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Cleveland Indians Fans Don't Despair!: All Good Teams Experience Slumps

The 1951 New York Giants won the NL Pennant despite losing 11 in a row during the regular season.

***

It’s only June and Cleveland Indians fans are already talking to themselves with such familiar refrains as” ``Haven’t we seen this movie before?”

 After beginning the season with a renewed sense of hope, a new experienced manager with two World Series rings (in Terry Francona) and plenty of promise and budding talent-in the blink of an eye- Cleveland baseball fans have been dealt an unexpected setback , having seen their beloved Tribe drop eight in a row. The Indians have now lost 14 of their last 18 games after Monday’s 6-3 loss to Texas in the Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.

 Despite the threatening skies high above as if Tropical Storm Andrea is about to dump heavy rains over Northeast Ohio, Cleveland fans shouldn’t despair. Turns out, there’s plenty to be optimistic about.

 According to Stats Inc., World Series winners experienced at least one losing streak of seven or more games during the regular season, most recently the 2011 Cardinals. 

 The 2006 Cardinals had three losing streaks of seven or more games, while the longest losing streak by a World Series winner was nine games by the 1953 Yankees.

  In addition, 21 pennant winners had at least one losing streak of seven or more games during the regular season; the longest was 11 games by the 1951 Giants.

 So don’t despair Tribe fans, ``Somewhere, over the rainbow, skies are blue, And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.’’

  As the legendary Casey Stengel once said after his 62' Mets finally managed to nail down their first win of the season on April 23rd, (after losing their first nine ) ``We sure was on a long nap.''

Bill Lucey

June 10, 2013

WPLucey@gmail.com 

What's On Your Summer Reading List? Some U.S. Journalists Reveal Theirs

A couple reading at a popular summer vacation spot: Porchville, USA.

***

Now that the punishing winds and deep snow drifts of the cold harsh unforgiving winter has given way to blue skies, green grass, with the scorching heat not far behind, many are beginning to make their summer plans.  Along with where to vacation in the coming months, who to visit and what to plant in their backyard gardens, equally important-at least for some-is what books will be placed on their summer reading lists.

According to the American Library Association, summer reading programs began in the 1890s as a way to encourage school children, particularly those in urban areas and not needed for farm work, to read during their summer vacation, visit their local library and develop strong reading habits.

Along with the importance of summer reading for school children, adults as well have placed a high priority on what books to dip into while vacationing at select hot spots during the summer months, including many people’s favorite vacation spot: Porchville, that is, the luxury of their own home.

Ever since The New York Times Book Review published a list of the 100 best summer books, beginning in 1897, summer reading has become as popular as baseball, apple pie, and family barbecues on the Fourth of July.

So to get a sense of what other people are reading, I asked some news professionals if they might consider sharing their summer reading lists with me.

Here, then, are some responses that came back.

 

1.)    Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., Publisher of The New York Times.

 

• James C Goodale’s “Fighting for the Press: The Inside Story of the Pentagon Papers and Other Battles”

 

• Mark Bittman’s “VB6”

 

• Joan Walsh’s “What’s the Matter with White People: Why We Long for a Golden Age That Never Was”

 

• Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In”

 

• Rick Atkinson’s “The Guns at Last Light” (the conclusion to Atkinson’s Liberation Trilogy)

 

• Eric Schmidt & Jared Cohen, “The New Digital Age”

 

• David Sanger’s “Confront and Conceal – Obama’s s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power”

 

2.)    Frank Rich, former New York Times columnist and now writing monthly on politics and culture as Writer-at-Large for New York Magazine.

 

• ``The Son" by Philipp Meyer.

 

• "Ike and Dick: Portrait of a Strange Political Marriage" by Jeffrey Frank

 

• "How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia: A Novel" by Mohsin Hamid

 

 3.)    Tucker Carlson, American political news correspondent, commentator for the Fox News Channel, and Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Caller, a news and opinion website.

 ``I'm embarrassed to admit that from June to September my reading consists almost entirely of P.G. Wodehouse novels and books about fly fishing. Not especially deep, but I have a pretty much inexhaustible supply of both genres.

 This year, I'm starting with Nymphs for Streams and Stillwaters, by Dave Hughes, who's not only an accomplished fisherman and entomologist, but also a skillful and charming writer. His book Trout Flies may be the best reference for fly tiers ever written.

 I'm also reading ``The Last Resort’’, a memoir by Douglas Rogers about his parents' attempt to survive in Mugabe's Zimbabwe. It's fantastic so far, gripping and weirdly hilarious.

 Finally, once I've completed my annual rereading of Psmith in the City and feel good and guilty for being frivolous, my plan is to plow through The Education of Henry Adams. I've always felt bad about not reading it. Hopefully this year I'll pull it off.’’

 4.)    Ralph Blumenthal, former reporter for The New York Times from 1964 to 2009, who covered arts and culture news before accepting a buyout; additionally served as the paper's investigative and crime reporter (1971-1994) and foreign correspondent (1968-1971) in Germany, Vietnam, and Cambodia.

 ``My summer reading list revolves around my latest project: a biography of John E. Mack, the Harvard psychiatrist who believed there was some truth to his patients’ stories about encounters with alien beings. I just did a piece on him, which appeared on the Vanity Fair website.  So I'm reading Whitley Streiber's excellent "Communion", "Captured" by Kathy Marden and Stanton Friedman, "UFOs and Nukes" by Robert Hastings, and other books on alien abduction. Also Mack's 1977 Pulitzer Prize-winning bio of T.E. Lawrence, "A Prince of Our Disorder."

 I just bought Ron Chernow's "Washington" and it's on my list, along with David Nasaw's "The Patriarch." I'm teaching muckraking again at Baruch College in the fall so I want to read Ida Tarbell's "History of the Standard Oil Company," both volumes if possible. I just read her bios of Lincoln and Napoleon and am a huge fan of hers.’’

 5.)    Richard Stengel, managing editor of TIME, who additionally oversees the domestic, international and tablet editions of the magazine, TIME.com, mobile and TIME for Kids.

 ``I'm reading Scott Berg's biography of Woodrow Wilson.’’

 6.)    Greta Van Susteren, host of the Fox News prime-time news and interview program, "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren''

 The New Digital Age by Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen. “It’s been sitting on my desk for weeks and I want to get to it soon!”

 7.)    Chris Matthews, host of ``Hardball'' on MSNBC and ``The Chris Matthews Show.''

 ``[Robert] Caro and Nassau books.''

 

 8.) Norman J. Ornstein, political scientist and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a Washington D.C. think tank.

 ``I will be reading Marcia Coyle's ``The Roberts Court: The Struggle for the Constitution'', Anthony King's ``The Founding Fathers v. the People: Paradoxes of American Democracy'' and John A. Farrell's  ``Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century: A Biography''

 

-Bill Lucey

WPLucey@gmail.com

June 3, 2013

Let There Be Light! 82 Years Ago, an Electric Newspaper is Unveiled

Compliments of the L.A. Times' photography blog, Framework  , comes a truly historic image of The Los Angeles-Times Richfield `Electric Newspaper' at the corner of 6th and Hill streets.

This novel news bulletin service, one of the first in the United States, became a reality on October 12, 1931, when it began splashing short snappy news bulletins (local, state, national and international) based on reporting from multiple sources, including telegraph, telephone, radio, mail and messenger across a dazzling board in incandescent letters four feet high during the five hours of its nightly operation.

Given that the Times faced fierce competition from other metropolitan dailies during the 1930’s, the idea behind this unique bulletin service was to whet reader’s appetite for the next morning’s print edition in hopes they buy the Times at their local newsstand.

The Times reports that it has never been determined exactly when the Times Richfield `Electric Newspaper' was discontinued.

Bill Lucey

WPLucey@gmail.com

May 23, 2013

Why It Took So Long For ``The Great Gatsby'' to Be Considered A Literary Classic?

F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald on their honeymoon in 1920.

``Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning____

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.''

 ``The Great Gatsby''

***

On May 10^th, a week from today, Baz Luhrmann's new film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s literary masterpiece ``The Great Gatsby’’ hits theaters nationwide starring  Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton, Isla Fisher and Jason Clarke. The official premiere of the film kicked off at a star-studded event at Lincoln Center on Wednesday with a dazzling 3-D spectacle.

``The Great Gatsby’’, written by Fitzgerald while living  with his wild and mentally unstable wife Zelda in France and Italy in 1924 and early 1925, tells the tragic story of Jay Gatsby (born James Gatz), once a poor young man who rose to become fabulously rich (through bootlegging) embraces a corrupted form of the American Dream by worshiping the monied class of Daisy Buchanan, a former flame of his while enlisted in World War I. Gatsby finally meets her again for the first time in five years and ultimately becomes destroyed by pursuing what he naively thinks will bring him happiness and fulfillment.  The theme of disillusionment with American contemporary culture and its fraudulent emphasis on wealth and power are common threads found throughout the novel. But probably ``The Great Gatsby’s’’ most enduring impact was educating succeeding generations about the roaring 20’s, namely about jazz, gambling, excess drinking, and reckless living.

Whether the film meets with upbeat praise or is scorned by critics; the film will more than likely cause film goers to dust off ``The Great Gatsby’’ from their bookshelves or dash off to the library or their Kindle’s to reread what is now considered the Great American novel.

It’s shocking how long it took ``The Great Gatsby’’ to be considered a classic.  It wasn’t until April 24, 1960, for example,  that The New York Times wrote: ``It is probably safe now to say that it [The Great Gatsby] is a classic of twentieth-century American fiction.’’

When it was published in 1925, Gatsby sold a disappointing 21,000 copies, less than half of sales for ``This Side of Paradise’’ and ``The Beautiful and Dammed,'' Mr. Fitzgerald's first two novels.  And there were reportedly still copies from the second printing in the Scribner warehouse when Fitzgerald died in 1940.

Kirk Curnutt, author of ``Coffee with Hemingway’’, ``Key West Hemingway’’, ``The Cambridge Introduction to F Scott Fitzgerald’’, and ``The Critical Response to Gertrude Stein’’, among others, told me: ``It [Gatsby] definitely grew in stature over the years’’ ``A couple of Fitzgerald's friends’’, Curnett says, ``notably Stephen Vincent Benet, recognized that it was a breakthrough in his literary development, but nobody heralded it as a literary classic.’’

Not only did Gatsby practically go unnoticed by American readers, but Fitzgerald himself by the end of his life was rarely, if at all, mentioned as one of America’s greatest writers. Such a perception became a harsh painful  reality for Fitzgerald in 1937 when he walked into a bookstore to buy copies of his books for his companion Sheilah Graham only to discover there were no books, not one, of his on the shelves.

In 1940, before dying of a massive heart attack in a Hollywood apartment at the age of 44, Fitzgerald earned a grand total of $13.13 in royalties.

According to a Scribner spokesperson, `` more than 25 million copies of ``The Great Gatsby'' have been sold worldwide since the novel’s original publication in 1925, while more than 15 million copies  have been sold in North America alone.’’ Scribner typically sells more than 500,000 combined copies of ``The Great Gatsby'' every year (across print and eBook editions).

Many American literature scholars concede, if Fitzgerald were living today, he would have been rolling in cash from royalties.

When you consider that the vast majority of Fitzgerald obituaries in 1940 clearly omitted the legacy that he left behind, why, many wonder, did it take so long for the American reading public to discover the literary genius of Fitzgerald? 

The revival of Fitzgerald probably began in 1941, when Edmund Wilson, a friend of Fitzgerald from Princeton, edited and published ``The Last Tycoon’’, (a manuscript that was 70 percent completed by the time of Fitzgerald’s death). The printing of the volume included ``The Great Gatsby’’ and some of Fitzgerald’s best short stories, which gave readers the opportunity to take a fresh look at his splendid prose.

Over the course of the 1940’s, then, other editions of ``The Great Gatsby’’ began popping up like toasters. Between 1941 and 1949, 17 new editions or reprints of The Great Gatsby were published.  In 1949, a second Great Gatsby motion picture, starring Alan Ladd was released (there was a silent version in 1926), which added even more interest to the novel and its author. Along with the American public reexamining the writing of Fitzgerald after World War II, other influential literary critics were praising the splendor of Fitzgerald’s works, especially singling out Gatsby as an exemplary novel of the Jazz Age.   In 1945, Lionel Trilling wrote, ``The Great Gatsby….after a quarter century is still as fresh as when it first appeared. It has even gained in weight and relevance, which can be said of few American books of its time.’’

Also in 1945, William Troy identified Gatsby as one of the few truly ``mythological creations in our culture,’’ while poet John Berryman declared it a ``masterpiece.’’

It wouldn’t be until the 1950’s that Fitzgerald was crowned one of the greatest writers of his generations; and by the 1960’s,  Gatsby had became practically a standard text in the curriculum in many high schools and colleges with a vast majority of university surveys praising it as one of the greatest novels of all time. A third film version of ``The Great Gatsby’’ appeared in 1974 with Robert Redford and Mia Farrow.

In a 1984 interview with Pat Buchanan [See minute 3:47 of this 7 minute video], American writer Gore Vidal said that ``Fitzgerald wrote one perfect novel, ``The Great Gatsby’’, the rest of it was quite sad.’’ In the same interview, Vidal considered Fitzgerald’s contemporary, Ernest Hemingway, to be sort of a Field & Stream writer. `His [Hemingway’s] gift for publicity propelled him ever forward, Vidal told Buchanan. ``He didn’t develop.’’

When asked about the legacy of Fitzgerald and whether Gatsby was indeed the perfect novel, James L. W. West III, Professor of English at Penn State University, who also advised Great Gatsby director Baz Luhrmann on historical aspects of the novel, said ``Gatsby is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, but he was also one of the finest short-story writers of his time.  His classic stories are "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz," "Winter Dreams," "The Rich Boy," and "Babylon Revisited."  He wrote approximately 150 other stories, many of which are very fine.’’  ``We must remember’’ West said, `` that he wrote for a living; he was a true professional. He did not have a trust fund, did not marry into money, and did not inherit money.  He balanced on the line between art and the marketplace as well as any author of his generation.’’ ``No work of literature is perfect’’ West pointed out, ``but Gatsby is nearly so.  The prose is shimmering, and the characters memorable.’’

West is general editor of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, and published "Trimalchio: An Early Version of ‘The Great Gatsby’"

So as the new film is about to be released, some might be curious just how well received ``The Great Gatsby’’ was by book reviewers when it was first published in 1925?  

As the following snippets from different newspapers will show, the reviews were a mixed bag; some hailed it as a work of ``art and of great promise’’ (Times Literary Supplement); while others, like The New York Evening World, claimed Fitzgerald’s writing style was ``painfully forced.’’ Few, moreover, had the foresight to declare it a literary masterpiece, at least not in 1925.

Bill Lucey

WPLucey@gmail.com

May 3, 2013

****

Scott Fitzgerald and His Work

By H.L. Mencken

The Chicago Daily Tribune, May 3, 1925

``Scott Fitzgerald's new novel, ``The Great Gatsby'' is in form no more than a glorified anecdote, and not too probable at that. The story for all its basic triviality has a fine texture; a careful and brilliant finish…..``What gives the story distinction is something quite different from the management of the action or the handling of the characters; it is the charm and beauty of the writing.’’

There is evidence in every line of hard and intelligent effort.’’……. ``The thing that chiefly interests the basic Fitzgerald is still the florid show of modern American life-and especially the devil's dance and that goes on at the top. He is unconcerned about the sweating and suffering of the nether herd; what engrosses him is the high carnival of those who have too much money to spend, and too much time for the spending of it. Their idiotic pursuit of sensation, their almost incredible stupidity and triviality, their glittering swinishness-these are the things that go into his notebook.’’

New Fitzgerald Book Proves He's Really a Writer

By Fanny Butcher

The Chicago Daily Tribune; April 18, 1925

``The Great Gatsby proves that Scott Fitzgerald is going to be a writer, and not just a man of one book. It is bizarre. It is melodramatic. It is, at moments, dime novelish. But it is, despite its faults, a book which is not negligible as any one work, and vastly important as Scott Fitzgerald's work.’’

 ``A Minute or Two with Books-F. Scott Fitzgerald Ventures’’

By Ruth Snyder

New York Evening World, April 15, 1925

``In ``The Great Gatsby’’ Mr. Fitzgerald has made a valiant effort to be ironical. His style is painfully forced.’’…..`` We are quite convinced after reading ``The Great Gatsby’’ that Mr. Fitzgerald is not one of the great American writers of to-day.’’

 ``Scott Fitzgerald Looks Into Middle Age ''

By EDWIN CLARK

The New York Times

April 19, 1925

Of the many new writers that sprang into notice with the advent of the post-war period, Scott Fitzgerald has remained the steadiest performer and the most entertaining.

With sensitive insight and keen psychological observation, Fitzgerald discloses in these people a meanness of spirit, carelessness and absence of loyalties. He cannot hate them, for they are dumb in their insensate selfishness, and only to be pitied. The philosopher of the flapper has escaped the mordant, but he has turned grave. A curious book, a mystical, glamorous story of today. It takes a deeper cut at life than hitherto has been enjoyed by Mr. Fitzgerald.  He writes well-he always has-for he writes naturally, and his sense of form is becoming perfected.

 ``F. Scott Fitzgerald''

By Ralph Coghlan

St. Louis Dispatch, April 25, 1925

``The Great Gatsby’’ is a thin novel, not longer than 315 short pages. It lacks the lyrical and poetic outbursts of Fitzgerald's earlier work.'''......``Altogether is seems to us this book is a minor performance. At the moment, its author seems a bit bored and tired and cynical.  There is no ebullience here, nor is there any mellowness or profundity. For our part, ``The Great Gatsby'' might just as well be called ``Ten Nights on Long Island.''

THE SEAMY SIDE OF SOCIETY

In ``The Great Gatsby'' F. Scott Fitzgerald Creates a New Kind of Underworld Character and Throws the Spotlight on the Jaded Lives of the Idle Rich

The Los Angeles Times

By Lillian C. Ford

May 10, 1925

``F. Scott Fitzgerald……has in The Great Gatsby written a remarkable study of certain phases in the life of today. It is a novel not to be neglected by those who follow the trend of fiction.’’

``The story is powerful as much for what is suggested as for what is told. It leaves the reader in a mood of chastened wonder, in which fact after fact, implication after implication is pondered over, weighed and measured. And when all are linked together the weight of the story as a revelation of life and as a work of art becomes apparent. And it is very great. Mr. Fitzgerald has certainly arrived.’’

The Great Gatsby

The Times Literary Supplement, February 18th, 1926.

By Orlo Williams (Orlando Cyprian Williams)

``F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of ``The Great Gatsby'' is a young American novelist whose work has not hitherto reached England''.....``The Great Gatsby is undoubtedly a work of art and of great promise. Mr. Fitzgerald has grasped the economical construction of a story, and his power of telling conciseness enables him, without being obscure, to compass a great deal in a short space.''

``Mr. Fitzgerald finely maintains, besides his hard, sardonic realism, the necessary emotional intensity, but we must admit that it needs perhaps an excess of intensity to buoy up the really very unpleasant characters of the story.''

 ``Books on Our Table''

By H.B.

The New York Post, May 5, 1925

``F. Scott Fitzgerald's new novel will surprise a great many people who have read his earlier books. It did us. We had not read a half-dozen pages before we were saying: ``Why, the man's perfectly at his ease in a serious piece of writing. His style fairly scintillates, and with a genuine brilliance; he writes surely and soundly.''....``The Great Gatsby is fascinating. If you begin it you'll go straight through to the end, and you will be conscious that you have read an excellent piece of writing. Mr. Fitzgerald will bear watching.''

 ``Profits of the New Age III. F. Scott Fitzgerald ‘’

By Harvey Eagleton

The Dallas Morning News, May 10, 1925

``One finishes Great Gatsby ‘’ with a feeling of regret, not for the fate of the people in the book, but for Mr. Fitzgerald.  When ``This Side of Paradise’’ was published, Mr. Fitzgerald was hailed as a young man of promise, which he certainly appeared to be. But the promise, like so many, seems likely to go unfulfilled. The Roman candle which sent out a few gloriously colored balls at the first lighting seems to be ending in a fizzle of smoke and sparks.''

 ``Turns with A Bookworm''

New York Tribune/Herald Tribune

April 12, 1925

``If Mr. Fitzgerald thinks it will turn the edge of critical comment, we fear he is error...Just because he was born with a gold fountain pen in his waistcoat pocket...For there’s no possible probable shadow of doubt, he is a natcheral and incurable writer...The Great Gatsby is purely ephemeral phenomenon, but it contains some of the nicest little touches of contemporary observation you could imagine-so light, so delicate, so sharp....a literary lemon meringue.''

-I.M.P.

 ``Literature-And Less''

By John McClure

New Orleans Times Picayune, May 31, 1925.

``Even in conception and construction, The Great Gatsby seems a little raw. It is not convincing as a whole. Its finest spots are convincingly clever than convincingly dramatic. The book has merit. Flashes of description, episodes of conduct, snatches of conversation are often striking. There is a feeling for life in the rendering.''....``Mr. Fitzgerald is still where he was five years ago. He is developing in character very favorably; acquiring a broader view of life. But as a literary craftsmen he still faces the necessity of a decision between writing in the fashion like Mr. Rupert Hughes, or according to his inner lights like James Branch Cabell and Sherwood Anderson.''

Novelist Edith Wharton's letter to Fitzgerald, dated June 8, 1925, after reading ``The Great Gatsby.''

``To make Gatsby really Great, you ought to have given us his early career (not from the cradle-but from his visit to the yacht, if not before) instead of a short resume of it. That would have situated him & made his final tragedy a tragedy instead of a ``fait divers'' for the morning papers.''

 

Bill Steigerwald Refused to Let Sleeping Dogs Lie: John Steinbeck Exposed.

Journalist and author Bill Steigerwald [See his website ]recently checked in to say he is doing well in another chapter of his life, away from the daily grind of newspaper reporting since retiring in March, 2009.

After 30 years reporting for the Los Angeles Times in the 1980’s, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in the 1990s, and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review at the turn of the 21^st century, the veteran journalist used his modest buyout package (including tearing through his 401 (k) ) to embark on what seemed at the time to be a crazy book idea.

Unlike other harebrained book ideas that often go nowhere, Steigerwald’s project actually bore fruit and ended up receiving a fair amount of national attention, including from The New York Times and C-Span.

The Pittsburgh native unraveled how John Steinbeck’s 1962 best-selling travelogue (billed as a work of nonfiction) ``Travels with Charley: In Search of America’’ about his journey through 34 states, covering more than 10,000 miles with his elderly French poodle was nothing more than an colorful exercise in creative writing. Or more to the point, as Steigerwald tells it, ``Travels with Charley was a load of fictional crap. It was not the true nonfiction account of his 1960 road trip we'd been led to believe but a highly fictionalized and dishonest book -- a "literary fraud," as I so indelicately called it.’’ [in Reason Magazine ]

A Pulitzer Prize (1940) winning author, Steinbeck wrote 27 books, 16 of them novels and six other nonfiction works.

In the travelogue, among other topics, Steinbeck chronicles French Canadian potato pickers in Aroostook County, Me., a fire and brimstone sermon in Vermont, the peculiar lifestyle of truck drivers, vivid descriptions of mobile homes, the nature of turkeys, the majesty of the Mojave Desert, and a yarn about how a tire blew out in a rain storm in Oregon.

Exactly 50 years after Steinbeck's journey, with over three decades of shoe-leather reporting behind him, Steigerwald retraced the 10,000-mile route the celebrated American writer took around the country in 1960, carefully checking, double-checking and fact-checking Steinbeck’s journey, meeting hundreds of ordinary Americans, often sleeping in the back of his car in Wal-Mart parking lots as he drove from Maine to California to Texas.

Interestingly, the original game plan of Steigerwald’s project was not to fling darts at Steinbeck’s credibility. Rather, it was intended to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of Steinbeck’s U.S. tour and report and update readers how the vast landscape of the United States had changed since 1960. It was only through his scrupulous investigation that Steinbeck’s literary deception was uncovered.

In  November 2012, Steigerwald published ``Dogging Steinbeck’’  , an e-book by Amazon.com, which made the book possible after he wasn’t able to secure a New York publisher; meaning, he didn’t have the perks normally extended to other authors. ``I completed the book’’, Steigerwald told me, `` with no editor, no copy editor, no fact-checker, no photographer, no publisher, no designer -- just me in charge of everything.’’ The book is also available in paperback form as a print-on-demand in which the customer orders it through Amazon; the book is then printed in South Carolina and mailed to the customer.

Did he experience any anxious moments flying solo without a publisher? Absolutely.  `` All that editorial autonomy was scary for a newspaperman at times, but I didn't do too bad. So far, no lawsuits’’ Steigerwald says.

In the book, Steigerwald points out that when Steinbeck was supposed to have been roughing it, camped out on a farm near Lancaster, N.H., he actually booked a room at a luxury hotel.  He also discovered that Steinbeck spent precious little time in campers, and was hardly alone, as he led readers to believe; but traveled with his wife Elaine on more than half of the trip; other times he stayed at the Steinbeck family cottage in Pacific Grove, Calif., and another week at a Texas cattle ranch for millionaires. On other occasion, when Steinbeck was supposed to be camping in Alice, N.D., where he claimed to have met a Shakespearean actor, he was actually staying in a comfortable motel 326 miles farther west in the town of Beach.

In a published interview with The New York Times in 2011  Steigerwald was stunned his findings didn’t have more of an impact within literary circles.   As he told the Times: ``Travels With Charley’ for 50 years has been touted, venerated, reviewed, mythologized as a true story, a nonfiction account of John Steinbeck’s journey of discovery, driving slowly across America, camping out under the stars alone. Other than the fact that none of that is true, what can I tell you?  If scholars aren’t concerned about this, what are they scholaring about?’’

But in fairness to astute followers of Steinbeck's work, not everyone took ``Travels with Charley'' to be a work of pure nonfiction. In The New York Times book review on July 27, 1962, for example, Times’ reviewer Orville Prescott wrote of `Travels with Charley’: ``Relaxed, informal and chatty, he [Steinbeck] indulges in whopping exaggerations, tells tall stories, sketches odd characters he met and tosses off a series of capsule essays on scores of subjects. Since Mr. Steinbeck is an intelligent man and a facile writer the result is engaging.''

In addition to the national attention Steigerwald’s efforts received, he was thrilled to be interviewed by Brian Lamb on C-Span  about his shocking discoveries.

As to a brief summary of his post-newspaper career, Steigerwald would only say ``it’s a long story with some trouble-making, a happy ending and a lot of fun on and off the road for an old newspaper hack.’’

-Bill Lucey

WPLucey@gmail.com

April 17, 2013

 

Pulitzer Buzz: The New York Times Wins 4 Pulitzers

Silence is golden.

Which really stinks, especially when you’re trying to find which U.S. dailies or news websites might have come away with a Pulitzer Prize this year?

The finalists and winners for journalism’s top prize will be announced today, Monday, April 15^th at 3:00 p.m. (ET). Winners will officially receive their prize at a luncheon held on May 30th on the Columbia University campus in New York City.

While frustrated with most news organizations being so tight-lipped and refusing to show their hand, rumors from The New York Times newsroom, (strictly rumors, mind you ) did reach my ears.

It is believed The New York Times came away with four Pulitzers in 2013.

One should come with absolutely no surprise; and that is San-Francisco-based New York Times reporter John Branch’s  heartbreaking narrative of the massive avalanche that killed three people at the out-of-bounds Tunnel Creek ski run near Stevens Pass, Washington.

The Times second Pulitzer is believed to be David Barstow’s blockbuster investigation, revealing bribery by Wal-Mart de Mexico, which acted as an aggressive and creative corrupter by offering large payoffs in clear violation of the law.

The other two Pulitzer’s in the Times column might be Chinese corruption  and the European Economy.

Many in the Times’ newsroom are apparently scratching their heads, wondering how Dan Barry was shut out, especially after producing such an exceptionally strong pre-election story from Ohio. And according to one Times’ staffer, many believe its Hurricane Sandy coverage should have been a contender.

Mr. Branch was a Pulitzer finalist last year in the category of Feature Writing for brawling in hockey and the tragic story of Derek Boogaard.

Mr. Barstow, another possible Pulitzer recipient, was awarded a Pulitzer in 2009 (in the category of Investigative Reporting) for his dogged reporting that revealed how some retired generals, working as radio and television analysts, had been co-opted by the Pentagon to make its case for the war in Iraq, and how many of them also had undisclosed ties to companies that benefited from policies they defended.  His first Pulitzer came in 2004 in the category of Public Service when he and Lowell Bergman were recognized for their examination of death and injury among American workers, while exposing employers who broke basic safety rules.

If the Times does indeed come away with four Pulitzer’s, this will be up from last year when they came away with only two: One in the category of Explanatory Reporting, the other in the category of International Reporting.

Since 1918, The New York Times have won 108 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper.

-Bill Lucey

WPLucey@gmail.com

April 15, 2013

Plain Dealer Alumni Reacts to Newspaper Slicing Delivery Days

Eight years ago today, believe it or not, The Plain Dealer editorial staff in Cleveland, Ohio, an Advance Publications paper, was uncorking a little of the bubbly and running victory laps around the newsroom after learning it had won its first Pulitzer Prize in over 50 years, when Connie Schultz was recognized for her sharp and tender writing in the category of distinguished commentary.

Instead of a time to celebrate in remembrance of things past, The Plain Dealer editorial staff was delivered sad news today that they will only deliver the paper to subscribers three days a week, beginning in the late summer. Though the delivery dates have been sliced, the PD will continue to publish seven days a week under a new digitally focused media company called Northeast Ohio Media Group.

I didn’t receive a response from the Plain Dealer editors when I asked if the content and space of the PD will be reduced on non-delivery days.

But it’s widely acknowledged that the there will be staff reductions despite the better than expected news that it will continue to publish seven days of the week.

Today’s gloomy announcement is hardly novel within the newspaper industry.

In May, 2012, The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, which is also owned by Advance Publications announced it was cutting its print schedule down to three days a week,; it’s sister newspaper, The Birmingham News, The Press-Register of Mobile and The Huntsville Times made a similar announcement on the same day.

Also last year, The Calgary Herald, The Edmonton Journal and The Ottawa Citizen announced they will eliminate their Sunday editions.

Today’s announcement by the PD seems to follow the model employed by The Detroit News, beginning in 2010, when it decided to deliver papers only on Thursday and Friday, but continues to print six days a week. It also publishes a special Sunday supplement.

For many in Cleveland, it will take some getting used to not to read their local newspaper with their morning cornflakes, at least on four days of the week.  After all, this was a daily newspaper who in November, 1950, with deep snowdrifts battering Northeast Ohio (some referring to it as the "Great Thanksgiving Storm'') the worst storm to hit Cleveland in 37 years, which claimed 11 lives in the Greater Cleveland area, still managed to publish an eight page news section on November 26^th and 27^th. Their cross-town competitor, The Cleveland Press wasn’t able to put out a paper at all.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer was founded as a weekly newspaper on January 7, 1842 by Joseph Gray and became an evening daily on January 7, 1845.  After Liberty Holden purchased the paper in 1885, it introduced a morning and Sunday edition; so that by 1905, it discontinued its evening edition.

As you can imagine there’s been a great deal of reaction since the announcement became official earlier today.

Here are some reactions from members of the Plain Dealer alumni.

``I cannot stop thinking about my friends and former colleagues at the paper. So many good people there. Through all of this uncertainty, they have continued to champion the best in traditional journalism. Many of them today tell me they are relieved to still have jobs, at least for a while longer. ''

-Connie Schultz, former Pulitzer winning columnist for The Plain Dealer, who now writes a weekly nationally syndicated column for Creators Syndicate and is additionally a regular essayist for Parade magazine. She is married to U. S. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio

``That the newspaper will continue to be printed seven days a week is heartening - and a victory for those who favor ink on paper. Newspapers have to adapt to the changing times and this is one of the many experiments underway throughout the industry. Would we all be happier with the clock turned back 20 years? Of course. But the reality of the times tells us that's not possible. I wish the Plain Dealer the best of luck in its new approach.''

-Doug Clifton, executive editor of The Plain Dealer from 1999 through his retirement in 2007, who now lives in Weybridge, Vermont with his wife Peg

``This is a difficult time for all print journalists, so turmoil is no stranger to anyone of the remaining city or regional newspapers in this country.  Advanced Media has taken an aggressive approach with the idea that by doing so now, a new future might present itself. However, that always means that those whose livelihood is tied to the “past ways” are hurt.

 I have many friends and former colleagues at The PD and I am sorry they have to go through all of this turmoil at this point in their careers, but I have learned a great deal about the value of change and the driving forces behind so much of this industry turmoil since my time as managing editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer. I see clearly now that so very often what is taken away in times of industrial turmoil is replaced with something new and equally arresting that serves the community well.

 I think that over time, this issue has become not one of local newspapers vs. what? to one that is simply a matter of how to get the information that a citizen needs to lead a connected, involved life without print.

 Sadly, that has translated in market after market to a loss of jobs. This is the hard part of all of these decisions. They weigh on everyone involved.

 I wish my former colleagues at the PD the best and will continue to watch as the new direction takes firm hold.''

-Anne Gordon, former Plain Dealer Sunday Magazine Editor who is now Senior Vice President of Media and Communications for the Phiadelphia Eagles.

 

``Sad terribly sad. But it's a sign of the times. It's all about digital now.''

-Bob Kravitz, former Plain Dealer sports columnist, now an award-winning columnist with the Indianapolis Star.

``Craig's List is killing The Plain Dealer. It has stolen classified advertising from the newspaper. I recall 31 years ago when the Press went down, Dave Skylar leaned close to me and said in dead earnest, "I'm not bragging about this, just stating a fact. Howard Metzenbaum and I killed the Press."  Skylar and Metzenbaum owned the Sun Newspapers. In the 1970s they systematically bought up all the suburban weeklies and organized them under the banner of the "Sun Papers." They stole classified advertising from the Press.  Craig's List is the new predator.''

Dan Coughlin, an award winning journalist for over 40 years, was a sportswriter for The Plain Dealer from 1964 through 1982 and author of two books, ``Pass the Nuts'' and ``Crazy, With the Papers to Prove It.'' 

Bill Lucey
WPLucey@gmail.com
April 4, 2013

Murphy's Law: ``Change is a Great Catalyst for New Opportunities.’’

Caryle Murphy with her nephews at Yellowstone National Park

Murphy interviewing Islamic scholar Ahmed Bin Baz in Jeddah

***

Though no longer reporting for a major daily newspaper, Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Caryle Murphy [See her personal website ]is still plying her trade both in the U.S. and abroad.

Skeptical about the durability of the newspaper industry, Murphy accepted a company buyout from the Washington Post in 2006 to begin freelancing and pursue stories near and dear to her heart, especially in the Middle East, a troubled region raging with complexity and conflict, conditions, in other words, always appealing to an inquisitive journalist like herself.

Besides, as Murphy told me, ``I believe that change is a great catalyst for new opportunities.’’

So soon after taking her four nephews on the mother of all camping trips, which included a spectacular trip down the Green River in Utah and then to Yellowstone, she requested a visa from the Saudi government to work in the kingdom as a free-lance journalist.

She was pleasantly stunned to learn she had been approved by the government. But then again, timing is everything. ``Fortunately’’ Murphy said, ``I asked for a visa at a time when the Saudi government was trying to attract foreign correspondents to reside in the kingdom.''

Beginning in 2008, then, Murphy took up residence at a compound in Riyadh for foreign residents of the kingdom, where she remained for the next three years, mingling and blending with families from around the world, including ones from Egypt, Lebanon, South Africa, Spain, and India. Her yoga instructor was from Iran.

Murphy made it clear to me the foreign families weren’t forced to live in the compound; it was their choice largely because it provided more of a secular environment and came equipped with a number of amenities, including restaurants, a swimming pool and a gym without the strict gender segregation that is the custom in Saudi Arabia. And neither was Murphy required to wear a black robe over her clothes (like she did) when she left the compound during the day.

While in Riyadh, she reported for a number of news organizations, principally the Globalpost, the Christian Science Monitor and the National in Abu Dhabi.

Did she encounter any government-imposed restrictions interviewing local residents? `` For the most part, I was able to move around freely, meet Saudis with relative ease and report without interference’’ Murphy told me.  Approaching government officials, however, remains a huge problem for most foreign journalists. The Saudi government, Murphy said, remains excessively secretive, making interviews difficult to land.

Fortunately, she found an abundance of gripping and newsworthy stories to report on without having to rely on government officials. She did this mainly by keeping her ear to the ground, listening closely to the concerns and pent-up anxieties of the residents, especially as violent protests erupted in countries all around them.

Back on American soil in 2011, Murphy became a public scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C.; a place that has long been considered a journalists best friend, especially for those who want to write books. It was at the Center where she researched and wrote her latest book, ``A Kingdom's Future: Saudi Arabia through the Eyes of its Twentysomethings.'' . Her residence at the Wilson Center ended in 2012.

Murphy tells me she’s not sure what’s she’ll do next, though it will almost certainly involve writing, hopefully in the journalism field, though she remains cynical about the industry’s future especially when she reads dim-witted headlines like  the one she noticed the other day on Yahoo News, speculating as to who the next Bachelorette will be. ``Part of me’’ Murphy says,`` thinks that our civilization is passing through a technological-robotic-digital transformation whose destination we don’t yet see and that will change us in fundamental ways.’’

Before reporting full-time for the Post, Murphy was a free-lancer in the West African country of Angola, where she worked for Newsweek, the Sunday Times of London, and the Washington Post. After being hired by the Post full-time, she served as foreign correspondent during the tumultuous 1970's amid the Soweto student uprising and police murder of black leader Steve Biko, an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa. During the 1990’s she had a tour of duty as the Post’s Cairo Bureau Chief, responsible for covering the Arab world.

And as a crowning achievement to her courageous reporting, she was awarded a Pulitzer-Prize in 1991 in the category of International Reporting for her dispatches from occupied Kuwait, some of which she filed while in hiding from Iraqi authorities. She was also a recipient of the George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting for her coverage of Iraqi-occupied Kuwait and subsequent 1990-91 Gulf War.

In addition to her book she wrote on Saudi Arabia during her residence at the Wilson Center, she also authored ``Passion for Islam’’  , which explores Islam's contemporary revival and the roots of religious extremism in the Middle East.

When not covering hot spot overseas, Murphy’s domestic assignments for the Post included U.S. immigration policy, U.S. federal court in Alexandria, Va. and religion. A year before accepting a company buyout (2006) she reported from Baghdad for three months. Outside of the newsroom, Murphy was the 1994-1995 Edward R. Murrow Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Raised in Massachusetts, she is a graduate of Trinity University in Washington, D.C., and Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies.

Murphy is single and lives in Washington D.C.

-Bill Lucey
WPLucey@gmail.com
March 11, 2013

Finally, A Dictionary for Deciphering the News

We have another first.

Just think of the hundreds and hundreds of specialized dictionaries there are on the market.

We have a ``Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English’’, a ``Dictionary of Obsolete English’’, a ``Dictionary of Catch Phrases’’, a ``Dictionary of Confusable Words’’, a ``Dictionary of Epithets and Terms of Address’’, a ``Dictionary of Euphemisms’’, and a ``Dictionary of Sports Idioms’’, but not one on Journalese; that is, until now.

Thanks to authors Paul Dickson and Robert Skole and the recent publication of ``Journalese: A Dictionary for Deciphering the  [Marion Street Press] this is the first dictionary devoted specifically to  ``Journalese.''

Dickson, by the way, is author of another recently released book: ``Words from the White House: Words and Phrases Coined or Popularized by America’s Presidents’’ .

 Journalese, for those not familiar with the term, is a code word for journalist jargon, distinguished by clichés, sensationalism, and triteness of thought, which usually appear in your local newspaper but is rarely spoken at the office water cooler.

The authors in their introduction make it clear, however, this dictionary isn’t intended to pass judgment, and neither is it meant to be a celebration of journalese. Rather, their objective is to ``describe and define it and, in the process, perhaps spike –or at least skewer-some of its more overwrought examples.’’

Any lover of words and newspapers will get a tremendous kick out of this A-to-Z dictionary. It’s a highly entertaining, light and breezy, and witty look at the good, the bad, and the ugly of newspaper buzzwords and phrases. Aside from its pure entertainment value, this is practically a mandatory book for any writer to have parked next to their computer or laptop-since it will undoubtedly serve as a handy and useful reference guide to prevent falling victim to some of the most worn-out and overused phrases in American journalism.

So how exactly did this book come about?

Paul Dickson, the co-author of this book and author of more than 60 books, including ``The Dickson Baseball Dictionary’’, ``The Congress Dictionary ‘’ (with Paul Clancy), and a ``Dictionary of the Space Age and Slang ’’, has been collecting journalese terms for years. Some of the terms, in fact, were so outdated they couldn’t be used in this book. So Dickson decided to team with Robert Skole, a Boston resident, who has worked as a reporter, editor and foreign correspondent. 

They previously collaborated on another book, ``The Volvo Guide to Halls of Fame: The Traveler's Handbook of North America's Most Inspiring and Entertaining Attractions.’’  The dictionary took about a year to compile as they scoured Google, Nexis, and a number of other databases that could search newspapers' use of specific words. Skole told me they found WoPular  , an aggregator of news, especially helpful. The New York Times’ historical archives was another helpful site in finding specific journalese words, such as with hackneyed examples of the word ``Many.’’ For their sidebar devoted to Bible phrases titled ``Gospel Journalese’’, the websiteThe Blue Letter Bible , an online resource packed with useful information and data of words used in the Bible was another gold mine.

As newspapers continue to plow forward with buyouts and the slashing of staff, with copy editors usually absorbing the brunt of these cuts-are journalese terms running amok in newsrooms today or slipping through the cracks (more often than they should) without the eagle eyes of experienced copy editors?

``Newspapers' cutting down copy desks has created a tsunami of journalese’’ Skole concedes.  ``Back when I went to the University Of Missouri School Of Journalism, any reporter using "many" in a story on the Daily Missourian would get it tossed back to him or her. ``Today’’, Skole points out, ``nobody cares. It's all the Journalese that fits in print.’’

For anyone fascinated by newspaper style and usage, the authors have created a Facebook page on Journalese,  which is most definitely worth a visit.

So to give readers a sense of (journalese, refer to page 81), an idea of some of the journalese terms defined in their book, the authors have given me permission to list some of my favorites.

Enjoy!

Arguably: Arguably gives reporters the freedom to draw conclusions they wouldn’t dare on their own. No one wants to say ``certainly’’ when such a useful fudge factor is available.

Claim:  We don’t believe what the person says, but here it is. A person who likes a source, never says he or she ``claims’’ something.  Instead, it is ``firmly stated.’’

Compelling: Book reviewer already used riveting.

Cycles of Violence: At least two crimes in two days.

Firestorm: At least two people protest or complain.

Fledgling:  A young and inexperienced person, but often used by fledgling reporters to mean faltering.

Frantic Search: The kind of search that people conduct when children are missing.  A level-headed search won’t do.

Frenzy: At least three guys arguing.

Hero: Just about anyone in uniform or someone who gets a cat down from a tree.

High-speed chase:  All police chases are at high-speed. It would be big news, such as O.J. Simpson, if the chase stayed within speed limits.

Highly respected:  One degree above highly regarded. His mother and father both boast about him.

Machiavellian:  Any actions by politicians the paper does not support. Politicians the paper does support are wise, savvy, strategic, shrewd or astute players of the political game.

Motion Picture: A very serious film the reviewer likes, and is often described as a ``major motion picture.’’  Otherwise, it’s a movie or film or flick.

Noted Authority:  Said of anyone on a reporter’s speed-dial or Twitter feed.

Presumably:  Codeword that the writer is about to take a wild-assed guess.

Punishing: Any storm, hurricane, tornado, flood, or other natural disaster. Also a military operation that the reporter doesn’t approve of.

Raw Data: Data that has not yet been cooked.

Sketchy: Reporter doesn’t know what the heck is going on.

Unconfirmed: It may not be true, but we want to print this before the opposition did.

-Bill Lucey
WPLucey@gmail.com
March 4, 2013

 

Even Press Photographers Were Wild About Harry

Right in the thick of his bruising presidential campaign, with the election less than six months away, The Los Angeles Times photography blog, Framework,  shared this truly historic snapshot of Harry Truman in June 14, 1948, posing with a gaggle of press photographers at Union Station, including staffers from The L.A. Times. Ray Graham to left of Truman, and Phil Bath on the right.

The L.A. Times Photography Staff Says Cheese!

A special thanks to the Los Angeles Times photography blog, Framework  for sharing this snapshot of the their photography staff from 1941. The photo was originally published in the January, 1941 edition of ``Among Ourselves’’, the L.A. Times’ employee newspaper.

For those astute newspaper historians-you're absolutely right- the camera doesn't lie, that is indeed General Manager Norman Chandler and Editor L.D. Hotchkiss pictured in the group shot. On Feb. 26, 1941, Chandler was elected President of Times-Mirror Co.

Pictured here, beginning from left to right kneeling: Jack Herod, Hugh Arnott, J. H. McCrory, chief photographer. Standing left to right: Robert Ritchie, Maurice Terrell, Robert Jakobsen, General Manager Norman Chandler, Editor L.D. Hotchkiss, Phil Bath, Al “Red” Humphreys, Marshall Benedict, Horton Churchill, Paul Calvert and Art Rogers.