MAKING NATIONAL NEWS LOCAL NEWS -- OR NOT

As it turns out, one of the seven sailors killed aboard the USS Fitzgerald when a Japanese freighter ran into it off the coast of Japan on Saturday is a local man from Weslaco, Texas --Gunner's Mate 2nd Class Petty Office Noe Hernandez.

During my 12 years as editor of The Monitor one of the things I learned was that it seemed that whenever there was an announcement from the Defense Department that three or more US service men and/or wormen were killed at one time -- whether in combat or in an accident -- at least one of them would very likely be from the Rio Grande Valley.

And when that happened, we always got the news staff moving very quickly to localize the story by contacting any local family members, friends, former teachers, ministers, priests, anyone local who could help us put a human face on the tragic death of Valley native killed while serving his or her country. The staff would update the story online throughout the day and for the morning print edition would usually craft and excellent profile of the deceased service person with photos of family and friends, etc.

After a while, particularly as the death tolls mounted in Iraq and Afghanistan, the staff's quick reaction became almost automatic and The Monitor's reporters and photographers produced some outstanding -- an in many instances award winning, well read and greatly appreciated by the community -- work detailing the lives of servicemen and servicewomen who had sacrificed all for their country.

I think every member of the staff felt it was the right thing for us to do to honor the local fallen members of our armed forces for what they had done for us.

I fully expected this tradition -- which is followed by many American newspapers -- would continue because it is expected by and respected by the local community. It is just one of the ways a local newspaper keeps faith with its readers.

I have, however, been quite dismayed with the way my former newspaper has thus far handled the death of Petty Officer Hernandez.

Sunday evening -- several hours after the U.S. Department of Defense put out a news release giving the names and hometowns of those killed aboard the USS Fitzgerald -- The Monitor, under the headline "Navy: Weslaco man among 7 killed aboard USS Fitzgerald," posted an Associated Press story online that read, in it entirety:

YOKOSUKA, Japan (AP) — The U.S. Navy says a 26-ear-old Weslaco man is among the seven sailors who died in a collision between the USS Fitzgerald and a container ship off Japan on Saturday.

They are:

— Gunner's Mate Seaman Dakota Kyle Rigsby, 19, from Palmyra, Virginia

— Yeoman 3rd Class Shingo Alexander Douglass, 25, from San Diego, California

— Sonar Technician 3rd Class Ngoc T Truong Huynh, 25, from Oakville, Connecticut

— Gunner's Mate 2nd Class Noe Hernandez, 26, from Weslaco, Texas

— Fire Controlman 2nd Class Carlosvictor Ganzon Sibayan, 23, from Chula Vista, California

— Personnel Specialist 1st Class Xavier Alec Martin, 24, from Halethorpe, Maryland

— Fire Controlman 1st Class Gary Leo Rehm Jr., 37, from Elyria, Ohio

Apparently, someone at least thought to rewrite the lead so that it emphasized the fact that one of the dead was a local man. However, the person who handled the rewrite committed an uncorrected typographical error saying Petty Office Hernandez was a "26-ear-old." Whatsmore, the rewrite failed to give his name in the lead. That was left for the list that followed and even then Hernandez's name was left at the No. 4 spot on the list.

Even KRGV TV-5 did a better job with it's online story, posting this:

Weslaco - The U.S. Navy has confirmed a Weslaco native was killed when a ship container off the coast of Japan hit the U.S.S. Fitzgerald.

The collision happened around 2 a.m. Saturday Japan time.

Commander Ron Flanders, Spokesperson with U.S. Naval Forces in Japan, tells CHANNEL FIVE NEWS Gunner's Mate 2nd Class Noe Hernandez is one of the 7 sailors killed in the collision.

Commander Flanders says Hernandez was in the birthing space of the ship when it was struck by a 30,000 ton Philippine cargo ship. The cargo ship's bulbous head hit the crew's living quarters, giving sailors just minutes to escape.

"The crew shined in this moment and kept the ship afloat. Unfortunately, two of the ships crew birthing spaces where the sailors were sleeping were flooded and 7 sailors were trapped inside and were lost at that time." said Commander Ron Flanders.

Officials are questioning what that Philippine container ship did just moments before hitting the U.S.S. Fitzgerald.

Multiple maritime trackers show the ship made a U-turn minutes before the collision.

Commander Flanders says the U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, and Japanese Coast Guard is investigating.

The U.S. Navy is planning a memorial service in Japan next week.

At least in it's online story, Channel 5 didn't bury Hernandez' name half way down on a list of people from elsewhere and it appears that someone from the TV station at least made the effort to actually talk to a Navy spokesperson

There was a story on the front page of The Monitor's print edition this moring under the one-column headline:
Navy: Valley

man among

7 sailors who

died on USS

Fitzgerald

But no one bothered to rewrite the AP lead to reflect that a local man was among the dead. Despite the headline, the interesting local angle on the Fitzgerald story was left until 8 to 10 column inches into the story (in the eight paragraph which appeared on the inside "jump" page). The subject of the lead was the mother of one of the surviving sailors who was from Raleigh, N.C.

It has now (10:40 CDT) been about 14 hours since The Monitor's online story was posted and, as yet, no attempt has been made to update it, not even to correct the "26-EAR-old" typo.

This makes me wonder if anyone on the news staff is busy working to profile Petty Officer Hernandez to update The Monitor's online presence today or even a for tomorrow morning's print edition.

This is not a good exampe of keeping faith with the readers and if a newspaper does not keep faith with its readers, it can hardly expect readers to keep faith with it -- this explains, at least in part, why the circulation of many newspapers is in decline. I've said if before and I still believe it to be true: Newspapers are not so much dying as they are committing suicide.

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PET PEEVES: SOME ARE CONSIDERABLY MORE JOURNALISTCALLY FORGIVEABLE THAN OTHERS

I think every newspaper editor has his or her pet peeves. Certainly, it seems that all of them that I've ever worked with did.

For the late Bob Crumpler -- my wonderful, curmudgeonly, legendary city editor at The Louisville Times back in the early '70s -- it was the usage (or more accurately the improper usage) of the word "presently" as in a sentence something like this: "The city council is presently considering and ordinance that would..."

If you used "presently" in that manner, Crump, a stickler on English language usage, would call you to come to the city desk and, as you stood there before him, publicly embarrass you by quite accurately pointing out that the word "presently" was not a proper substitute for "currently" or "now" since in "proper English" its first definition essentially is "soon to."

He would then go on to further embarrass the miscreant by snarly pointing out that if you meant the city council was at this time considering "an ordinance that would...", you were not only being incorrect to use the word "presently," but were also employing unnecessary verbiage if you used either "now" or "currently" since that is implied by merely writing "the city council is considering and ordinance that would..."

Crumpler's very public pointing out of these sorts of "egregious" errors -- a method that would drive into apoplectic shock today's newspaper HR people, who've contributed so much in recent decades to destroying such pointed newsroom learning experiences -- ensured that the offending reporter never again made THAT particular mistake.

For my very first editor in the mid-60s, John Anderson, managing editor of the New Albany (Ind.) Tribune, a major pet peeve was usage of the word "last" when what you really should have used was "past," as in: "At its last meeting, the city council..." When you committed that error, Anderson would call you to his desk and inquire: "Are you saying here that there will never be another city council meeting?" Touche.

As anyone who ever worked with me will readily confirm, I had a few pet peeves of my own, including those I acquired from Anderson, Crumpler and other editors I worked for before suddenly finding myself sitting in the city editor's chair.

One of my biggest pet peeves -- and something that still drives me nuts when I see it almost two years after I retired and last set foot in a newsroom -- is what I always referred to as "who-that-which confusion" (or, more informally, "who dat witch"). The improper usage of the words "who, that and which."

Rather than go into the complex details of what, in this instance, is the proper word to use when, let me refer you to very good and simple explanation on website dailywritingtips.com of when to use who, that or which. Here is the appropriate link: http://www.dailywritingtips.com/when-to-use-that-which-and-who.

Unfortunately, when to use who, that, or which is something that most spell check programs -- particularly the Microsoft Word version seemingly used by most newspapers -- not only won't help you with, but may also make you an innocent of. I've found, for instance, that the Microsoft Word's spell check, which is the only one I've ever used, almost invariably automatically changes a properly used "who" into an improperly used "that."

As disturbing as the word usage pet peeves may be, let's be very honest and acknowledge that most ordinary readers have become so lackadaisical about the English language that they generally go unnoticed by all except cranky English teachers and grumpy editors. Other than making a reporter and his or her news outlet look a bit stupid and ill educated, these errors don't really do any potentially serious damage.

That, however, is not the case with what I regard as one of my biggest journalistic pet peeves and one that was always hammered home with particular ferocity by both Crumpler and Anderson -- convicting, in print or on camera, someone who has merely been arrested or charged in connection with a crime.

The system of justice in the United States is based on the principle that any person accused of any crime -- including even the most heinous of offenses -- is presumed innocent until he or she either pleads or is found guilty by a judge or jury.

All too often, however, that presumption of innocence can effectively be stripped away by the wording used in stories that report an arrest.

Take, for example, this lead from a story posted Apr. 26, 2015, on valleycentral.com, the website for TV station KGBT, based in Harlingen, Texas:

"Officers arrested a 49-year-old man who was wanted for inappropriately touching a six-year-old girl, when he attempted to enter the United States on Friday." Here is the link to the full story: http://www.valleycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=1196307#.VT-AGl90yos.

The story, based on a U.S. Customs and Border Protection press release, goes on to name Mario Martin Vasquez of Corpus Christi as the person arrested.

Because of the way it is worded, this lead, essentially, convicts Vasquez without benefit of a trial by stating that he "was wanted FOR inappropriately touching..."

He was, in fact, and it SHOULD have been more accurately and appropriately written this way, "wanted ON CHARGES of inappropriately touching a six-year-old girl."

Granted, there are few criminal offenses considered more heinous than child sexual molestation, but those accused of such offense -- and any other criminal offense -- are entitled to the presumption of innocence that is stripped away from Vasquez by the thoughtless choice of wording in this lead.

Unfortunately, this sort of lapse in good journalistic practices can be found all around the nation on a daily basis in both the print and electronic news outlets.

To preserve the presumption of innocence and to be fair and accurate in their reporting, the media -- print or electronic -- need to be more cautious about the way stories are worded when reporting on suspects being arrested or sought in connection with crimes of all sorts.

This is Journalism 101 stuff.

Simply put, in arrest stories or even stories where someone is being sought in connection with a crime, the accused should be "arrested (or sought) on charge of" or "arrested (or sought) in connection with," but never "arrested (or sought) for."

Not only is this the fair, accurate and proper way write these sorts of stories, but -- as any media lawyer will readily tell you -- it also offers the news outlet a strong measure of protection if the person accused is ultimately found innocent of the charge or charges and decides to attempt, in our increasingly more litigious climate, to file a libel suit.

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A VETERAN EDITOR AND FORMER BOSS SPEAKS UP ON PAY-FOR-PLAY REPORTING

My old friend and former boss, Henry J. Holcomb, who retired a few years ago from his last newspaper position  at The Philadelphia Inquirer, posted a comment on my last blog entry "NEWSPAPER ETHICS: MAINTAINING (OR NOT) THE LINE BETWEEN DOLLARS AND SENSE" (Feb. 12) that I think deserves more prominent play than just as simple tagged on response to the entry.

I've always held Henry -- who, as managing editor of The Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram, hired me away from The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., to be his business editor -- in high regard as one of the best, though not always easiest to please, editors I ever worked for.

Henry is one of the most philosophically thoughtful editors I've known, and that aspect of him frequently showed up in our editor meetings when he would toss out for discussion an often controversial idea or concept that would land like a hand grenade chunked onto the middle of the conference table where we all gathered.

One of the things I admired most about Henry was his finely honed sense of journalistic principles and ethics and the fact the he truly believed in the adage that holds "the purpose of a newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable," which seemed to serve as one of his philosophical guideposts in managing the news department at The Star-Telegram.

Henry departed Fort Worth in, I think, 1983 to go to an editing position at The Inquirer, which under legendary editor Gene Roberts was, at the time, perhaps the nation's leading newspaper when it came to afflicting the comfortable, but his influence remained with me throughout the rest of my newspaper career -- another 30 years.

Weighing in on pay-for-play journalism, here is what Henry had to say:

"Steve: You raised issues here that need raising (and stirred unpleasant memories of the Camel scoreboard affair).

Sponsored content is spreading in digital media. Ads pop up in stories — even in digital products of good papers — according to data modern technology is harvesting for advertiser about the individual reader’s needs and interests. This is leading to stronger efforts to manipulate content — and even greater reader cynicism about journalists' ability to tell it like it is.

Crowdfunding is unlikely to produce clear thinking and vigilance that serves the whole community. I've written and edited so many stories that irritated a large number of people for a time until the full impact of what was being reported sunk in.

Reporting funded by foundations poses risks, too. Foundations tend to be controlled by the wealthy whose good fortune gives them a different feel and sense of a community. Some may not to meddle in the stories they fund. But they clearly influence which projects were pursued.

This, of course, is hazardous to the health of a free society. So write on.

You remember the past more fondly than I do, though.

These issues have always been a struggle. There have been a few newspaper owners like James B. Quigley of The Orange (Texas) Leader, where I worked long ago, who understood the importance of credibility and what built it. For example, he stood strong when a local car dealer threatened to pull his ads if we reported on his son's rather public misbehavior.  Mr. Quigley told the dealer that he hoped he wouldn’t do that — because that would mean he couldn’t afford a new car.

'If we don’t run the story,' Mr. Quigley said, 'the people in this city won’t respect either of us.' (Eventually declining car sales forced the dealer to advertise again,  and Mr. Quigley could afford to buy his badly needed a new car.)

Few fresh-out-of-business-school publishers of papers owned by the big chains have been able to be as principled as Mr. Quigley was on this story -- and on broader issues related to the news and commentary needs of the community. Missing the corporate revenue goals has long been very hazardous to career health."

Thanks for the comment, Henry, I couldn't agree with you more.

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NEWSPAPER ETHICS: MAINTAINING (OR NOT) THE LINE BETWEEN DOLLARS AND SENSE

In the late 1970's newspaper editorial and advertising departments across the nation faced off in an epic nose-to-nose battle over a "revenue-generating" idea proposed by the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., makers of Camel cigarettes (my brand -- the unfiltered ones -- at the time).

The cigarette maker approached newspaper ad executives with an idea they said would generate revenue from the sports statistics that virtually all daily newspapers in the country were already running as news copy that was generally not specifically supported by ad dollars. It almost goes without saying that advertising department's were pretty much unanimously in favor of the idea.

The proposal called for participating papers to run what essentially would be an ad frame -- duplicating the frame on the front of a Camels package -- around a full page of sports stats. At the top of the frame would be a large page header reading "Camel Scoreboard" and at the bottom there would be an about two-inch-deep by six-column-wide shelf ad promoting Camel cigarettes. In exchange for running this ad frame daily around information already being gathered and published, R.J. Reynolds offered to pay each participating newspaper's going rate for a full page ad.

I've no doubt that such an offer today would be snapped up in the blink of an eye by every cash-strapped newspaper in the United States . That's NOW, but not THEN, when ad revenues were still soaring and newspapers where achieving profit percentages that made them the envy of even oil and utility companies.

In those days, the line between dollars and journalism ethics was very clearly defined.

At the time, I was managing editor of The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., and based upon advice from other members of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and members of the national and state Associated Press Managing Editors organizations -- as well as the icky feeling the proposal gave me and Sports Editor Tom Patterson even without input from colleagues -- I declined to go along with the proposal based on journalistic ethical considerations. My decision to just say no -- perhaps a little surprisingly even then -- won the support of the newspaper's publisher, Robert Hederman Sr.

I was not alone in my opposition to what now must seem like a very generous offer from R.J. Reynolds. Virtually every reputable daily newspaper in the country also rejected the proposal based on ethical considerations. Mainly, it was felt that framing the page as requested would make it appear as though news people were gathering and publishing the statics for (ergo, working for) the makers of Camels as opposed to providing it as an informational public service of the newspaper. Some also opposed it based on what might today be best described as the Joe Camel objection. Much of the statistical information run by papers was for local high school sports and was well read by teens. At the time, the office of the U.S. Surgeon General was just beginning it's push against tobacco usage -- which eventually resulted in warnings on tobacco product packages and newspapers ceasing to run tobacco ads -- and many editors and publishers wanted to avoid anything that might seem like enticements for teens to use to tobacco products. The Camel Scoreboard sputtered along briefly and then went up in smoke.

Times have changed in the intervening years since the collapse of the Camel Scoreboard concept when U.S. newspapers were still fiscally fat and sassy and virtually no reputable daily, regardless of size, ran ads on news section fronts, much less on their front pages.

Now, the newspaper industry -- in the continuing throes of financial a crisis -- is debating two new and similar revenue-generation concepts that threaten to further blur, if not totally obliterate, the line that has traditionally separated dollars and news content.

The two concepts are "content underwriting" and "crowdfunding." Although they are somewhat different, both concepts involve pay-for-play strategies that I find ethically repugnant and the worst threats yet to the once treasured American newspaper value of news objectivity, since both seem to me to be first cousins to what we in the newspaper industry have known for years as advatorial writing.

I find both concepts at least as onerous -- and as detrimental to a newspaper's credibility and perceived ethics -- as the Camel Scoreboard idea. They are, in essence, journalistic prostitution.

Under the content underwriting concept, certain groups would provide a newspaper with money to "enhance" specific areas of coverage. For instance, a local arts group might -- as they did with the Greensboro, N.C., News & Record last June -- provide funding so the newspaper will provide more coverage of arts in the community.

In conjunction with crowdfunding -- which seeks a broader base of "community" support requiring more people to each give fewer dollars -- a newspaper's general readership would be surveyed to find out what issues, topics or areas of coverage are of most interest to most people. Funds would then be solicited to help defray the expense of providing enhanced reporting on those issues, topics or areas of coverage.

Let's be totally honest here. Does anyone really think that any reputable newspaper would consider either content underwriting or crowd funding if they still had reporting staffs large enough to adequately cover everything important in and to the communities they serve? I don't think so.

What's more, I think that to satisfy the coverage underwriters in either concept, a newspaper will have to rob Peter to pay Paul. Realistically, I don't foresee any newspaper that decides to "take advantage" of either concept hiring additional staff to provide the promised "enhanced" coverage. Instead, to achieve the desired -- and paid for -- result, they would have to begin skimping on other areas of coverage -- areas that, while not as ethereal as the arts, might have a greater impact on a larger number of people. As I see it, the result would be even greater general community dissatisfaction with coverage by a larger readership audience. Editors would be having to ask themselves on an almost daily basis what they are willing to skip because their arts organization content underwriters expect (and the dollars demand) that they cover, say, a performance by the community orchestra instead of something that possibly could have a greater impact on the community at large.

There is also the question of where the line gets drawn as far as who gets to underwrite what sorts of coverage and content and how much control do they get to exercise over what gets written and published. For instance, what if the local automobile dealers association is allowed to underwrite enhanced coverage of all things automotive? I can guarantee that the enhanced coverage they have in mind does not included a newspaper series on widespread repair ripoffs by local dealer service departments like the one we published when I was managing editor of The Clarion-Ledger. (Please see my July 22, 2014, post MODERN MEDIA PERIL: NEWSPAPER INTESTINAL FORTITUDE VS. ADVERTISER BULLYING.) So, in order to maintain the flow of added cash for enhanced automotive coverage, does the newspaper simply forego such a series that could be very valuable to the general readership and if so what does that say about the paper's journalism ethics and credibility?

Frankly, as disturbed as I am about the content underwriting concept, I am even more put off by the idea of crowdfunding.

Not only do I think it's fraught with all the same potential problems as content underwriting, but I am also seriously rankled by the idea that large groups of readers should be asked to pay additional for the type of coverage they have every right to expect they'll get in a newspaper they already pay for daily. It's my feeling that the executives at any newspaper that wants readers to do that should just go ahead and have the balls -- and honesty -- to institute the sort of price increase that will allow them to hire enough new staff to provide the sort of coverage readers expect and deserve. Enough said.

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For further reading on the two concepts, I suggest this piece by former News & Record Editor John Robinson http://johnlrobinson.com/2014/07/paying-for-journalism-community-based-crowdfunding/.

This by Corey Hutchinson, Columbia Journalism Review's Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina correspondent, http://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/revenue_experiment_throwdown_crowdfunding_vs_underwriting.php?page=all. 

This by media blogger Steve Buttry https://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2014/07/22/could-crowdfunding-help-restore-some-newspaper-beats/.

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NEWSPAPER FRIENDS: WHEN LIFE STOPS GIVING AND STARTS TAKING AWAY

UPDATE (1-8-2015): Queenie Pemelton, my friend and my Community Editor for the nearly 13 years I was editor of The Monitor, succumbed to her long battle with breast cancer this evening after more than a month in hospice care. Rest in Peace, Queenie. They simply don't make them like you anymore. 

UPDATE: Sometimes, there really is nothing I like better than good news. My friend, Monitor Community Editor Queenie Pemelton, after having her ventilator removed last night and breathing on her own, has taken a turn for the better. Perhaps prayers and well wishes do work. Either way, there now appears to be some reason for at least cautious optimism.

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This morning I am reminded of an actually pretty poignant line from the last Indiana Jones movie, "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull:"

"We've reached the age where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away."

For the second time in less than a week, a newspaper friend could to be headed toward the final edition.

Last Wednesday, we lost longtime friend Larry Nighswander, who was my assistant managing editor for photo and design when I was managing editor of The Cincinnati Post, who died of a sudden heart attack. Larry was one of the media's best photo editors and visual educators of the past 30+ years.

Today, Queenie Pemelton, my community editor for the nearly 13 years I was editor of The Monitor, in McAllen, Texas, before my retirement last year, is hanging on by a thread at Rio Grande Regional Hospital. Like Larry, Queenie, 61, is a very special person.

She is a veteran of more than 30 years at The Monitor. And, although Queenie is not a "trained" (i.e., college graduate with a degree in journalism) journalist, she is nonetheless not only the news staffer best known to the public, she is probably the person whose name most often comes to mind when anyone in the public thinks of The Monitor.

For tens of thousands of full-time area residents and part-time "Winter Texans," Queenie -- who came to the newsroom from the back shop and got her journalism training on the job -- personifies The Monitor.

As community editor, a title I crafted for her years ago, her job for more than two decades has been to do the intake, editing and placement of the scores of press releases the newspaper receives every day from a wide variety of community people, groups and organizations from across The Monitor's circulation area, many of them hand delivered by the procession of mostly ordinary people who show up at her desk daily. Although most of these people could just as easily mail or email their press releases about a garden club meeting or a son or daughter receiving special honors at college or graduating from military boot camp, etc., they come in person because they love talking with Queenie, who always gives each of them a few minutes to chat despite her inordinately heavy workload created by the many press releases in need of editing.

To me, Queenie represents one of the things that I've always liked best about The Monitor -- it makes room daily to run many seemingly mundane community press releases dealing with the accomplishments and highly localized interests of thousands and thousands of readers and subscribers and does so not in some segregated "special" publication, but as part of the daily newspaper without in any way "harming" the paper's well-recognized professionalism.

I firmly believe that through her work, her character, her caring and her boundless love for the ordinary folks of the Rio Grande Valley, Queenie, for years, was highly instrumental in helping The Monitor stave off some of the precipitous circulation drops experienced by many other daily newspapers.

But for years now, Queenie has been waging war against breast cancer. For a while there, after several operation and much chemotherapy, many of us thought -- and hoped -- that she had won her battle. However, last week she suffered a seizure that again sent her to the hospital where she ended up being put on a ventilator. A CAT scan, according to information passed along to me, revealed that she had developed five brain tumors that have been ruled in operable.

Yesterday evening, the decision was made to remove the ventilator and although she was breathing on her own afterward, the prognosis is not good.

A mutual friend, who is keeping my updated via text messages, sent one last night that said: "Queenie is no longer the Queenie we know."

But, I beg to differ. Regardless of what happens next, in my mind, Queenie will ALWAYS be the Queenie I have known -- a very special person and a very special brand of journalist.

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AMERICAN JOURNALISM LOSES A GENUINE TREASURE, BEN BRADLEE, GREATEST NEWSPAPER EDITOR OF THE LAST THIRD OF THE 2OTH CENTURY

Thanks to the Rea Hederman, executive editor and son of the publisher of The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., and his friendship with University of Virginia MBA program classmate Donnie Graham -- who succeeded his mother, Kathryn, as publisher of the Washington Post -- I got to meet American journalism legend Ben Bradlee in 1979.

At the time I was the Clarion-Ledger's metro editor and as a training exercise Rea arranged for me to spend a week observing city desk operations at the Post where -- along with then City Editor Herb Denton and then Metro Editor Bob Woodward -- I also got to meet Bradlee and sit in on the Post's daily budget meetings conducted by Bradlee.

He was tough, gruff and unrelentingly demanding and left me in total awe. It impressed me that he ran those meetings like a grill master, grilling each desk editor over the value of every Page 1 offering.

During one of the meetings when a local story was being offered for Page 1 consideration by Denton, Bradlee turned a steely eye to me and demanded, "What do you think?"

After carefully avoiding wetting myself and stammering a bit as I collected my thoughts, I told him what I thought about the story and why I felt it should go on Page 1. When I was finished, Bradlee turned his gaze to Denton, who was sitting next to me and said: "That's either a great coaching job, Herb, or you're one hell of a ventriloquist."

The story, the topic of which for the life of me I can't remember, went up front.

I ran into Bradlee again five years later at a media bash sponsored in part by Kathryn Graham at the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas. At the time I was assistant managing editor for news and projects at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and was overseeing the paper's coverage of the convention.

I had just finished thanking Mrs. Graham for the invitation and turned around and found myself face to face with Bradlee and was astonished to find that he remembered me.

He gave me a stern stare and gruffly said, "Well, Mr. Fagan, I see you're now assistant managing editor in Fort Worth. Guess you think that makes you pretty hot stuff, don't you?"

Then he broke into a warm smile, extended his hand and said, "Congratulations." He chatted with me for a few more minutes about my career since my visit to the Post and then moved on to greet Ralph Langer, editor of the Dallas Morning News.

In my 45 years in newspapering, I don't know that I ever felt more honored.

I think that beyond any doubt Ben Bradlee was the greatest newspaper editor of the last third of the 20th Century. American journalism has lost a true treasure.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ben-bradlee-legendary-washington-post-editor-dies-at-93/2014/10/21/3e4cc1fc-c59c-11df-8dce-7a7dc354d1b1_story.html

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