Vesper. He told listeners of St. Louis' progress in science, the arts and industry. Mayor Henry Kiel spent a good part of his speech plugging the city's Municipal Opera. And there was more music.

Oddly, the Post's follow-up of the big event was muted. Following a post-event write-up the following day and a two-page spread July 23 heralding letters from far-away listeners, there was very little "news" written about the station. In fact, a fire at the studios in the newspaper building was not reported in the paper for several days, even though it forced the station to limit its broadcasts. Articles about the station in the two ensuing months were nothing more than promotional pieces about the coming evening's broadcast.

One explanation might be the policy in the early days of radio to minimize the identities of station announcers. Researchers have been unable to track specifics, but the early announcers were only identified by a series of initials (Tommy Cowan of WJZ in New Jersey was A.C.N., which stood for Announcer Cowan, Newark. Milton Cross, who also worked at WJZ, was A.J.N., using his middle initial since A.C.N. was taken.) One of the most popular early announcers at KSD was Virginia Jones, who was allowed to identify herself as "Miss Jones." There is a story, possibly apocryphal, that she did not identify herself during her first days as an announcer. A listener reportedly wrote asking for some sort of identification: "Please tell me the name of your announcer. If it's a lady, she has a nice voice. If it's a man, he's a damn sissy."

Post reports on Botanical Congress one-sided

By Peter Downs

"Botanists Blast Monsanto" is one headline that didn't come out of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's blanket coverage of the International Botanical Congress, but it would have been an appropriate one. The week-long scientific meeting in St. Louis in early August was both a celebration of genetic engineering, as reported by the Post, and a vigorous attack on Monsanto and the other corporations dominating use of the science.

The city's only daily newspaper nailed all the major scientific stories, national and international. Post reporters also brought the excitement of science home with profiles of St. Louisans engaged in the process of research and discovery. Three weeks of planning and discussions with staff at the Missouri Botanical Garden, the host of the congress, clearly paid off for the Post.

But the paper stumbled when it came to reporting major trends that could affect the financial future of one of St. Louis' major employers, the Monsanto Co., whether patenting new gene engineering techniques or food labeling.

In an official conference press briefing to defend genetic engineering, David Cove, a Leeds University geneticist and visiting professor at Washington University, lampooned opponents of the science of genetic engineering while blaming multinational corporations for the strength of the opposition. Public antipathy to genetically modified foods in Britain, he claimed, was the product of corporations and the government "arrogantly ignoring" the public.

The Post noted Cove's endorsement of food labeling to disclose whether or not the ingredients were the product of genetic engineering, but missed his veiled rebukes to Monsanto. The refusal to permit food labeling is the foundation of public distrust of genetically engineered foods, said Cove. Label genetically engineered food products, and "if they provide value to consumers, they will buy them," he said.

The arrogant corporation was Monsanto. For years, it has led opposition to labeling in both the United States and Europe. Last year, the company's Switzerland-based competitor Novartis publicly lashed out at Monsanto for its opposition to labeling, blaming the stance of the St. Louis-based company for the European public's distrust of genetic engineering.

Monsanto's name has been so tarnished by food genetic engineering debates in England, said University of Exeter scientist John Bryant, that even educated people who accept the safety of the science of genetic engineering express opposition to genetically engineered foods, asking him "but what about Monsanto?"

"I share the unease with the concentration of control in the hands of four or five big players," Bryant said. But that, he claimed only meant that scientists had to work harder to clear up the confusion in people's minds between "the ethics and safety of the technology and the ethics and safety of those using it." That raises the possibility of food producers trying to market genetically engineered foods with the promise that they contain no Monsanto products.

A more fundamental threat to Monsanto's business strategy is the growing opposition to patents in the life sciences. Until recently, opposition to patenting came mostly from groups opposing genetic engineering, such as the Rural Advancement Fund International (RAFI). Their logic is that if companies can't get a legal monopoly to help recoup the costs of products or techniques that are expensive to develop, they will abandon the technology. It is a logic shared by farm commodity associations in the U.S. -groups such as the American Soybean Association-which support patenting as the only way to get better seeds.

Opposition to patenting apparently is spreading among research scientists, however, and it was a strong current at the botanical congress. Scientists oppose patenting for very different reasons than does RAFI. They oppose patents because they think they restrict research and innovation.

Igon Potrykus is a case in point. Congress organizers assigned him a press conference to announce his development of new strains of rice to combat iron deficiency anemia and vitamin A deficiency. Those two vitamin deficiencies afflict billions of people. They are believed to be responsible for millions of deaths a year, the five million cases of childhood blindness annually, and many other diseases.

Monsanto and other promoters of genetic engineering long have argued that better nutrition will be one of the major benefits of the technology. Potrykus' seeds finally seemed to prove that point.

When Potrykus took the podium, however, he emphasized that he took no corporate funding, so that he would be able to distribute the new rice "free from restrictions or need for financial reward." Corporate funding, he added, twists "95 percent of scientific activity, even in the public sector, to private interests" instead of the public interests. He didn't stop there.

"I would ban patents," he said, because "patenting inhibits scientific exchange." In an interview with this reporter, Potrykus said public distrust of genetic engineering in Europe was due in part because corporations concentrated on traits like herbicide resistance on which they could make the quickest buck and blocked research into things people wanted.

"My work [on rice] was illegal," he said. "So many fields of research are blocked by corporate patents, I had to ignore them or I couldn't move at all."

It turned out Potrykus wasn't alone in opposing patents. Other scientists in different seminars also stood to decry patents. The Rockefeller Foundation's Richard Jefferson said an intellectual property system that is "out of control" is depriving scientists and farmers around the world of their "freedom to operate."

"Ninety-five percent of patents in genetic engineering are on items that are obvious to practitioners," he said. Jefferson called for reforming the patent system rather than abolishing it, and stressed he is "not against multinational corporations, but I am against monopolies."

The Rockefeller Foundation is funding a project to curtail patenting and intellectual property rights that gives money and an organizing center to opponents of current patenting laws that they lacked. That automatically elevates the threat they pose to Monsanto's strategy of monopolizing technology and germ plasm through patenting.

Another threat to new monopolies that gird Monsanto's biotechnology business strategy emerged from new technologies. Monsanto has spent billions of dollars since 1980 to insert new properties into plant seeds. The property with the most commercial importance was resistance to Monsanto's glyphosate herbicide, Round-up.

G. della-Cioppa announced at the congress that Biosource Technologies, Inc. had successfully tested a virus for creating glyphosate-resistance in plants. Instead of engineering seeds, the company sprayed an engineered virus on a field of plants. When the virus infected living plants, it granted them resistance to glyphosate herbicides.

Monsanto charges farmers a substantial "technology fee" to pay for the work of engineering new seeds. Della-Cioppa's announcement raises the possibility of a lower-cost competitor, one that allows farmers to buy cheaper, unmodified seed, and then spray for the characteristics they want in grown plants. Biosource's technology, which the company calls "geneware," also appears more flexible for India and other countries where seed saving is prevalent.

Geeta Bharathan, of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, said that Monsanto's system of selling patented seeds with a ban on saving is completely alien to India, where less than 0.01 percent of seed is sold as certified seed. Almost all farm seed there is saved or bartered, she said. Monsanto's model requires that millions of farmers completely change their farming practices. Biosource's doesn't. That, of course, is provided Biosource can overcome environmental concerns, such as fears that a viral spray is more likely to spread characteristics to wild plants than engineered seed.

The criticisms of Monsanto were surprising since the company played such a prominent role in the congress. Peter Raven and the Missouri Botanical Garden, the congress president and host, are well known for their ties to Monsanto. Robert Fraley, a top Monsanto executive, sat on the conference steering committee. And Monsanto and other genetic engineering companies provided major funding for the conference.

The newsworthiness of the criticisms stems from more than unexpectedness, however. Monsanto is more than a major employer in St. Louis. It is the linchpin in a publicly funded development campaign to recast St. Louis as 'gene valley,' and an important investment for many area residents. Any objective assessment of the wisdom of such investments requires knowledge of the hurdles the company faces in addition to its strengths.

Mizzou profs left legacy

By Joe Pollack

William H. Peden and Edward C. Lambert were different personalities, men whose teaching styles were diametrically opposite. But they both gave a lot to the University of Missouri, its English department and its school of journalism, and taking classes with them, and knowing them, was a great educational experience for me, and for hundreds of other students.

Both died in Columbia recently, Peden on July 23 at the age of 86, Lambert, who was three years older, on July 25.

I had a number of classes with Ed Lambert; he was running the radio-news sequence when I was in J-school a half-century ago. He taught us many writing basics at a time when television was mostly a vision for the future, and radio, still at its never-matched heights that followed World War II, was the be-all and end-all for those who dreamed of a career in the electronic media.

He also took a chance on a kid who had been assigned to remedial speech in his freshman year, and what a chance it was. As a senior, making a live debut, I was privileged to get up at the crack of dawn and make my way to Eighth and Cherry Streets, where KFRU had a studio inside the newsroom of the Columbia Daily Tribune, and Mizzou students wrote the newscasts and put them on the air. My 6:55 a.m. local newscast involved sports scores cribbed from the Kansas City Times and livestock prices (now that was an experience) that came from the AP wire. Barrows and gilts?

I don't think Ed Lambert ever forgot a student. We'd chuckle when, once or twice an hour, he would tell a story about a Mizzou alum currently a radio star, pausing in mid-sentence to point into the classroom and say, "Charlie (or whoever) sat right over there," or words to that effect.

And he'd have flunked anyone whose knowledge was so limited as to think that "rip and read" meant "to summarize a newspaper on the spot," as a St. Louis Post-Dispatch story on Mike Wallace noted a few days later. "Rip and read" was a literal description of what we did-ripping wire copy off the teletype machine and reading it on the air, without stopping to rewrite or edit, much as the Post apparenty did in this case.

It also was because of an Ed Lambert supporting letter that the Army turned me loose two months before my regular release date so that I could return to Mizzou, enroll in graduate school, and be part of the team that got KOMU-TV into higher gear and a more professional approach in the spring of 1954. I'll always be grateful for that.

I never had a class with Bill Peden, but we spent many afternoons the same spring sitting together at the old baseball field, usually with Irv Wyllie of the history department. Both men were great students of the game, and went to get out of the college pressure cooker and simply enjoy an afternoon. I was covering the games for the Columbia Missourian, but their company increased my knowledge of baseball, and my enjoyment at being there. Conversation about literature, about writing, about life, about history, about baseball, gave me more than I received in most classrooms.

Later, and up until a few years ago, I often saw Bill Peden and his wife, Margaret Sayers Peden, a world-renowned translator known as Petch. We'd have dinner in Columbia, or drinks and conversation in St. Louis after a reading or a lecture. As a founder of the University of Missouri Press and the Missouri Review, he was a major influence on writers all over the world.

No one who worked with him will ever forget him.

Lawyers hope TV ads enhance their image

By Eileen P. Duggan

The Missouri Bar is trying to upgrade the image of lawyers in the eyes and ears of television and radio audiences through the use of 30-second public service announcements made possible through a Missouri Broadcasters Association program.

Through a program available only to government agencies and not-for-profit organizations, the Broadcasters Association guarantees at least $4 worth of air play for every dollar provided by The Missouri Bar.

The spots, which began airing earlier this year, depict people who have used attorneys successfully in common situations such as buying a home, making a will and starting a business. The spots are designed to emphasize three points: the legal system works; lawyers are problem-solvers and legal services are affordable.

The Missouri Bar, the organization that represents the lawyers of Missouri, budgeted $28,000 for three rounds of public service announcements in 1999.

The funds came from the Missouri Bar's general funds, which include members' dues and investment interest, said Jack Wax, media relations director of The Missouri Bar. All attorneys who practice law in Missouri are required, by Supreme Court rule, to belong to the Missouri Bar, and all members pay an annual enrollment fee to support Bar activities.

Four different television spots and four radio spots have been aired throughout the state. The first round aired Jan. 13 through Feb. 21, and the second round ran May 3 through June 13. The final round is scheduled to run for six weeks beginning Sept. 6, Wax said. The spots run at various times between 6 a.m. and midnight.

The public service announcements are limited to broadcast media because the Missouri Press Associaton doesn't have a similar program, Wax said.

The Missouri Bar is receiving a guaranteed $112,000 worth of air time, although the actual exposure has been greater, said Jennifer Gille Bacon, president of The Missouri Bar. "It was up to the individual stations how many times to play them," Gille Bacon said. "[Quarterly reports] show our ratio is 11 to one, over 10 times the amount of airplay for the money we've invested."

The Bar divided its investment equally into three broadcast markets: large urban areas, smaller cities and rural areas, Gille Bacon said. Because the pricing varies among those areas, "we've gotten more airplay out in the country than in the cities," she said.

The project grew out of a research project that began two years ago. The

Bar's foresight committee began to study the delivery of legal services to people of moderate income. The Bar has always had a good program for delivery of services to the poor, Gille Bacon said, so "we decided to take a look at seeing whether people of more moderate means were getting adequate legal services.

"Our hypothesis was that people couldn't afford lawyers," Gille Bacon said.

The committee hired the University of Missouri to do some research before the Bar embarked on an extensive program to provide legal aid to moderate-income people.

The researchers spent several months conducting focus groups as well as a statewide telephone survey of the public and a separate survey of lawyers.

"What was fascinating was that they determined that there is strong sentiment in the world that lawyers are too expensive. Very strong," Gille Bacon said. "About 25 percent of the people think lawyers are too expensive and that's why they don't use them. It was in equal numbers across all economic groups.

"If you are a researcher and you are looking at dollars-and-cents issues, if you don't have a curve that varies across income levels, then that isn't what's really going on," Gille Bacon said. "That reflects an attitude about lawyers, not a reality."

The study found a lot of negative attitudes about lawyers and judges, she said. The study revealed that many of those surveyed think the legal system doesn't work very well and that lawyers are viewed as problem-creators rather than problem-solvers.

The cost of a lawyer or difficulty finding one was not among the major reasons the public gave for avoiding lawyers. According to the university research report, "Far more frequently than choosing one of those reasons, people gave us another-they thought they could handle the problem themselves and therefore didn't need a lawyer. While only 12.2 percent of the households encountering potential legal problems avoid lawyers due to money considerations, 53.8 percent-more than four times as many-of such households avoided a lawyer and justified this voluntarily by invoking their talents at do-it-yourself."

The committee determined that "one of the tremendous barriers to getting people's legal problems solved is that threshold resistance to using lawyers," Gille Bacon said.

The survey revealed that some people who had some experience with lawyers would tell others how bad the system is and how bad lawyers are, but would say their own experience was OK because they had a good lawyer. "The good news is we're doing about as well as the U.S. Congress," Gille Bacon said.

"The bad news is we're doing about as well as the U.S. Congress," referring to recent polls showing that many people disapprove of Congress but think their own congressmen are doing a good job.

"It's another huge image problem," GIlle Bacon said. "It caused us to change what we were thinking, rather than putting together a huge program at tremendous cost to make lawyers more affordable."

Another offshoot of the research regards supply-and-demand curves. In separate polls of the public and attorneys about the cost of specific legal services, "We found a significant meeting of the minds," Gille Bacon said.

"Lawyers are willing to work for what clients are willing to pay. But it suggested that this threshold resistance was perhaps the single most important thing out there in terms of keeping people out of the system.

"If people are reluctant to see a lawyer when the problem is small, by the time it's bad enough to see a lawyer, it's huge. Then it costs them [quite a bit]. It's a self-defeating sort of thing."

"So we decided to construct a program that would take on directly some of these things: The system works, lawyers are problem-solvers and you can afford it," Gille Bacon said. "We're not really trying to do anything else."

The committee plans to wait until next year to try to determine the effectiveness of the campaign. "We were told by public relations professionals that it's repetition that matters and that it really doesn't make much sense to try to measure-even given the greater degree of coverage than we expected to get-until a year goes by. They suggested we do it in segments and repeat them."

But so far the Bar is very pleased with the quality of the material and the exposure, Gille Bacon said. "We get feedback from lawyers and they're happy-happy to hear something good said about them. The number of groups you can go out and make fun of is getting a lot smaller, and lawyers are in that group. Some of the jokes and stories have a kernel of truth, and it's also appropriate to hear the other side of the story, particularly when you have a large population that isn't getting what it needs."

Eileen P. Duggan is editor of the West End Word.

COMMENTARY

Radio ... it's not what you think

By Frank Absher

Radio! It's a glamorous world, at least in the eyes of outsiders. Imagine getting paid good money to play music you like and say a few things between songs. Or maybe you could be a talk show host. Everyone knows they make a lot of money sitting in a studio and talking about any subject they wish. Actually, radio is still a perfect example of theater of the mind-what is really happening never approaches the perception of what people think is happening.

To be sure, there are a few people in the business who love what they do and who would do it even if they weren't being paid. In fact there are some who aren't being paid. But a large segment of radio talent is frustrated-harboring anger and disillusion over what they want the business to be. Many of these people have been radio announcers for a while and remember when it was a good job that paid well. In their minds, that memory is becoming more distant.

In the 1960s, radio was much more free-wheeling. There were fewer management controls on program content, so disc jockeys had plenty of leeway for ad libbing, and many could choose which records they played. Being a disc jockey was fun, and the listeners could feel the fun coming through their radios. The pay wasn't good by standards of the period, so many supplemented their income with personal appearances at sock hops and with product endorsement agreements. And there was also payola.

Payola meant a lot of money for some of the record spinners, but when Congressional investigations shut the practice down, most radio stations began adding controls to prevent disc jockeys from choosing their music. This is not to say payola or plugola no longer exists. It has simply taken on different forms and targeted managers and programmers rather than announcers.

Formula radio reared its ugly head in the 1970s. Announcers were reined in and, in many cases, given script cards for "liners"-comments to be used between records. Personality radio was still around, but consultants hired by station owners told managers what was working in Cleveland, Schenectady, Baton Rouge and Boise. Surely this would work in your market too. It was easier to use a consultant because these people knew where to find talent when an opening occurred. They could bring in a kid from another client station who would sound just like the guy who was fired, and the kid usually cost less.

What a concept: The same sound at less cost. To be sure, some owners were still willing to pay good money to bring in good talent, and young people entering the business could develop their chops in smaller markets and work their way up to the majors. Other station owners, however, decided to go the automation or satellite routes, cutting costs to a minimum. Their stations, mainly in smaller markets, sounded canned, but management didn't care. The effect this would have on the future of radio wasn't even considered.

In the 1960s, radio was a companion, informing and entertaining its audience. A sampling of airchecks from the period finds announcers openly addressing their audiences with direct references to "mom" and "kids." The audiences were well-defined: Mom was home with the radio during the day and the kids (baby boomers) listened before school, after school and in the evenings.

As society changed, so did the radio. The "kids" went off to college or the war, and their musical tastes diversified as they never had before, giving birth to new, more limited, radio formats. "Mom" went off to work to help pay the bills, so midday radio had to find an audience, whether it was people at work or in their cars. The radio station was still an integral part of people's lives and the disc jockey was a friend to whom the listeners regularly tuned, but the formats were less generic, and there were more stations from which to choose.

The function of informing and entertaining was still there, but soon less emphasis would be placed on the personality of the announcer. Station owners, prompted by consultants, would tell their program directors to de-emphasize personality and place greater emphasis on the broadcast product, be it music or information. That way, they reasoned, people would tune in for the product, the individual announcer would become less important, and it soon would matter very little who sat in the announcer's chair.

Congressional "help"

In the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Congress opened Pandora's Box. For all intents and purposes, station ownership limits were removed. Now really big companies started gobbling up stations by the dozens and using "economies of scale" to maximize profits. Faceless auditors in distant cities played with numbers and decided how and where local managers should cut costs.

If you are a local radio listener, this means that your favorite announcer may have been asked to take a pay cut in order to keep working at the station. This does not mean the duties would have been reduced. In fact, they likely would have been increased. Those economies of scale brought about lots of cuts, but the work still has to be done.

Imagine the squawk you would have heard if members of a powerful union had been asked to take pay cuts for performing increased duties. You have heard it, and you have seen work stoppages because of it. Yet radio announcers in every market find themselves in that situation.

What about their union? Well, it's not as powerful as you may have thought. AFTRA represents announcers at only four stations here: WIL, WRTH, KIHT and KMOX.

Yes, there are still announcers on the radio who are making high salaries, but not many locally. These ownership companies have found a way to cut high-priced talent from local operations-syndication. Now, instead of hiring a top-notch announcer or team to handle morning drive time chores in each market, owners are signing up with syndicators to put the same program in several markets, thus cutting the per-market cost of morning drive. Of course, this means you're listening to someone originating in New York or Indianapolis or Tampa, but that doesn't matter to the owners, who expect to see reduced costs and increased profits.

The owners still have consultants telling them what listeners want, both in terms of which songs to play and how to present individual shows. We may still assume, therefore, that what's working in Des Moines or Detroit will surely work in St. Louis. Those announcers who are still left here are told how many breaks to put into each hour of music, how long they may talk and, in some cases, what they can talk about during those breaks.

Talk Too

Formula radio doesn't stop with music formats. Syndication is certainly alive and well in the talk-radio industry. Trade magazines tout the value of hooking up with "proven" syndicated shows. Again, it usually costs less in a major market to pay for a syndicated star than it does to hire a good local one.

Other stations contain costs by hiring average, rather than talented, announcers and settling for an average product. Why go the extra mile and strive for excellence when "good enough" will do?

Yes, there is still some top talent in radio. Each major market has one or two people whose names are known by a large percentage of the audience. These pros earn their positions by embracing the market and its listeners and striving hard to make every program the best it can be.

Other announcers, "star wannabes," work hard to get their names into the local gossip or society columns, reasoning that this is their track to success. Their programs are, however, marginal and listeners dwindle after tuning in for a while. It's unknown why these announcers believe they're better off expending all that energy courting columnists favor when they could be working harder to create quality radio.

Where does it end?

So your radio announcer is now working for a faceless conglomerate. There have been pay cuts and an increase in duties. There are limits on what can be said on the air and how much time there is to say it. Why do people keep listening and why do the announcers work under these conditions?

Radio still retains the image of being a glamorous place in which to work. Some people still assume that the "star" label is automatic once you're on the radio. However, it is simply not true. Some station owners are using this fallacy to line their pockets by offering to sell hours of airtime to anyone willing to pay to be on the radio.

And there are still people who would be willing to work for no pay at all. Community radio stations have sprouted up all over the country, staffed by volunteers who do programs just because they love to.

Commercial stations know of this love. They use it as a lever when they demand pay cuts from their staff. They use it to lure young people into low-paying jobs. And they're quick to point out that there's always someone who is willing to do the work for less, just to have the opportunity to work in radio, even though the product of these people is mediocre.

There is, however, a shortage of qualified, experienced, knowledgeable young people coming up through the ranks to fill major market positions. That's because many of the small market radio stations opted for satellite or syndication program services, so there is no longer a "farm system" grooming tomorrow's radio talent.

You also have trade schools guaranteeing they'll find work in radio for their grads. These poor kids ante up thousands of dollars and end up out in the sticks for a six-month contract, working at stations where they probably would have been hired even without any trade school background. At the end of six months, they're replaced by a new grad, and the market is flooded with unqualified trade school disc jockeys who think they belong in major markets. The sad part is that some of them end up in bigger cities, replacing veterans who made much more money. The quality is never replaced, but radio owners save a lot of money by hiring these trade school types.

Blame

It would be easy to blame radio station owners for the current state of radio. After all, they're making the decisions. It would also be easy to blame consultants who are advising the owners, and trade schools, which are turning out marginal employees and flooding the market.

But if there is a place where the proverbial buck stops, it is with radio listeners. It is the listener who ultimately holds the power to change the industry. If the listeners turn off their radios, owners will pay attention and change will come. An interesting thought was recently posted on the Internet's rec.radio.broadcasting: "I have talked with many of my friends and most of them do not have a favorite station in our market. They have a station that they 'dislike' the least."

It seems we are no longer an audience that takes "ownership" of our favorite radio stations or personalities. We simply settle for what is on the station and land at the spot on the dial we dislike the least. If we instead took the years-old advice of the Yellow Pages and let our fingers do the walking, punching off those disliked stations and sending a message to those owners, we just might end up getting the kind of radio we want, rather than the kind of radio they want us to have.

MEDIA/POLITICS

An odd couple-SJR and politics

By Dennis R. Judd

Starting with this issue of the St. Louis Journalism Review I have agreed to do a regular column dealing with St. Louis politics. Many readers are probably familiar with the series of articles I have written over the last couple of years dealing with issues in the St. Louis region. Because I have conducted research for many years about urban problems and politics in other cities, it is fun to now turn my attention to my own city.

It is only fair to admit at the outset that I am no political insider. This may be both a weakness and a strength. Insiders who are closer to the action often have information and a point of view essential for understanding the nuances of local politics. It is equally important, however, to put the local into a larger, "global" context. In general, that is what I will try to do in my columns.

It is a particular honor to write for this publication. SJR was first published in September 1970. Charles Klotzer provided the energy, money and inspiration that kept SJR going, year in and year out, though it always operated at a financial loss. This is the 219th issue of SJR, a notable accomplishment in light of the fact that it is the last surviving independently published journalism review in the United States.

Klotzer first thought of founding SJR after seeing an early issue of the now long-defunct Chicago Journalism Review. Incensed at the cover-up orchestrated by media bosses of the police riot that spilled over from the Democratic Convention in 1968, reporters raised the money to begin the first city-level media watchdog journal. Almost 30 journalism reviews sprang up in the next few years, a logical expression of the political culture of the times, a protest against a media that seemed to be little more than a mouthpiece for corporate and governmental power. Most journalism reviews came and went quickly, a victim of economic realities and of intimidation by newspaper editors who made sure their reporters did not work, even for free, for the alternative press. By 1974 only four journalism reviews were still being published. Their demise is a genuine tragedy, and we are lucky that SJR lives on.

The quality and longevity of SJR can be attributed to the vision of Rose and Charles Klotzer, and to the collective efforts of those they brought into the fold over the years. SJR was never conceived as a media insiders' operation. Although reporters from the print and broadcast media made up the first SJR board of advisers, the board soon evolved into an eclectic group of reporters, writers, academics, retired journalists and others with a special interest in media issues. The broad focus of SJR was further assured when Focus/Midwest was merged with it in 1983.

SJR was actually the second publication launched by the Klotzers. In 1960 Charles gave up his job as the director of public relations and advertising for a St. Louis engineering and construction firm, and he and his wife founded Focus/Midwest (F/M), a magazine that covered social, political, economic and cultural issues in the Chicago-St. Louis-Kansas City triangle. It was intended that the magazine's coverage would eventually expand to embrace the entire midwest, and although that never happened (because F/M never became financially self-supporting), F/M enjoyed a 21-year run as the only publication of its kind in this region. The Klotzers kept F/M afloat, and although it cost them money, a few years later they took financial responsibility for SJR as well. By then the publishing ventures induced them to start a prepress graphics firm which more or less sustained the publications.

When F/M was folded into SJR in 1983, SJRs mission officially expanded, as its masthead says, to "A Critique of Metropolitan Media and Events." It is still primarily focused on media in the metropolitan area and often reports on national trends that influence local media, but it critiques important social and political issues as well. For instance, recently SJR published a three-part series on biotechnology and Monsanto, and, of course, there was the series of articles on downtown St. Louis that I have written.

I asked Charles Klotzer and the current editor, Ed Bishop, if they had ever considered renaming SJR, to make it clear that its mission encompasses social and political as well as media issues. In an article tracing the history of SJR, Klotzer has, in effect, answered my question with one of his own: "The media are powerful, they define influence and often join forces with particular interests which may or may not serve the general public. But while politicians must always keep the electorate in mind, business leaders [and] their stockholders and labor leaders [and] their members, who calls the media to account for their treatment of news?"

Ed Bishop not only emphasized the continued need for a publication that critiques the media, but questioned whether it was useful to draw a sharp distinction between media criticism and social and political commentary.

"Journalism," he said, "is one of the keys to democracy; in a sense journalism is perhaps more important, or at least as important, as the political process in preserving democracy."

The boundary between media critique and more general social and political criticism is porous and ambiguous, a point driven home for me every time I attend an SJR board of advisers discussion. In the United States no one is certified as a reporter, though it is true that it is a profession with formal training, ethics, and degrees granted. But as Bishop pointed out to me, watching politics has always been the main mandate of journalism, and as a result the media are a natural target for those in power. There have always been economic, political and social pressures to curb the press, and in an age of corporate ownership, the threat emanates as much from within the institutions of the media as from the social and political environment. An effective media critique must comment not only on newspapers, radio and television (and now the Internet); it must also consider the context within which the media operate.

By following such a broad mandate, SJR has been able to appeal to an diverse audience. By keeping its central focus on media, it also is able to draw on the collective energies of some of the most talented writers in the St. Louis community-the reporters who write every day for a living.

In the fall of 1995, the Klotzers gave SJR to Webster University. Ed Bishop, a journalism faculty member at Webster University, became the new editor in January 1996, SJR was set up as a wholly owned subsidiary of the university with its own board of directors, the majority of whom are not affiliated with the university. Happily, in the transition from a commercial (meaning, in practice, a privately subsidized) to a 501(c)3 corporation, SJR's independence and mission and operations continue unchanged.

Once a month 20 to 30 people meet on a Sunday morning at Balaban's in the Central West End for a wide-ranging, spirited and sometimes raucous discussion. Although St. Louis Post-Dispatch editors and other media bosses would no doubt love to be flies on the wall at these confabs, they are informal, definitely uncensored and off-the-record. These discussions (I refuse to call them meetings) set the tone and the content of the SJR. People are critical but fair; everyone is willing to listen and be persuaded, and at the end of the day enough people leave with articles to write-none is assigned; all are volunteered-to make the next issue complete. Does this sound like the spirit of the '60s is alive and well? Maybe that, in the end, is the real secret to the staying power of SJR.

With such a rich and storied history in mind, it is with some trepidation that I become a columnist for SJR. Fortunately, there is a virtually limitless number of worthy topics to write about. In many ways St. Louis and its region fit the profile typical of an older industrial city, celebrating its heyday from the mid-19th century to the 1920s. After the Depression and the war years, like other cities it joined in an alliance with the federal government to reverse its decline (first public housing, the urban renewal and highway bulldozers, then the social programs of the 1960s). In the most recent phase, it has tried to find a new niche in the post-industrial economy of the late 20th century.

But if St. Louis were as typical as all that, it would be less interesting than it is. St. Louisans are absolutely preoccupied with the city's and the region's peculiarities. If the word "eccentric" can be applied to a place, St. Louis fits the bill. Let's count the ways. No other city in the United States sits so precisely at a geographic or cultural crossroads, southern in many ways (especially in the habits and outlooks of its social and political elites, and in racial attitudes), northern in others (a ward-based, machine-style political culture). For decades the St. Louis region has served as the nation's most extreme example of local government

fragmentation and urban sprawl. The effects of both are exaggerated by the fact that the region straddles two states. In the post-war era, St. Louis has usually led all central cities in the rate of population decline. With less than 14 percent of the metropolitan-area population, St. Louis, which famously fixed its boundaries in the 19th century, may be more isolated within its region than any other major U.S. city. By the measures conventionally used by demographers, St. Louis consistently ranks among the nation's most socially and racially segregated metropolitan regions.

The city of St. Louis is burdened by a conservative, even backward civic and political leadership. It has one of the nation's most unreformed, indeed archaic, city governments, with multitudes of obscure city and county officials, a Board of Estimate and Apportionment dividing the power over the purse between the mayor, the aldermanic chair, and an elected Comptroller, and 28 aldermen constantly fighting turf battles. People wonder why St. Louis can't seem to get its act together in the cause of downtown revival, and yet the city doesn't even possess the fiscal capacity (or the political will) to use local funds to market itself.

That dinosaur, Civic Progress, is the kind of exclusively white male civic organization that was long ago eclipsed or laughed out of town in other cities. Though St. Louis's civic leadership is quite effective at getting profit-making big projects done, it is equally skilled at vetoing good ideas and proposals, which it tends to do if the backers are not sufficiently obsequious to the powers that be. The latest example of this is its opposition to the reopening of one of the most architecturally significant performing arts centers ever built in the United States, the Kiel Opera House. Though Ed Golterman has roots as deep as anyone in St. Louis, he offends the establishment. Perhaps even more important, the Kiel investors fear that a reopened opera house would cause traffic congestion.

On such thinking hangs the fate of downtown revitalization. But let's not get totally carried away. (Damn! I can see that being a columnist might turn out to be fun after all.) St. Louis also has genuine strengths, and, it should be noted, some of its eccentricities are actually strong points. It is easy to make a long list of the city's virtues (as I did in an SJR article published in Feb. 1997). It possesses an impressive collection of world-class cultural institutions, including the science center, justly famous zoological and botanical gardens, an architecturally significant, well-managed art museum, and an acclaimed symphony orchestra. In the last two decades it has built an impressive infrastructure to support the post-industrial economy essential to healthy central cities today: a football stadium/convention center considered a model for other cities, a modern glass-and aluminum basketball, hockey, and events arena, and one of the most interesting and successful Rouse malls in the country. And the list goes on.

Recent changes in political leadership and civic culture give cause for optimism about St. Louis's future. The Downtown Now! plan has been put together by a group of talented planners and urban professionals, and is backed by a broad political coalition that goes beyond the usual suspects.

Behind the leadership of Richard Fleming, recruited from Denver, the RCGA seems to taking a creative regional approach to economic issues, a good direction for a city that has been often at odds with its suburbs.

Citizens' groups are gaining in influence. Metropolis, an organization of 30-something and younger folks who live in the city, is generally ignored for now, but that could change fast. Apart from its potential political influence, it is animated by the general spirit of what's happening in and around the Washington Avenue loft district. Focus St. Louis, which is run by a talented young staff, has evolved into a dynamic citizens' group. With the building of the City Museum, Bob and Gail Cassilly have demonstrated the extraordinary impact that a personal vision can accomplish. Likewise, the collective energy of individuals is beginning to revive neighborhoods in many parts of the city. Like it or not, the local political establishment is going to have to make room for all these folks.

Those are the kinds of issues I'll be writing about in this column. I will be gleaning ideas from the SJR crowd in our Sunday conversations, but I would also like to hear from readers. You can best contact me at dennis.judd @umsl.edu. If you have bigger fish to fry (such as demands I be fired forthwith!), you should contact the editor, Ed Bishop, directly.

PEOPLE

MEDIA

KDHX

Beverly Hacker has been appointed station manager.

KIHT-FM

Mark Klose has been named host of "More Music Morning Show."

KMOV-TV

Bruce Morgan has been promoted to local sales manager.

KTVI-KMOX

News Anchor Mandy Murphey will add morning news radio to her regular responsibilities! Murphey will fill in for vacationing KMOX personality Nan Wyatt on KMOX.

KTVI

Ernie Dachel was appointed vice president/director of engineering. Dachel most recently served as director of operations at News Corporation and subsequently as vice president of technology and operations at the American Sky Broadcast Division in Phoenix.

Len Turner was named general assignment reporter. Turner comes from WPTV-TV in West Palm Beach, Florida.

KWMU-FM

Kelly Jobe has been promoted to marketing and outreach director.

SACRED HEART PROGRAM

Trish Muyco-Tobin has joined the "Contact" radio show as a producer.

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

C.Z. Egger, general manager, has been appointed publisher. He succeeds Nicholas G. Penniman IV who retired in March. Egger will report to Robert C. Woodworth, Pulitzer's president and chief executive. Cole Campbell, editor, as well as five vice presidents in charge of operations, circulation, advertising, marketing and finance will report to Egger.

AD/PR

ADAMSON

Patrick "Rick" Forrestal, Ben Crain and Todd McGowan have joined the agency to create a new sales promotion division called Adamson Promotion.

The three have worked together for 15 years. In 1995, the three left The Glennon Company to form Patrick Promotion - a sales promotion division of the Brighton Agency Inc. Forrestal is vice president. Both Crain and McGowan have been named creative directors.

Rich Breidenbach was promoted to senior account executive and Missie Lively was hired as account coordinator in the agency's advertising division.

Lively was an account coordinator with Ervin Marketing in Clayton, Mo. Before Ervin, she served as advertising manager/Midwest operations for Station Casino Kansas City and St. Charles.

Stacy Jarvis was promoted to account supervisor and Elizabeth Holum to account coordinator in the agency's advertising division. Jarvis worked as an account executive for Glennon. Holum worked as a marketing coordinator at Maritz.

Amy Mertens was hired as copywriter and Jeff Wulfert was promoted to art director in the agency's corporate communications division. Mertens was a staff writer for Legal Communications Corporation. Wulfert was art director at Contemporary Group, Inc.

Jeff Braun has been hired as art director and Laura Needham as account executive. Braun came from the Brighton Agency, Inc. where he had served as art director. Needham was an account executive at Roni Hicks & Associates in San Diego, Calif.

D'ARCY MASIUS BENTON & BOWLES'

Gordon Robertson has been promoted to senior vice president/group creative director.

Suzan Knese, director of human resources, has been elected a vice president. Prior to joining the agency, she was an employment manager with the Adams Mark Hotel in St. Louis and, before that, was a human resources assistant with Chemical Waste Management Inc.

DRONE & MUELLER

AND ASSOCIATES

Adam Swank was promoted to systems administrator.

FALK HARRISON CREATIVE

Jennifer Sagaser has been promoted to art director.

GEILE-REXFORD

CREATIVE ASSOCIATES

Mike Caito has been promoted to associate creative director.

GRANDONE HAUSER, INC.

Cindy Helfer joins the firm, after completing an internship in May 1999.

KUPPER PARKER COMMUNICATIONS

Jeff Morris an associate creative director; and Linda Eckels a computer production artist have been added to the staff.

LASALLE GROUP, INC.

Jeff Herschel has joined the agency as art director. Previously, Herschel was creative director at Red Rock Communications.

Steve Brothers has been promoted to account executive.

Mark Green has joined the agency as account director of strategic business development. He was account supervisor and new business director at Red Rock Communications and he spent two years at Osborn & Barr Communications as an account executive.

SHANDWICK

Jennifer Purdum, senior account executive; Lisa Virden, account executive; Tom Rule, project manager, interactive communications; and Kit Smith, Web programmer, have been hired by the agency.

The following people have been promoted: Alison Bounds, account supervisor, and Stacey Potter, senior account executive for the consumer team; Jennifer Larson, senior account executive, corporate team; Susanne Reimer and Sheri Heftel, senior account executives, business and professionals services team; Kelly McMahon and Diana VanLeuven, senior account executives, consumer technology team; and Kurt Groetsch, associate group director, Internet marketing and communications division.

AD/PR AWARDS

CREATIVE PRODUCERS GROUP

The agency received a Gold Award at the St. Louis Business Marketing Association's 1999 TAM Awards.

The agency also received a TAM Bronze Award as well as three gold awards in the national 1999 Technical Achievement Award Video Competition. The agency has also been recognized with two Bronze Quill Awards from the St. Louis chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators.

FALK HARRISON CREATIVE

The agency was recognized for outstanding achievement in a number of annual report categories, winning a total of six awards in the 1999 International ARC Awards competition sponsored by MerComm Incorporated.

The agency won five awards in the 1999 BMA - TAM Awards competition, recognizing excellence in both print and electronic media. The agency received gold awards for an annual report and for a web site development. The firm earned a pair of silver awards for two brochures, and a bronze award for a sexual harassment poster.

GRIZZELL & CO.

The agency was selected as a winner in the 1999 American Graphic Design Awards compeition.

O'CONNOR & PARTNERS

The agency has been recognized with eight awards in a series of competitions honoring excellence in public relations and corporate communications. The awards are The Gold Mercury Award for Nextel Communications, The Gold Mercury Award for the City of Belleville, The APEX Award for Publication Excellence for MidAmerica Airport, The Communicator Award for Nextel Communications, The International Association of Business Communicators St. Louis Bronze Quill Program Award of Merit for MidAmerica Airport, The International Association of Business Communicators St. Louis Bronze Quill Program Award of Merit for Catholic Fraternal Life, The International Association of Business Communicators St. Louis Bronze Quill Program Award of Merit for the National Coalition for Responsible Tobacco Retailing and The International Association of Business Communicators St. Louis Bronze Quill Program Honorable Mention for Nextel Communications.

RIVERVIEW GARDENS SCHOOLS

David Clohessy, director of community services has won two awards from the Missouri School Public Relations Association (MoSPRA). Clohessy received an Award of Excellence, the highest honor possible, for the district's quarterly newsletter, The VIEW, which he edits. He also won an "Award of Commendation" in the feature story category for an article he wrote entitled "The Riverview Gardens Renaissance." It was published in a recent issue of Outstanding Schools, a statewide newsletter.

MEDIA AWARDS

KWMU-FM

The following have won awards from the Missouri Broadcasters Association: news producer Brett Blume, first place, radio spot news; news producer Kevin Lavery, first place, documentary/public affairs; news director Bill Raack, certificate of merit, documentary/public affairs; and assistant program director Ken Davis, certificate of merit, public service announcements. Raack also won a second-place award in radio enterprise from the Missouri and Kansas Associated Press Broadcasters Association.

ST. LOUIS BUSINESS JOURNAL

Jennifer Orgel Tompras and Rebecca Blair, sales consultants, received the American City Eagle Awards for Excellence. The Journal is owned by American City.

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

William Allen, science writer, won the 1998 Engineering Journalism Award sponsored by the leading engineering societies. It carried a $5,000 price.

Personnel changes and awards should be sent to SJR, 470 E. Lockwood, Room 414, St. Louis, MO 63119

invitations

The calendar has been prepared by the International Writers Center at Washington University. All events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.

Saturday, September 4

u Gerald Early, William Gass, Ursula Goodenough, Marjorie Stelmach, Mary Troy and Steven Wong-Frappier read from their work at 2 p.m. at Left Bank Books, 399 N. Euclid. A percentage of all book sales from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. benefit Washington University's Campus Y. 935-5012

u Poet G. Winston James reads from Lyric: Poems Along a Broken Road and Sharon Bridgeforth performs excerpts from her collection the bull/jean stories at 7 p.m. at Left Bank Books, 399 N. Euclid. 367-6731

Tuesday, September 7

u Left Bank Books presents Kent Shaw and J.E. Robinson reading from their work for the Sixth Annual Writers Showcase at 7:30 p.m. at Café Danielle, 395 N. Euclid. 367-6731

Wednesday, September 8

u Sandy Jaffe of Booksource speaks on "Working with Book Distributors" at the meeting of the St. Louis Publishers Association from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at the Richmond Heights Public Library, 7441 Dale. Non-members $5. 984-9805

Thursday, September 9

u Dennis Judd, author of Empire: The British Imperial Experience, reads and signs his new book The Tourist City at 7 p.m. at Left Bank Books, 399 N. Euclid. 367-6731

u The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators presents a Children's Writing Critique Group at 7 p.m. in room 1 of the Bridgeton Trails Public Library, 3455 McKelvey. 429-0301

u David Ferry, translator of the Eclogues of Virgil and The Odes of Horace, reads from his work at 8 p.m. in Washington University's Hurst Lounge, Duncker 201. 935-5170

u Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities is the topic for the Great Books Discussion Group at 8 p.m. at Trinity Presbyterian Church, 6800 Washington. 994-7914

Saturday, September 11

u James Beller discusses and signs his new book The Soul of St. Louis: A Historical Narrative of Revival in the Gateway City at 2 p.m. at Barnes and Noble, 9618 Watson. 843-0159

Monday, September 13

u Bartholomew Gill's Transcendental Murder is the topic for the Mystery Book Discussion Group at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble, 9618 Watson. 843-0159

Tuesday, September 14

u Leonard Shlain, author of Art and Physics, reads and signs his new book The Alphabet Versus the Goddess at 7 p.m. at Left Bank Books, 399 N. Euclid. 367-6731

u Elaine Viets discusses and signs her new mystery The Pink Flamingo Murders at 7 p.m. at the Buder Branch of the St. Louis Public Library, 5320 Hampton. 539-0305

u Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton is the topic for the Foreign Literature Discussion Group at 7:30 p.m. at Washington University's West Campus Conference Center, 7425 Forsyth. 727-6118

Wednesday, September 15

u Jonathan Weiner, author of Beak of the Finch, speaks on "Evolution in Action: The View from Darwin's Islands and Benzer's Bottles" at 11 a.m. for Washington University's Assembly Series in Graham Chapel. 935-5285

u Martin Duggan, host of KETC's Donnybrook, speaks at 7 p.m. for the meeting of the St. Louis Writers' Guild at McNulty's Irish Bar, 620 Westport Plaza. Dinner (on your own) is at 6 p.m. $3 for non-members. 353-4562

u Sara Paretsky, author of Bitter Medicine, reads and signs her new book Hard Time: A.V.I. Warshawski Novel at 7 p.m. at Left Bank Books, 399 N. Euclid. 367-6731

Thursday, September 16

u Elaine Viets hosts a Whodunit? Mystery Writing Workshop at 7 p.m. at the Buder Branch of the St. Louis Public Library, 5320 Hampton. 539-0305

Friday, September 17

u Lauren Slater, author of Welcome to My Country, reads and signs her new book Prozac Diary at 7 p.m. at Left Bank Books, 399 N. Euclid. 367-6731

u Poet Phil Stephens, winner of the St. Louis Poetry Center's 1999 Hanks Chapbook Award, reads from his work at 8 p.m. in the Lewis Room of the Fontbonne College Library. 727-4917

Saturday, September 18

u Glenn Irwin speaks on "How to Write Personal Essays" from 10 a.m. to noon for the meeting of the St. Louis Writers' Guild at Barnes and Noble, 9618 Watson. Please bring writing samples. $5 for non-members. 353-4562

Sunday, September 19

u Poet Phil Stephens leads the workshop of the St. Louis Poetry Center at 1:30 p.m. at the University City Library, 6701 Delmar. 727-4917

1999-2000 Press Club Schedule

Press Club programs for the coming year will feature "New Directions for the Millennium in St. Louis." Following is the tentative schedule:

Sept. 15 New Directions for Downtown St. Louis - presented by Downtown Partnership and Metropolis. Special welcome for new members and guests. Those bringing guests will be eligible for a prize drawing. Place: Mayfair Hotel - Eighth and St. Charles Sts. (Across from Mercantile Bank)

Oct. 13 New Directions in Art - Featuring Bret Benjamin, new director of the Art Museum. Place to be announced.

Nov. 10 1999 Annual Meeting - Always a fun occasion. Early evening. Place: University Club in Brentwood.

Dec. 15 New Directions in Theater - Talk with theater critics - Cocktail Party and Tour at the Fox or Loretto Hilton Theatre.

Jan. 12 New Directions in Transportation: Modot PR Director Links Us Up Connect the dots: MetroLink, airport, Highway 70, Place: Junior League.

Feb. 16 New Directions in Reporting - Public Journalism: is it really journalism? Hope to present both sides of the picture. Place: Washington University

Note: Feb. and March dates may change because of the Media Person of the Year Dinner

Mar 15 New Directions in Technology - Dr. Art Silverblatt and representatives from the Webster University Media Center show us the future.

Apr. 12 New Directions in Sports - Featuring owners of minor league teams, River City Rascals and the Grizzlies, someone from the Cardinals. Place: Busch Stadium

May 10 New directions in Museums - Touring the addition at the History Museum.

June 17 New Directions in Travel - Travel reporters say it's not all fun. Where will be the next hot travel destinations?

DEADLINE

m Robert R. Archibald president of the Historical Society will discuss his new book, A Place to Remember: Using History to Build Community and sign books at the Missouri History Museum Library and Research Center at 225 S. Skinker Blvd. on Thursday, September 9 at 7 p.m. Admission is free.