NewspaperAlum

Former Chicago Tribune Pulitzer Prize-Winning Investigative Reporter Maurice Possley Outran the Avalanche

Maurice Possley, his wife, Cathleen Falsani, and their adopted son, Vasco Possley

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Chicago Tribune investigative reporter Maurice Possley [See Biography ], unable to bear to see the newspaper he worked at for almost 25 years dismantled like it was a traveling circus; with reduced space, budgets cut, staff slashed, made the most difficult decision of his 36-year journalism career by submitting his resignation in July, 2008 to seek a better life outside of the newspaper industry and far away from the sharp knife of Tribune owner Sam Zell.

Did this Pulitzer Prize winning journalist make the right choice by taking a buyout?

Pull up a chair; I have a story to tell.

While deciding on his next move, Possley freelanced for the Chicago Sun-Times before accepting a position in the fall of 2008 to teach a course on the causes of wrongful convictions at the University of Michigan Law School, a course he taught along with Sam Gross, professor of Law at the University.

During the cold Michigan winter of February, 2008, Possley, by sheer happenstance, crossed paths with Kathleen "Cookie" Ridolfi, executive director of the Northern California Innocence Project at Santa Clara University School of Law. The next month, she extended to him an offer for a one-year position as an investigator researcher at NCIP to work on an investigative project on prosecutorial misconduct.  Possley accepted and began in the fall of 2009.

Uncertain what the future would hold just a few short months ago, things were beginning to fall into place for this former Tribune staffer.

In March, 2008, Posley signed a contract to write a non-fiction book about a WWII soldier who had volunteered to lead a mission into Munich in the waning days of the war to capture and kill Adolf Hitler. Once his teaching duties ended at the University of Michigan Law School, he began in April writing the book with his co-author, John Woodbridge.

Possley wasn’t the only journalist in the family. His wife, Cathleen Falsani, was a religion writer for the Chicago Sun-Times who had written a book called ``The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People’’   and donated part of her advance to a charity in Blantyre, Malawi, that works to get street kids--orphans--off the streets and reunite them with extended family members.

This is where the plot thickens.

In 2006, Falsani bought a raffle ticket at a fundraiser for a Chicago non-governmental organization that does micro-finance in Tanzania and Kenya; and lo and behold she won--a two week trip to Africa for two. They both flew off in the fall of 2007 and extended it for an additional week, in part to take a side trip to Malawi and visit the charity. While there, fate intervened, when they were introduced to a tiny 9-year-old boy, gaunt, noticeably unhealthy, weighing a mere 35 pounds, but wielding a big bright smile- larger than life-who was an orphan and who was dying of a hole in his heart. His name was Vasco Sylvester.

Once back on American soil, Possley’s wife wrote a column, chronicling the plight of Vasco Sylvester and other children like him who are helpless living in a country in which heart surgery simply doesn’t exist.  So moved by her column, a hospital came forward and volunteered their services (at no cost to the patient) provided they were able to get the young boy to Chicago.  After negotiating through a number of bureaucratic hoops, Possley and his wife finally managed to get Vasco Sylvester to the Windy City in April, 2009.

The next logical step would have been for Possley and his wife to adopt the parentless boy. But the law in Malawi, at the time, prohibited adoption of children unless the adoptive parents lived in the country for three years. Having eliminated the thought of adopting him, their next plan of attack was to make sure he underwent surgery and then return him to his homeland two weeks later.

But the young boy’s condition worsened; he came down with malaria, so surgery was delayed until June. During the ensuing months, fate intervened yet again when the Malawi High Court overturned the residency law. The change in the residency law came about when American singer Madonna after failing to meet the residency requirements, went on an international crusade to have the law changed so that she would be able to adopt a 4 year-old girl from Malawi, Chifundo ``Mercy’’ James. The pop star won her appeal in June, 2009.

Encouraged by the new ruling, Possley and his wife immediately put in motion plans to adopt Vasco. The surgery, performed at Hope Children's Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, just outside Chicago was successful and the couple moved to California (Laguna Beach) in July 2009, just in time for Possley to begin working at the Northern California Innocence Project (NCIP). By October, 2009, he finished the manuscript of his World War II book, ``Hitler in the Crosshairs: A GI’s Story of Courage and Faith.’’

After many nights tossing and turning, I’m sure, the news they were anxiously awaiting finally arrived.

In May 2010, an email landed in their inbox, saying they had a court date in Malawi in three weeks. Traveling faster than a speed of light, they got to Malawi and a month later, returned with their adopted son--now named, Vasco Fitzmaurice Mark David Possley.

In October 2010, NCIP published the prosecutorial misconduct study--the largest state study of the issue ever published. Possley’s contract, meanwhile, had been renewed for a second year, which paved the way for a follow up study in the spring of 2011.

Funding at NCIP, however, dried up and his contract wasn’t renewed for 2012.

But as one door slammed shut, another flew open.

John Jay College of Criminal Justice's Center on Media, Crime and Justice hired Possley to a part-time contract to inform and educate journalists on the issue of pretrial detention, a position he held previously on the subject of gun violence.

And in late 2011, Sam Gross, the professor he previously taught with, asked for his assistance  on a project at the University of Michigan Law School and Northwestern University's Center on Wrongful Convictions, a project Gross had been working on for several years and was planning on going public with--The National Registry of Exonerations.

Possley worked part-time for them until late spring when he became a full-time writer and researcher for the Registry, the largest collection of exonerated defendants ever assembled.

He and his wife still live in Laguna Beach. Vasco, their adopted son, is doing extremely well, putting on some much needed weight; he’s learned to skateboard, surf, snowboard and has even displayed some dazzling foot work on the soccer field. Possley says in three years he has gone from speaking not a word of English to being fluent as he prepares for the 7th grade in the fall.

Simply remarkable, considering the youngster never attended school before. Though he still needs to catch up in certain areas of his education, he is miraculously flourishing in school.

The continued death march of the newspaper industry finally caught up with his wife, Cathleen, who was laid off by the Chicago Sun-Times (she had been submitting columns from California ) and now works (and cyber commutes) as director of new media for Sojourners Magazine, which is based in Washington, D.C. She continues to write books.

Having spent a good chunk of his adult life at a daily newspaper, how much does Possley still miss the routine and exhilaration of meeting deadlines and working on investigative pieces?

``I do miss the work I was doing’’ Possley tells me, `` and the friends whose lives were intertwined with mine in the workplace. But I haven't looked back and have no regrets. I have discovered it is possible to outrun the avalanche.’’

In 2008, Possley was one of two lead members of a team  of Chicago Tribune reporters awarded the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for a series of articles on hazardous children’s products that prompted numerous recalls as well as the most comprehensive overhaul of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission in the history of that agency.

Previously, he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist on three different occasions:  once for public service (2000), and twice for national reporting (2001, 2007) — for his work on wrongful convictions and wrongful executions.

In addition to his book on Hitler, Possley authored two other nonfiction works: ``Everybody Pays: Two Men, One Murder and the Price of Truth’’  and ``The Brown’s Chicken Massacre’’  .

He is a 1972 graduate of Loyola University in Chicago, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in communications.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
July 31, 2012

Crime Pays for former St. Louis Dispatch Reporter, Ted Gest

After spending eight years working at his home-town newspaper, where he was covering crime, courts and criminal justice, Ted Gest left the St. Louis Dispatch in 1977 to work for U.S. News & World Report. 

Interestingly, he left for the Washington D.C. based national news magazine hoping that he would be on the crime beat, the position he originally applied for but ended up covering the Jimmy Carter administration for three years before gravitating toward ``legal affairs’’ covering the Justice Department, the U.S. Supreme Court and other related areas. After 1996, he served as national news editor and as a writer on law schools and other education issues, including the U.S. News law school rankings, a regular feature he began in the late 1980's, which sparked a storm of controversy. Gest stayed at U.S. News & World Report  for nearly 24 years.

In 2001,, he wrote: ``Crime & Politics: Big Government's Erratic Campaign for Law and Order'' ,  a book dealing with anticrime policy in the United States since the late 1960s.

During his long tenure at U.S. News & World Report, Gest co-founded a national group called Criminal Justice Journalists. After securing funding in 2001 to run the organization, Gest left the news magazine, but continued to keep a foot in the business with journalism training programs.

Before blogs took hold and became such a common fixture on the Web, Gest began writing a news digest in 2003 on crime and justice, which is still going strong and can be found at The Crime Report.   The Website, by the way, is invaluable for any working journalist with the way it regularly updates resources for journalists, such as a ``gun violence expert resource guide’’, guides and tips for covering criminal justice issues and even a  job board for positions available to journalists looking for employment outside of the newspaper industry.

The Crime Report or TCR is a collaborative effort by the Center on Media, Crime and Justice, the nation’s leading practice-oriented think tank on crime and justice reporting; and Criminal Justice Journalists, the nation’s only membership organization of crime-beat journalists, providing comprehensive news dealing with criminal justice in the U.S. and abroad.

Gest has been president of the Criminal Justice Journalists organization since 1998.

Despite being away from print publications in the traditional sense, Gest says he not only summarizes other contributors work, but also produces his own original writing and is especially proud to report his organization is the only entity covering crime policy news.

In addition, the Criminal Justice Journalists organization has about 500 members on a private listserv called ``Cops & Courts Reporters’’  , where they exchange tips, queries, and other helpful information related to crime reporting.

As if Gest’s plate was full enough, another opportunity came knocking not long ago. Last summer, the District of Columbia Attorney General's office asked this seasoned crime reporter to work part-time as their public information officer.  Having never worked on that side of the fence before in his 40 years as a journalist, Gest couldn’t refuse the offer.  The agency deals mostly with civil cases, but occasionally handles criminal cases as well.  In order to avoid potential conflicts, Gest steers clear of engaging in any original journalism that involves the D.C. government.  The PIO position involves what you might expect: monitoring newspaper and criminal justice blogs, along with anything from listservs to YouTube.

Has his perspective changed now that he is working on the other side of the fence? Gest says he does indeed notice a fair share of errors and misunderstanding with news organizations he deals with, but he came to the job expecting that.

Despite the vast reservoir of  veteran generalists with so much specialization and institutional memory having left daily newspapers over the last decade, Gest still thinks there is plenty of quality journalism being produced and resists believing, like so many others have, that the content of U.S. newspaper reporting has taken a sharp turn for the worse.

He  is a graduate of Oberlin College and the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
July 29, 2012

Linda Greenhouse Now Holding Court at Yale Law School

Former Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse [See Biography ] was kind enough to check in with Newspaper Alum to say since leaving The New York Times, she has taken her talents not to South Beach, but to New Haven, Connecticut on the northern shore of Long Island Sound, where she has been teaching at Yale Law School as the Knight Distinguished Journalist in Residence and the Joseph Goldstein Lecturer in Law. She teaches courses on the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 2008, soon after celebrating her 40-year anniversary with the Times, Ms. Greenhouse accepted a company buyout after having covered 29 sessions of the Supreme Court. Except for two years during the 1980’s when she reported on Congress, she covered the Supreme Court from 1978 through the summer of 2008.

Greenhouse first landed at the Times during the turbulent year of 1968 as a news clerk to James Reston, considered one of the most influential columnists of his generation.  In 1969, she was promoted to general assignment reporter and year later became a Westchester County correspondent, a position she held for three years.  Before moving to Albany to cover the New York State legislature and state government and eventually becoming the Times state bureau chief, she spent a short time on the night rewrite desk.

After taking time off  from 1977 to 1978 to earn her Master of Studies in Law from Yale Law School which she attended on a Ford Foundation fellowship, Greenhouse joined the Times Washington Bureau in 1978.

She earned a Pulitzer Prize in 1998 in the category of ``Beat Reporting’’ for ``her consistently illuminating coverage of the United States Supreme Court’’ according to the Pulitzer committee. In 2002, the American Political Science Association bestowed on her their Carey McWilliams Award for “a major journalistic contribution to our understanding of politics.”  In 2004, she received the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism and the John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism.  In 2005, The Council of the American Philosophical Society awarded her its Henry Allen Moe Prize for writing in the humanities and jurisprudence; and in 2006, she became a Radcliffe Institute Medal winner.

Since leaving the Times, Greenhouse tells me she has written two books: ``Before Roe v. Wade: Voices that Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court's Ruling’’   and ``The U.S. Supreme Court: A Very Short Introduction ‘’ .  In 2005, she wrote a biography of Justice Harry A. Blackmun: ``Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun's Supreme Court Journey ''

Loyal readers to the Times’ pages know that Greenhouse still weighs in from time to time with her keen insight and analysis on the latest contentious issues facing the Court. She also regularly produces a biweekly column for the Times Opinionator, writing about the Supreme Court and law.

Greenhouse is a national board member of the American Constitution Society and a member of the Council of the American Philosophical Society.

She is a 1968 graduate of Radcliffe College (Harvard), where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Born in New York City, Greenhouse grew up in Hamden, CT. She is married to Eugene R. Fidell, Florence Rogatz Lecturer in Law at Yale.  Their daughter, Hannah, attends graduate school in New York.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
July 26, 2012

Dave Marcus Has Survived Quakes, Coups, Car Bombings and the Collapse of the Newspaper Industry

When I approached Dave Marcus [See Biography ] about providing an update of his whereabouts since leaving the newspaper industry, he found himself wrestling with the proper metaphor for a journalist who leaves the business. By a process of elimination, he sliced it down to two possibilities: an addict who gives up crack or the guy who gets jilted by the most beautiful girl in high school.

When Marcus stepped away from his position at Newsday in 2010, where he was covering education, it completed his three decade long rendezvous with journalism, which began in the bureau of The Miami Herald, where he was covering education, appropriately enough.

His journey spanning the globe, (which in addition to the Miami Herald and Newsday) has included tours of duty with the Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News, and US News & World Report as a society columnist, roving national reporter, and foreign correspondent, taking him into the heart of Mexico City to cover events unfolding in one of the most important financial centers in North America. He also spent time covering the deadly anti-narcotics campaign in Colombia. Other assignments abroad (nearly 50 countries) have included reporting the historic breakup of the Soviet Union, the US military invasion of Panama, the 1991 Gulf War, and the return of Hong Kong to China.

Along the way, he parachuted into Uzbekistan, Angola, Haiti and other major hot spots for coups, quakes, and even managed to pound out a feature about a 110-year old woman living in rural Texas, who got her first phone.

In 1994, Marcus shared a Pulitzer Prize while at the Dallas Morning News for International Reporting for a series about violence against women around the world.  In 1990, he was a member of a team of Pulitzer finalists in Explanatory Journalism, for “Hidden Wars,” a look at conflicts in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

Marcus isn’t shy about showering heaps of praise on some of the greatest newspaper editors he claims he was lucky enough to have been surrounded with through the years, namely, Gene Miller, Doug Clifton, John Brecher, David Shribman, and Phil Bennett.

And while there have been plenty of triumphs, conquests, and jubilant highs during Marcus’s distinguished career, there certainly have been some lows as well, such as being mugged and pistol-whipped in a taxi in Mexico; or surveying the damage from Pablo Escobar’s car bombs in Colombia; or having the living room window in his home and office shot in Bogota, while discovering a 9 mm slug in his couch.

Clearly, though, the biggest low point in Marcus’s career has been witnessing the collapse of the newspaper industry.  In particular, the layoffs at U.S. News & World Report and a 10 percent paycut at Newsday left this well traveled journalist dispirited and discouraged. ``I loved journalism’’ Marcus told me, ``but the business turned miserly and querulous. ‘’

Taking a quick overview of Marcus’s career, it becomes apparent that the topic which remains  near and dear to his heart is with education, which has led him to writing books, one of which came during a sabbatical from U.S. News & World Report. He wrote ``What It Takes To Pull Me Through: Why Teenagers Get in Trouble and How Four Got Out’’  , a book which chronicles the true story of a group of teenagers who engaged in drug use, drank excessively, ran away from home and quietly suffered depression.  He later spent three years researching and writing a nonfiction book: ``Acceptance: A Legendary Guidance Counselor Helps Seven Kids Find the Right College – and Find Themselves (Penguin Press).  The book is intended for high school students as well as adults.

And like many journalists looking for new careers outside of print journalism, Marcus has reinvented himself as a speaker at high schools and conferences, stretching from Beverly Hills, Calif., to Derryfield, NH. 

In addition to public speaking tours, Marcus has taken to blogging from time to time for The New York Times about higher education. A nice assignment except for the fact they follow the Huffington Post model and don’t pay for such contributions.  He did receive several touching responses about a piece he wrote for the Times in 2010 about his 14-year old son who struggles with some classes in school. 

Lately, as Marcus weighs what to do next, he tells me he’s fielded a number of offers from publishing houses to write another book, but his children (presumably knowing how self-absorbed he becomes when committing to writing projects) have begged him to put off writing a book, at least for a while.

Still, he is giving serious thought to a ghost writing project dealing with a book about divorce, a subject he knows all too well-since he went through one.  Marcus jokes that since he survived a divorce, just like he survived Pablo Escobar’s car bombs, maybe he is destined to work on this project after all.

Aside from exploring possible writing projects, ever since he was a cub reporter at The Miami Herald, Marcus has fantasized about being a stand-up comic. Turns out, his dream will turn into a reality soon as he finally worked up enough courage to perform live. He’s in the process of polishing his act. But with 30 years of journalism under his belt, he said he’s well stocked with material. We’ll just have to wait to see if his humor is close to the philosophy and social criticism of Lenny Bruce or the rapid fire one-liners of Henny Youngman.

Marcus graduated from Brown University; and later studied Latin American literature at the University of the Andes in Bogota, Colombia. During his journalism career he took a year off to spend time as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard, with a concentration on urban planning and immigration.

He has been a visiting lecturer  at the University of Houston, a visiting professor at the University of Massachusetts and a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow at three colleges.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
July 23, 2012

 

Former L.A. Times TV Critic Howard Rosenberg Enjoying the Life of Academia

Howard Rosenberg, [See Biography ] retired media columnist of the L.A. Times, fortunately, doesn’t have the time to while away the days on his front porch, reflecting on his 25 years as television critic at one of the largest metropolitan dailies in the United States.

The reason? Since leaving the Times in 2003, one of newspaper’s most outspoken critics has been much too busy writing ``Not So Prime Time: Chasing the Trivial on American Television’’ , an anthology of his columns, along with `` No Time To Think: The Menace of Media Speed and the 24-hour News Cycle’’ ,  a  book published in 2008, which he co-wrote with former CNN reporter Charles S. Feldman. The book chronicles the frenzied nature of presenting television and cable news at break-neck speed, which, in reality, often isn’t all that newsworthy and isn’t always accurate. Just consider CNN and Fox News inaccurately reporting President Obama’s health care law was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court and you pretty much get the gist of the book and why it’s considered by many to be so prophetic.

Rosenberg has also entered the halls of academia at the University of Southern California, where he teaches three courses--news ethics in the Annenberg School for Communication, along with critical writing and a TV symposium in the School of Cinematic Arts.

He’s actually been teaching at USC as an adjunct since 1991, but since leaving the Times, he’s taken on more of load.  ``Although there are frustrations’’, Rosenberg tells me, ``I like teaching nearly all of the time and have a deep affection for students. The money is adequate, the fringes great and having summers off is to die for.’’

During his flourishing journalism career at the Times, Rosenberg was a recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for television criticism in 1985; he was also named the nation's best television critic in a 1996 survey of his colleagues conducted by Electronic Media; and in 1995 was named one of the nine national media critics "with clout" by the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center at Columbia University.

Prior to landing in Southern California to work for the Times, Rosenberg reported for the Moline (Ill.) Dispatch, later as a reporter and television critic for the Louisville Times.  His journalism career was launched soon after he earned his master’s degree, and secured a position as editor of The White Bear Press, a weekly on the outskirts of St. Paul, Minnesota.

Though he left the newspaper business on his own volition, (he wasn’t pushed out, laid-off, or forced to take a buyout) while fortunate enough to take an attractive pension and considers himself financially secure, Rosenberg knows a number of excellent top rate journalists not so fortunate who have been thrown overboard by their newspapers, for the usual crummy reasons, and remain adrift with no good prospects. ``It saddens and sickens me’’ Rosenberg says.

Rosenberg attributes most of his good fortunate since leaving the Times to pure luck. ``I had a high-profile job for a high-profile paper in an urban setting that offered probably more media-related opportunities that are available in most other places.''

Happy to be living a second life away from the stress of looming deadlines and beating competitors to the punch, Rosenberg admits he misses, at times, not being able to vent his pent-up frustrations through the medium of a newspaper column. ``If I ranted to my students’’, Rosenberg deadpanned, ``they'd rebel and throw their iPhones at me. Instead, my wife takes the full brunt--day and night--and it's not pleasant seeing her head explode.’’

The former Times’ critic did try to get back into the swing of writing a monthly column for Broadcasting Magazine and a monthly commentary on media for the L.A. Times in 2008, but gave them both up because he no longer wished to face deadlines, even monthly ones.

Rosenberg’s passion is now writing mystery fiction and is on this third novel, but says ``no one yet is swooning over my genius.’’ His sharp wit remains intact.

A native of Kansas City, Rosenberg earned a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Oklahoma and a Master’s degree in political science from the University of Minnesota.

He and his wife, Carol, live in a suburb of Los Angeles with a cockatiel, and two cats.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
July 18, 2012

Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist William Dietrich Offers Tips for getting a Book Published

I recently caught up with award winning journalist William Dietrich [See Bio ] who is now a successful novelist, non-fiction writer and college professor.

During his well traveled journalism career, Dietrich, a Tacoma, Washington native, covered Congress for Gannett News Service in Washington, D.C., he later arrived at the Vancouver Columbian just in time to cover the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens; and beginning in 1982, reported on the condition of the world’s forests for the Seattle Times as its chief science correspondent, where he worked on and off until 2008, getting as far as the Artic and the South Pole.

 In 1990, while at the Times, Dietrich shared a Pulitzer Prize in 1990 for its coverage of the Exxon Valdez oil spill and its aftermath.

In 1987-88, Dietrich was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and later won reporting and study fellowships from the National Science Foundation, Woods Hole Microbiological Institute, and Scripps.

From 2006-2011, he took a half-time position as an assistant professor teaching environmental journalism and writing at Western Washington University, his alma mater, advising a student magazine called Planet, a publication Dietrich is extremely proud of.

Though this veteran journalist loved the ``golden age’’ of newspapering reporting when the sky was the limit as far as newsroom budgets go, when an opportunity presented itself, Dietrich jumped at the chance to write his first book, the ``The Final Forest: The Battle for the Last Great Trees of the Pacific Northwest’’  because as he tells me, ``I wanted to grow as a writer, to have a chance at more than wage-slave pay, and to gain freedom away from the news cycle.’’

Soon after it was published, ``The Final Forest’’ won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award and Washington Governor Writer’s Award.

Since his first book, Dietrich has published 10 works of fiction , mostly historical novels and thrillers, including ``Blood of the Reich’’, ``The Emerald Storm’’, the ``Rosetta Key’’, ``Napoleon’s Pyramids’’ and ``Hadrian’s Wall.’’ Other works of non-fiction by Dietrich, include: ``Natural Grace’’, ``Northwest Passage’’ and ``On Puget Sound''

And for journalists looking to branch out into the book publishing, Dietrich has good news for you:  the market is perfectly tailored to your strengths.  ``Book publishers’’ Dietrich says, `` recognize that journalists have advantages.’’ `` We understand deadlines, are accustomed to being edited, know how to research, can work in a collaborative setting with a publishing house, and can tell a story. We have discipline; we know there is no such thing as writer's block. We understand that writing for pay is a merger of art and commerce. We're more realistic than many new authors’’

But as in any competitive publishing market, there are some built-in disadvantages for print journalists trying their hand at book publishing.  For one, the objectivity and brevity of newspaper style reporting doesn’t make for a compelling book. Preachy editorials, Dietrich cautions, is yet another style to avoid when writing books.  ``We have to learn to reveal ourselves and reach for broader truths. As a regional reporter I was relentless in localizing any story; but the big book publishers want a story to have a national or global audience’’ Dietrich advises.

Based on Dietrich’s publishing experience, other critical fundamentals to keep in mind when writing a book:

• As an author you need to develop a distinctive voice readers want to come back to.

 

• Most book careers take time, and several books, before they begin to take off. Instant fame and fortune is as unlikely as winning the lottery.

 

• There are more non-fiction books published than fiction, and they are easier to publicize because they have a specific topic and audience. Getting attention to fiction is difficult. Keep in mind there are more female book buyers than male, especially for fiction.

 

• Bestselling thriller writer Lee Child said the ONLY way to sell books in the millions is to write at a level for people who usually don't buy books, or buy two or three a year.

 

• Take what you know, or enjoy learning. (I like history and science). Now, what can you write something on that can appeal to a broad audience?

 

• I strongly recommend, picking up a copy of ``Thinking Like Your Editor" by Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato. They stress audience, market, and the distinctions between an article and a book.

 

• Don't be arrogant. Sure, you were a newsroom hotshot. But book writing is a whole new game, and you learn it not just by doing it but by reading books on writing, attending writing conferences, featuring authors and agents, and reading author biographies. Books that have helped make sense of that strange world, include: "The Writer's Journey" by Christopher Vogler, ``Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting'' By Robert McKee " ``The Successful Novelist’’ by David Morrell, ``The Career Novelist: A Literary Agent Offers Strategies for Success'' By Donald Maass "On Writing" by Stephen King, and ``The Art of War for Writers: Fiction Writing Strategies, Tactics, and Exercises'' By James Scott Bell.

 Not only is it possible for journalists to successfully segue their writing skills to book form, but thousands have already made the transition with rousing success, dating back to Daniel Defoe, Mark Twain, and Ernest Hemingway,  Dietrich reminds me.

Would it make more practical sense for a journalist looking to reinvent themselves in a competitive job market to venture off into more marketable fields, such as nursing, acquiring an MBA or developing a degree of specialization in a high tech occupation? Of course, except that Dietrich is quick to point out, aren’t we missing the whole point of life? `` Taking risks, realizing dreams, seeking independence. Be brave, be ambitious, be a little crazy. Just be prepared to work your butt off in ANY alternate career. It's a jungle out there’’ Dietrich cautions.

Dietrich attended Fairhaven College at Western Washington University, graduating with a degree in journalism. He and his wife, Holly, proud parents of two grown daughters, currently live on the edge of Washington's San Juan Islands with a birds-eye view of the three national parks, while being able to see bald eagles, herons, and raccoons from the comforts of their office window.

-Bill Lucey

[email protected]

July 16, 2012

 

20-Year Anniversary of Hurricane Andrew: A Q & A with Doug Clifton

The Miami Herald newsroom the night of Hurricane Andrew. Doug Clifton with hands on hips;   Doug Adrianson wearing the red shirt; Aaron Rubin far right next to the plant. The person sleeping on the couch remains a mystery.

Doug and Peg Clifton enjoying retirement

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Since we are fast approaching the 20-year anniversary of Hurricane Andrew, former Miami Herald executive editor Doug Clifton was kind enough to answer my questions about the Herald’s Pulitzer Prize winning coverage of the second costliest tropical cyclone in U.S history.

Andrew slammed into South Florida with a vengeance on Monday, August 24, 1992 with towns of Homestead, Florida City and Cutler Ridge near Miami absorbing the brunt of the storm.   By the time it was over, Andrew left about 250, 000 people homeless, killed 26 people and caused more than $25 billion of damage in Florida and another billion in Louisiana.

In addition to being executive editor of the Miami Herald from 1991 through 1999, Mr. Clifton was editor of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland from 1999 until his retirement in 2007; and was inducted into the Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame on Oct. 25, 2007. Under Clifton’s strong leadership, The Herald came away with four Pulitzer Prizes, including its 1999 investigation on voter fraud in Miami's mayoral election.

A Brooklyn, N.Y., native, Clifton graduated from Dowling College on Long Island with a degree in political science and served three years in the Army, including a year in Vietnam as an artillery officer. He lives in Weybridge Vermont with his wife Peg and is a member of The Vermont Journalism Trust, a nonprofit organization and director of the New England First Amendment Coalition.
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Q. Did you have any idea how destructive the storm would be? It’s my understanding not many people paid much attention to the storm until Saturday morning August 21 when the storm was 800 miles east of Miami.

A. Hurricane forecasting 20 years ago was pretty good, but not as good as it is today. And in the best of times hurricanes are capable of producing surprises. We had no certainty where it would make landfall and at what intensity. So, yes, it wasn’t until that Saturday morning that we realized the potential for disaster was great.

Q.) It’s hard to believe not so long ago newsrooms didn’t have access to email, mobile phones, text messaging and Internet postings. Was the Herald hampered at all with communication meltdowns during your coverage, such as loss of electricity in your offices, lack of phone service, computer glitches?

A.) Clearly the job of covering a monster storm like Andrew was hampered by loss of power, cell phone service and, in some cases, landline failure. But an even bigger problem was getting around streets made impassable by fallen trees and discovering that so many of your staffers were themselves victims of the storm. Staff heroism proved to be the most powerful asset we had.  

Q. Approximately how many Herald staff members were involved in covering the hurricane from reporters to photographers to desk editors?

 A. At that time The Herald newsroom staff stood at about 500. It’s not an exaggeration to say that nearly every one of those 500 were involved in the coverage. Everyone was a city desk reporter. All the specialty staffs became general news reporters in the immediate aftermath of the storm. We were both victims and chroniclers. Suffering the perils of the storm gave our reporting unparalleled depth. Many of our people lived in neighborhoods that were among the hardest hit and we learned of exactly how hard because we suffered along with our readers.     
  
Q. The Miami Herald came away with two Pulitzer’s in 1993, one of which was for Public Service for your coverage of the Hurricane. Given the limited staff challenges facing newspapers today, would such outstanding coverage be possible today if another such hurricane slammed into South Florida?

 A. I’d like to think that even the much reduced Miami Herald of today would do a credible job of covering a storm of equal severity. Newsrooms seem to step up to whatever challenge they face.  The New Orleans Times Picayune, with a staff a fraction of The Herald’s, did a superb job covering Katrina. Newspapers smaller than the Picayune in the Gulf region did a stellar job as well. When floods nearly drowned Grand Forks, the paper there, a paper with a newsroom staff of a couple of dozen, did Pulitzer level work. That’s what good newsroom do.    

Q. After the hurricane hit, how did you begin organizing what kind of stories you wanted covered and who would be involved? Were the staff meetings, especially in the early stages, filled with chaos and confusion?

A.  Although South Florida hadn’t lived through a big hurricane in decades we never stopped drafting contingency plans. And although we weren’t hit we chased storms throughout the region. So we had a staff with hurricane experience. Still, covering a storm in someone else’s neighborhood isn’t the same as covering it in your own. So there was a level of chaos but it was tempered by a newsroom that had some experience covering big stories.  Naturally we faced coverage problems, all the ones one would expect - communication failures, access to sources, staffers immobilized by the storm. But compounding those problems were even bigger ones - like printing the newspaper, like distributing it if you could get it printed, like keeping the lights on. Two levels of meeting went on in the days following landfall - newsroom coverage meetings and paper-wide production/distribution meetings. They started out chaotic but settled into something approaching routine within a day or two. Initially we had no water and water is an integral part of the printing process, so the production folks needed to truck water in. Until they found a way to do that they jury rigged a water capturing system by tapping into the air conditioners, which were being powered by backup generators. It seemed that as soon as one disaster was avoided another one popped up and another creative solution was concocted to handle it. By comparison the newsroom had it easy. We just did what we were conditioned to do, albeit under restrictive conditions. One of the things we decided after about the second day was that we needed an investigative component of our coverage that would go on for as long as it took. The looming question was how did the South Florida Building code hold up to the high wind and deep water. Did all the new construction do better or worse than the old stuff. Were construction corners cut? Was the code enforced? Were inspections lax? Were they corrupted? We detached people on the I-Team to chase those angles. We also realized that insurance questions would loom large as folks emerged from the rubble. Business reporters became instant experts and shared their knowledge with readers. Each day presented a new set of problems that needed coverage so the plan was tweaked constantly.  

Q. How prepared were the residents, local government, law enforcement officials, and shelters for Hurricane Andrew, given the last hurricane to hit South Florida with such destructive force was back in 1926?

 A. Compared to a region that had no experience with natural disasters, Dade County was well prepared. When you live in the hurricane belt preparedness is required. But every storm is unique. This one was a doozie. No matter how good the plan, reality steps in and tweaks your nose. Andrew did that to all of us to one extent or another.

Q. Given an estimated 90,000 residents were forced to leave Dade and Broward counties by November 1992, what kind of effect did this have on the economy and the morale of South Florida?

 A. Oddly, Dade County experienced an upward blip in the economy after Andrew. A third of the county lost nearly everything. Houses needed to be rebuilt. Appliances needed to be replaced. Landscaping needed to be restored. Roofs need to be patched. That proved to give the region a boost.

Q. Was the Herald’s coverage influential in changing how South Florida would prepare for hurricanes in the future, such as with building codes, warning systems, and evacuation provisions?

 A. The Herald’s coverage of the building code and its enforcement resulted in reforms. Only another hurricane will reveal whether they were implemented.

Q. Were there any staff members, in particular, at the Herald who really earned their stripes with their scrupulous investigations, remarkable reporting or capturing vivid images of distraught victims?

A.  It would be wrong to name MVPs on a staff that was full of them. That’s not a platitude. Everyone produced great work in the face of incredible obstacles - professional and personal. It was a real honor to have been there with them.

Q. Since there was no online news in 1992, did the Herald have any challenges distributing editions to resident’s or customers? Do you recall if the Herald sold a record number of issues at the newsstand?

A. The Herald carrier force was decimated by the storm. We assembled a substitute force that included people from every division including publisher and the editor. We distributed the paper free to any house that showed evidence that people lived there. It was the only time I was ever cheered for throwing a paper.

****

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
July 15, 2012

Veteran Philadelphia Inquirer newsman Murray Dubin ticks to another clock as an author

When Murray Dubin didn’t feel the clock ticking anymore, he knew it was time to get out.

After 34 years at the Philadelphia Inquirer, which included stints covering City Hall, housing, family and children, radical groups, neighborhoods, ethnicity and race, Dubin left the paper in 2005 to devote his energy full-time to writing a book.

During his extended stay at the Inquirer, this veteran reporter also served as its Los Angeles Bureau chief from 1983-86, which meant, in essence, he was a one-man operation covering the western states from Alaska to Hawaii. He also served a brief tour of duty on the editorial board.; and as editor, he managed news of family, fashion, real estate, design, society and gossip.

Looking back on such a productive newspaper career, while working at one of the most celebrated dailies in the country,( at least during its heyday),  Dubin, a product of South Philadelphia, tells me he was fortunate to come to the Inquirer just as Knight -- and then Knight-Ridder -- Newspapers was taking over. ``I was a tiny cog in the transformation of a bad newspaper into a very good one.’’

And what exactly drew Dubin to journalism?  It was Bob Williams, a teacher of his at Temple University, who was working as a night editor for the Philadelphia Daily News who shared with this young impressionable student all the magnificent adventures that went into newspaper reporting, his eyes lighting up like a Christmas tree the longer he talked. It was this type of stimulation that hooked Dubin on pursuing journalism as a life-long career.

After graduating from Temple University with a degree in journalism in 1969, Dubin landed at the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1971, after having worked about a year and a half at the Arlington Heights Herald in the northern suburbs of Chicago.

And what chased Dubin away from the Inquirer?

  ``I left in 2005’’ Dubin said, `` because the work at the paper wasn't as much fun, my friends were leaving and I didn’t feel the clock ticking anymore. I wanted to work full time on a book I had started.’’

What now consumed the bulk of his interest was a book about a little-known 19th-century black civil rights activist named Octavius Catto. The subject so fascinated Dubin that he and Inquirer staffer Dan Biddle, both knew they needed to get out of the office in order to drill down and do some hard digging if they hoped to get smarter about their subject.

As it turned out, researching and writing the book was a heavy lift, but it was well worth the effort. After five years, the book, ``Tasting Freedom: Octavius Catto and the Battle for Equality in Civil War America,”   was published in September 2010. In addition to the book being well receivied, Murray and Biddle were booked for 60 speaking appearances in five states, including an appearance on  NPR's ``All Things Considered.’’ And as ringing endorsement to its historical value, high schools and colleges are beginning to use it as an African American history text.

The authors of the book, meanwhile, launched a website for readers wanting to learn more about this obscure black educator, intellectual, and civil rights activist.

``Tasting Freedom’’ in fact wasn’t Dubin’s first book. While still working at the Inquirer, he wrote two books,  ``The Official Book of Wallyball’’ ,  a sports instructional book and ``South Philadelphia Mummers, Memories, and the Melrose Diner’’ a book about the neighborhood he grew up in, one of the oldest residential mixed-race big city communities in the nation.

Despite keeping busy since departing the Inquirer, Dubin does admit to falling victim to pangs of longing for general newspapering every now and then. `` For that first year’’, Dubin says, ``I missed writing stories, and had to write some free lance pieces. After that first year, I didn’t have to write stories anymore. I saw them on the street, I thought about how I’d do them, but I no longer had to write them.’’

While his co-author, Dan Biddle, remains at the Inquirer, Dubin can’t seem to escape the 19th century.  He’s planning on writing another book, this time under a new genre, historical fiction, something he’s never tried before about one of the first times a defendant accused of murder uses partial insanity as a defense.  ``It’s a great trial filled with sex and an extraordinary look at how mental illness is viewed in the 1840s’’ Dubin explains.  Edgar Allan Poe, the American author, poet, editor and literary critic had a minor involment in the murder trial. 

As for his former colleagues who have also left the newspaper industry, how are they doing? ``Some are doing fine and some are lost. Some are happier, some forever bitter. I try not to think about it.’’  Dubin reflects that he was lucky to have been in the right place at the right time when he was at the Philadelphia Inquirer, and just as fortunate since leaving. `` I salute serendipity and hope it continues.’’

Dubin lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Libby Rosof.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
July 11, 2012

 

``This is a disgusting time to be a journalist.’’ Go out and do what you love former investigative reporter turned novelist Lorraine Adams advises

For any journalists, who find themselves out of work for whatever reason-either due to a layoff, a buyout, or simply fed up with the miserable circumstances demolishing their chosen profession-Lorraine Adams [See Biography ] certainly feels your pain.

``It's an unmitigated disaster out there’’ Adams told me. `` I know of so many amazing people who are out of work.’’

The award winning journalist isn’t afraid to admit her life outside of journalism ran into some choppy waters. She was a writer-in-residence at Eugene Lang College at the New School 2005-2007, but to her dismay she soon discovered it was a low-paying position with little chance of it turning into a full time position like she had hoped.

Her attempts at freelance writing was equally as disappointing. Unable to develop the necessary aggressiveness required in pitching stories to editors, her stint as a freelance magazine writer was a disaster and short-lived. 

After leaving the newspaper industry in 2001, Adams turned her attention to fiction writing. Her literary  novel, Harbor published in 2004, was based on her reporting for The Washington Post  surrounding the arrest of Abdel Ghani Meskini and and the investigation of the 2000 terrorist plot he was involved in to drive a car full of explosives from Canada to Los Angeles and detonate them at Los Angeles International (LAX). Her first literary effort was critically acclaimed in a number of publications, including the New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Esquire, The Guardian, and the Times of London. It also won the Los Angeles Times Book Award for First Fiction in 2004; and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award in 2006.

Her second novel, ``The Room and the Chair ‘’ (Knopf, 2010), a thriller about Middle Eastern politics took her to Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan to chart the life of an American fighter pilot, a journalist in fact, closely modeled on a rookie Washington Pot newsroom reporter.  Amy Wilentz, reviewing the book for the Los Angeles Times wrote:  ``Lorraine Adams is a singular and important American writer. "The Room and the Chair" establishes this without question: It is remarkable for its ambitions and its achievements. It's a war novel, a reporter's novel and a psychological thriller.’’

The Room and the Chair was also warmly received by The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, BookBeast, BookForum among other publications.

Prior to establishing herself as a novelist, Adams, who grew up in New Jersey, kicked off her newspaper career working for The Concord Monitor, a small New Hampshire daily newspaper before moving on to the Dallas Morning News, where she won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992, along with Dan Malone, for their reporting that charged Texas police with extensive misconduct and abuses of power.

After leaving the Morning News, she landed at the Washington Post  to work with its Investigative Staff and the Metro Investigative team. She was subsequently assigned to its National staff in which she covered the Justice Department. Unhappy with the paper’s coverage of terrorism, she decided to leave the Post and test the waters as a freelance magazine writer; though she stayed on as a contract writer for their ``Book World’’ through August, 2003.

Assessing her journalism career, Adams told me ``my work was always unpopular and I wasn’t an easy edit. My work at the News and the Post  gravitated to issues of social justice and the marginalized.’’

Beginning in 2005, she began writing book reviews for the New York Times Sunday Book Review, most of them focusing on foreign fiction from the Muslim world. ``But the pay has been steadily eroding’’ Adams informs me, ``as have the ads and the number of pages, and in the last three years reviews of foreign fiction, never a top priority, have been squeezed further.’’

Most recently, Adams has written on Pakistan for the Daily Beast and Granta Magazine. She's also written reviews on other subjects for the BookForum and The New Republic.  But for those with designs on becoming a full-time book reviewer, Adams warns that if you want to support yourself, such a career path is really only possible for the top reviewers in the country. And with her fiction writing absorbing so much of her time, Adams says she has little time to devote to book reviewing.

Just as discouraging for writers hoping to go it alone is the harsh reality that so many online only news sites, such as the Huffington Post and others, want to enhance their profitable sites with first-rate editorial content without having to pay a dime for it.

``I can’t tell you how many times people ask me to write for free’’ Adams tells me. ``The atrocious practice of not paying writers is epidemic. Some people may think a strong resume is a bulwark against that situation. But it’s not. Check out mine: B.A., magna cum laude, in literature from Princeton University (1981) and an M.A. in English and American literature from Columbia University (1982).’’

Her assessment of the bleak condition of the newspaper industry and how it disintegrated before our eyes is just as abrasive.`` It was greed and shortsightedness on the part of management, who paid us poorly even when they were delivering double-digit profits to shareholders instead of investing in journalism. Now our pension funds are under-funded, and soon many American cities won’t have a newspaper’’ Adams vented.

With such a dark and dispiriting appraisal as a backdrop: What encouraging words of advice, if any, does this Pulitzer winning journalist and successful novelist have for those who are in search of a new career outside of the newsroom?  ``My advice to anyone no longer in the business is first, you’re not alone. This is a disgusting time to be a journalist. Two, as George Eliot once said, “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” Go out and do what you love. Three, if you can’t get paid for what you love to do, earn a living at a lower rate of pay at some kind of work but with your dignity intact. You didn’t create the industry’s woes.’’

Adams, who lives in Harlem, New York City with her husband, Richard Price, a novelist, is currently working on a new piece of fiction set in the Middle East and Lahore, Pakistan. She won a Guggenheim in 2010 to support work on this novel.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
July 9, 2012

 

There is Life after Journalism, ``Recovering Journalist'' Mark Potts Says

Recovery, in a clinical sense, takes different shapes and sizes: there are recovering alcoholics, recovering gamblers, recovering food addicts, recovering smokers; and yes, even recovering journalists.

Mark Potts not only calls himself a recovering journalist, but uses the description as the title of his blog , a site considered one of the leading sources of analysis of involving the merging of technology and media. He is frequently quoted in industry publications.

Potts spent 15 years of his journalism career, working as a reporter and editor at The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Examiner and the Associated Press before reinventing himself in the digital media in the early 1990’s, just when the Internet was taking off like a rocket into the dark sky.

Addressing exactly why he calls himself a ``recovering journalist’’, Potts writes on his Website, ``I think a lot of journalists—and traditional media executives—are caught up in old ways of thinking about the industry that are being wiped clean by the digital revolution. Without radical new approaches, the old journalistic institutions are suffering through horrible death spirals.’’

So, rather than write his own obituary and get left behind in the mass migration to the Web, Potts not only embraced the digital revolution, but went a step further and began developing new habits for the audience to receive, create and interact with news, information and advertising with a keen eye toward finding business models that would help pay for this new platform.

In 1992, while working as a business journalist at The Washington Post, Potts created one of the first electronic newspaper prototypes. That led to the cofounding of Digital Ink, the Washington Post Co.’s initial efforts to explore the digital world, which later evolved into WashingtonPost.com. Potts served the Post’s new-media editor and then as Digital Ink’s director of product development and chief creative officer until 1995, when he moved to Silicon Valley as a member of the founding team and editorial director of pioneering broadband startup @Home.

Potts also was co-founder of Backfence, an early hyperlocal user-generated citizens media company, and of GrowthSpur, a company that helped hyperlocal websites develop advertising tools and networks. Today, in addition to consulting for a variety of media and digital clients, he is developing a new social-news startup, Newspeg, which aims to be a “Pinterest for news,” allowing users to easily save, share and comment on news stories that interest them. Newspeg is currently in alpha-test stage.

Though he met with much success in his new role as media consultant and entrepreneur, with the moniker ``recovering journalist’’ serving him well, Potts jokingly admits he once fell off the wagon. In 2007, he went back into the traditional print business, though only briefly, when he accepted a six-month assignment as Acting Vice President-Editorial at Philly.com, the Web site for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, where he oversaw a major redesign and relaunch of the site.

Potts assumed a similar role in 2000-2001, when he served as Chief Product Officer for Cahners Business Information (now Reed Business Information), the nation’s largest trade publisher, where he managed Cahners Digital and oversaw the development of 120 trade magazine Web sites, including  Variety.com and PublishersWeekly.com.

Taken together, Potts has developed strategies and products not only for The Washington Post Co., Philly.com, and Variety.com, but also for the Los Angeles Times, Cox Communications, HealthCentral Network, Allvoices.com, the Connecticut Mirror, Classified Ventures, Tribe Networks and others.

What advice, then, does one of the leading digital strategy and product development consultants have for media companies struggling with plummeting circulation figures with its print editions, while trying to remain relevant in the digital age? ``The sooner media companies embrace things like user-generated content’’, Potts writes on his Website, ``new kinds of storytelling, Web 2.0 tools, new forms of advertising and revenue generation, and wide-open interaction with their audience, the sooner they'll halt their slide into oblivion.’’

And what if they don’t take his advice? ``They’re toast’’, Potts writes.

Potts serves on the advisory boards of Internet startups PaperG and MixedInk, and teaches Media Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland. He tells me he strongly believes that journalists must prepare for their own “recoveries” by becoming more savvy about the business of journalism and exploring opportunities to start their own media startups—but with a sharp eye on ensuring that their ideas are underpinned by a sustainable business model.

Is there life after journalism? Most definitely,” Potts assured me. “Journalists making the transition need to understand that their skills for writing, storytelling, fact-finding and analysis are readily transferrable to other professions. But journalists who want to stay in the modern world of journalism will also need to augment their natural expertise with solid understanding of business and digital skills.”

Potts was the Business and Technology editor of the San Francisco Examiner from 1985 through 1986, a reporter and editor at the Washington Post from 1982 through 1992, and a reporter for the Chicago Tribune from 1980 through 1982. He also reported for the Associated Press from 1977 through 1979. In addition, he has written two books: ``The Leading Edge’’ and ``Dirty Money’’. 

Potts graduated with a degree in journalism from George Washington University.

-Bill Lucey
July 5, 2012
[email protected]