A 45-YEAR NEWSPAPER CAREER IS CHOCK FULL OF SOUVENIRS, MEMORIES THAT CAN'T BE BOUGHTEN

In his song "Souvenirs" the late, great Chicago folk singer, songwriter Steve Goodmam came up with this in his lyrics:

   

     Memories, they can't be boughten

     They can't be won a carnivals for free

     Well, it took me years

     To get those souvenirs

     And I don't know how they slipped away from me

Well, I was in the garage earlier this week weeding through boxes of sourvenirs from my 45-year career in newspaper newsrooms -- with the intent of getting rid of stuff I really didn't want -- when I came across a picture frame containing a white name tag enclosed in a clear, plastic sleeve with a swatch of red ribbon attached and a purpling with age 3 x 5 photograph of three guys in tuxedos, each with a name tag and red ribbon pinned on them. The ribbon has gold leaf on it reading "DSA (Distinguished Service Award) Winner." Here is the photo: 

The three tux-clad mokes are (from left to right): Me, then assistant managing editor; Mark Thompson, then Washington Bureau reporter; and the late Jack Tinsley, then executive editor of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The photograph was shot in 1985 in Salt Lake City where Mark, Jack and I had just picked up the Society of Professional Journalists national Distinguished Service Award for Public Service in Journalism. The newspaper won the award, one of American journalism's most prestigious, for Thompson's incredible five-part series detailing a design defect in the Cobra and Huey helicopters that Fort Worth-based Bell Helicopter built for the U.S. military. The series revealed that the company had known about the design defect for years and had a fix for it but did not correct it even though it had apparently been responsible for the loss of many choppers, costing the lives of numerous GIs, particularly during the Vietnam War. As a result of the work by Thompson, who now reports on the military for Time Magazine, all of the U.S. military's Bell Cobra and Huey helicopters were grounded and retrofitted with a device that corrected the design defect.

Naturally, finding the the picture frame with this souvenir ribboned name tag and aging photo kicked off a wave of memories.

During my 45-year newspaper career, the Bell Helicoter series was one of the finest pieces of journalism I was ever associated with, had the privilege of editing and, as it turned out, defending in the face of demands from Bell's top officials that the series be halted and that Thompson and I be fired -- him for pursuing and writing it and me for being responsible for its oversight and publication. Ahhhhhh, yes, those were the days. Incidently, the series went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and several other major national awards that year.

The first part of the series was publish on Sunday, Mar. 25, 1984. By the time Monday morning rolled around, after publication of the second part, the angry phone calls from officials and employees at Bell -- then Fort Worth's single largest employer -- had reached a fever pitch. When I walked into my office shortly after 9 that morning, I was greated by phone and written messages inviting me to Jack Tinsley's office immediately.

Jack informed me that Jack Horner, the president of Bell Helicopter, had called him after trying unsuccessfully to contact Publisher Phil Meek, who was, I think, out of town on business. Tinsley told me that Horner was demanding that the series be halted immediately and that the paper issue an apology to Bell and that Thompson and "the editor responsible for publishing" the series be fired. Tinsley told me that he had left a message for Meek to call him ASAP so they could consult on Horner's demands and he said there was certainly chance the I might lose my job.

Meek finally called back and Jack -- with his phone on speaker and me sitting there across from his large cluttered desk -- told the publisher about the rising storm from Bell and its employees and about Horner's call and demands. Phil assured Jack that he did not want to halt what might be one of the paper's best-ever jounalism efforts and that neither Mark nor I would be fired.

"Well, what do I tell Jack Horner," Tinsley asked. Without hesitation, Meek replied: "Tell Horner to go fuck himself."

So, moments later, and still on speaker phone with me sitting there, Tinsley called Horner back.

"I talked to Phil Meek about your demand that we halt the series, publish an apology to Bell and fire Mark Thompson and Steve Fagan, the editor responsiblefor publication of the series," Tinsley told Horner.

"Well, what did Phil have to say," Horner asked with icy smugness.

"He said for me to tell you to go fuck yourself," said Tinsley. A Loud click came over the speaker followed by the dial tone. Tinsley hung up his receiver, and turned toward me with a big grin on his face and suggested I get back to my office because I was probably going to have a lot of phone calls to answer.

Before I could get back to my office, however, Circulation Director Jim Tingle -- an ex-paratroop officer who stood about a head and a half taller than me -- cornered me in a hallway and angrily backed me into a corner.

"What the hell do you think you're doing? Do you now how many cancellations we've had this morning already," he asked with a glaring red face. "More than 300 and that's just for starters."

He then informed me that officials at the Bell plant had pulled all of our circulation boxes off the property and tossed them outside the main gate and the off-work Bell employees were planning to show up and picket outside the newspaper building after lunch (which they did).

Tingle then demanded to know "why the hell are we running this story and did anybody consider what kind of problems it would cause" for his department.

I blurted out that we were running it "because it's a great piece of Journalism."

"Oh, yeah," he responded. He then drew the thumb, index and middle finger of his right hand tightly together and used them to pound on my sternum with each word as he growled emphatically: "Well, if it's such a goddammned great piece of journalism, why wasn't it in the New York Times or Washington Post first." With one final snort, he stormed off leaving me shaken and my sternum bruised.

Once the flood of memories subsided, I decided to post the photo on Facebook. It almost immediately started drawing "likes" and comments -- lots of them -- from my, Mark's and Jack's mutual and individual friends.

Among the comments, the one that surprised and touched me most came from Phil Meek, who has Mark as one of the select few people he has friended on Facebook. During my newspaper career I was fortunate to have worked for several pretty good publishes including Barry Bingham Sr. and Barry Bingham Jr. at The Louisville Courier-Journal and Times, and Olaf Frandsen and Ray Stafford at The Montior here in McAllen, Texas. But I think, perhaps, the best publisher I ever worked for was Meek because unlike the others who came up with a newspaper background, Meek come to the business from the automobile industry. However, he seemed to have an innate understanding of the role and responsibility of the press in general and newpapers in particular.  As publisher he seemed absolutely fearless and was 100 pecent supportive of his newspeople, putting his full faith and trust in their work until they were proven beyond doubt to be wrong. He seemed to truly believe that the purpose of a newspaper was to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

In his comment, Phil wrote regarding the photo:

"It was so appropriate that by his presence Steve was recognized for his largely unheralded work behind the scenes that helped Mark's four part (actually five part) investigative series lead to the awarding of the Granddaddy of the Pulitzers, the Gold Medal to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for Distinguished Public Service in May 1985."

Appreciating that sort of comment from a publisher I greatly admired, it replied with this:

PHIL: Editor's seldom get publicly heralded for their behind the scenes work and editing of fine pieces of reportage. That, rightfully goes to the reporters who have to bust their butts and often even put their personal safety on the line to piece together the information that makes up a good story or series and then write it in a form an editor can grasp and hone. Editors, the good ones, take their pleasure from seeing the people they supervise doing good journalistic work and knowing that, in part, their directing, influence and encouragement have an impact on that work. As far as the Bell Helicopter series was concerned. I felt I got all the heralding I needed from the people whose heralding really mattered most to me -- you, Mark, Jack, my colleagues at the Star-Telegram and from those who had worked for or with me at other papers who knew and understood that this was one of the finest examples ever of the kind of journalistic efforts I tried to promote and encourage my staffers to engage in.

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LIBERAL MEDIA? BAH, HUMBUG!

If I ever hear the term "liberal media" again after this presidential election I think that, despite my advancing age, I will have to throttle the son of a bitch who says it.

The "media" today is largely corporate owned and in the case of the print media largely owned by investment bankers or companies heavily indebted to investment bankers who are nearly all, by definition, very conservative.

And if you don't think the money is calling the shots on the way things are covered and that that money is anything but either right leaning or flat out right-wing sympathetic you're crazier than an outhouse mouse.

As a result, March-Hare-mad billionaire Donald Trump is allowed, particularly in the electronic media, to say whatever he wants, whenever he wants without question or challenge. Not only is It positively disgusting, but it is enabling the bigotry, hate and fear that he spews to already alter the character of the nation and a large number of its people.

If today's media moguls think that some how after the election they will be able to control Trump and keep him from carrying out his ego-based, insane, fascist agenda that will destroy this country and likely lead to a third -- and this time nuclear -- world war and possibly a second civil war, they are dead wrong and 65 to 80 percent of us will wind up just plain dead.

For nearly 45 years, I was proud to be a member of -- and for many of those years a leader, as the editor of three different daily newspapers, of a small segment of -- the U.S. media.

Yes, throughout that time I was, and still am, a liberal, but I kept my personal politics out of the way the newspapers I was in charge of covered news. (It should be noted that I worked for nine newspaper during my career and only one, the Louisville Courier Journal & Times, was owned by liberals.)

As an editor, I also struggled -- for the most part effectively -- against the efforts, even then, of conservative owners and/or publishers to bend the news to their liking.

When it comes to the term "liberal media," let's be totally honest. Even when print media was largely privately owned, the owners were wealthy and mostly conservative. Then, they started selling off their newspapers to corporations, which were/are mainly conservative. The electronic media has pretty much always been under conservative corporate ownership. Essentially, "liberal" has played an almost non-existent role in media ownership in this country for decades.

During most of my nearly 45 years in the daily newspaper business, most of the top news executives that I've known of being fired for political reasons were let go not because they were too conservative, but rather because they were regarded by those whose money controlled their medium as being too liberal.

Now, with all of the nation's "mainstream," traditional media in general in financial decline, and newspapers in particular suffering, it seems to me that the money interest that are in control of most media outlets -- particularly electronic -- are being allowed by job scared news executives to dictate, subtly or even overtly, the manner and nature of political coverage for this election. It seems that virtually every network news cast begins with the words "Donald Trump today..." And what follows is video and/or audio of Trump rattling off a litany of hate, racism and bigotry unfettered by questions.

From that manner and nature of the coverage, it seems quite obvious, at least to me, that the money behind the media has settled for and is embracing the idea of Donald Trump, who appears to be as certifiably nuts as Adolf Hitler, as America's president/fuhrer.

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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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Blog Readers: If you enjoy reading my posts on The Ancient Newspaper Editor, I sure would appreciate if you'd consider subscribing to or following the blog. It's easy to do and there are several options for doing so. If you look on the right side rail, you'll see the "Subscribe to" buttons and a "Subscribe by email" button. Just click any of those and follow the instructions. If you are a Google+ user you can click on the "Follow" button right under my profile picture and follow the instructions. Or, you can click on the "Google+ Add to Circles" button next to my photo and add me to your circles and get notifications of new blog entries when I post them. Thanks for giving this consideration.

As always, your thoughts and/or comments are welcomed.

MODERN MEDIA PERIL: NEWSPAPER INTESTINAL FORTITUDE VS. ADVERTISER BULLYING

Renowned media blogger Jim Romenesko (jimromenesko.com) reported recently that Ken Hart, a 25-year veteran reporter for the Ashland (Ky.) Daily Independent was fired over a Facebook post criticizing a local auto dealer's TV commercial featuring his kids "baby talking" about the dealership -- Fannin Automotive.

Hart, who, according to the media blogger, has frequently been critical of such advertisers as Hobby Lobby, with regard to its U.S. Supreme Court birth control coverage case, and Chick-Fil-A, told Romenesko: “It appeared to me [that they] were being coached to talk like babies because it was ‘cute, I [wrote on Facebook] that making them do this was likely to get them teased unmercifully in school.”

The next day, according to Romenesko, Hart was called into Publisher Eddie Blakely's office and fired. Here is the link to Romenesko's full report on the firing: http://jimromenesko.com/2014/07/21/kentucky-reporter-is-fired-for-criticizing-a-local-car-dealers-tv-ads/

Considering how kids are -- despite national efforts to combat schoolyard bullying and teasing -- Hart is probably right, the dealer's kids likely will be teased unmercifully and possibly even traumatically over the commercial when school starts this fall. And that, in my book, makes his Facebook comment fair criticism. It should be noted that he apparently merely criticized the commercial and not the dealership per se.

Speaking in retrospect, Hart told Romenesko:  “Should I have posted what I did? Probably not. Did I deserve to lose my job over it? I personally don’t think so."

From a personal perspective, I think Hart's firing is outrageous. However, I believe that it is, unfortunately, symptomatic of a frightening change in the way the nation's financially troubled newspapers are reacting to bullying by advertisers who see things they object to in the newspaper or on social media posts by news staffer and go off on hell-raising tangents.

I speak from personal experience having, over my nearly 45-year career as a newspaper reporter and editor, frequently (and often unknowingly) gotten crosswise with an advertiser.

The most recent -- and thankfully final -- such incident occurred about 18 months before my retirement as editor of The Monitor in McAllen, Texas, on April 30, 2013. Fortunately, I was working for a great publisher, who on several occasions during the 10 years I worked under him went through hell with advertisers on my and the newsroom's behalf. Had I had a different, weak-kneed, publisher, I might have faced the same fate as Ken Hart.

As it happens, this incident also involved automobile dealerships.

We ran a front-page story on the opening of an upscale auto dealership for a luxury brand new to the Rio Grande Valley in one of McAllen's smaller neighboring cities. Probably because it was a competitor, the story thoroughly pissed off the owner of the metro area's largest group of dealerships that together comprised our single largest local advertiser. He contacted our advertising director and the Publisher Olaf Frandsen threatening to cancel his advertising, contending he never got that sort of play when he opened a new dealership.

In an effort to placate him, Olaf arranged a meeting at the paper among himself, me, our advertising director and the irate dealer and his marketing director. I was forced to sit in silence as the outraged mega-dealer, who I had previously regarded as a friend, browbeat me and called me and my staff "irresponsible and incompetent." He even accused me and the reporter who wrote the story of taking a payoff to run it. In retrospect, we might have (and I repeat "might have," but I doubt it) avoided the problem had the story run on the business front instead of Page 1. However, I believe it deserved the play it was given because the dealership was lured to the neighboring city with incentives that stirred up a controversy in that community. Some of the stories regarding the controversial incentives had run on the front page.

In the end, Frandsen -- who was wonderfully skilled at calming waters without surrendering news integrity -- managed to smooth over the situation. However, as penance, a couple of weeks later, I wrote a story that validly was news that went with a full Business Page presentation announcing that the irate mega-dealer was building a new store to house yet another luxury brand new to the Valley.

I should point out that this was not the first time I had gotten crosswise with this particular auto dealer. For instance, years earlier, he took great offense and caused an uproar when we ran -- on an inside page -- a national wire story that accurately described one of the brands he then carried as Detroit's worst gas guzzler.

Although attempted bullying of newspapers by their advertisers -- and particularly by auto dealers -- is hardly a new phenomenon, it does seem to me that over my last few years before retirement that advertisers became more brazen in their intimidation attempts as papers sank deeper into their economic woes and advertising lineage and revenue shrank.

I believe and fear that newspapers today are far more susceptible than ever to caving in to this sort of pressure designed, in some instances, to force things that are not news into print and keep things that are news out of print.

However, it has not always been thus.

While I was managing editor of The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., in the late 1970s and early '80s -- before it was bought by Gannett -- we published a series on unnecessary auto repairs done by both independent auto shops and dealership service departments in the area. We well documented numerous instances where unnecessary and costly repairs were made even by well-respected auto dealership shops.

Although it enraged local auto dealers, Publisher Robert Hederman Sr. and Editor Tom Hederman stood by the series, refusing to stop or retract it. Consequently, the local auto dealers' association encouraged an advertising boycott that most -- but not all -- dealers went along with, resulting in tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue for the paper.

The boycott, however, only lasted a little over 30 days before the participating dealers realized they were losing more in sales than the newspaper was losing in ad revenue. A group of dealers met with Robert and Tom -- who were not only respectively publisher and editor, but also the owners -- and informed them that they felt that the "lesson" they were teaching the paper had gone on long enough and they were "ready to start advertising again."

As was their southern gentlemanly habit, Robert and Tom politely thanked the dealers for wishing to return to the advertising fold. Then they informed the dealers that since they had not advertised for over a month, their advertising contracts had been nullified and that if they wanted to advertise again they were welcome to do so under new contracts at a 10 percent increase. All sheepishly signed the new, more costly contracts and the newspaper quickly made up for and significantly exceeded the lost revenues.

Simply because they can't afford to, I seriously doubt that many of today's newspaper top executives would display the sort of intestinal fortitude with which Robert and Tom Hederman countered the bullying by those auto dealers. And THAT, in my opinion, is a pretty sad state of affairs.

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PLACEMENT OF CORRECTIONS IS AS IMPORTANT AS PUBLISHING THEM

In the latest post on his media blog, "The Buttry Diary," under the headline "Corrections should be accurate, not misleading," my friend Steve Buttry has an interesting discussion regarding just how transparent the corrections most newspapers run should be. His position essentially is that they should be as transparent as possible, short of creating a finger pointing blame list or giving the name of the person or persons responsible for the error that required correcting.

Since I am pretty much in full agreement with what Steve has to say in the post, I want to avoid a repetitive, me tooish discussion. So, I suggest that you read his post. Here is the link: http://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2014/06/02/corrections-should-be-accurate-never-misleading/

Buttry notes that the genesis of this post was a Twitter discussion about corrections that I guess I entirely missed. To be honest, since my retirement a little over a year ago from my position as editor of The Monitor in McAllen, Texas, I am not as connected on a daily basis with newspaper industry discussions as I used to be. So, after reading Steve's post, I did some "research" into the discussion on Twitter and on other media-related blogs to bring myself up to speed.

Basically, the discussion involves two points of view.

As simplistically as I can put it, one of those points of view holds that when there is a mistake, it is the newspaper's and everyone essentially shares the blame. This is represented in corrections that are written something like this: "In a story published in Tuesday's Daily Bladder it was incorrectly stated that the mayor is dead. In fact, he is alive. The newspaper regrets the error." Blame is laid at no one in particular's doorstep, but the reader's natural assumption is that the reporter screwed the pooch.

The other point of view -- again as simplistically as I can state it -- acknowledges that when readers, who really don't know a whole lot about the internal processes of a newsroom, see a correction, they automatically assume the mistake was made by the person whose byline appeared on the story. Those who ascribe to this point of view -- including me and, apparently, Buttry -- believe that allowing readers to make that assumption when the error might not have been the reporter's fault creates an inaccuracy and is unfair to the reporter. In accordance with this school of thought, that same correction might be written this way if the error was made by the reporter: "In a story published in Tuesday's Daily Bladder it was incorrectly stated, due to a reporting error, that the mayor is dead. In fact, he is alive. The newspaper regrets the error." If the error had been created by an assigning editor or a copy editor while editing the story, the correction might read like this: "In a story published in Tuesday's Daily Bladder it was incorrectly stated, due to an editing error, that the mayor is dead. In fact, he is alive. The newspaper regrets the error."

Frankly, there is not really anything new in the discussion of these two differing points of view regarding how to structure a correction and the assigning of blame. It's been debated within the newspaper industry for decades.

However, what seems to be rarely discussed -- and is totally missing from the current back and forth -- is something that I think is every bit as important as publishing corrections and that is WHERE in the newspaper corrections appear.

Regardless of where they land philosophically on the issue of assigning blame for mistakes, most reputable newspapers believe they must correct them as a matter of preserving their credibility with both readers and news sources and do so, usually, in some anchored position inside the newspaper where readers can grow accustomed to regularly look for them.

This is good, but I don't think it's good enough for every error a newspaper makes.

Again, this is pretty simplistic, but I've always felt there are two basic categories of newspaper errors. First, there is what I regard as the "standard" errors which include things like name misspellings; correct last name, wrong first name; misattributions; pied type; typos; wrong addresses; and any other mistake that does not alter or change the gist or meaning of a story. The other category is any of a variety of what I'll call "HOLY CRAP, WE DIDN'T REALLY TO DO THAT" mistakes that are serious errors in fact that can adversely impact the truth or credibility of the story and may even go so far as being libelous. Such mistakes can occur even in connection with the most seemingly routine stories and can appear anywhere in a paper from deep inside to a main display page like Page 1, or the local, features, sports or business front.

Such errors absolutely should and must be corrected whether they are noted by a staffer, by a reader or by a news source who may have been the subject -- or victim -- of the error. Some newspapers may choose to run these needed corrections as part of their anchored list of standard "We Were Wrongs."

That might be considered "good enough" placement for the correction of even an egregious error in a story that appeared inside the paper since we train readers to look for corrections in those anchored spots. However, it's my belief that it isn't good enough for a serious error in a story that appears on a main display page.

I think, for instance, that if you erroneously report the mayor dead in a story appearing on Page 1, you need to correct it prominently on the same display page where it appeared. It's a matter of accuracy, of fairness and of the newspaper's credibility with readers and sources who frequently -- and often justifiably -- complain that we, like bad surgeons, tend to bury our worst mistakes.

If you get it egregiously wrong on Page 1, you need to set it straight on Page 1. To not do so could make it appear to readers and to the news sources used in the gathering of information for the story as though the paper is trying to hide or minimize its bonehead error in a story that was given prominent play. It's as much a matter of transparency as making it clear in the correction where in the process the error crept into the story.

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Blog Readers: If you enjoy reading my postings here on The Ancient Newspaper Editor, I sure would appreciate if you'd consider subscribing to or following the blog. It's easy to do and there are several options for doing so. If you look on the right side rail, you'll see the "Subscribe to" buttons and a "Subscribe by email" button. Just click any of those and follow the instructions. If you are a Google+ user you can click on the "Follow" button right under my profile picture and follow the instructions. Or, you can click on the "Google+ Add to Circles" button next to my photo and add me to your circles and get notifications of new blog entries when I post them. Also, please share the blog with your friends and colleagues.  Thanks for giving this consideration.

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Your thoughts and/or comments are welcomed.

JILL ABRAMSON APPARENTLY DISPLEASURED HER PUBLISHER, IT'S JUST THAT SIMPLE

I've been trying very hard to just keep my mouth shut regarding the New York Times' firing of Executive Editor Jill Abramson, the first woman to hold that post at the paper, and the swirl of hubbub that has grown in wake of it. After all, I have never met her or her bosses or ever even been in the New York Times building, much less its news department. What's more, I am writing from the border in deep South Texas, some 2,000+ miles from the granite canyons of Manhattan.

However, two factors do come into play that led me to finally say something here. First, after 45 years in the business at eight different newspapers, I do know something about the nature of the beast. And, second, as anyone who knows me can readily attest, after more than 69 years of living I still lack the willpower to keep my mouth shut even about things that may not directly involve me.

The impetus for me to finally unshackle my tongue (or, perhaps, more accurately my fingers) with regard to the firing was this Facebook post this morning my by friend Jimmie D. Davis of Fort Worth, Texas, another former, longtime newsman:

"Oh, the ignominy. Getting unfriended by Amy Siskind. I had the audacity to disagree with her about the NYT mess.

She took out after Rachel Maddow for lack of coverage of the mess. If anyone out there has definitive knowledge of who is right and who is wrong in this, please share with the rest of us.

From the facts I so far have been able to gather I tend to lean with the NYT. But that may be totally wrong, so I am hesitant to go deeper than that. Rachel Maddow may just have the same problem.
But, apparently Amy Siskind thinks that any woman journalist worth her salt must take the default position in favor of the female in any dispute of this sort. That's thinking like a Fox."

Clearly, Abramson's seemingly abrupt firing on May 14 has sent the national journalism community into a tizzy.

Her supporters, in general, contend she is a victim of sexism and speculate that she might have been fired because she "may" have been being paid less than her predecessor and wanted a salary boost that cost her her job.

Her detractors, in general, contend she was let go because of her "management" style, alleging that she played favorites and sometimes publicly vilified those who weren't and, therefore, got just what she deserved.

Since I have no knowledge of what she or her predecessor were being paid, the only thing I have to say about that is that gender rightfully should have absolutely nothing to do with pay. If she had the same skills -- which I think you must assume or she would not have or should not have gotten the position in the first place -- and the same experience level, she should have been paid the same, or even more if she could have negotiated it at the time of her promotion. The only justification for having paid her less should have been, in my opinion, based solely on her skill and/or experience level compared to her predecessor. Gender should never play a role in a pay decision.

As for her "management style," I  have to suspect that considering the era in which she got into the business, she may have been a bit old school -- a style that sends today's newspaper H-R people into fits of apoplexy, but from which many of us learned one hell of a lot and became far better newspaper people than we might have been otherwise. However, being a tough, unyielding and possibly even harsh editor is one thing and playing favorites to the detriment of the others is quite something else. But I don't know anything about her personal management style.

What I DO know is that Abramson had established a reputation within the industry as a good and qualified editor and I, for one, was pleasantly surprised when she was named the NYT's first female executive editor in September 2011.

This all brings me back to my response to Jimmie Davis' Facebook post which was based on what all of us who have ever been the top news executive at any newspaper in the United States regardless of size or location knows all too well. My comment was:

"JIMMIE: There is one immutable fact here and that is that regardless of race, gender, ethnic origin, religion or sexual preference, if you are the editor of a newspaper, you serve at the pleasure of the owner and/or publisher. The question here is not one of whether or not the publisher had a right to fire her or whether or not it was the right thing or wrong thing to do, but rather how the dismissal was handled and from what I can see, it was not handled well nor with anything bordering on class from either side."

Whatever the "real" reason for Jill Abramson's firing -- fair or unfair, just or unjust -- it would appear, in the final analysis, that she displeased Publisher Arthur Sulzberger and he decided to show her the door. It has always been thus for chief news executives at newspapers and very few have ever survived getting irrevocably crosswise with their publisher.

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Blog Readers: If you enjoy reading my postings here on The Ancient Newspaper Editor, I sure would appreciate if you'd consider subscribing to or following the blog. It's easy to do and there are several options for doing so. If you look on the right side rail, you'll see the "Subscribe to" buttons and a "Subscribe by email" button. Just click any of those and follow the instructions. If you are a Google+ user you can click on the "Follow" button right under my profile picture and follow the instructions. Or, you can click on the "Google+ Add to Circles" button next to my photo and add me to your circles and get notifications of new blog entries when I post them. Also, please share the blog with your friends and colleagues.  Thanks for giving this consideration.

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CONTENT: NEWSPAPERS SHOULDN'T NEED A WEATHERMAN TO KNOW WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS

Whenever I think about declining newspaper readership in the United States -- which is something I still do a lot, even in retirement -- I can't help but think that newspaper editors are as much to blame as any of the factors more commonly and popularly mentioned, particularly by newspaper editors.

I also can't help but recall perhaps the best known line from one of Bob Dylan's most popular early songs, "Subterranean Homesick Blues":  "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."

Beginning decades before the steep circulation declines newspapers have been experiencing since the turn of the Millennium, the industry started turning to "weathermen" in the form of research companies like Belden Associates, Yankelovich and Market & Opinion Research International (MORI) to tell us which way the winds of reader content interests were blowing.

Unfortunately, too many media companies and individual newspapers began relying more and more exclusively on readership survey findings as the sole gauge of reader content interests rather than talking and listening directly to their readers. This, I believe, is where and why the disconnect between newspapers and their readers began to take serious root.

Some like to say that it came rather precipitously as the nation's economy began to slip into recession starting in about 2005 and that the economic downturn, coupled with other factors -- such a expanding free website access to information that papers once sold exclusively in print, already declining advertising revenues and rising production costs -- created a "perfect storm" for newspapers.

Certainly, those perfect-storm factors may have set off the industry's panic alarms, but I think the clouds began gathering much earlier than 2005. In fact, I believe the readership barometer may have already been starting to drop when I began my first, post-college, full-time newspaper job as a reporter in the Indiana Bureau of The Louisville Courier-Journal & Times in 1970.

Whenever I ponder a newspaper's content relationship with its readers, I remember what my favorite journalism professor at Indiana University, Dr. Ron Farrar, who taught courses in in-depth and investigative reporting, once told me: "You earn the right to give readers the information YOU think they need to know by first giving them the information THEY actually want to know."

Farrar always emphasized the idea that content is the key to readership and I think it would hard find anyone in the newspaper industry who would disagree with that, then or now.

The questions, however, are how should we determine what sort of content attracts readers to buy newspapers and who should make that determination.

By the time I took my first full-time job many newspapers companies had already seemingly decided to turn that task over almost exclusively to the companies that conduct scientific readership interest surveys to determine what sort of content readers find most appealing.

While I believe such surveys are a great tool and do provide valuable information about readers and their interests, I don't think that information should be blindly accepted as gospel nor should it be the dictator of content. I say this, in part, because most readership survey questionnaires are more theoretical than practical. I also believe that when people provide answers to formal surveys, they aren't always honest and give answers they think the researchers want to hear or that they think will make them sound more intelligent and thoughtful. The same thing, I believe, is true when it comes to relying too heavily on formally assembled focus groups.

Editors who really want to know what readers and potential readers read in their newspapers need to get out of the office, go where people are and talk to them informally and actually listen to what they are saying.

Editors also need to realize that their best and staunchest ally in understanding what sort of content appeals to readers in their market is their newspapers' circulation director.

I don't know how many times over the years I heard many of my fellow newspapers editors pompously and erroneously say: "It's not my job to sell newspapers. It's my job to inform the public. Selling papers is the circulation director's job."

Well, one of the industry's biggest problems is that far too many editors have done a great job of not selling newspapers and have failed to realize the paper that doesn't sell also doesn't do a very good job of informing the public. As bluntly as I can put it, it's my opinion that at a this critical time in the life of the industry, any editor who doesn't sell newspapers shouldn't be the editor for very long.

If content truly is the key to selling a newspaper, there are a number of things you can do to determine what sort of content actually attracts buyers. This is where both getting out of the office to talk to real people, real readers, in their natural habitat and a good working relationship with your paper's circulation director come in.

Throughout my 30+ years as an editor, I made a habit of identifying popular local breakfast spots that had a good mix of customers from laborers to professionals and executives. Then, at least once a month, I would stop in early (always at a different restaurant), get breakfast and look for people who where reading my newspaper, with the understanding that if they had a paper at the restaurant, they probably picked it up as an impulse, single-copy buy from a vending machine. I would politely approach the cafe readers, introduce myself and ask them why they had purchased the paper, what story or stories might have attracted them to make the buy and why that story or those stories had grabbed their interest. Although I would sometimes be told the paper was purchased for inside content -- particularly sports -- the majority of cafe readers I talked to over the years would cite a particular front page story as the reason for that morning's buy.

And what sort of stories most frequently fueled the single-copy impulse buy? Except for the occasional really big national or international story -- such as 9-11 or the killing of Osama Bin Laden -- it was usually a local hard (usually breaking and/or developing) news or investigative story. There's an old saying that "if it bleeds it leads." And, like it or not, it is still those sorts of stories that grab the single-copy buyer by the labels and give him or her a shake, not the story about the city's new multi-bazillion dollar sewer project -- unless of course the angle on THAT story is that the mayor's brother-in-law got the job on a no-bid contract.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you should take a mediocre story, sensationalize it and slap it on Page 1, like some grocery store tabloid, just to appeal to the prurient interests. However, you should understand that a really good, hard-hitting story given strong play above the fold on the front does draw in readers and sells papers.

Another way to learn what sorts of stories appeal to readers in your market is to work with your paper's circulation director who maintains loads of data on home-delivery and single-copy sales. Of these, the most important to use in determining what sorts of stories really attract readers are the single-copy numbers. Any good circulation director will readily tell you that the person most likely to be converted into a home-delivery buyer is the one who makes frequent single copy buys and can be convinced that it's a lot cheaper and easier to have the paper tossed on the front lawn every morning than having to run around town -- particularly on a Sunday -- and find one in a circulation vending machine.

Get your circulation director to provide you numbers that show when single copy sales jumped and then look at the papers for those days and inspect and think about the front page stories and how they were played.  Doing so will tell you a lot about types of stories that get people to read your paper.

At the last several papers where I was editor, I had clear plastic sleeves installed on the wall of the news department conference room so that either a week's or two weeks' worth of the above-the-fold portion the newspaper could be displayed. Then, I asked the circulation director to have the single copy manager post the sales figures for each of those day's papers plus the numbers for the corresponding day of the previous year. By inspecting those postings, I and everyone else who attended the daily news budget meetings could see what was and wasn't selling on the street, based on the type of content and it's front-page play.

Granted, if you follow the lead of what the single-copy sales numbers tell you, you are occasionally going to get calls from irate readers who accuse you of "only trying to sell newspapers." But, let's face you're already getting those calls -- even if you don't pay attention to single copy sales -- every time you run a story that some readers find offensive for whatever reason.  I don't know how many times over the years I've had angry callers hurl the "you only ran that story to sell newspapers" accusation at me over a story buried inside the local section where it had absolutely no impact on sales.

Keep in mind that even though such calls might cause your blood pressure to spike, they come from people who have at least bothered scoop your paper off the front lawn and read it. And having people read your paper is a good thing, even if they seem to do so only because they need something to piss them off in the morning.

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Blog Readers: If you enjoy reading my postings here on The Ancient Newspaper Editor, I sure would appreciate if you'd consider subscribing to or following the blog. It's easy to do and there are several options for doing so. If you look on the right side rail, you'll see the "Subscribe to" buttons and a "Subscribe by email" button. Just click any of those and follow the instructions. If you are a Google+ user you can click on the "Follow" button right under my profile picture and follow the instructions. Or, you can click on the "Google+ Add to Circles" button next to my photo and add me to your circles and get notifications of new blog entries when I post them. Also, please share the blog with your friends and colleagues.  Thanks for giving this consideration.

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Your thoughts and/or comments are welcomed.

IT'S BEEN A YEAR SINCE MY FINAL FAREWELL TO THE NEWSROOM

This is it! Retirement One Year Anniversary Day. At 4 p.m. today, it will be one year since I left the newsroom for the last time as editor of The Monitor in McAllen, Texas.

It's seemed like the shortest year of my life. I didn't die from lack of stress, nor have I been bored. In the past year the only day that I really wished I was in the newsroom was the day a couple of months ago when Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Trevino -- who I never trusted because of the false cult of personality he worked so hard to establish and the fact that he always protested way to much when anyone even HINTED that he might be less than always on the up and up -- resigned in advance of being indicted by the Feds on money laundering charges. He has since pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.

Mostly what I miss is the people I used to work with not just at just my last paper, The Monitor, but at all of the newspapers where I've worked since graduating from Indiana University: The Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal & Times; The (Jackson, Miss.) Clarion-Ledger; The Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram; The Cincinnati Post; The (Springfield, Ill.) State Journal-Register; and The (Florence, S.C.) Morning News.

I was fortunate in my nearly 45-year newspaper career to have worked with or under some excellent reporters, editors,  publishers and college professors to whom I am grateful for their impact on my newspapering tenure and from whom I learned much. They helped to make me a success. Notable among them were:

* John Anderson, editor of the New Albany (Ind.) Tribune, for whom I worked briefly at my first reporting job shortly after getting out of the Navy in 1966. When I told Anderson that I was thinking about just staying on at the Tribune instead of going back to college, he fired me. He then told me that if I still needed a job after I graduated, he'd be pleased to have me come back to the Trib.

* IU journalism professors Ron Farrar and Ralph Holsinger and hard-nosed journalism school dean John Stempel. They were all demanding taskmasters, but the training they provided to all of their students was invaluable.

* Robert Crumpler, city editor of The Louisville Times, from who I learned what it meant to be a truly great city editor. In the final analysis, I think that Crump and what I learned about newspapering from him was the single greatest influence on my career. In many ways, I tried to pattern myself after him.

* Dick Krantz, who headed the Times investigative team of which I was a member. Dick did more than anyone else to help me hone my investigative reporting skills -- skills that I tried to pass along to those who later worked for me.

* Don Farrell, who hired me at The Clarion-Ledger to head up the paper's fledgling investigative reporting team and then, after just four months, threatened to fire me if I didn't accept his offer to become the paper's city editor -- my first editing position.

* Rea Hederman, executive editor (also known as executive heir) of The Clarion-Ledger who promoted me to managing editor and protected me from the other members of his family who were involved in the upper management while the staff and I worked to transform a paper that had a reputation as being among the 10 worst in America to one that was considered one of the best its size. Were it not for his intercession, the paper would never have been able to win the more than 40 national journalism awards it won between 1977 and 1983, including the a Public Service Pulitzer for the last project I launched before leaving to become business editor at The Star-Telegram and culminating after the C-L was purchased by Gannett.

* Henry Holcomb, managing editor of The Star-Telegram, who hired me as business editor and taught me important lessons in newsroom diplomacy and later promoted me to assistant managing editor for news and projects. And Star-Telegram Executive Editor Jack Tinsley, who overcame some early jangly nerves to stand staunchly behind me and, even more importantly, behind Washington Bureau reporter Mark Thompson, during the firestorm that developed after we began publishing the Bell Helicopter series that went on to win the Public Service Pulitzer and several other major national awards.

* Publishers Barry Bingham Jr. of The Louisville Courier-Journal & Times, Phil Meek of The Star-Telegram, Tom Marschel of The (Florence, S.C.) Morning News, and Ray Stafford and his successor Olaf Frandsen of The Monitor, all of whom unwaveringly supported me and encouraged me to practice the sort of journalism I loved and believed made a difference.

I just hope that some of the reporters, photographers and editors who worked under me feel that I had a strong, positive influence on their careers and that I did an at least decent job of passing along to them the skills I was taught. I certainly know that I am grateful to many of them because their hard and diligent work helped to make me a success. Although there are more of these former staffers than I could possibly list here -- including a significant number who went on to win one or more Pulitzer Prizes and numerous other prestigious journalism awards -- some of the key ones include Rick Tulsky, Mark Thompson, Ryan Gabrielson, Nancy Weaver, Stephanie Saul, Johanna Neuman, Lauraine Miller, Pat Larkin, Dana Heupel, Larry Nighswander, John Liston, Henry Miller, Jeremy Roebuck, Mike Perry, Lee Ann Hamilton, Sara Ovaska, Jared Taylor, Kirsten Luce, Nathan Lambrecht, Delcia Lopez, Frank Kimmel, Ray Wong, Wade Baker, Marci Caltabiano-Ponce  and Mike Kelly (deceased).

Many old friends have passed on. Most recently -- about two weeks ago -- Kenneth Bunting, who I became friends with when he joined the staff of The Star-Telegram just shortly before I left my position there as night managing editor to become managing editor of The Cincinnati Post, one of the papers where Ken had previously worked. Ken, with whom I maintained contact as we both moved from paper to paper, was a highly skilled reporter and editor and an all-around great newspapering practitioner, but, even more than that, he was wonderful, warm and caring person whose last job was as director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition headquartered at the University of Missouri.

However, Ken and the others who are gone now still live on in nearly 45 years of wonderful memories of a career that I felt was worthwhile, in an endeavor that I believe actually made a difference in the world around me.

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RAY SULLIVAN, NEWSPAPERING WILL MISS YOU

Ray Sullivan, a good friend of many years, retired last week after more than 13 years as publisher of the Clovis News Journal, Portales News-Tribune and Quay County Sun in New Mexico and a total of some four decades as a newspaperman at papers big and small.

Over the years Ray and I have had lots of fun and often highly contentious political -- well, let's say -- "discussions," with him coming from right of and me from left of center. Although neither of us has EVER let the other win one of those discussions, which always seem to taper off into an exhausted truce, I have always had the utmost respect for Ray not only as a person, but also as a publisher and a newspaperman -- two things at which he was/is very skilled.

Looking back -- and probably forward, too, since I seriously doubt our political wranglings will end merely because we are both now retired from newspapering -- I think maybe one of the few politically charged things we've ever been in pretty much complete agreement on is the need to not only honor those who protect us through their military service, but also the duty to see that our veterans and their sacrifices are properly remembered and adequately and appropriately rewarded. Granted, we share what probably can only be described as a bias in this regard because we are both veterans. Ray was a Marine and I was a sailor and this gives us an understanding and appreciation of what it means to serve in the military and the issues faced when that service ends.

This made us an increasingly rarer breed in today's media -- journalists with military service -- and that worries me, particularly at a time when when we have service men and women engaged in hot situations in various places in the world and the potential for involvement in yet another if issues between the United States and Russia over Ukraine can't be settled sanely.

These military involvements are keeping our Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force regularly in the news. And the fact that fewer and fewer members of the media -- particularly "local" media -- have a firsthand understanding of things military worries me because it opens up all sorts of avenues for potentially embarrassing mistakes.

Although some of those potential mistakes might seem "minor" to those print, electronic, visual and digital journalists who've not been in the military, rest assured they are not trivial to those who are or have been and their family members.

Like any mistakes the media makes, those that occur with regard to things military cast doubt on our credibility -- particularly among members of the public who may already be predisposed to distrust us and seek any opportunity to believe that there are times when we don't know our asses from third base.

In case you've not already learned it, let me tell you from personal experience that veterans can be a cantankerous lot. They have little tolerance for members of the media who, for instance, don't understand that while everyone who has been in the military technically can be considered a G.I. (Government Issue) it is a term most often applied to soldiers in the Army; or that Marines want to be referred to as Marines, not soldiers; etc. It's been my experience, for example, that far too many of today's young journalists don't understand the difference between an officer and a non-com and haven't a clue as to the hierarchy of rank within the individual branches of service.  Even those with some understanding of the order of military ranks are sometimes confused by seeming inconsistencies such as the fact that while in the Army, Air Force and Marine Corps a major outranks a lieutenant, a lieutenant general outranks a major general; that a captain in the Navy is a several steps higher in rank than a captain in the other services; and that the "captain" of a ship in the Navy may or may not carry the actual rank of "captain."

Without veterans like Ray and me around to catch these potential mistakes, many a cantankerous vet could grow to regard your newspaper as totally FUBAR (and if you don't know what they means, I suggest you look it up), so much so that it could cost you readers or damage your credibility in your community -- things we simply can't afford.

Fortunately, we do have a safeguard against these sorts of goof ups. The AP Stylebook lays out all of this pretty clearly and if you're an editor, I suggest you familiarize yourself and get your staffers -- particularly your copy editors who are your last line of defense -- to familiarize themselves with the Stylebook's military entries.

Honestly, this is important and because it's a journalistic issue. It's one of those things Ray and I have discussed on and off over the years and are in thorough agreement on. But, then, that's among the things that I like and respect about Ray Sullivan. Despite our frequent political sparring, I really can't recall us ever disagreeing over what it takes to make a good newspaper -- particularly a good community newspaper -- that has value, meaning and relevance to readers.

I guess I could go on longer and discuss my view of Ray's values as a publisher who came up through the news department ranks, but why should I, since he expressed them far better than I ever could in his swansong, published in the Clovis New Journal in the waning days before his retirement: 

"Telling Clovis’ stories had profound impact

March 16, 2014

By Ray Sullivan
Growing up in Pueblo, Colo., I’d come home from school in the 1950s and ’60s, I’d do my chores and homework, then read an escapism western or sports story in a library book I’d checked out the Saturday before.

Ray Sullivan

I’d sprawl on the floor in front of the small black-and-white television and plug my ears with tucked up fingers to block out the sounds of my seven siblings. Then I would drown in the world of the images the words created in my mind’s eye.
Oh, I’d watch a bit of the hometown TV station’s kid show, but mostly I’d escape into the story at hand.
A book is where I first experienced the power of words strung together the right way. The comic strips of the Pueblo Star-Journal reinforced that belief. By seventh grade I knew I would be a storyteller.
I’ve had the good fortune and privilege to follow that meandering path through five states — Colorado and California, Idaho and Ohio, and now New Mexico. I quit twice, once for a brief Peace Corps stint and once from burnout — no balance between work and play and prayer. But the draw of ink rubbing off on my fingers was too powerful to ignore.
When I became an editor for the first time in Idaho in the late 1970s, my goal was the same as it is today: Produce a strong community news report. Be prepared to do it unflinchingly because newspapers that do things right are attacked when they don’t buckle under pressure to print only the truth as interpreted by one faction.
Some days we do that pretty well. Other days, well, not so much. Most importantly, we never give up. We strive always to produce the daily miracle of newspapers. Now we do so in print and online.
We’ve always been guided and supported by our readers. Recently, our latest report of the tumbleweed barrage was far better because of the public’s stories and photos, and they did so again last week with dozens of dust-storm photos we posted online.
Now that I’m 66 and a retiree of two days, I can say my career has been as rewarding here in what I call “The Flat Windy” as it was when words captured me back in junior high.
My wife of nearly 31 years, Bev, our cats and I drove here in late 2000 from Ohio, for my opportunity to become a publisher. Fulfilling that challenge has enriched and educated us far more than we expected.
This region grew on us quickly. Walking in the early mornings, my soul was filled with the breathtaking beauty of a full moon setting in the west as the bright sun peeked over the eastern horizon.
A trip to the Billy the Kid graveyard in Fort Sumner and its more somber partner, the Bosque Redondo Memorial, spoke volumes about our rich, sometimes shameful history in America’s hardscrabble west.
Tucumcari’s Route 66 remains remind us all that we had best find ways to strengthen our roots while seeking new opportunities. Portales’ vibrant town square and nearby university campus mirrors the success of that message.
In Clovis, our sounds started more than a century ago when the first shrill train whistle scared a plow horse. The notes soon were enriched by the roar of propeller-driven engines on those new-fangled aeroplanes landing and taking off at Portair Field. Today, of course, that’s Cannon Air Force Base, which keeps the sound of freedom alive with its fiercely dedicated special operations airmen and civilians.
Our love of music arose in our first schools and churches and that morphed into the Clovis Sound out on West Seventh in the 1950s. We celebrate that sound today at the annual Clovis Music Festival.
And don’t forget the musical sound of water. This life-giving, scarce commodity offers a healing sound as it nurtures our farm fields and parks. We can’t lose that sound, people. We are in the west so of course we fight over water. But we best not fight each other so hard our neighbors take our liquid gold.
My final sound, though, is heard throughout our Clovis Media buildings each day as our good people take care of your needs. They do it well and our business is as vibrant today as ever. We were blessed with new owners 25 months ago when Gary and Sue Stevenson and Garry Ellis bought the Clovis News Journal, Portales News-Tribune and Quay County Sun from Freedom Communications. They restored balance out of what had eroded into a corporate labyrinth that made good newspapering difficult. They let us do our jobs. It is a gift I will take to my grave.
In Clovis the music culminates six nights a week when we turn on our presses. I love the expanding reach of the Internet, but when the motors on the only newspaper presses within 90 miles rev up, I feel the goose bumps of freedom arising.
It is that sound I will miss as much as the tunes played by our eastern New Mexico winds."

In closing, I will only say that when a journalist-editor-publishers like Ray Sullivan retires, it leaves a hole in the fabric of American newspapering.

Thanks, Ray, for your service to the nation and, even more importantly, your service to the newspaper business.

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