NewspaperAlum

Jim Marrs Uncovering Conspiracies Deep in the Heart of Texas

Always on the move and having yet met a conspiracy he didn’t like, former Fort Worth Star-Telegram staffer Jim Marrs [See Biography  ] stopped by to say a quick hello and inform me that after witnessing the loss of conventional journalism, he left the newspaper business some time ago to devote himself full-time to writing books.

Though he has traveled down a different path, the Texan says he’s continued his ``role as a professional journalist’’, only today, Marrs said, `` I try to tell truth through book publishing rather than newspapers. ’'

Since he interviewed so many of the characters involved in the John F. Kennedy assassination over the years, including  Marguerite and Marina Oswald and having taught a course on the assassination at the University of Texas at Arlington for 30 years, Marrs decided to write about the subject he knew best, which resulted in ``Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy’’ .

To his surprise and good fortune, the book became the basis for the Oliver Stone’s 1991 film "JFK’’ starring Kevin Costner and Tommy Lee Jones.  Marrs tells me ``Crossfire’’ has been updated, which will be published in time for the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination.

Marrs has now authored a total of 11 books , four of which have become New York Times Best Sellers and another one will be published in 2013.

A familiar theme running through his books has been developing in great detail conspiracy theories and the hidden truths largely ignored by mainstream news organizations.  In addition to his conspiracy theory with the Kennedy assassination, Marrs has written about UFOs and Extraterrestrial Aliens, suggesting UFOs are real, while offering evidence of government cover-ups, and proof that Earth has been visited by alien life forms.

Similarly, in ``Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History that Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids’’, Marrs traces the history of secret societies, connecting them to events ranging from wars, stock markets, class distinctions and censoring news by advancing theories that key world calamities were manipulated by the financial dynasties, such as the Rockefellers, Morgans, and Rothschilds.

More recently, in ``Inside Job: Unmasking the 9-11 Conspiracies’’ Marrs describes the hidden role of the George Bush White House in perpetrating the 9/11 attacks and in government agencies destroying key evidence after the attacks.

A native of Fort Worth Texas,  Marrs graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of  North Texas located in Denton, a city located on the northern edge of the Dallas–Fort Worth metropolitan area. He soon landed a job at the Denton Record Chronicle where he worked as a reporter and editor. 

By the late 1960’s, Marrs moved to Lubbock, Texas and began working as a reporter, editor and photographer for the Lubbock Avalanche Journal; and soon after that he became editor of a weekly publication, the Lubbock Sentinel.

Marrs eventually returned to his native soil in Fort Worth and started working for the Fort Worth Star- Telegram in 1968, where he stayed for a dozen years as a police, general assignment reporter and feature writer covering everything from Europe to the unrest in the Middle East.

After taking a leave of absence to serve with a Fourth Army intelligence unit during the Vietnam War, Marrs became military and aerospace writer for the newspaper as well as an investigative reporter.

 While at the Star- Telegram, he received a number of writing awards from the Associated Press. He’s also been the recipient of the Aviation/Aerospace Writer’s Association’s National Writing Award and Newsmaker of the Year Award from the Fort Worth Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.  In 1993, Marrs was presented with Freedom Magazine’s Human Rights Leadership Award.

In the early 1980's, he published a rural weekly newspaper entitled, "The Springtown Current" as well as a monthly tourist tabloid for the North Side of Fort Worth entitled, "Cowtown Trails."

 Like so many other newspaper alums disheartened by the state of the newspaper industry,  Marrs said ``with blogs and social networking taking the place of ever-diminishing newspaper sales, the print media still haven't figured out what is wrong nor what to do about it. Sad.’’

Married for 44 years, he lives in North Texas with his wife. They have two grown daughters and a grandchild.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
August 22, 2012

Former New York Times' Staffer Steve Weisman a Jolly Good Fellow and All Business at the Peterson Institute

Newspaper Alum was thrilled to hear from Steven R. Weisman [See Biography ], who was the former New York Times chief international economics correspondent before he left the paper in 2008.

Mr. Weisman informs me since 2008, he has been editorial director and public policy fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics , a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research institution devoted to the study of international economic policy, where he helps oversee media outreach while editing and producing content for their website, including  their RealTime Economic Issues blog  and Peterson Perspectives interviews.

In addition to his editorial responsibilities, Weisman works with the Institute’s senior research staff  on their on their writing of books, papers, op-eds, testimony, speeches and other editorial content.

Weisman is now writing a book for the Institute on the ethical dimensions of globalization; and in 2010, he edited: `` : ``Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary'' published by PublicAffairs Books, a superb collection of letters by one of America’s leading elder statesman and one of the most respected voices in the U.S. Senate, which was well received by a number of  newspapers, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post.

 In The  New York Times, David Brooks wrote: ``While writing this review, I’ve been cursing [Steve] Weisman’s introduction for its mastery in highlighting all the crucial points about Moynihan’s life. It is hard to write anything about this book that doesn’t merely repeat that fine essay. Weisman has also written superb contextual paragraphs between the letters, so even people unfamiliar with Moynihan’s career will be able to follow along easily.’’

A paperback edition of the book will be published in October.

Aside from projects affiliated with the Peterson Institute, Weisman plans to write a book for Simon & Schuster on the history of conflicts among American Jews in the 19th century.  Previously, Weisman has authored other books, including ``The Great Tax Wars: Lincoln to Wilson—The Fierce Battles over Money and Power That Transformed the Nation’’ (Simon and Schuster, 2002) , which received the Sidney Hillman Award in 2003 for the book that most advances the cause of social justice.

Prior to taking a buyout, Weisman had worked for The New York Times for more than 40 years, including a tour of duty on the editorial board of the Times, specializing in politics and economics from 1995–2002. He was also chief diplomatic correspondent and won the Edward Weintal Prize in 2004 for his reporting on diplomacy and international affairs, awarded by the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

Earlier in his career at the Times, he was deputy foreign editor, writing extensively about the emergence of Japan and India as global economic powers, while serving as bureau chief for the Times in Tokyo and New Delhi. He also covered the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s; and during the first term of President Ronald Reagan’s administration, Mr. Weisman was senior White House correspondent, specializing in foreign policy, budget, tax, and other economic issues. He was additionally the recipient of the Silurian Society Award in 1975 for his exceptional reporting on the New York City fiscal crisis.

Weisman works in Washington D.C. and lives in the suburbs with his wife, Elisabeth Bumiller , a journalist, who now covers the Pentagon for The New York Times. They have two grown children, one in college and another working full-time.

Bill Lucey
[email protected]
August 20, 2012

 

Kristen Millares Young Encourages Newspaper Alums to Stay Positive, Stay Focused and Begin Your Dream

Newspaper Alum is happy to report that it didn’t take long for Kristen Millares Young, [See Biography ] a former business and metro reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer before it folded in 2009, to land back on her feet. Since 2010, she’s freelanced on the National and Investigative desks for The New York Times and received a fellowship at the University of California at Berkeley’s Knight Digital Media Center.

In 2009, she co-founded InvestigateWest, an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to the craft of investigative and narrative journalism, focusing on the Pacific Northwest and the Western regions of the United States. In addition to her new journalism platforms, Young has been the recipient of research, reporting and travel grants from National Public Radio charter member station KUOW-FM 94.9 and Harvard University. Since 2011, The Graduate School of the University of Washington honored her writing with a Graduate Opportunities and Minority Achievement Fellowship, a Teaching Assistantship, along with an in-depth author profile on their website, the “Most Likely to Be on the NYT Best-Seller List” Award and honorable mention for the Richard J. Dunn First Year Teaching Award. 

Like so many gifted journalists yearning to expand their horizons, Young has completed her first novel, Subduction, and is now hoping to secure an editor and publisher. Subduction tells the story of an unethical anthropologist who begins an affair with informants on the Makah Indian Reservation, an old whaling village in Neah Bay, Washington.  In explaining the literary symbolism of the novel, Young says,  ``Earth’s inexorable and violent metamorphosis through subduction serves as a central metaphor for the cultural, sexual and emotional conflict between Claudia, the anthropologist, and Peter, her lover.’’

Young launched her journalism career at Time Magazine; later served tours of duty with The Miami Herald, and Buenos Aires Herald as a metro, business and feature reporter. From 2004 through 2009, she reported for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, where she uncovered waste and corruption at the Port of Seattle that cost taxpayers millions of dollars. Her dogged reporting exposed fraudulent contracting and procurement irregularities at the port, which triggered corporate and governance structures reforms, including an overhaul of its ethics policies. 

Along with her investigative reporting, Young was retail reporter at the Post-Intelligencer, tracking companies like Amazon.com, Costco Wholesale Corp., Starbucks Corp., Nordstrom, Inc., while monitoring the real estate market, reporting on market volatility and writing a weekly small and minority business feature column.

It was at the Post-Intelligencer, where Young became friends with Homa Dorothy Parvaz, her colleague, who in 2011 was kidnapped in Syria while reporting on the Arab Spring for Al Jazeera. Young became principal organizer of the Free Dorothy Parvaz campaign, a campaign that led to Parvaz’s freedom when Iranian authorities released her on May 18, 2011. It was largely through Young’s resolute and  indomitable efforts that she coordinated press coverage of the Parvaz campaign, which resulted in more than 1,200 print, radio, television and Web stories, while communicating with Congressional offices, giving televised interviews, producing and distributing press releases, writing delivered speeches, helping develop website and graphic art for posters, and bumper stickers. She also mounted successful Facebook and Twitter campaigns, while soliciting letters from a number of distinguished international institutions. ``Running the Free Dorothy campaign'' Young said, ``taught me the power of the network -- friends and colleagues I loved for being themselves but who, on their own recognizance, sustained international, national and regional media coverage and viral social media events.  Without loving the people and land around you, there’s no point to existence, as far as I can tell.’’

Having been so successful in transferring her reporting skills into other challenging areas since the demise of the Post-Intelligencer, what advice does Young have for those trying to reinvent themselves in their post-newsroom stage of their careers? ``Hard work, frequent but sincere networking, late nights spent applying for random fellowships, grants, jobs and other opportunities, time spent in reflection, time spent on strategy, and chart all progress on your resume and online  self-promotion, and avoid the hangdog look of "I got screwed out of my last job" -- if you can. Stay positive, stay focused, make to do lists and check off each accomplishment, no matter how small.’’

Young graduated with a B.A. magna cum laude in History and Literature of Latin America from Harvard University; and is a 2012 graduate of the University of Washington’s Master of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing.

In 2007, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers presented her with the Best in Business, General Excellence award (medium circulation); and in 2006, the Society of Professional Journalists, Pacific Northwest Chapters awarded her first place for Best Government Reporting and Best Online Business Adaptation.

With hopes of encouraging other newspaper alums, Young shared with me a quote she came across in 2007, which she pinned to the bulletin board next to her computer at the Post-Intelligencer and took it with her when the paper folded. It’s a quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the German artist, writer and politician.  ``Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it.  Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.  Begin it now.’’

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
August 12, 2012

Retired Charlotte Observer Columnist Lew Powell Pursuing State's Admission of Guilt in Witch Hunt of Wrongly Accused

Lew Powell standing at the desk of his home office. Photo Credit: Jeff Willhelm, Charlotte Observer

***

After being laid-off from the Charlotte Observer after 34 years in 2009, Lew Powell took the news not as the end, but as a new beginning to explore with great vigor a single issue (a colossal miscarriage of justice in his view) that has consumed him since the 1990’s. It has also freed him to spend more time on his real passion: the unique history of the Tar Heel State.

Since leaving the Observer, Powell has contributed more than 700 posts to the North Carolina Miscellany blog,  a blog produced, edited, and maintained by the North Carolina Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which documents the history, literature, and culture of North Carolina. It is reportedly the largest state collection of its kind in the country.

Powell is exceptionally adept at unraveling the origins of symbols and traditions in North Carolina. His 34 years of newspaper experience at the Observer gives the North Carolina Miscellany a reliable voice with over three decades of institutional experience to draw from, as well as become the beneficiaries of a treasure chest of memorabilia. Powell has donated 2,698 North Carolina-related pin-back buttons, badges, ribbons, cloth swatches, promotional cards and stickers, which he collected over the years.

His unique grasp of North Carolina has resulted in books that can’t help but benefit residents of the Tar Heel State starved to discover a treasury of unique and largely unknown facts. Powell is author of the ``Ultimate North Carolina Quiz Book’’,  ``On This Day in North Carolina''   and  ``Lew Powell's Carolina Follies’’ , a collection of 200 of  his satirical year-in-review pages from The Charlotte Observer.

Despite his strong interest in North Carolina history, beginning about a year ago, Powell spends the bulk of his time researching and collecting facts on the Little Rascals Day Care Center, a facility located in Edenton, North Carolina, which had been owned by Betsy and Bob Kelly.

At the Center, Kelly was charged along with six others in 1989 with molesting 29 children attending the Little Rascals day care center. He was convicted in 1992 and sentenced to 12 life terms. Kathryn Dawn Wilson, a cook at the Center was found guilty in 1993. Both convictions, however, were overturned when the North Carolina Court of Appeals stated that there were ``legal errors’’ by the prosecution. On May 23, 1997, all charges against were dismissed.  Elizabeth Kelly and another defendant reached plea bargains in which they agreed to jail time served, according to reporting from The Associated Press.

The case caught the eye of Powell ever since the airing of the PBS special in which "Frontline" producer Ofra Bikel profiled Edenton, N.C., a town in Chowan County, North Carolina (population 4,966) located in the state’s Inner Banks region. The 1991 report chronicled the way in which this small sleepy town was torn by allegations of child abuse at the Little Rascals Day-Care Center. In 1993, Frontline's follow-up investigation raised serious questions about the evidence and the fairness of the trials. Between 1991 and 1997, "Frontline" devoted eight hours to the plight of the Edenton Seven, leaving many, perhaps millions, shocked at the way North Carolina so recklessly prosecuted the case.

Powell was so outraged by the case in which he insists innocent people were wrongly accused in what was nothing more than a witch hunt, he has since started a blog, littlerascalsdaycarecase.org .

Powell  said since October, he posts about  three times a week, updating it with more information and relevant material.`` Retirement has allowed me to reexamine details of the case’’ Powell said, ``to put it in the context of a decade of day-care ritual-abuse panic and to question those who invented and prosecuted the completely groundless charges.’’ ``Most interesting to me has been the refusal of all the theoreticians and therapists behind the “moral panic” to acknowledge that science and the law have completely discredited the interviewing techniques that led to Little Rascals’’ Powell explained to me.

In this highly controversial case, which drew the attention of the national media, children testified they were forced to have sex with adults and each other at the day care center and other places. Tales of spaceships and trained sharks were also part of their testimony. The defense long argued the children were ``coached’’ into telling manufactured stories that were more in tune with the parents ``fears’’ than the reality of what actually happened.

Though the accused had their cases overturned, Powell is mainly irked that the state continues to claim they were guilty and refuses to acknowledge mistakes were made in their unsubstantiated prosecutorial methods.

One of Powell’s goals, however quixotic it may be, is to secure a statement of innocence from the State of North Carolina.

In a letter he wrote to Roy Cooper, North Carolina attorney general, Powell likens the case to the 2006 Duke Lacrosse scandal in which false charges of rape by three members of the team were made and led to the disbarment of lead prosecutor Mike Nifong. In his letter to the North Carolina Attorney General, Powell mentions the state granted the defendants a ``statement of innocence.’’ Powell requested the state take similar action with those wrongly accused in the Little Rascal case.

In his letter, Powell writes: ``For more than a decade, beginning in the 1980s, day care centers across the United States were victimized by a wave of wholly unsubstantiated charges of "ritual sexual abuse." The testimony of child-witnesses, corrupted by misguided therapists, resulted in dozens of convictions and incarcerations. The defendants were innocent victims of a "moral panic" that bore striking similarities to the Salem witch hunts 300 years earlier.’’

Powell argues the case not only shattered innocent lives, ``but also left a deep and ugly stain on the reputation of the State of North Carolina.’’

With Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift having signed a resolution in 2001, proclaiming the innocence of the victims of the Salem Witch Trials, why not, Powell asks, shouldn’t the same resolution be extended to the Edenton Seven?

``Exoneration for the Edenton Seven seems as distant a prospect as ever’’ Powell tells me. Still, despite having the former district attorney slamming the phone in his ear, when he asked him if still believed they were guilty, Powell said he continues to pursue more leads, and still has stacked in his garage 11 unopened boxes of trial transcripts.

Before landing at the Observer in 1974 as a feature writer, Powell was a reporter and editor at the Jacksonville (Fla.) Journal, and the Delta Democrat-Times.  He has additionally contributed articles to the Nation, Columbia Journalism Review, and The New York Times op-ed page.

It was at the Observer where Powell met his wife, Dannye Romine.

Born in the rural town of Helena, Arkansas, Powell grew up in a farming family in Mississippi, where he graduated from the University of Mississippi with a degree in accounting.

When he retired from the Observer in 2009, Powell was the paper’s Forum editor.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
August 9, 2012

 

 

 

Former Executive Editor George Blake Working to Create Zones of Privacy on the Web

George Blake with his daughter Carlin at Pebble Beach

***

George Blake, former editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer, Fort Myers News-Press and Pacific Daily News, popped in to say hello and inform me, since leaving the newspaper business, he has launched two websites to address the growing concern over privacy issues on the Internet.

A little background. 73 percent of respondents in a survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, published in March, 2012 [See PDF Report] indicated they object to the invasion of privacy methods practiced by search engines; especially the way they track your searches and use that information to personalize your future search results. Another 68 percent in the survey objected to targeted advertising, because they don’t like having their online activity tracked and analyzed.

Responding  to these privacy issues, and fully aware that thousands of companies make billions of dollars selling data about consumers without their consent or compensation, beginning in 2007, Blake became chairman and CEO  of Pridatco Inc., which has launched two parent companies: Do Not Track US  and Money For My Data.

Do Not Track US, a free service, allows users a method for removing tracking activity, including other surveillance and behavioral tracking by companies, websites, ISPs, (Internet Service Providers) ad networks and advertisers.

As explained on the company website, if consumers don’t want to be tracked or kept under surveillance over the Internet through their cell phone location data, users can opt-out of tracking and cell phone ads by joining the Do Not Track Registry, which operates much like the National Do Not Call Registry managed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the nation’s consumer protection agency to limit the telemarketing calls you receive. All that’s required for enrollment is an IP (Internet Provider) Address.

Pridatco’s efforts to limit tracking surveillance, according to Blake, is not without strong legal protection in the Bill of Rights to the Constitution with the 4th amendment (which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures) as well as  a number of other amendments, including the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 9th, 10th and 14th.

Blake’s other website, Money for My Data, another free service, collects consumer data and profiles through surveys and various data collection practices. It then keeps this data safe under the stewardship of the consumer-members, which acts as the member’s authorized agent to package and sell the data for advertising while sharing the net profits with the member.

Blake was editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer from 1980 through 1992. He then served as the paper’s vice president for community affairs until December, 2000. From 1995 through 2000 he was president of the Ohio Newspaper Association; and from 2001 through 2007 served as Chairman and President of Brandwatch Technologies, a company which develops devices for product and document security and counterfeit detection.

Prior to being named editor at the Enquirer, Blake was executive editor at the Fort Myers News-Press and Pacific Daily News in Guam, while serving as vice president of the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors from 1977 through 1980.

In addition to his pioneering efforts with privacy websites, from 2008 through 2012, Blake served as chief news officer of  OurTown.com  , a searchable and trackable hyper-local news and community information gateway from more than 70,000 locations and neighborhoods.  Our Town provides community members with a one-stop-shop for news, content and information focused on their local community. The site offers articles on a variety of topics, along with calendars, message forums, and an updated business directory.  It has additionally licensed more than 1,000 local editors, who provide local news and sell advertising.

When asked about the current financial crisis impacting the newspaper industry, especially the way employees are being thrown overboard at alarming rates, this former executive editor with over 20 years of experience in the news business, told me: ``I assume newspapers will reach a point at which news staffing is stable and editors may allocate personnel in a manner that allows the best coverage within those limits. It won't ever go back to the pre-internet days, but coverage still will be meaningful. I'd even like to think people will be willing to pay for online news sites, and even think there might be a market for hyperlocal paywalls -- but that's a big step that might not be taken for a few years.’’

Despite forecasting calmer waters amid the choppy seas of the newspaper industry, Blake’s heart nonetheless aches seeing the loss of so many talented journalists. `` I always thought our news staffs were the best and brightest: committed, hard-working, caring folks who will find new successes.  I wish them well.’’

A Wheeling (West Virginia) Jesuit University graduate, where he earned a degree in economics, Blake has lived the past 10 years in Atlanta with his wife Christine and daughter Carlin.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
August 6, 2012

From Living on a Kibbutz to Newspaper Columnist to Entrepreneur and Novelist-a Road Well-Travelled for Bob Morris

I recently caught up with the elusive Bob Morris [See Biography ] who informs me that after 20 years as a reporter and columnist for the Fort Myers News-Press, USA Today, Orlando Sentinel, and The New York Times Regional Newspaper Group, he left the industry in 1994 to freelance; and beginning in 1997, moved to Santa Barbara, California to launch AQUA  , an international travel magazine dedicated to the pool and spa industry.

He then returned to Florida in 1999 to assume the editorships of Caribbean Travel & Life and Gulfshore Life magazines.

Longing for more creativity, Morris put pen to paper and wrote his first novel, ``Bahamarama'' in 2004, a compelling mystery set in the Caribbean, which became a finalist for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for best first novel.  Since then, he has written four other novels all set in the Caribbean and Florida: ``Jamaica Me Dead’’, ``Bermuda Schwartz’’, ``A Deadly Silver Sea’’, and ``Baja Florida.’’ He’s also authored a number of e-book nonfiction works, including: ``Gut Check, ``Short Road to Hell,’’ ``All over the Map.’’ ``The Whole Shebang’’, and ``The Man with the Fish on his Foot.’’

Some of his most memorable moments as a newspaper columnist were writing humor columns for the Sentinel during the 1988 and 1992 presidential campaigns, where he got to know and became fast friends with Dave Barry, the Pulitzer Prize-winning American author and columnist, who wrote a nationally syndicated humor column for The Miami Herald from 1983 to 2005.

After graduating from college in the 1970’s, while contemplating his place in the universe, Morris lived for six months at a kibbutz in Israel; his last assignment was walking the perimeter of the kibbutz carrying an Uzi on night patrol. He knew this gig was up when the kibbutz leader told him if he wanted to stay in Israel any longer; he would need to join the army. A mighty tall order for such a young man, to be sure, especially an Episcopalian, so Morris moved on to other adventures.

In addition to his bright witty newspaper columns, one of Morris’s most enduring legacies while at the Orlando Sentinel was in organizing (beginning in 1986), the ``Queen Kumquat Sashay Parade'' held in the heart of downtown Orlando with about 60 or 70 groups sashaying about with such wildly peculiar names like the ``World’s Worst Marching Band’’,  the ``Tourist Liberation Brigade’’, ``Poor White Trash Powder,’’ the ``People Who Have Seen Elvis Recently’’ the ``Leona Helmsley Defense League’’, and the ``Legion of Failures.’’  The parade came to a thunderous climax when a queen was selected by the crowd, the only qualification being that she have red hair, like a kumquat.

This grand tradition ended in 1997 when Morris moved to California.

Aside from his fiction writing, this fourth generation Floridian continues to contribute to a number of magazines, including National Geographic Traveler, Bon Appétit, and Islands. In addition, he teaches creative writing with courses on Food and Travel Writing and Crime Fiction at Rollins College in Winter Park Florida just adjacent to the city of Orlando. One of his favorite exercises is assigning students to write the first 25 pages of a crime novel.

In his continued quest for new challenges, in 2009 Morris launched Robb Report Exceptional Properties,  for Curtco Media, a magazine aimed at those who own vacation homes around the world, best described as a hybrid travel and real estate magazine. Morris informs me they will be re-launching the magazine in January 2013 as LIV: Home + Away, with an increased emphasis on home design and international travel.

And in 2010 he founded Story Farm , a custom publishing company that creates books, magazines, and strategic publications for a variety of clients with a particular specialization in cookbooks for popular restaurants and collectible coffee-table books for resorts, hotels, architectural firms and others.

Having spent two decades working for newspapers, when I asked Morris about the current hardships of the industry, he told me that his heart splits in two every morning when he steps out his driveway and picks up a skinny stripped down copy of the Orlando Sentinel, now just a shadow of its former self. Still, he’s amazed at the pioneering work that newspaper journalists continue to produce despite budget constraints and corporate idiocy. ``The advances in new media show us’’ Morris told me, `` that even if newspapers go away, which they sadly will, the craft of journalism will not disappear. Indeed, I fully expect for it to flourish.’’

Having successfully reinvented himself since leaving the newspaper industry, does Morris have any suggestions or sage words of advice for so many out of work print journalists looking to blaze a new career path?  ``The hardest thing for longtime newspaper journalists to learn is to think entrepreneurially’’ Morris says. `` When you leave the biz and you are out there freelancing it is just like launching a new business. You have to spend a lot of time promoting yourself, pursuing the money-side of the equation, and devoting considerable time toward figuring out a way to turn a profit while still doing honorable good work. You have to sell, sell, sell. The very idea of that is anathema to many journalists, but if you don't learn to do it then you ain't gonna make it.’’

Despite juggling a number projects, Morris is trying to clear a path in his schedule to pound out another novel, his sixth. `` Life is most excellent’’ the journalist turned entrepreneur turned novelist says.

A graduate of the University of Florida with a degree in journalism and communications, Morris lives in Winter Park Florida with his wife. They have two grown sons, who are living on their own, ``thank God!’’ he jokes.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
August 3, 2012