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Reporting on Kirkwood’s nightmare
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Reporting on Kirkwood's Nightmare
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Related stories: Telling the story: Journalists talk about covering Kirkwood shootings Cookie Thornton— A well-known man’s path to violence William Freivogel
Channels: TV’s coverage of the shootings Shooting witnesses can suffer from PTSD Repps Hudson
Facing history and ourselves Robert Tabscott
What the airwaves lack Robert Tabscott
AMFM: Some stations help listeners cope, others drop the ball Taking a hard look at racial issues
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Reporters dodge bullets in Kirkwood “I
’ll bet it was Cookie Thornton.” by Roy Malone That’s what some people in Kirkwood said when they first heard establishment types over whether to hold there was a shooting at the Kirkwood City the April 8 municipal election, or postpone it, to allow time for someone else to Hall the evening of Feb. 7. Indeed, it was Charles “Cookie” Thorn- replace mayoral candidate Connie Karr, ton. He had gone berserk, killing five and who was a council member and one of wounding two. Three reporters covering those killed. the city council meeting were in the crossfire. Three reporters take cover Thornton was a resident of Meacham Todd Smith, reporter for the weekly Park, the predominately black enclave in southeast Kirkwood. He had been publicly Suburban Journals, was wounded in the feuding with city officials for several years right hand by Thornton. “I saw him come in and start shooting,” over parking tickets and other issues he perSmith told SJR. He ceived as racial harasswas holding his lapment. He referred to top and thought the city as a “plantaThornton meant to tion” and harassed the kill him too, “I was officials in return— moving around. His maligning them at shot grazed my stommeetings, suing the ach and hit my hand.” city and, when that After the shooting failed, resorting to was over, Smith was murder. Two police able to call his paper officers, three city offiand say they should cials and Thornton send a replacement, himself were killed as he was being taken during the bloody ramto a hospital. page. The mayor was He was quoted later, gravely wounded. A saying, “This shouldreporter was shot in n’t happen in Kirkthe hand. wood.” He took off The Kirkwood killwork for a month to ings made national recover and has since news as yet another in been assigned to ana series of lethal shootother job, doing online ings by deranged peonews. ple. But it was a local Marty Harris, a tragedy, and the media reporter for the weekhere did good work in ly Webster-Kirkwood piecing together the Todd Smith back at work Times, was sitting in story, often personal, the second row, bethat stunned the usuhind the city’s Director of Public Works ally placid town of 27,000. In the first few hours, news-hungry televi- Ken Yost. Quoted in her own newspaper, sion viewers surfed the local channels as she said Thornton walked up on the right news crews scrambled to get bits of infor- side of the chamber and had two guns. One, it was later learned, was from police Sgt. mation. Later, reaction stories exposed the Bill Biggs, whom Thornton had fatally shot racial divide in the upscale, 90-percent- outside the building. “My initial reaction was, ‘This must be white affluent suburb. Scores of citizens attended meetings of “dialogue and another one of his pranks.’ After he shot understanding.” Still, there was political Officer (Tom) Ballman in the head, he took infighting between the old guard and non- a few steps around to where Ken Yost was
Linda Lockhart
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Each morning thereafter, after waksitting and shot Ken in the head, . . . then I saw the blood,’’ Harris was ing, McNichols said she would think of the shootings. quoted. “I’ve never been around anything Harris had blood splattered on her sweater. She was so shaken she that terrible . . . it was a horrible thing decided on the spot she did not want to see,” she said. And she still recalls the ashen and to return to the Kirkwood City Hall. The third reporter, Janet McNi- stunned looks on the faces of others chols, is a correspondent for the St. who were at the meeting. McNichols said she didn’t cry Louis Post-Dispatch. She had known Thornton from covering Kirkwood afterward and thought about going to meetings for several years and often a counseling session but couldn’t attend. She returned to work, covering exchanged pleasantries with him. Just as the meeting was starting, municipal meetings, including KirkMcNichols said, she heard Thornton’s wood’s in its renovated council high-pitched voice from the rear, say- chamber. She has worked for the Post for about nine ing, “I’ve got a gun.” years, part-time. She After Thornton retired from shot Ballman and Anheuser-Busch, Yost, she didn’t see McNichols’ where she was an his movements as executive secretary she hid under a chair, video account and administrator. afraid she too would Because of her harbe shot. of the melee rowing work that “We were dodging she said, the bullets. I heard him was rebroadcast night, Post “gave me a say he was going to bonus.” shoot the mayor. He by local TV said it a couple of times . . . he was a stations and Need for good shot.” As more shots counseling also used by rang out, council Claire Budd, the members Connie public information ofKarr and Michael CNN, BBC and ficer for Kirkwood, Lynch were killed was seated in the and Mayor Mike Swothe ‘Today front row next to Yost boda was wounded. and crawled toward John Hessel, the city Show’ and the front left side of attorney, escaped the chamber as the Thornton’s attack by ‘Good Morning firing continued. She throwing chairs at was traumatized. him. Then two other America.’ “I was not funcofficers came into the tioning for a few chamber and fatally days,” she said. shot Thornton. The city offered counseling to everyMcNichols also was splattered with one in the room that night, and Budd blood. “I was shaking all over. I couldn’t has had several sessions with a coundial my phone to call my daughter or selor trained in dealing with trauma. “I wish everyone would go. It’s the newspaper,” she told SJR. A Post editor called her on her cell really helped me,” Budd said, “talking phone and asked her to come to the about what I felt and survivor’s guilt-— newspaper’s office and do an online there’s a lot of that, thinking maybe you could have helped others survive. video about what had happened. “The shock of what I saw keeps “I was much calmer by then,” she playing in my mind. I still have trouble said. She matter-of-factly recounted sleeping at night. You‘ll always what she saw and heard. This video, remember it, But I learned it will find a posted on STLtoday.com, was the first place in the back of my mind where it eye-witness account. It was rebroad- will rest,” Budd said. ■ cast by local TV stations and also used by CNN, BBC and the “Today Show” Roy Malone, a long-time reporter, is retired from and “Good Morning America.” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He is the editor of SJR.
Janet McNichols
Marty Harris
Claire Budd
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Telling the story Journalists talk about covering the Kirkwood shootings
Max Gersh photo
People from many St. Louis communities attended a candlelight vigil at Kirkwood City Hall after the shootings. One Times story, by Franklin McCallie, he weekly Webster-Kirkwood Times put retired principal of Kirkwood High School, together a comprehensive report in its told how he spent five months in 2003 tryissue that came out a week after the ing to mediate Thornton’s dispute with the Kirkwood City Hall shootings in February, city. He said Thornton, a contractor, under the headline: “A Community Mourns.” refused to go along with a deal for the city Editor Don Corrigan wrote in his column: to waive $20,000 in fines, mainly for park“This is personal for us in local journalism. ing tickets, in return for his future compliWe know all the actors in this drama.” ance with city ordinances and dropping of He teaches journalism at Webster Univerlegal action. sity, and Connie Karr, the council member Thornton, 52, was a college graduate and former St. Louis Globe-Democrat and had been an enthusiastic civic volunreporter, had spoken to his class three days teer, even running once unsuccessfully for before she was killed. Officer Tom Ballman, by Don Corrigan, a city council seat, the Times reported. who was also killed, was to speak the next In 2006, he moved to Florida for a time day after the shootings by Charles “Cookie” Roy Malone, with his wife, who became a school princiThornton. C.D. Stelzer pal there, but then came back to Kirkwood. “We had better all start acting like family,” and Joe Pollack He filed a lawsuit against the city for Corrigan wrote. alleged First Amendment Rights violations Corrigan said he broke into tears at one point; he got a sedative from his doctor to be able to sleep. in restricting his speech at council meetings. It was disThe Times staff viewed the tragedy as “Kirkwood’s 9/11,” missed in federal court in late January. This was the and doing the stories was very emotional. The paper sup- final straw for Thornton. He “went to war” against the plied information and pictures to news organizations city, his brother Gerald said. around the country. The stories on the Times Web site were read by people in every state and 50 countries. The Journal at Webster U. Reporter Marty Harris, who witnessed the killings, was The student newspaper at Webster University, The Jourtoo shaken to give interviews, and the paper protected her privacy. When the networks tried to get her phone number, nal, also gave the story full coverage, including several phoCorrigan said no, even when a CBS staffer said, “Katie tos of residents mourning, taken by Max Gersh, a senior photography major. Couric wants to reach out to Marty.”
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Stories by students focused on Kirkwood’s racial divide. Reporters went into Meacham Park and interviewed blacks who said racism contributed to the tragedy and said that Kirkwood and Meacham Park were two different worlds. Some said Thornton was driven to the edge because he felt unfairly picked on by the city. But, some whites in Kirkwood who were interviewed said race had nothing to do with the shootings. The Journal dug up census figures from 2000 showing the median income for black households was less than half the $55,000 median income for the total population in Kirkwood. From public records, The Journal reported that the redevelopment project that brought stores such as Lowe’s, Target and Wal-Mart to the area took about half the 106 acres in Meacham Park and forced 62 homeowners to relocate. Gerald Thornton was quoted in The Journal as saying, “This will give us an opportunity to finally come together and talk.” An editorial in The Journal said the shootings caused “inflamed passions . . . anger and hate,” but residents could engage in “constructive dialogue that could ease tensions.”
The Call at Kirkwood High School High school staffers at the Kirkwood Call had a week to put together stories about what it called “one of the worst tragedies in town history.” Faculty Adviser Mitch Eden said the students had a lot to deal with but did an excellent job. Connie Karr’s daughter Lauren is a writer on the staff, but was in mourning. One story recounted how Police Sgt. William McEntee had been killed in 2005 by a Meacham Park resident and that, in 2007, Kirkwood resident Michael Devlin was arrested for kidnapping and holding captive boys Shawn Hornbeck and Ben Ownby. Another story told how Cookie Thornton was a star athlete in basketball and track while a student at Kirkwood High School, setting state records in the triple jump. He was also “one of the most popular kids in the school,” Deborah Ann Manns was quoted as saying. She was a fellow classmate of Thornton’s and is now a guidance counselor at the school. Thornton went to Northeast Missouri State (now Truman) on a track scholarship, the Call reported. In a commentary, co-editor Brandon Mitchener said Kirkwood was a divided community and Meacham Park, while tranquil, “somehow has the similar negative connotations of an inner-city project,” causing white teenagers, including himself, not to go there. He said student reporters would not volunteer to go to a prayer vigil at a school in Meacham Park, even though it was a safe place. “Kirkwood needs to improve its race relations . . . if people are being attacked, and people are supporting the attacker, something must be wrong,” Mitchener wrote.
Other media views One publication wanted no mention of the racial discord in Kirkwood. That’s the Kirkwood Historical Review. Its editor, Jim Baker, wrote a piece about the racial divide that
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included some history of Meacham Park and a call for citizens and the government to help heal the divide, but the board of the Kirkwood Historical Society kept it from being published. The president of the society, Sheri Mistretta, was quoted in the Webster-Kirkwood Times as saying the Review’s mission is to document the past, not to cover current events. Baker said he hopes the Review will eventually do a thorough history of Meacham Park’s black community and the relationship with Kirkwood. “There’s a lot of history here that’s never been printed,” he said. A front-page story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch explored the possibility that critics or gadflies at other municipal meetings could erupt in violence, as Thornton had. It named a man in Bellefontaine Neighbors who attends council meetings and even ran his photo. “He scares me sometimes,” the mayor told the Post. It named a man and a woman in other area cities who were frequent complainers. The story brought letters of criticism that the Post was stereotyping citizens as possibly violent for simply exercising their right of free speech. The St. Louis American’s City Editor Alvin Reid, an African American who lives in Kirkwood, said on KWMU radio that the Kirkwood shooting had nothing to do with race. An editorial in the American said, “Now is not the time to begin to ask hard questions about race in connection with Kirkwood and Meacham Park.’’ This put Reid at odds with Jamala Rogers, a columnist for the American, who said, “When Thornton entered the Kirkwood council chamber shouting, ‘All I want is justice,’ he echoed the sentiment of many Meacham Park citizens.” Sylvester Brown, a Post columnist, wrote that Thornton‘s crime “unearthed deep-rooted resentment among some Meacham Park residents.” His writing brought angry responses from some whites, such as this one: “Tell me Sylvester, why am I not supposed to look at blacks with suspicion, fear and disgust?” Brown’s answer: “Don’t indict an entire community for one man’s crime . . . just as the foul deeds of Kirkwood resident Michael Devlin didn’t reflect Kirkwood’s citizens.” “The shooting opens two doors. We can take Door One and keep doing what we’ve been doing-— pointing fingers, placing blame and taking sides along the racial divide. Or, we can choose Door Two and, for once, have a real dialog that sifts through the layers of frustration, fear and anger that fuel the divide,’’ Brown told SJR. While no one in the media could have predicted the violence in Kirkwood, reporters and editors sometimes have to consider whether an assignment or locale is too dangerous. Steve Parker, news editor at the Post said, “No rightminded editor would send a reporter on a dangerous assignment or where the reporter was concerned over what might happen. Most reporters happily accept potentially dangerous assignments because they tend to produce good stories, but there can be good reasons for their unwillingness.” KWMU (90.7 FM) News Director Bill Raack said consideration must be shown to reporters who are uneasy about covering meetings or situations where they feel vulnerable. He said a reporter at the station who was eager to cover an execution at Potosi returned so shaken and emotionally drained that Raack decided not to send him on such an assignment again. ■
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Cookie Thornton—
A well-known man’s path to violence by William Freivogel tock story lines in the media about loners and psychopaths fail to explain Charles Lee “Cookie” Thornton’s murderous assault Feb. 7 on the city hall of my hometown, Kirkwood—an attack that killed two police officers and three city officials and gravely wounded the mayor, my friend. Nor do references about race explain how evil found a home in our idyllic little railroad townturned- suburb, where some people feel comfortable leaving their doors unlocked. Many white residents want desperately to believe the shooting wasn’t about race and react angrily to comments that Thornton, who was killed by police, was a “hero” who was “going to war” against ra-ism. Many black residents of Meacham Park also recoil from these statements, yet they can’t help but see Thornton’s life and death through a racial lens. The full story is more complicated. In some ways race has nothing to do with it. Kirkwood officials offered to cancel thousands of dollars of fines that Ursula Ruhl photo Thornton owed on more than 100 ordinance violations for Charles ‘Cookie’ parking his construction vehicles on residential lots. Black Thornton and white friends and Thornton’s wife Maureen, a school principal, had urged him to settle. Yet, from the point of view of many in Meacham Park, an African-American enclave and longtime stepchild on the edge of Kirkwood, it is impossible to separate the story of Thornton from the racial separation they feel in a neighborhood where no AfricanAmerican resident sits on the city council. Four decades after the Civil Rights Movement, such feelings of racial mistrust still smolder just off the Main Streets of our prosperous towns and suburbs. Once, Cookie Thornton would have seemed the least likely antagonist in this racial drama. His mother called him “Cookie” because he was so sweet. Kirkwood residents remember his broad smile, his embrace and exuberant greeting: “Praise the Lord.”
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Few African Americans in Kirkwood had so many white friends and reached so successfully across the racial divide. Thornton had been a popular track star at Kirkwood High School and got a college business degree. In the 1990s, he served on half-a-dozen civic boards and ran unsuccessfully for the city council. I voted for him. When some Meacham Park residents worried about being annexed by Kirkwood, Thornton favored it. When some questioned Kirkwood’s redevelopment plan for the neighborhood, he strongly supported it. Ironically, these integrationist impulses backfired. The annexation led to stronger code enforcement and the beginning of his disputes with Kirkwood. Thornton told friends and relatives he also was bitter about the redevelopment plan because he didn’t receive a minority set-aside on demolition contracts that he thought he had been promised. In early 2003, retired Kirkwood High School Principal Franklin McCallie spent five months negotiating between his friend and city officials. He had known Thornton for years, having attended his wedding ceremony. He also has devoted his life to racial justice, after seeing the face of racism in his boyhood Chattanooga, Tenn. But by May 2003, McCallie admitted that his mediation had failed. The city had agreed to waive fines of tens of thousands of dollars, but Thornton said he couldn’t compromise his principles. Months later, McCallie heard Thornton attack the city council again, hee-hawing for three minutes in “jackass-ese.” McCallie rose to say how disappointed he was with his friend’s behavior. Thornton still embraced him after the meeting. At another council meeting Thornton was handcuffed by police and removed. In a separate incident, he was found guilty of assaulting a city code official. Thornton was dropping out of civic groups, losing subcontractor jobs and had filed for bankruptcy. In 2003 he was signing his letters “A free man” and railing about Kirkwood’s “plantation mentality” and “slave taxes.” Thornton thought that a First Amendment suit he had filed without a lawyer would vindicate him and win millions. But on Jan. 28, U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry ruled that Kirkwood could remove him from meetings when he engaged in “virulent, personal attacks.” Joe Cole, a Meacham Park
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leader, had dinner with Thornton after the decision. He told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch he found a man defeated. “Everybody said he lost his brain. No, hate got into him. He couldn’t stop the hate,” Cole said. At noon the day after the shootings, hundreds of people from Kirkwood’s mostly white neighborhoods jammed into the Methodist and Presbyterian churches in the town center. At the same time, two miles away, about 100 people crammed into a room in the old Turner School in Meacham Park where black students had once attended segregated classes. Most news accounts of the meeting featured a quote from Ben Gordon of nearby Webster Groves, who called Thornton “a hero” for standing up to racism. But after scattered applause for Gordon, the Rev. Miguel Brinkley, pastor of the Kirkwood Church of God, pointedly disagreed. Rev. Brinkley, sporting a Tiger The two-hour Woods cap, said Thornton’s actions “were not the way God says things meeting was should be handled.” The two-hour meeting was filled with filled with such such expressions of pain and oppression that it seemed impossible this was part of a place and time when a black expressions man might become president. Residents complained that the police are of pain and tougher in Meacham Park; human rights complaints go nowhere; the redeoppression velopment was a land grab. No one mentioned that Thornton had been one of that it seemed its strongest proponents. The Sunday after the shooting, a impossible this newspaper headline talked about moving on, the healing process and the quick remodeling of the city council was part of a chamber where a new coat of green paint had been applied, city officials place and time say, to remind residents that this is a city of trees. McCallie thinks it’s more when a black important to come together. He knows there is no justifying Thornton’s murman might ders. He also knows that there is no ignoring the racial divisions that persist become just beyond the comfortable, tree-lined streets. president. After the funerals, community groups began meeting to find common ground. Mayor Mike Swoboda is improving. Last Christmas Eve, Mike performed us a good turn. Our daughter-in-law from out-of-town had gotten lost jogging. She waved down a passing motorist for directions. The motorist was Mike, hurrying to the grocery store. “Get in. I’ll take you home,” he said. “I know everyone in Kirkwood.” We wrote a short thank-you letter to the Webster-Kirkwood Times about how this only could happen in Kirkwood. We never imagined Feb. 7 could happen here. ■ William Freivogel is director of the School of Journalism at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. He is a former deputy editorial page editor for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. His reporting on the Kirkwood City Hall attack can be found on the St. Louis Platform at stlplatform.org.
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he talk of the demise of local television news in this Internet age was again proven incorrect on the cold evening of Feb. 7. A man entered the Kirkwood City Council chamber about 7 p.m. and opened fire. By the time it was over six were dead, including the gunman, and two more were wounded. Within minutes the local TV newsrooms were pressed into reporting the unfolding events, basically without a script. The stations realized it was a big story, not only in St. Louis but around the nation. It would take wall-to-wall coverage. Reporters and crews had to be called in to do live shots, interviewing whomever they could grab, even if the witnesses saw nothing. Anchors had to go on the air at a moment’s notice, sometimes with little to say. The phones were worked in a frantic grab for any piece of information. To their credit, KTVI (Channel 2), KMOV (Channel 4) and KSDK (Channel 5) all performed admirably. [I did not see KPLR (Channel 11).] Oh, some mistakes were made. There were different reports as to what shooter Charles “Cookie” Thornton yelled before he began shooting. There were different figures discussed early on as to how many were dead. But overall, with information hard to come by and verify, the stations did a fine job of telling a rapt viewership what they could. Channel 5 anchor Deanne Lane is a Kirkwood resident who knew some of the city officials. On air, she appeared distraught by the killings, especially as coanchor Mike Bush several times used the euphemism that some victims had “passed away.” But Lane kept her composure and when not on the air worked the phone to reach local contacts.
Channels / Tripp Frohlichstein
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Channel 5 anchor Deanne Lane is a Kirkwood resident who knew some of the city officials. On air, she appeared distraught by the killings, especially as co-anchor Mike Bush several times used the euphemism that some victims had ‘passed away.’
Tripp Frohlichstein owns Media Masters and consults with business, government and non-profit organizations. He will not comment on any television coverage if it involves his clients.
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TV’s coverage of the shootings
Some liked it not Some viewers were upset by the coverage. On a St. Louis Post-Dispatch blog, one person wrote, “I suppose we should be grateful that ABC30 no longer has a news department.” Another wrote: “What seemed to turn into overkill was when, at about 10:45
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p.m., the police spokesperson said they were not going to have any more information to give out until 10 a.m. next day. She was clearly saying, ‘Go home, no more to see tonight,’ Yet, at 11:30 p.m., the reporters and anchors droned on.” Another wrote, “I was very disgusted with KMOV. They kept cutting into the season premiere of ‘Survivor’ saying they had
very few details.” I disagree with those comments. While new information was scarce, it did trickle in. Many people turned on their televisions late, in order to find out what happened. Others on the Post’s blog agreed. One person wrote, “I’m astonished by the attitude here. Shooting at a city hall in a suburb not important enough to interrupt prime time? What would be important enough? A shooting at city hall in St. Louis? A bomb at the airport? So much television is nothing more than junk food for the eyes, and when a REAL tragedy happens, you’re upset that you miss a few minutes of ‘Survivor’?” As a Kirkwood resident, it was hard for me to turn away. I was willing to let the anchors and reporters repeat information as I waited for new tidbits. I wanted to know who the victims were and if I knew any of them. We learned from reporters at St. John’s Mercy Medical Center that Mayor Mike Swoboda was in critical condition and that a Suburban Journals reporter had been shot in the hand, even though the St. Louis County Police would not say anything. The Post and its online coverage deserves credit for helping television report the tragedy. Channel 5 logged on to the Post’s STLtoday.com Web site to learn that Post correspondent Janet McNichols had been in the meeting room when the shooting began. Television broadcast a newspaper video of McNichols describing the shootings. In the following days, all three stations continued to provide solid coverage as new information became available, including attitudes on the racial divide in Kirkwood. Weeks later, follow-ups were still being done. Leisa Zigman reported on the
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record of citations to Thornton, an African American, clearing up the misconception that he had hundreds of citations for a variety of violations, including the rumor he was cited for having his grass an inch too long. Channel 5 also reported that the gun Thornton carried to the city hall had been stolen in Franklin County in 1992.
County police no help St. Louis County Police did a poor job in handling the flow of information following the shootings. It was a tough situation, especially with two police officers among the victims. But spokesperson Tracy Panus showed no emotion over the rampage. Her language could have been more empathetic. When she announced that people had died, she could have started with something like, “I have some sad news tonight.’’ Instead she used the term “deceased” over and over, in a way that struck many as cold. She was abrupt and hard-nosed in refusing to answer reporters’ questions. When asked about security at the City Hall, she simply said she wasn’t going to talk about it. All she had to do is say-—“We don’t know yet” or “We can’t discuss security yet, as it is part of the investigation.” The final appearance was the worst, as Panus simply ended it by telling reporters there would be no new information, including the names of those who were killed, until 10 a.m. the next day, some 12 hours later. Appropriately, both Channel 4’s Larry Conners and Channel 5’s Mike Bush criticized this decision on the air. Ignoring the police clampdown on information, the TV stations and Post went ahead with reporting the names. One reporter said the county police often treat the media as an adversary.
The stations watched So where did viewers turn that night? The overnight Nielsen ratings showed that Channel 5 was on top most often from 8-11:30 p.m. But there were swings that at times put Channels 4 or 2 as the mostwatched station. At 8 p.m., Channel 5 was airing a special report, while Channels 2 and 4 had regular programming. Channel 11 never garnered much of an audience. Channel 5 resumed airing “The Apprentice” around 8:45 p.m., and the station’s ratings fell as viewers moved to Channels 4 and 5, which by then were doing special reports. Channel 4 was on top for a while, but at 9 p.m. Channel 2 began its regular newscast and took the ratings lead. Channel 5 also began airing full coverage by 9 p.m., and it took viewers little time to discover that Channel 5 was back to covering the event. By 9:15 p.m., Channel 5 took over the lead and never relinquished it for the rest of the night. ■
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Shooting witnesses can suffer from PTSD eporters and others who models of medical and psychowitnessed the shootings logical functioning and therapeuat Kirkwood City Hall tics are not adequate to explain may well experience Post-Trau- or treat such wounds.” Symptoms can develop matic Stress Disorder, just like a man or woman who has quickly after the event, Price fought in Iraq, Afghanistan, said. Some of them include edginess or irritability, nightVietnam and other conflicts. Kirkwood officials say the city mares about the event and an has offered counseling to those acute sensitivity to sounds that are a reminder of the event, who witnessed the shootings. which could be Whether PTSD shootings and killdevelops de-pends ings, as in Kirkupon several facwood. More severe tors, said Dr. Rumi cases may cause a Kato Price, a psyperson to feel chiatric epidemiolonumb. gist at Washington “There is no inUniversity who is put from the world studying the effects around you,” said of combat on veterPrice. “You a-void ans of wars in Vietpeople or stimuli.” nam, Iraq and Price said the Afghan-istan. by Repps Hudson clinical standard for “PTSD may come from being exposed to a really recovery from PTSD states that traumatic event,” she said. most people will recover and not “Watching TV may not be experience symptoms after about three months. enough.” If the symptoms persist The term PTSD was coined about 1980, primarily to cover beyond that time, the person the reactions of combat veterans may have chronic PTSD, as do to their war experiences. At that some combat veterans who may time, those with PTSD were still react to highly traumatic mostly veterans of the Vietnam events that occurred decades War. In previous conflicts, the earlier. An additional factor that could symptoms were covered by such loosely descriptive terms as com- affect the persistence of PTSD is bat fatigue, shell shock and war how close the person is to someone who was killed or badly neurosis. More recently, however, ex- injured. Other factors may include perts have come to recognize that PTSD is not limited to com- how well the person handles bat situations. It could arise stress and traumatic events. from experiencing first-hand Some people are better able to crime, a fire, a carjacking or shake off those experiences than mugging, a rape or a life-threat- others, Price said. “Usually, in civilian life (as ening injury. A highly traumatic event, such as the destruction opposed to the military), about of the World Trade Center on one-third will continue to have Sept. 11, 2001, could qualify for symptoms after three years,” she someone who was nearby or said. Delayed-onset PTSD, where someone who watched the towthe symptoms appear much later ers collapse on TV. Edward Tick, a clinical psy- after the person experiences the chotherapist, wrote in his book traumatic event, is rare, she “War And The Soul,” “. . . vio- added. ■ lence inflicts wounds so deep Repps Hudson, now a free-lance we need to address them with writer, retired last fall as a business columextraordinary attention, resourc- nist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, but still es and methods. Conventional writes a weekly column for the paper.
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Facing history and ourselves age of $15. The lots were affordable, and blacks bought most of them to build small homes. The Park lies like a beached whale between Interstate 44 and Big Bend Boulevard, in a corridor that connects Webster Groves and Kirkwood. It had been considered prime real estate by developers and as the poor neighbor that detracted from Kirkwood's affluent image. Meacham Park has long been a suburban stepchild with substandard sewer and water –Langston Hughes service. It was not until 1997 that the Metroby Robert Tabscott politan Sewer District extended its services into the community. Police protection was n the Sunday following the tragedy at the Kirkwood City Hall, I attended a service at the local under the surveillance of St. Louis County, and fires were Presbyterian church on Adams Avenue. There fought, if they were fought at all, by surrounding jurisdicwas a dignified silence, a solemnization of grief. The tions. It remained an unincorporated part of St. Louis minister spoke softly, “We must not close this wound County until 1992 when voters in Kirkwood and Meacham too quickly . . . We must love our neighbors as our- Park voted for incorporation into the city limits. selves. It will take time for us to heal, and we must liscontinued on page 27 ten and learn from each other. We must eat our grief.” Following the service, I drove to a small church on Attucks Street in Meacham Park. The road is named for the first black patriot to die at the Boston Massacre in 1770. I had spoken to the congregation on previous occasions observing Black History Month. I was the only white person in the audience, “I hope you understand,” I said to the minister, “I had to come.” Not much was said about the tragic events that had ne of the questions put to me recently was occurred the previous week, but everyone was aware that how do you rate the media coverage of the the world had changed for them, and a dark cloud hung over events in Kirkwood? The onsite personalithe entire city of Kirkwood. ties did their best. It is hard to fill airtime. The There was a lot of praying and singing, “Have your way larger issue is how do news teams prepare for criLord,” someone offered “cause we need you here.” sis? A reporter needs a bankroll of knowledge The choir sang: “I’ve grown up on the rough side of the about local history, personalities, traditions, polimountain, and I’m doin’ the best that I can do.” tics, psychology, geography and religion in order Later they offered an old hymn written by a former slave to cover the landscape of the St. Louis region. Ad ship captain in the 19th century that has a universal appeal: libbing, inane questions and wobbly interpreta“Amazing Grace how sweet the sound, that saved a tions will not suffice. wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found; blind, A missing link in the local broadcast media is but now I see.” the absence of commentaries. Time was when the late Just down the street from the church a flag was at halfRobert Hyland at KMOX Radio voiced his opinion five mast at the home of Charles Thornton. Silent visitors had days a week and offered reply time to qualified left mementos of flowers and stuffed animals on the lawn. responders. Channels 5, 4 and 2 concluded the The day was bright and calm, and I realized that I had stradevening news with a commentary by the likes of Max dled two worlds. Roby, Harriett Woods, Mary Spencer, Howard Woods and Harry Cargas. Now all we get is happy talk or Meacham Park Frank Cusumano, a sports reporter, moralizing about the mistakes of Roger Clemens, Tony La I have spent three decades researching the divide Russa and whatever else. between Meacham Park, an impoverished black enclave, We need critical opinions on the public airways and Kirkwood, the comfortable, prosperous, mostly white and the media owes its audience such reflections suburb that annexed the Park 16 years ago. with, of course, reply time. Where are the likes of WalThere were pockets of blacks in Kirkwood since the ter Cronkite, Harry Reasoner and Edward R. Murrow early years; most of these residents worked as domestics when we need them? Unfortunately, in St. Louis there and hired hands. The Park settlement took root in 1892 are none and we are the lesser for it. when developer Elzey E. Meacham bought up about 160 Robert Tabscott acres and sold lots, some as narrow as 25 feet, for an aver-
What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore, And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over, Like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags, Like a heavy load. Or does it explode?
O
What the airwaves lack
O
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am/fm / Joe Sonderman Joe Sonderman is a traffic producer and anchor for Total Traffic, and reporter and on-air personality for KLOU (103.3 FM).
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hen Charles “Cookie” Thornton went on a killing rampage at the Kirkwood City Hall during the city council meeting, most people who were not near a television probably tuned to KMOX (1120 AM). KMOX is still the place we turn to when disaster hits, and the station never fails to deliver the story. The “Two Johns,” Carney and Grayson, did a great job that night. A tragedy this immense even intrudes into the sunshine, lollipops and rainbows of the FM morning shows. Or at least it should have. Guy Phillips, morning host on KYKY (98.1 FM) says he has encountered only a few situations in his long career where a story was so tragic. He added that it is doubly difficult for a show that is entertainment-based when something of this nature happens in the community. But, he said, “We owe it to our listeners to let them express their thoughts” and added, “It is cathartic for them and for us.” He said Phillips and Company still did their show and still laughed and had fun, but the mood was more somber. The “Smash Morning Show” on KLOU (103.3 FM) handled it pretty well. Smash opened the phones and let listeners talk for the entire morning. At KWMU (90.7 FM), News Director Bill Raack, who lives in Kirkwood, quickly sent the story to NPR for national airing. KWMU has 11 local newscasts during the day, but none after 7 p.m., which is when the shootings occurred. Follow-ups were aired all the next day, both locally and for NPR. Later, funerals of the victims and of the shooter were covered as well. The latter report explored the racial angle in which some black residents felt Thornton was driven to his murderous action because of his feuding with Kirkwood officials. KWMU's “St. Louis On The Air” also aired commentary about the shootings. But the biggest urban station in the market showed just how badly syndicated out-of-town programming hurts the community. Amidst a racially charged situation with the community crying out for healing, the syndicated “Steve Harvey Show” aired on KMJM (104.9 FM). Broadcasting from Chicago, Harvey never mentioned the tragedy while I was listening. He certainly could not have given it the cover-
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The biggest urban station in the market showed just how badly syndicated out-of-town programming hurts the community.
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age it deserved. However, Tony Scott really reached out on his locally produced show in the afternoon on KMJM. On KSD (93.7 FM), Craig Cornett blew it big time, mentioning the tragedy early in the show and then never bringing it up again. Morning hosts need to be in touch with the hot local topic every day and remember that listeners only tune in for short periods and certainly not for the entire four hours. Over at WIL (92.3 FM), Cornbread says, “I did dedicate time to the tragedy and took calls on it. We talked about it for about an hour of the four-hour show. My listeners tried to makes heads or tails out of the matter, and it was heartfelt by all.” J.C. Corcoran of KHIT (96.3 FM) was missing from action. He had chosen days before the tragedy to make remarks about wanting to use an AK47 to shoot officials at AmerenUE because his power went off during the Super Bowl. He also used a black dialect to stereotype an official of the utility. He's been suspended for four weeks. Had he commented on the killings the following day, I’m sure it would have been controversial, but also thought-provoking.
Some stations help listeners cope, others drop the ball
••• Paul Harris, a casualty of the budget slashing at KMOX, says he is now offering podcasts of his “Knuckleheads in the News” feature at www.harrisonline.com. Harris was part of budget cuts by CBS across the country that also left some veteran KEZK (102.5 FM) personalities out of work. Morning co-host Cindy Collins, newsman Jim Cox and overnight personality Mike Parnell were let go. Mark Reardon takes over the afternoon slot on KMOX. Reardon started his career at the late KYMC (89.7 FM) a 10watt radio station once operated by the YMCA. KMOX breaks up the late night “Two Johns, No Waiting” show with John Carney and Jon Grayson. While that show may have been the best on KMOX, it is unheard of in these days to pay two salaries in a non-drive-time slot. Carney will handle 8-11 p.m., and Grayson now holds down 11 p.m.-2 a.m. There were also budget cuts at Emmis continued on page 27
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March/April 2008 Volume 38 Number 304
FEATURES Editor Roy Malone Editor/Publisher Emeritus Charles L. Klotzer Illustrator Steve Edwards Designer Frank Roth Channels Tripp Frohlichstein Radio History Frank Absher
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AT&T vs. Charter TV challenger to compete with Charter / Don Corrigan
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McCaskill: Get ready for digital TV / Don Corrigan
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Traffic cameras—It’s not about the money, they say / Rick Stoff
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Engelhardt: A legacy in black & white / Roy Malone
Reporting on Kirkwood's Nightmare: 10 Reporters dodge bullets in Kirkwood / Roy Malone
AM/FM Joe Sonderman
12 Telling the story: Journalists talk about covering the Kirkwood shootings / Don Corrigan, Roy Malone, C.D. Stelzer and Joe Pollack
Ad/PR Rick Stoff Art/Sports/Media Joe Pollack
14 Cookie Thornton—A well-known man’s path to violence / William Freivogel
Media/Politics Terry Jones Assistant General Manager/Online Editor Tammy Merrett
16 Channels: TV’s coverage of the shootings / Tripp Frochlichstein
Board of Editorial Advisers Frank Absher Roy Malone Lisa Bedian Tammy Merrett Ed Bishop Avis Meyer David Cohen Michael Murray Don Corrigan Steve Perron Eileen Duggan Joe Pollack David P. Garino Lou Rose Ted Gest Joe Sonderman William Greenblatt Michael D. Sorkin Daniel Hellinger Jim Kirchherr Lynn Venhaus Board of Directors Robert A. Cohn Michael E. Kahn Don Corrigan Charles L. Klotzer John P. Dubinsky Paul Schoomer Gerald Early Dr. Moisy Shopper David P. Garino Alberta Slavin Ray Hartmann Ken Solomon
17 Shooting witnesses can suffer from PTSD / Repps Hudson 18 Facing history and ourselves / Robert Tabscott 18 What the airwaves lack / Robert Tabscott 19 AM/FM: Some stations help listeners cope, others drop the ball / Joe Sonderman 28 Taking a hard look at racial issues / Linda Lockhart
COLUMNS 3
Letters
4
Off the Record - Veto the FCC’s big media handout / freepress.net - Hot under the collar / Roy Malone - PBS cites work of David Heath / Bill Moyers’ Journal - St. Louis Platform ramps up online / Roy Malone - Wash U. denies political speech / Benjamin Israel
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Renditions—A Boeing business on the side/ Charles L. Klotzer
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Politics & Media: AP makes amateurish prediction / Terry Jones
The St. Louis Journalism Review 8380 Olive Blvd St. Louis, Mo. 63132 Phone: (314) 991-1699 • Fax: (314) 997-1898 e-mail: sjreview@sbcglobal.net www.sjreview.org SJR The St. Louis Journalism Review (ISSN: 0036-2972) is published monthly, except bi-monthly twice a year, by The St. Louis Journalism Review Inc., a non-profit corporation. Subscription rates: $25 (one year), $44 (two years) $62 (three years), $80 (four year), $98 (five years),. Foreign subscriptions higher depending upon country. Periodical postage paid at Washington, Missouri and additional mailing offices. Please enclose stamped, self-addressed envelope with manuscript. Copyright © 2008 by The St. Louis Journalism Review. No portion of this journal may be reproduced without the express permission of the publisher. Indexed in the Alternative Press Index. Allow one month for address changes. Postmaster: Send address changes to The St. Louis Journalism Review 8380 Olive Blvd. St. Louis, Mo. 63132.
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Sports & Media: La Russa’s blind eye / Joe Pollack
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Radio History: Battling deejays and the good old days / Frank Absher
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Sources Say
26
Media Notes
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 73-85160
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s Tony La Russa an enabler? Or does his forgiveness zone exceed the distance from Busch Stadium to his California home? Or does he just not care what his players do outside the white lines? Even if it affects what they do inside the white lines? From what can be determined, his Oakland players led the American League in consumption of steroids, hormones and other drugs, though, for most of them, their transgressions were not revealed until they had moved to other teams. Now, the Cardinals seem to be atop what sports writers once lovingly called “the senior circuit” in terms of player arrests and investigations. We don’t know everything that’s going on around the rest of the baseball world, given the narrow focus of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, though sending Rick Hummel to the Arizona training camps has made an improvement for this year. The 2007 Cardinal year had perfect bookends, from La Russa’s DUI arrest during spring training to Scott Spezio’s DUI, assault and other problems in December in Irvine, Calif. In between, we had the alcohol-related—or created—death of Josh Hancock, Spezio’s September sabbatical for rehab, a minor league pitcher in a Florida incident and heaven knows how many others that went unreported. And while John Mozeliak, the new general manager, has to deal with these post-arrest problems, La Russa breezes along, apparently ignoring any drug problems (Let’s call alcohol a drug, too, at least for the sake of simplicity.). Juan Gonzales, certainly a long shot to make the team, has a checkered past, and so does Troy Glaus, though if the Red Birds are going to be even pray-a-lot contenders this year, they must have a replacement for Scott Rolen, both at bat and in the field. Glaus will not field with Rolen, but he has a good bat, and with Rolen’s injuries of the past few years and limited playing time, Glaus’ glove will be more than adequate. Then, adding insult to injury, La Russa invited Mark McGwire to visit training camp and help younger players. Going a step farther, he went public with ideas about bringing Barry Bonds to camp, too, as a player. Can you imagine the media zoo that would have created? Houston sent
sports & media / Joe Pollack
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The 2007 Cardinals year had perfect bookends, from La Russa’s DUI arrest during spring training to Scott Spezio’s DUI.
Joe Pollack is a former St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist
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Roger Clemens home because he was a disruption. McGwire and Bonds would draw like a Super Bowl. The presence of Bobby Knight at Jupiter was bad enough, considering Knight’s track record as a personality and enemy of media through the years. But Knight and La Russa have similar thoughts on control of players, strategy and media relations. La Russa seems to have a little more control over his speech and actions, however. It will be extremely interesting to watch and hear Knight as he becomes another loud, irresponsible talking head for ESPN during basketball tournaments.
La Russa’s blind eye
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Speaking of baseball... The restrictive attitudes of professional sports—and the NCAA probably isn’t very far behind—continue to tighten their interpretation of the First Amendment. For years, newspaper photographs were used again and again and again, illustrating the game, then a feature story on the player, then the story when he was re-signed, or traded, or cut, or retired, or to illustrate a story about the game in general, or some facet of it. No more. The Moguls of MLB, in their infinite wisdom, are insisting that news organizations and photographers, in their request for credentials, agree to sharply limit their use of images, with no more than seven photographs from any one game to be transmitted or displayed online. In addition, photos would be banned from gallery shows, and Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, in his infinite wisdom, would decide what is a gallery show and what is not. As the president of the National Press Photographers Association wrote Selig, “While baseball may be as American as apple pie, a free press is one of the cornerstones of the country. We firmly believe that great moments in baseball have as much to do with their iconic images as with the game itself. It is in that complementary nature of both professions that we respectfully request that you reconsider this ill-conceived change in policy.” Good luck to anyone who does not kowtow to the Lords of Baseball. ■
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Traffic cameras—
It’s not about the money, they say re the police writing tickets every time I drive through here? That question has to be on the minds of many motorists who have been diverted to side streets since the closing of a mid-county section of Interstate 64 for construction at the beginning of the year. Reporter Leisa Zigman of KSDK (Channel 5) answered the question in a story Feb. 22: “It’s caused more than headaches and delays. Many drivers have wound up in traffic courts,” she said. Zigman dug out traffic-ticket statistics from 13 municipalities around the closed section of I-64, comparing January totals from 2007 to those of 2008. She found that nine of the 13 wrote more citations for moving violations this January. Ticket writing was up 81 percent in Warson Woods, 103 percent in Rock Hill and 135 percent in Richmond Heights. Most of the tickets were for speeding. A man contesting an Olivette speeding ticket said he didn’t see it as much about safety as about generating revenue. That’s a claim most police departments deny. Is the extra ticketing just to check unsafe driving and reduce accidents? Neither of two police spokesmen who were interviewed mentioned accident risks. Zigman’s story was excellent, but did not address the revenue aspect of the traffic enforcement. This is seldom explored by the news media, although traffic fines are a revenue item in city budgets, often posted on their Web sites. These show that police departments in even small municipalities are expected to produce hundreds of thousands of dollars in traffic income each year. In Richmond Heights, for example, the 2007-2008 budget calls for traffic ticket income of $1.06 million, up from $598,239 in 2006-2007, and a 348 percent increase over the 20042005 total. The Richmond Heights budget projects a decline in sales tax revenues of 15 percent that “is anticipated for the four years of highway construction.
A
This is significant to the city as approximately 50 percent of all revenues are derived from sales taxes.” The revenue section carries two paragraphs under the heading “Fines & Court,” describing the city’s Traffic Violation Bureau, instituted in 2005 to make streets safer, “run radar for traffic control” and “provide additional revenue . . . since a full-time police officer has been assigned to this duty approximately 500 additional traffic tickets are issued monthly. Increased revenues of $232,000 are anticipated.” A Richmond Heights police captain said the biggest reason for the increase in ticketing was the efficiency provided by a mobile ticketing computer that permitted one traffic officer to write 453 tickets last month. Yet, the city’s Web page assures the ticketed motorists, “This court is not conducted as a source of revenue.” The KSDK investigation found that ticketing in Brentwood increased only 12 percent in January, but Brentwood police issued the most tickets, “a whopping 1,000 citations.” At the beginning of March, Brentwood became one of the latest Missouri communities to roll out red-light cameras. (A subject examined by SJR in December 2007: “Cameras: Safety Measure or Cash Cow?”) The red-light camera issue is making more news of late. While city officials routinely contend that cameras are used for safety and “not about the money,” the efficacy of the cameras in accident reduction is not a settled matter in traffic-safety circles. Bills have been introduced in the Missouri Legislature to regulate camera enforcement by municipalities. State Rep. Charles R. Portwood (RBallwin) has a bill calling for camera fines to be given to school districts, rather than the cities using the cameras. The Jefferson County Journal reported recently that a new bill had been filed by State Rep. Jeff Roorda (D-Barnhart). It would require only that video of alleged violations be reviewed by a certified law enforce-
by Rick Stoff ment officer. It would not deprive municipalities of camera revenues. But, Roorda told the Journal, “I think that there is a lot of suspicion on the part of the public that these things are profit motivated.” On Feb. 22, a federal lawsuit was filed against the city of Arnold, contending that its red-light cameras are “illegal and unconstitutional as a violation of drivers’ civil rights and a racketeering conspiracy that collects fines through fraud and extortion to benefit the city and its red-light camera operator,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. The suit was filed on behalf of a Fenton couple who received an Arnold camera ticket demanding $94.50. The Post story said Arnold has been paid for 9,745 camera tickets since October 2005, which would total $920,902. The city of Creve Coeur has been providing red-light camera video of dangerous red-light-running incidents to television stations. A city officer told KTVI (Channel 2), “Since we started the program in September, we have been able to take enforcement action on over 3,000 violations.” Critics of camera enforcement say it does not fully prevent accidents since distraction and driver error, not intentional light running, are major causes of crashes. News reports have quoted from a recent study from Iowa State University engineers who found crash reductions of 40 percent in Davenport and 90 percent in Council Bluffs after cameras were installed. Their report did not mention studies that did not find benefits. The authors noted, “This may not reflect the total number of RLR crashes that occur because officers are not always able to determine, or do not take the time to determine, whether red-lightrunning was the cause.” ■ Rick Stoff, a former St. Louis Globe-Democrat reporter and editor, has his own public relations firm, Stoff Communications.
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Tom Engelhardt:
A legacy in
black& w h i t e
already at the State Historical Society of Misshen Tom Engelhardt got a call ouri in Columbia. They are in the society’s recently telling him that copies of Western Historical Manuscript Collection. about 8,000 editorial-page cartoons he There are plans to have a public exhibit of the drew for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch during 35 cartoon collection in September in conjuncyears were uncovered during a relocation of tion with the 100th anniversary of the Univerthe editorial page offices, he knew he better sity of Missouri’s journalism school. The exhiact fast. bition includes work of other Post cartoonists “I got the impression they might be as well. pitched,” the retired cartoonist said. The copies Engelhardt retrieved last month The call came from Dan Martin, an artist have also been delivered to the historical and cartoonist at the Post. A carpenter had led society. Many of his cartoons-—he drew five a Martin to a storage area behind chicken wire -—have been on display through the where an old file cabinet held three dozen Tom Engelhardt week years at public events. The main library in loose-leaf binders full of the prints, each on 8 downtown St. Louis also has copies of them. by 11-inch sheets. Engelhardt had given away cartoons to some politicians “I didn’t know they were there. Things get put in nooks (Lyndon Johnson got one for his presidential library) and to and crannies and forgotten about,” Martin said. He told the carpenter: “These are valuable for research. colleagues, friends and relatives, including his four grown children. He lives with his wife Kath in University City. He Let me call Tom.” Most of the originals of Engelhardt’s drawings were retired 10 years ago.
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COPYRIGHT ENGELHARDT IN THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH/REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION
His first cartoon for the Post was on Oct. 1, 1962. He had replaced Bill Mauldin. Mauldin had succeeded longtime cartoonist Daniel Fitzpatrick, but he left the Post after four years to go to the Chicago Sun-Times. Engelhardt’s last cartoon was on Dec. 31, 1997. He was replaced by John Sherffius who quit in 2003 in protest over an editor’s complaint about his cartoons. Sherffius was replaced by R.J. Matson. Engelhardt preferred drawing cartoons about civil rights, the Vietnam War and the environment. He’s not keen on some current cartoonists who seem to be going for a gag line, rather than making a point about a public or moral issue. He said cartoonists have survived for centuries since they sold their drawings for a penny each at public places, then on the printed page and now online. He still likes seeing a cartoon in print rather than finding it on a computer. Does Engelhardt still draw? Well, he did one for this story, showing himself at his drawing board. Thanks, Tom. Roy Malone COPYRIGHT ENGELHARDT IN THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH/REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION
June 28, 1988
July 6, 1967
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
St. Louis cartooning exhibit opens in May ee You in the Funny Papers: The Rich Tradition of St. Louis Cartooning,” a free exhibit, will run May 17-Aug. 30 at the Sheldon Gallery, 3648 Washington Blvd. In addition to contemporary local and national cartoonists like Mike Peters, Mort Walker and Mary Engelbreit, there will many original historical cartoons and cartoonists represented like “Blondie,” “Maggie and Jiggs,” Al Hirschfeld, Bill Mauldin, Tom Engelhardt and Daniel Fitzpatrick.
“S
April 10, 1964
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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Radio History/Frank Absher Frank Absher is a St. Louis radio historian. St. Louis radio history is available online at www.stlradio.com
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he topped the ratany St. Louisings. ans rememBesides his work ber the clasas a local deejay, sic battle between Hughes had some WIL and KXOK to additional responsidominate the marbilities. He was on ket’s young listening the road frequently audience in the late promoting his syndi‘50s and early ‘60s, cated show, but he but the city’s first managed to corner deejay war took celebrities while he place a decade earwas traveling and lier. return with interIn the late ‘40s, the views he could concept of a disc broadcast on KXOK. jockey was just beNewsome soon went ginning to take hold. on the road on weekRadio stations that were network affiliates relied on the nets to ends to do the same thing. The two would also battle using record fill the day with programming, which ranged from news to soap operas to come- promoters, jockeying to be the first in the dies, dramas and kids’ shows. A new market to air a new release. When sucinvention—television—was slowly making cessful, each jock would make sure his lisinroads, and the networks were beginning teners knew he had bested the competitor to raid their stables of radio stars to provide at the other station. “Nowhere was the battle more frenzied programming for the new medium. Independent radio stations provided than in St. Louis,” Passman wrote. many of the same types of shows as did their netaffiliated brethren, but the shows were locally produced. Those programs that relied on “transcribed music” were completely scripted, and the an-nouncers seldom projected any of their own personalities. But in 1947, St. Louisans got their first taste of disc jockey competition. The situation is Gil Newsome and Rush Hughes described in Arnold Passman’s book, “The To the casual observer, all this compeDeejays.” Two men who had already established themselves in the market suddenly tition would seem to be beneficial to lisbecame competitors for the ears of the teners. The city’s top two radio personalities working so hard to be best would music-loving masses. Rush Hughes had made a name for him- certainly result in a better radio product. It self nationally as announcer/host for the did, but there was an interesting bit of fallNBC game show “Pot O’ Gold,” and in news, out. Passman noted that other deejays at delivering commentaries even before he came to St. Louis. This had led to a syndi- lesser stations here were left in the dust, cation deal in which his commentaries but they were smart enough to know their were distributed to subscribing stations on limits “. . . lesser announcers would reluctantly turn down advance men for enterdisc. Gil Newsome also had done national tainers. Not only did they acknowledge the work as the announcer on “Coca-Cola’s power of a Hughes or a Newsome … they Victory Parade of Spotlight Bands,” heard feared their possible air venom. By letting on the Blue Network and Mutual. In St. the press agents off the hook in this way, Louis, he took his show to where the teen the other deejays shrugged their shoulaudience was, doing remotes and personal ders and tried to make the best of a sticky situation.” appearances constantly. This opening salvo in St. Louis’ deejay As Passman described it in his book, Hughes was working at KXOK in the spring wars came to an end in 1948 when Hughes took a job in Chicago, but it wasn’t peaceof 1947. “By late spring KWK had brought in the ful for long. A young jock named Ed Bonrapid-fire, hard-selling Newsome, with his ner soon hit town on KXOK, giving Newrecord shop surveys. And it wasn’t long some another foe to battle over the after the fall semester was underway that airwaves. ■
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In 1947, St. Louisans Gil Newsome and Rush Hughes got their first taste of disc jockey competition.
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Battling deejays and the good old days
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Sources say...
Post Got Hoaxed A good thing for reporters or editors to ask themselves when finishing a story is: ``How could this blow up in my face?'' Sometimes even that precaution won't catch a hoax. A feature story that appeared in the St, Louis Post-Dispatch on Easter Sunday told of a woman who had her throat slit by her husband, became depressed and homeless, but rejoiced that God helped her recover. She was interviewed at a church-sponsored program for the homeless where she had become head chef. It was a story about resurrection and hope. Great for Easter. But it all blew up. A week later the paper ran a long apology to readers signed by top editors. It told how the woman's name, age, education, injury, etc. were all false. Authorities said she was wanted for probation violation in three counties where she had a record of bad checks, forgery, and DWI. Instead of just acknowledging that the paper and the church group had been deceived, the apology belabored the matter with about 200 extra words saying how the Post had strict controls on reporting and editing, and how sorry the editors were for the lapse. Because the church group had vouched for the woman, as a good employee, one reporter said, ``999 out of 1,000 reporters would have been trapped'' into accepting the woman's story without suspecting a ruse. Hoaxes are hard to prevent. In recent weeks the Los Angeles Times admitted being duped by fake FBI documents for a story about rapper Sean ``Puffy'' Combs and the Washington Post printed an ``In Memoriam'' ad about a man who is still alive. It was placed as an April Fool's joke by the man's friend, who is a lawyer.
accused Duncan of slandering him and then said: ``You're on the radio.'' Duncan replied: ``Well, I hope not.'' He denied Slaten's assertion that he had been told at the outset they would be on the air. After Duncan hung up, Slaten angrily said:of him: ``Either he lied when he said he didn't come on, or he's so stupid he doesn't know when he was on.'' KFNS refused to make a tape available of the interview but Dan Caeser of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch got it `` via other means''. and did a column about the Slaten/Duncan exchange. Duncan was quoted: ``It certainly was unethical what he did, and probably unlawful.''
Lee Writes Down ``Good Will'' Lee Enterprises, the newspaper chain that owns the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, has taken a charge against second-quarter earnings amounting to $500 million to $700 million, thereby drastically reducing the accounting value it had set on ``good will.'' The action will result in losses for the second quarter and for the year ending September 28, Lee said. In January, Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Weil reported that Lee's market value was a mere $515 million, after a decline of 63 percent in the past 12 months. Yet it valued its subscriber lists at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and 54 other newspapers at $849 million, well above the value of all its shares. The company said its biggest asset was $1.51 billion of good will. Another liability that Lee reported was a possible payout of $68 million to the Herald Co. if it chooses to redeem by 2010 a five-percent interest it owns in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. That is a legacy dating back to the Globe-Post Joint Operating Agreement and the Post's buyout of the Globe.
``You're On The Radio'' How does Kevin Slaten get someone to come on his sports talk show at KFNS radio (590 AM, 100.7 FM) -- especially when the person has already declined? Simple. Just call him up and start talking while the microphone is live. It happened March 27 to Dave Duncan, the Cardinals pitching coach. Duncan feels Slaten unfairly maligns the team and he told a producer he didn't want to go on the show. But Slaten then called to ask him to talk a few minutes about one of the pitchers. Duncan said: ``Kevin, I'm not going to go on your show.... you're a nasty man and I don't like you.'' Slaten
KSDK shifts some sports to Channel 46 SDK (Channel 5) has partnered with WRBU (Channel 46), an affiliate of My Network TV, to carry sporting events on Sundays that Channel 5 cannot televise because of conflicts with scheduling of its Cardinals’ baseball games. These include NBC coverage of PGA and LPGA golf events and NHL hockey, including play-off games that would have been preempted on Sundays. Channel 46, called my46 TV, is not on cable, but is received over-the-air. It is owned locally by the Roberts family. â–
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people people people people people people people people people people people
Media Notes MEDIA St. Louis Globe-Democrat A reunion of former employees of the old St. Louis Globe-Democrat will be held Saturday, May 24. It will be from 2-5 p.m. at the Missouri Bar & Grill, 701 N. Tucker Blvd. Those planning to attend should contact Margaret Sheppard at shep32@sbcglobal.net. St. Louis Post-Dispatch A new editorial writer was hired by the Post, Eddie Roth. He had been president of the St. Louis Police Board but made a mid-life career change and became an editorial writer for the Dayton Daily News. Roth is known for his advocacy of online opinion-page content, a role he’ll continue at the Post. The Post successfully sued the police board when Roth headed it over decisions it was making in secret that the state auditor said should be done in public. Business News Assistant Managing Editor Andre Jackson has resigned to take a position on the editorial board of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and ajc.com. As business editor since 2001, he ushered in several innovations to the business pages. During his 21 years at the Post he was a reporter, editor, wrote about racial issues and earned an MBA at Northwestern University. Tony Messenger, editorial page editor of the Springfield (Mo.) Newsleader, will join the Jefferson City bureau of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Messenger did aggressive reporting about the e-mail controversy in the Gov. Matt Blunt administration. He wrote a weekly column in Springfield and a blog. He previously worked as a columnist and city editor at the Columbia (Mo.) Tribune.
Press Club of Metropolitan St. Louis The following new board members were elected: Thomas Eschen, vice chancellor for university advancement at the University of Missouri–St. Louis; Margaret Gillerman, reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch; Nathan Shore, director of public relations for Macy's Midwest; Richard Gavatin, owner and president of IMS Inc., a computer consulting company; Gloria S. Ross, president and owner of Okara Communications; and Patricia Wente, CEO for KWMU (90.7 FM). The club's officers for 2008 are: Alice Handelman, president; Richard Weiss, president-elect; Pamela Niehaus, vice president-programs; Judy Kaplan, vice president-membership; Carol Lundgren, vice presidentpublicity; Claudia Burris, vice president-scholarships; Benjamin Lipman, treasurer; and William Greenblatt, secretary. Lee Enterprises Nancy Green, publisher of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, has been appointed vice president of circulation for Lee St. Louis and president of STL Distribution. Suzanna Frank will become vice president-audience. MEDIA AWARDS Lafayette High School Nancy Smith, journalism teacher, received the Press Club 2007 Journalism Teacher of the Year Award. Sherffius wins Herblock Award John Sherffius, former editorial page cartoonist for the St. Louis PostDispatch, has won the 2008 Herblock Prize for editorial cartooning and its $10,000 award. He does his work now for the Boulder (Colo.) Daily Camera and Copley News Service. They chronicled the Bush Administration on issues such as torture, wiretapping, Iraq war and global warming. Sherffius left the Post in 2003 in a disagreement over being told to alter his drawings by then-editor Ellen Soeteber. St. Louis Post-Dispatch Photographers J.B. Forbes and Robert Cohen have been named winners in photo contests. Forbes was named regional Photographer of the Year for 2007 by the National Press Photographers Association—the third time he’s won it in five years. Cohen
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won first place for eight photos in the "One Week’s Worth" category of the 65th annual Pictures of the Year international competition. Todd C. Frankel has won the 2008 Jesse Laventhol Prize for deadline news reporting, given by the American Society of Newspaper Editors. His submitted stories were about Memorial Day and the graves of troops killed in war, two kidnapped boys found in Kirkwood and crowds that gathered to witness the guilty plea of kidnapper Michael Devlin. The 2008 National Headliner Awards honored David Carson with a first place award in online videography for a collection of his videos in the series "Reporting for Duty" and Robert Cohen with two awards: second place for a portfolio of photographs and second place in feature photography. The Headliner Awards are sponsored by the Press Club of Atlantic City, N.J.
Ad/PR Hughes Millennium Communications, Inc. and Hughes have merged and are operating under the Hughes name. Barbara Pierce, founder and president of Millenium. will be the chief public relations officer; Carl Sheahan, Millenium's senior vice president has been appointed senior PR and brand strategist at Hughes; Michelle Mason, Millenium's account manager, has been named senior PR manager at Hughes. Bill Hughes is president of the agency. Suddenlink Communications Craig Rosenthal was promoted to senior vice president; and Chris Bartlow, Jeff Bryant, Andy Parrott, Frederick Ricker and Mike Zarrilli to vice presidents.
AWARDS AD/PR Adamson The agency received seven St. Louis ADDY Awards and seven certificates of excellence in the Advertising Club of St. Louis’s annual ADDY Awards program. The Vandiver Group, Inc. The agency was named one of Missouri’s Top Diversity Owned Businesses for the 8th year by DiversityBusiness.com.
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people people people people people people people people people people people AMFM Continued from page 19
this past month. KSHE (94.7 FM) personality Mikki Gray was let go, along with Emmett Andrews of KPNT (105.7 FM). Five people who worked behind the scenes also lost
their jobs. Management at KTRS (550 AM) continues to make moves that defy all logic. The station has eliminated local weekend newscasts. Listeners now get ABC news at the top of the hour, followed by a national ABC
sportscast. Competitor KMOX has been running promos pointing out that its news department operates 24/7. However, KMOX is often running sports play-by-play over the weekend. KTRS provided an alternative during those times. ■
“One ever feels the two-ness of the American Negro,” he wrote. “Two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled stirrings; two warring ideas in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” He described this condition as double consciousness. Du Bois transposed this concept to the social predicament of blacks in America wherein they see themselves "through the window of the other world, always looking at oneself through the eyes of others—measuring his soul by the white man’s measure.” “It is a double standard every American Negro must live by, and it leads inevitably to a painful self-consciousness, and almost morbid sense of personality, which is fatal,” he said. The result is, “a double life, with double thoughts, double duties and double social classes,” and worse, “double words and double ideas; which tempt the mind of pretense, hypocrisy, radicalism or revolt.” According to Henry Louis Gates of Harvard University, Du Bois wanted to make America whole, and he believed that only desegregation and full equality could make this psychological and social integration possible. The noted psychiatrist, Carl Jung, wrote, “The naïve Europeans think of America as a white nation. It is not wholly white; it is partly colored,” and that explains, “the slightly Negroid mannerisms of the American, since the Negro lives within your cities and even in your houses, he also lives within your skin . . .” It was not just that the Negro was an American, Du Bois wrote, but that the American was Negro. “Which means blacks and whites find their identity in each other’s gaze.'' As James Baldwin put it, “Each of us helplessly and forever contains the other, white in black and black in white.” Everything Du Bois said remains so relevant, so perceptive, so clair-
voyant of what’s wrong today because of the lack of change in the heart of our darkness. Little seems to have changed and never will unless we take heed of voices like Du Bois that have been sounding the way. “I am left with a fading hope,” he wrote, “that in Thy good time, infinite reason might turn the tangle straight.” On March 1, Kirkwood officials rededicated the renovated city hall, the scene of the terrible tragedy. Everything was wiped clean. There was no mention of what was to be done in Meacham Park. ■
Facing history Continued from page 18
The Meacham Park Redevelopment Plan was approved in 1994, using Tax Increment Financing for new commercial and residential development. Change was under way for a place that had resisted urbanization. Sixty-two homeowners had to relocate to make way for new homes, condos, Lowe’s, Wal-Mart and Target. Even so, deep in the minds of most whites, Meacham Park was a place to stay out of. If there are any answers to the tragedy that occurred in Kirkwood, it will help to understand the history of African Americans, who many whites still regard as second-class citizens. Facing this history will do more than anything I know to deal with the racial divide in Kirkwood, indeed in America. The great black scholar-historian W.E.B. Du Bois told us clairvoyantly in 1900: “The problem of the 20th Century and beyond will be the problem of the color line.”
The souls of black folks If I could put one book into the hands of people who intend to do more than just talk about what happened in Kirkwood, I would choose Du Bois' “The Souls of Black Folks.” For therein lie many things that, if read with patience, may show the strange meaning of being black in America. Du Bois’ subject was the aspiration of blacks to take their rightful place in society. As he saw it, “African-American culture in 1903 was at once vibrant and disjointed, rooted in an almost medieval, agrarian past and yet fiercely restive.” Born in the chaos of slavery, the culture had begun to generate a richly variegated body of myths, plots, stories, melodies and rhythms. Du Bois peered deeply into the tradition of his kin and saw the face of black America, or rather, he saw two faces.
Robert W. Tabscott, a Presbyterian minister, has provided commentaries for the St. Louis Post Dispatch and NPR affiliate KWMU. He is the president of the Elijah Lovejoy Society, a historical organization in Webster Groves.
Join Ed Bishop for conversations about journalism and media
Every Wednesday 7 p.m.
KDHX (88.1 FM)
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Taking a hard look at racial issues photographers, the others are not involved in fter the shootings on Feb. 7, at the daily news coverage. Kirkwood City Hall, SJR Editor Roy There are no African-American assignMalone asked me what I thought ment editors (assistant city editor types). And media organizations could do to help address after the last buyout, that seems to be the way the racial problems in this community and the managers want it. There are few staffers, beyond. Why me? Because I am Africanblack or white, who know the racial history of American and worked at the St. Louis Postthe region. Dispatch for about 17 years as a writer and The highest-ranking African Americans editor. I also live in Kirkwood. are the night news editor; the Sunday editor To begin, news organizations need to take and the copy desk chief. None of them has a serious look at all the schools, from St. direct assigning responsibility for straight Louis to Kirkwood and Rockwood, to Parknews coverage. way and Hazelwood. And let’s not forget Norby Linda Lockhart The assistant managing editor for busimandy, Jennings, Wellston and many others, ness news, a black who recently resigned, including those in the Metro East areas. How we educate, or mis-educate, children borders on was responsible for directing the coverage of business criminal. We, the taxpayers, keep paying, but too many chil- news. To his credit, the business section provides a decent look at the big picture through “diverse lenses.” But again, dren still don’t get the education they need. In the Kirkwood public school district, for example, 22 this senior editor was not an assignment editor who worked percent of the students are listed as black. Black students closely with reporters. In the 1990s, The New York Times and other papers tackin Kirkwood had an 86 percent graduation rate in 2007, led what they called “race projects,” takcompared to a 98 percent graduation rate ing close looks at the aforementioned topfor white students, according to the Misics and other issues such as housing, souri Department of Elementary and SecA good lesson families and the legal system. There are ondary Education. unfairness and discrimination in all of In the St. Louis Public Schools, 81 perthese areas, which have a major impact on cent of the students are black. The graduin history the lives of African Americans. Such ation rate in 2007 for black students was issues lead to the disparities in the differ56 percent, compared to 59 percent for is something ent perceptions of the events surrounding whites, state figures show. the Kirkwood shootings. The Post has not More money isn’t going to fix anything. we need right taken a broad look at such issues and More than enough money goes into eduwhat part race plays in them. cation. How it is used is the problem. We now. History A good lesson in history is something need to blow up the system and start over, we need right now. History isn’t news. treating children and their parents with contributed Still, history contributed a lot to our being respect. We need to treat poor families where we are today. and anyone unlike ourselves as we expect a lot to our My husband suggests that the Post to be treated. “fire all the racists.” I laughed at that. If Next, look at employment practices. being where you start from the top, I don’t know who It’s hard enough for well-educated people you would get to do the firing or who of color to get decent jobs and have a fair we are today. would be left to put out a paper. I think we chance at promotion. Those with less are all racists, to a degree. We have to education have even less of a chance. Why acknowledge that. Sort of like at AA meetis it that African-American professionals ings. “Hi, my name is Linda, and I’m a racist.” often find they can go only so far? In terms of newspaper coverage of the Kirkwood story, Of course, some make it to the top corporate rungs, but others are stuck in the middle, while watching whites move the St. Louis American and the Webster-Kirkwood Times past them because they play poker or tennis or golf with have done good jobs of trying to tell the story from many those who can help them along. Many young African-Amer- points of view. The effort by retired Kirkwood High School ican professionals in St. Louis feel they have to leave here Principal Franklin McCallie to explain the situation has been invaluable. Kevin Murphy’s look at the life of Charles to reach their maximum potential. It doesn’t surprise me that the Post hasn’t gone below “Cookie” Thornton in the Webster-Kirkwood Times was the surface on Kirkwood and the greater problems related honest and balanced. So what’s next? How do you flip a switch and get more to race. The paper has only one African-American “news” reporter, who is dispatched to North County zones. There whites to treat blacks like people? How do you get many are a number of other African-American reporters, but they blacks, who have been treated like less-than-equal citizens have specialty assignments such as columnists or writers for so long, to accept their own responsibilities? I don’t have and editors in the sports and features sections. There are those answers. But the questions are still important. ■ also several African-American photographers. While impor- Linda Lockhart retired from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch last fall. She tant for the overall diversity of the newsroom, except for the worked there as a reporter, editorial writer and in various editing positions.
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commentary
letters Readers’ responsibility SJR: What’s a reader’s responsibility to journalism? I noticed in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 6, “Donnybrook”er Colleen Campbell, was featured on page B9 in a section titled “Point of View.” I am as perplexed by the porn phenomenon as she seems to be, but her “POV,” though adequately expressed in complete sentences, seems very poorly reasoned. I know her piece wasn’t intended for an academic audience, but the complexity of the subject matter seemed to deserve a less facile analysis. Feminism, pornography and dignity in 200 words or less? I do believe in being charitable, but how should readers treat such “fluff” from an author, television and radio host and St. Louis-based fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center? Is this only intended by the Post as filler? Could it have actually been more responsibly written by Campbell and then edited for content or space limitations after submission, thus turning good writing into stale cliche? It may be very unfair of me to say, but it reads like an old book review that was recycled and phoned-in by a
freelancer looking to take up space for a buck. What does it actually say-—that some mainstream choices might ironically end rather regrettably? That’s thought-provoking cultural criticism worthy of print? Maybe in a Suburban Journal or a college newspaper, but a major city publication? And for pay? I don’t know whether I should be critical of the author, the paper and its editors or the audience that has
turned the “Donnybrook”ers into such beloved enablers of predictable local prejudice and uncritical thinking. Do readers have an obligation to express disagreement, or should I find something better to do than scold someone who probably knows better? Does opinion-page writing adhere to different critical standards or any standards at all? Mark Fischer Wentzville
SJREVIEW.ORG The new site is active, but parts are still under construction At sjreview.org, e-mail your subscription account number or name and address to get an archives password Site created by Richard Gavatin of IMS, Inc.
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off the record Veto the FCC’s big media handout he Senate recently introduced legislation that would reverse the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to let the nation’s largest media companies swallow up more local and independent news outlets. Congress was given just 60 legislative days to pass this bill. Big media is to blame for local news that’s steeped in celebrity gossip, corporate hype and sensationalism. If the FCC gets its way, you’ll see your local news get even worse. The FCC’s decision further consolidates local media markets, taking away the independence and diversity that comes from local ownership. Simply put, this is a sweetheart deal for a handful of companies that have been breaking media ownership rules for years with impunity. In December, 200,000 people called on their senators to take action against the FCC. The Senate has responded with a “resolution of disapproval,” a type of Congressional veto that would throw out the new rules. Now citizens are urged to get another 50,000 citizens on the record supporting the Senate’s action. “Companies like News Corp. and Sinclair already have shown their willingness to abuse the public trust for political ends,” Free Press Program Director Alexandra Russell says. “During this election year, when diverse, quality and unbiased information is essential for voters, we cannot allow big media to silence even more independent voices.”
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www.freepress.net
Hot under the collar he Rev. Lawrence Biondi, president of St. Louis University, got some things off his chest in a long email he sent to faculty, staff and students just before Easter. It read like his own editorial to correct statements published about him or the university that he says were inaccurate. Biondi said the St. Louis Review, the Archdiocesan newspaper, published “patently false” information insinuating that SLU disavowed its Catholic identity in winning a lawsuit that paved the way for $8 million in tax-increment financing for a new arena. In the suit, in order to get
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around the prohibition against public funding going to a religious group, SLU argued that it was not controlled by the Catholic Church, but by a board of lay members. The trustees “control” the university and simply follow the Jesuit traditions, Biondi wrote. Next he complained that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch had sent reporters “to stalk me” to get a comment about a dispute between SLU basketball coach Rick Majerus and Archbishop Raymond Burke. Biondi, who was mum at the time, said Majerus’ comments that he supported stem cell research “were his own” and not those of SLU. Biondi said he got a lot of letters and e-mail over the flap, and some were “vitriolic.” Then, Biondi criticized the Cardinal Newman Society, a conservative Catholic group, for reporting that SLU would have an on-campus presentation of the “Vagina Monologues.” He said the play was held off-campus, but he got “dozens of illtempered and chain letter messages” and “angry e-mails from other groups.” He criticized the activities of the Newman Society and warned against its fund-raising efforts. Finally, Biondi attacked Avis Meyer, the longtime adviser to the University News student paper, by saying Meyer illegally tried to take the name of the university and the paper “for his own purposes.” Biondi explained that the university decided to sue Meyer for trademark infringement and is seeking $18,000 from Meyer to pay the fee for a big law firm the university hired. Meyer said he set up a non-profit incorporation last year to preserve the newspaper name for the students, not himself, at a time when there were rumors the paper would be pushed off campus. Meyer relinquished the name Aug. 21, but seven weeks later the university sued him anyway. Meyer said he gets blamed for any articles in the paper that Biondi does not like. Meyer was told he had to pay $6,327 for SLU’s legal fees, but now the demand is up to $18,000, and the case is being delayed further by SLU’s attorneys. Meyer said he was told by a representative of the university that the demand for money would be dropped if he would not show his face again at the newspaper. Biondi’s administrators hired an adviser for the newspaper, but
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Meyer continues as the unofficial adviser because the student journalists want him there. An online petition at www.ipetitions.competition/ messagetoslu urges Biondi to drop the suit, which, it says, appears to be a personal vendetta. It’s been signed by more than 200 of Meyer’s past and present students, alumni and other supporters. Roy Malone
PBS cites work of David Heath avid Heath, a former reporter at the St Louis Post-Dispatch, was recently featured on PBS’ “Bill Moyers’ Journal” television program for the investigative work Heath is doing at the Seattle Times. In his “Expose” series, Moyers did an extensive interview with Heath about the paper’s stories exposing millions of dollars in wasteful Congressional spending on obscure earmarks to bills. Heath is part of a team that digs out “coded language” in bills that result in contracts to certain firms in the Seattle region that have contributed to campaigns of lawmakers who sponsored the earmarks. Heath’s reporting disclosed many appropriations for the defense department for items the military never asked for and doesn’t use. Heath, 43, went to work for the Seattle paper in 1999, after leaving the Post, where he had specialized in computer-assisted reporting. Heath’s stories listed frequent earmark perpetrators nationwide, including Sen. Christopher Bond (R-Mo.) and Rep. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.).
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Bill Moyers’ Journal
St. Louis Platform ramps up online he St. Louis Platform, an online news source, has made a soft launch for viewers to see its format. It is gearing up for a full debut before summer, according to Editor Margaret Freivogel. Key funding is coming from Emily Pulitzer, who has put up a challenge grant of $500,000, Freivogel said. Donors are asked to provide gifts that will match amounts from the Pulitzer grant. Pulitzer is the widow of Joseph Pulitzer, Jr. She got more than $400 million in 2005 for her majority shares when Pulitzer Inc., which
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off the record owned the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, was sold to Lee Enterprises. A substantial donation has been pledged by William Danforth, former chancellor of Washington University, along with other pledges. The group is hoping to raise $2 million to fund STLPlatform.org for at least two years, while it works to build advertising. “We’re in the process of ramping up and looking for feedback,” Freivogel said. The Web site uses the slogan: “News That Matters.” It will operate five days a week with regular updates and could also post news on weekends, if warranted. The name Platform refers to the technology used and also to the first Joseph Pulitzer’s editorial credo. The staff will include these former Post journalists, full- or part-time: Bob Duffy as associate editor, Richard Weiss, Donna Korando, Linda Lockhart, Bob Joiner, Bill Smith, Mary Leonard, Susan Hegger, Bill Freivogel, Nicole Hollway as business manager and Richard Weil as board president. Others involved are Sally Altman, Brent Jones as presentation editor and Connie Hoffman and Randy Adams as new board members. The effort will include explanatory journalism to provide depth to selected stories and issues. Viewers will be able to provide comments that will be an added resource, Freivogel said. Videos and links to national and world reports will also be offered. “We’ll not take any editorial positions but offer a range of opinions,” she said. Meanwhile, the Post has created a blog that it also calls “The Platform” (STLtoday.com/ThePlatform.) It’s an apparent effort to claim the name chosen by the online operation. Gilbert Bailon, editorial page editor, said in a note to readers that the blog will embrace the guiding principles set out by the first Joseph Pulitzer in 1907. Readers are invited to submit their opinions and “take a stand on any issue.” Roy Malone
Wash U. denies political speech ashington University students are organizing an effort to change the school’s policy governing political speech on campus, in the wake of the university’s refusal to allow Sen.
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Barack Obama (D–Ill.) to speak to students. In late January, the campus chapter of Students for Barack Obama learned that Obama planned to speak in St. Louis on Feb. 2, and that his campaign considered the university as a possible site. Three members of the student organization met with Vice Chancellor Pam Lokken to ask permission. She said no. An appeal to Chancellor Mark Wrighton yielded the same result. Neither Lokken nor Wrighton’s assistant, Robert Wild, returned a phone call to say why. According to the student newspaper, Student Life, Wild wrote in an email: “Because the university cannot equitably accommodate all such requests for the use of its facilities for candidate campaign rallies without disrupting academic and extracurricular operations, the university has decided that it cannot sponsor these types of events.” He added that the university would look partisan if it refused one candidate and allowed another to speak, which could endanger its non-profit status. Other universities do not share the same policy. For example, on Jan. 28, Chelsea Clinton appeared on campus at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Betty Van Uum, assistant to the Provost for Public Affairs at UMSL, said about welcoming political candidates to campus: “We do not have any problems with that whatsoever. We’ve encouraged it.” The only requirement, she said, is that a student organization must sponsor the appearance. Among non-profit colleges, for example, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D–N.Y.) spoke at Wellesley College last November, and Sen. John McCain (R–Ariz.) spoke at Rice University in February. Washington University’s policy that excluded Obama prompted two of its students, David Fox and Matt Adler, to try to change their school’s policy. In February, they formed the Student Civic Initiative to make it school policy to encourage students to be more politically engaged. “We want to put forth a non-partisan policy that allows political candidates of all stripes, Democratic, Republican, Independent or from another party, to come share their views on campus,” Adler wrote in an email.
You don’t have to look far for news in St. Louis Get your copy of SJR for the single-issue price of $4 at any of these locations: Left Bank Books 399 N. Euclid St. Louis (314) 726-6010
World News (Clayton) 4 S. Central Ave. St. Louis (314) 726-6010
World News (Westport) 308 Westport Plaza St. Louis (314) 434-9449
Barnes & Noble Booksellers 8871 Ladue Rd. St. Louis (314) 862-6280
Benjamin Israel
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Charles L. Klotzer Charles L. Klotzer is the editor/publisher emeritus of SJR.
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he federal courts have joined the government in the business of torture. First, a brief review. A report in In These Times on the illegal use of “rendition” of “suspects” to other countries for the purpose of interrogation and torture, which involved a subsidiary of the Boeing Co., the Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., made us search the archives of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. We found one article dated May 31, 2007, reporting that the American Civil Liberties Union is suing Jeppesen for arranging the flights of the CIA’s terrorism suspects to overseas locations, where they were tortured. Nothing else. Boeing, while Chicago-based, has strong links in the St. Louis community. Jeppeson is a subsidiary of another subsidiary that is owned by Boeing. Ultimately this giant in the aircraft industry should be held accountable. It must be assumed that its lawyers have read the filings by the ACLU. We had to review them for this column. Shivers must have run down their spines learning of the tortures, humiliations and unbelievable treatments to which these suspects were exposed in Afghanistan, Jordan, Egypt and other countries. Some of the suspects have been released by now without receiving any explanation or apologies. Others are still incarcerated somewhere. The practice of rendition has been exposed, is universally known and has been minutely documented. In 2005, reports Christopher Moraff in In These Times, the Italian investigative reporter Claudio Gatti managed to trace Jeppesen’s unique identification number to specific rendition planes using public flight databases. Then in 2006, writes Moraff, journalist Stephen Grey further exposed the nuts and bolts of the program with his book “Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program.” The ACLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of five men who were kidnapped and secretly transferred to U.S.-run prisons or foreign intelligence agencies overseas where they were interrogated under torture. The lawsuit charges that Jeppesen knowingly aided the program by providing flight planning and logistical support
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Shivers must have run down their spines learning of the tortures, humiliations and unbelievable treatments to which these suspects were exposed.
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services for aircraft and crews used by the CIA. Citing a report from the Council of Europe, the ACLU alleges that Jeppesen intentionally submitted “dummy flights” to various aviation authorities to conceal the true flight paths of the rendition planes. Here is the United States government using private contractors to do its dirty business. The ACLU case against Jeppesen may discourage other companies, no matter how much they are paid with taxpayer money, to weigh all the consequences for them in these illegal operations. Judge James Ware of the Northern District of California dismissed the lawsuit in February, after the government sought to intervene, contending that litigation of the case would reveal “state secrets” and harm national security. The ACLU will appeal the decision. “Extraordinary rendition is no secret. It has been well-documented, and the whole world knows about it,” said Steven Watt, staff attorney with the ACLU Human Rights Program. “It seems the only place we can’t talk about this unlawful program is in American courts.” It has been 50 years, reports the ACLU, since the U.S. Supreme Court last reviewed the use of the “state secrets” privilege. “The privilege has historically been used to exclude discreet pieces of evidence from trials, but in recent years the government has asserted the claim with increasing regularity in order to block entire lawsuits and justify withholding information from the public about rendition, illegal wiretapping, torture and other breaches of U.S. and international law.” While it has been years since Boeing acquired McDonnell Douglas, the company still plays a crucial role in the economic well-being of the St. Louis region . . . the St. Louis media should scrutinize all its undertakings. ■
Renditions– A Boeing business on the side
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Documents related to the ACLU lawsuit and background information are available at aclu.org/safefree/torture/rendition.html.
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politics & media / Terry Jones Terry Jones is professor of political science at UM-St. Louis
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t was shortly after 10 p.m., Feb. 5—Super Duper Tuesday— when the Associated Press predicted Sen. Hillary Clinton (D–N.Y.) would win the Democratic presidential primary in Missouri. I was baffled. Like many political junkies, I was monitoring the results on the Secretary of State’s Web site that lists the votes by county. With most counties reporting their complete results, Clinton had a modest lead over Sen. Barack Obama (D–Ill.). But—and it was a big but—a sizable fraction of the Boone County and St. Louis County vote was still out. Obama was doing well in both places, and, if that trend continued, he had a decent chance of overcoming Clinton’s lead. Although the St. Louis County Board of Elections Web site does not report its partial returns by township and precinct, more often than not the North County votes have been disproportionately included among the late-to-arrive ballots. That was more Obama territory than the remainder of St. Louis County, still another good reason to avoid making a premature call. With all the votes counted, Obama emerged the statewide vote winner— 405,637 to Clinton’s 394,400. Over onequarter of his votes (118,143) came from St. Louis County. The AP pulled its Clinton call at 11:32 p.m. and, understandably in one-bitten-twice-shy mode, waited until complete tallies were available before declaring Obama the winner at 1:48 a.m. Feb. 6. The day after the election, the AP issued a release stating that it “was reviewing election results and its internal procedures” to uncover the reason for the faulty prediction and indicating that its “erroneous call was based on the actual vote count and analysis of historical and geographic voting patterns.” That’s an explanation begging to be trashed. At the time AP made the call, Clinton’s lead in the actual vote count was sufficiently narrow. If Obama exceeded 60 percent of the ClintonObama total for the yet-to-be-counted vote in Boone and St. Louis Counties, that would be enough for the Illinois senator to go ahead. Moreover, when AP made its projection, Obama was at or near 60 percent in both jurisdictions, making a 60 percent-plus expectation quite plausible. In fact, he ended up with 63.9 percent in St. Louis County and 62.1 percent in Boone County.
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The AP stated that it ‘was reviewing election results and its internal procedures’ to uncover the reason for the faulty prediction and that its ‘erroneous call was based on the actual vote count and analysis of historical and geographic voting patterns.’
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The St. Louis County Democratic primary vote was up about 28,000 from the most recent competitive state primary, the gubernatorial contest between Claire McCaskill and Bob Holden in August 2004. As a result, its share of the statewide Democratic primary vote was 22.8 percent, up from the August 2004 percentage of 18.9. But even if the AP model reduced St. Louis County’s February 2008 share to the August 2004 result, that would have lowered Obama’s margin by only about 7,000 votes, still leaving him with a slim statewide lead of approximately 4,000 votes. As for “historical voting patterns,” there were none in Missouri for this election. To state the obvious (although evidently not obvious to AP), to use historical patterns you need historical comparables, certainly at least one and preferably several elections that had the same characteristics. But Missouri has never had a Democratic presidential primary that mattered as much in the race for the nomination, never experienced a high-profile contest between a white female and an African-American male, and . . . the list goes on and on. There are no comparables to generate a helpful pattern. The Feb. 6 AP statement quotes Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll as stating, “There were lots of smart people, experienced people involved in making this call.” How can “smart” and “experienced” individuals do such an amateurish analysis? On a brighter note for the expert crowd, the pollsters—at least collectively—had a better Feb. 5 in Missouri than the AP. Using University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Professor Charles Franklin’s model (www.pollster.com) that combines all the polls, weighting by time (higher for the more recent) and sample size, the Feb. 4 Democratic prediction had Clinton at 45.5 percent (48.0 percent was her final) and Obama with 44.5 percent (49.3 percent was his final). The polls predicted a neck-andneck race. Neck and neck it was. For the Republicans, the polls were closer: John McCain predicted to receive 33.7 percent of the vote (33.0 percent final); Mike Huckabee, 28.5 percent (31.5 percent final); and Mitt Romney, 25.7 percent (29.3 percent final). The numbers were close, and the order right. ■
AP makes amateurish prediction
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TV challenger AT&T to compete with Charter orget the clashes of presidential primaries; the real contest involves who is going to provide our television. Will the winner be upstart AT&T or incumbent Charter Communications? Area city councils and the Missouri Legislature have paved the way for AT&T to come into the St. Louis market with its new U-Verse network of program channels, which includes television over the phone lines with many additional video services. We’re thrilled U-Verse’s initial rollout now includes portions that our of Webster Groves, Kirkwood, Sappington, St. Louis area Shrewsbury, Oakville and more. U-Verse uses customers now AT&T’s growing fiber network to deliver television have a new and a variety of highspeed Internet services. and better “We’re thrilled that our St. Louis area customers now have a new and better video choice video choice that’s cooler than cable,” declared that’s cooler Brad Brown, AT&T vice president and general than cable. manager for St. Louis. Both AT&T and Charter are in the business of —Brad Brown offering local customers “bundles” in the new AT&T wired world. Bundled vice president packages consist of TV for St. Louis program packages, phone service, high-speed Internet and more. “With AT&T U-Verse, we are offering unmatched features, more high definition television, great value—and the content that customers want, like NFL Network,” said AT&T’s Brown, boasting like the new kid on the television block.
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by Don Corrigan Of course, not everybody has been happy about what AT&T has put on their block, equipment-wise. After a number of neighborhood complaints, the company has become more circumspect about where it locates large metal node boxes that make the new services possible. Charter’s local public relations manager, Sharifah Williams, said, “One advantage we have is that our cable infrastructure is already in place throughout the area . . . we had a much more stringent process to go through working with local cities than AT&T has had to deal with. That may be one reason why residents in Kirkwood and Webster were being surprised to find these refrigerator-sized boxes popping up in their neighborhoods. “It’s way too early to say what the U-Verse impact will be here,” added Williams. “We’re going to compete with them on service and offerings. They haven’t been in the television delivery business long, and they may find it is not as easy as they think. But in any case, they will be a big competitor-—no question about that.”
Charter on offense After several years of bad publicity about poor consumer service, including coverage of a Better Business Bureau report on hundreds of complaints aimed at Charter Communications, the company is determined to go on the offensive and improve its image. “Our general manager is aware of the complaints and is determined to address customer dissatisfaction,” said Williams. “We have made a concerted effort to reduce the waiting time customers have to allow for an installation or a repair.” Charter no longer requires that a half-day or a day be put aside to wait for the cable guy to arrive. Williams said Charter also has put in
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place a system to resolve disputes or complaints on service. “It seems to be working,” according to Williams. “I know I am hearing fewer complaints that used to come through (KTVI’s) Contact 2’s hotline for consumer complaints,” said Williams. “Charter also now has a customer-resolution service that goes all the way to the top.” Cable television companies such as Charter have a distinct disadvantage in their battle with new TV services such as those offered by AT&T. That disadvantage is a history of caring more about the bottom line than consumer services. On the other hand, companies like Charter have an advantage because they have more experience offering bundled packages of Internet, phone and television services at prices that have proven popular with their subscribers. Also, Charter has battled satellite TV providers and big-name cable competition in other markets outside the St. Louis area. Nevertheless, industry reports show AT&T picking off customers once beholden to Charter.
Fighting the FCC Another thorn in Charter’s side, according to company officials, is the mercurial Federal Communications Commission. Cable was once off limits to FCC regulation, but that picture is changing as the industry becomes multi-platform with its delivery service bundles. Late last year the FCC approved two new rules. One restriction prevents any single cable company from controlling more than 30 percent of the cable market. The other allows owners of newspapers to acquire even more TV and radio stations in the larger U.S. markets. “We’re not at a point in the St. Louis area where the FCC restriction on cable affects us,” said Williams. “We have a good business balance here, and we have competition. “What does concern us is the way the FCC on one side is restricting cable, but on the other side is allowing other media companies to put together a mix of newspapers and broadcast stations and other service products that will compete with us.” So far, it remains to be seen whether new FCC regulations and new competition will benefit the consumer. Locally, many residents are upset that the FCC has not insisted that television providers give subscribers a better cafeteria choice of channels to buy as a package. They’ve had enough of televangelists and jewelry sellers in their cable packages. “Our program sellers have a lot to say on what goes on with this. They say, ‘If you want to offer this, then you also have to take this.’ We don’t have control a lot of times,” said Williams. “That’s the way the business is set up now. But it could change the way things are going.” ■
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McCaskill:
Get ready for digital TV Residents with conventional television—not Charter cable or AT&T U-Verse—may be surprised to learn that they could be left with no programs to watch one year from now, unless they take action. On Feb. 17, 2009, all analog televisions that are not connected to cable, a satellite receiver or a converter box will be unable to receive a digital broadcast signal. In Missouri alone, 478,000, or one in five, households do not have cable or satellite and rely on over-the-air television signals. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), is urging state residents to make sure they get their government-provided coupons that will cut the cost of purchasing their TV converter box. The government is offering two coupons to every household, each worth $40, to help families purchase converter boxes for their televisions. A total of 33.5 million coupons will be available to consumers, and McCaskill is urging Missourians to request theirs sooner rather than later. “I don’t want a single person in the state of Missouri to wake up on Feb. 17, 2009, and not be able to get their local channels on their TV,” McCaskill said. “We can’t wait any longer to start preparing for transition to digital TV, and it’s my hope that Missourians will take advantage of these coupons and purchase their converter boxes as soon as possible to ensure that they are ready well before the deadline.” Many Missouri broadcasters already transmit in digital today. To apply or to receive coupons online or by phone, mail, or fax, note the following: • Online: Visit www.dtv2009.gov • By phone: Call the 24-hour hotline at 1-888-DTV-2009 (TTY 1-877-530-2634) • By mail: Send coupon request to: P.O. Box 2000 Portland, Oregon 97208-2000 • By fax: Send coupon request to 1-877-388-4632 McCaskill has been vocal about the need to better educate the general public about the upcoming switch to DTV. She also has harshly criticized the FCC’s lack of progress on finalizing consumer education rules and rules for broadcasters. Don Corrigan
Don Corrigan is a professor in the School of Communications at Webster University and also edits three weekly newspapers.
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