A loving, eloquent and stirring Facebook post by Jane
Scholz:
My husband Doug
Balz died peacefully at home in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday,
January 19,
2016, succumbing to cancer that was diagnosed only last fall and
that spread
rapidly through his body. His passing came quickly, but only after a
rich and full
life. His death leaves a void in all of us.
Doug grew up in
a small, Midwestern town and went on become an award-winning
newspaper
editor and reporter. His work touched thousands of lives throughout
the country.
After retiring from newspapering, he used his talents as a teacher,
mentor and
volunteer, enriching more lives with his generosity and wisdom.
“I understand
writers and know what makes them tick,” he once said about
himself. “I
know how to get the best work from writers—how to stimulate them,
how to
challenge them.” Those who worked with him have been echoing those words
for many years.
Slowed in his
last years by a condition that eventually robbed him of his
mobility, he
nonetheless never stopped moving, traveling and doing. He loved his
family, his
work and his hobbies. He was beloved for his sharp sense of humor,
his intellect
and a searing commitment to a fair and equal society. He was 72
when he died.
Doug will be
remembered by his daughters, Sarah and Annie, for his unconditional
love, affection
and support throughout their younger years and on into
adulthood. He
inspired in them a lifelong love of education and social justice.
He was playful
and funny, making use of his talent for puns and corny jokes,
resulting in
many teenage eye-rolls from his girls. He was always a supporter of
their pursuits,
whether it was a love of tropical fish in childhood, a quest for
the perfect
penne arrabbiata recipe or a dream to become a professional
photographer.
In support of
his younger daughter Annie’s passion for Monet, Doug and Annie
took a trip to
Paris together after her high school graduation, visiting every
museum with
Monet’s work and making a day trip to Monet’s Giverny in the French
countryside.
When his older daughter Sarah visited Paris later that year, while
studying
abroad, he sent her his personal guidebook of the city, detailing some
of the same
places he and Annie had visited.
His daughters
also remember fondly the summer vacations they took together with
Doug and his
wife Jane. Long, hot car trips with Paul Simon’s “Graceland” as a
soundtrack.
Beach combing on Martha’s Vineyard. Listening to wild loons in the
Adirondacks.
Doug was born
on June 30, 1943, in Freeport, Illinois, a town of roughly 25,000
people located
in northwest Illinois about 100 miles west of O’Hare Airport. The
town is best
known as the site of one of the most famous of the Lincoln-Douglas
debates, which
as an adult Doug memorialized with a Lincoln bust and a Douglas
autograph in
his study. Freeport was a vibrant community during Doug’s early
years and he
led a rather idyllic childhood.
He was an avid
reader even as a boy, often winning contests at the local public
library for the
number of books read during the summer. At Freeport Junior High,
he met Barbara
Penson, who would later become his first wife and the mother of
his daughters.
In high school, he took her to the junior prom. He played in the
high school
band, was a competitive debater and served as co-editor of the
yearbook, known
as the Polaris, during his senior year. He was graduated in
1961.
After high
school, he was off to the University of Illinois, eventually finding
his way into
the journalism program. He was a gifted writer as a student, and
some of the
papers he submitted for required classes showed the deft touch of
someone much
more mature who knew and cared about the language and could
skillfully turn
a phrase.
He earned his
bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1966 and a master’s degree in
communications,
also at Illinois, in 1968. While there, he won a Ford Foundation
fellowship to
spend a year studying the Illinois legislature in Springfield,
where he spent
time as an aide to the speaker of the House. In 1968, he won one
of the first
fellowships at the newly created Washington Journalism Center.
After
graduating, Doug began a doctorate in American Studies at the University
of Minnesota.
While in the program, he taught English and journalism at the
University of
Wisconsin at River Falls. He worked part-time at KUOM, the local
public radio
station, where he produced programs on current events for children.
Among his
colleagues at the station was a young Garrison Keillor. Doug found the
future
chronicler of life in Lake Wobegone to be shy but talented.
Doug’s work on
his doctorate came at the height of the era of New Journalism.
Like many young
writers he was shaped by the works of Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese and
others who were
developing a new form of journalism, one that combined
techniques of
fiction to enhance nonfiction. Few took on the challenge of
writing
novelistic nonfiction more enthusiastically than Norman Mailer, whose
coverage of the
1967 antiwar March on the Pentagon became the Pulitzer
Prize-winning
book, “The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel; the Novel as
History.”
Doug was drawn
to Mailer’s work, and his doctoral dissertation was an
examination of
Mailer’s writing. It was entitled, “Art and Power: The
Interaction of
the Fiction and Journalism of Norman Mailer.” A copy of the
dissertation is
included in the collection of Mailer’s papers at the Harry
Ransom Center
at the University of Texas in Austin.
As he finished
his dissertation, Doug went to work at the Akron Beacon Journal.
There he was
part of what Lary Bloom recalled a group of “whippersnappers who
thought they
knew everything and were going to save the newspaper business with
their wit and
wisdom.”
It was while he
was at the Beacon Journal that Doug was awarded his Ph.D. Bill
Hershey, a
fellow reporter, remembers some of Doug’s friends from the newspaper
parading
through Doug’s house to the music of Verdi’s “Triumphal March from
Aida” to mark
the milestone.
In 1976, Doug
won first prize in the Ohio Press Association awards for an
investigation
into the cause of leukemia deaths of workers at an area Goodyear
plant. The
investigation contributed to a U.S. Labor Department decision to
limit benzene
concentrations in work areas.
Doug also won
an award for an investigation into irregularities in a local
counterfeiting
case and for spot news coverage of education. Hershey recalled,
“He made life
uneasy for the Akron School Superintendent but still got along
with him. The
superintendent respected Doug because his work was good and
accurate.”
Doug showed off
other talents in Akron. Bloom was the editor of the Sunday
magazine, and
Doug played a variety of roles. It turned out that he was
particularly
skilled at punning. Bloom recalled, “For a little item . . . about
a place that
let customers cut down their own Christmas trees, he came up with
the headline,
‘Axe and Yule Receive.’ For a vegetarian restaurant, it was ‘Peas
in Our Time,’
and for gourmet dog food, ‘Clams on the Arf Shell.’”
In those days
newspapers’ Sunday magazines were undergoing a major evolution, an
effort to bring
great writing and big topics to what often were lowbrow
publications
filled with cheesy advertising. Doug’s knowledge of literature and
Mailer in
particular made him especially well equipped to take on the challenge.
Not long after,
Doug moved from the Beacon Journal to The Miami Herald,
recruited by
Bloom to become associate editor of Tropic magazine. His job
interview with
the paper’s editor, John McMullan, was memorable. McMullan was a
gruff and
sometimes intimidating editor. Over lunch in the executive dining
room, McMullan
asked Doug what he could offer Bloom and the magazine if he got
the job. Doug
thought about the question for a moment and replied with a
one-word
answer: “support.”
Bloom at first
thought it was an odd answer but later came to see how cogent
Doug had been.
“He didn’t feel a need to offer a treatise on narrative
journalism, or
the high ground, or anything like that. It was all implied,”
Bloom said.
McMullan told
Doug, “That’s a good answer.” Doug was soon on his way to Miami.
He began
working at Tropic in late 1978, and the Sunday magazine became one of
the finest in
the country, stirring the pot in Miami by addressing Liberty City,
the Mariel boatlift
and the city’s remarkably high murder rate, among other
issues.
“Doug was an
unheralded force behind a great—if short-lived—phenomenon in
journalism, one
that through storytelling and attaching themselves to a human
point of view
was able to dig into the heart of issues in a way that news
stories
couldn’t,” Bloom said.
With Doug as
her editor, writer Madeleine Blais won the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for
feature
writing.
“If anyone
asks, I always say I owe my Pulitzer to my extraordinary colleagues
at Tropic
Magazine of The Miami Herald, most especially to Doug,” she wrote.
In “Zepp’s Last
Stand,” she told the story of a World War I veteran, a pacifist
who was
dishonorably—and unfairly—discharged, who was going to Washington to
clear his name
and record. With a pile of notebooks surrounding her, Blais
struggled to
write the opening paragraph.
She recalled,
“Doug sensed the agony in my inertia and said, gently, ‘When in
doubt, put the
reader on the road. Learn from the best. If the journey motif was
good enough for
Homer, surely it’s good enough for . . .’”
The lede flowed
from there and, with Doug’s gentle hand and encouragement, so
did the rest of
the story.
In Miami, Doug
later oversaw an ambitious Cuba project that marked the 25th
anniversary of
Fidel Castro’s rise to power. Eventually he was named editor of
Living Today, a
department that included a daily features section, plus a weekly
food section, a
weekly fashion section and a religion page. In 1985, he accepted
a
Penney-Missouri Award for one of the three best feature sections in
large-circulation
newspapers.
While in Miami,
Doug and his first wife, Barbara Penson Balz, were divorced.
Even though he
had a private office in Tropic, he often liked to edit amid the
hubbub of the
city room. While sitting at a terminal on the city desk, he met
Jane Scholz, a
fellow Herald editor. They were married on New Year’s Day 1983,
at the Vizcaya
estate on the shore of Biscayne Bay. In the mid-1980s, Jane was
named publisher
of the Gary, Indiana, Post-Tribune. Doug went to work for the
Chicago
Tribune.
Within a few
years, he had risen to become editor of the Tribune’s Arts section.
Later he was
named managing editor of the Tribune’s Sunday magazine.” Doug was
one of the
smartest, most exuberant, most curious and best-read editors I’ve
worked with,”
recalled Mary Schmich, whom Doug would later describe as one of
the best
writers he worked with in Chicago. “He loved to talk and argue. If
memory serves,
he carried a fat Filofax (that dates a person!) in which he would
write down
books he wanted to read.”
Schmich’s
fondest memory is of the story that never actually came to pass, a
profile of
Oprah Winfrey. “It was 1997 and Oprah rarely gave interviews but he
put in a call
to her, hoping to make the Tribune’s case,” she said. “Some days
passed. It was
clear she wouldn’t call back. Then one late afternoon she did.”
Doug stayed on
the phone as long as he could, cajoling and trying to persuade
the reluctant
Winfrey. In the end she said no. “I always admired his tenacity in
that and other
pursuits,” Schmich said. “He was known as a meticulous editor not
afraid to think
big.”
One of his
think-big ideas came in the early 1990s. In the fall of 1992,
7-year-old
Dantrell Davis was killed by a sniper’s bullet on his way to school
with his
mother. Dantrell lived in the infamous Chicago public housing project
known as Cabrini-Green.
As a tribute to
Dantrell, Doug conceived of the idea of an architectural
competition,
sponsored by the Tribune, to reimagine public housing and to
redesign the
acreage encompassing Cabrini-Green. “We’re saying to the community
that we’re all
in this together,” Doug told Newsweek magazine at the time.
The
competition, which promised no money and no likelihood that the design would
ever be built,
drew 300 contestants from 10 countries, including architects
whose work was
prominent in the city. The winners were a design team from Fargo,
North Dakota.
The whole project spoke to Doug’s journalistic ambitions, his
creativity and
his belief in the power of newspapers to make people’s lives
better and
cities more livable.
In 1998, Doug
took an early retirement from the Tribune and moved to Washington,
to join Jane,
who had been moved several years earlier to become editor of the
then
Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service.
In Washington,
he pursued a variety of activities. For a time, he served as an
adjunct
professor of journalism at George Washington University. As a volunteer,
he mentored
young people, helping them to learn to read and more. He taught
reading to a
retired cleaning woman who had left school as a youngster to
support her
family and wanted to learn to read well enough to enjoy novels and
join a book
club. Thanks to Doug, she did. He also worked part-time in
bookstores and
volunteered in the Prints & Photographs Division at the Library
of Congress.
Through painstaking
genealogical research, he traced the Balz family of Freeport
back to its
roots in Nurtingen, Germany, and a drawing of the church where he
found some key
records hangs in his home. He also was the keeper and promoter of
the Balz Family
Dressing, a somewhat heavy concoction of bread, potatoes and
sausage. “The
BFD” was a staple of Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.
Doug was as
widely read as almost anyone we knew. He was an expert student of
photography,
both of the work of well-known photographs and as a skilled
photographer in
his own right. One of the finest photos he ever took, of a group
of restaurant
workers at rest in downtown Chicago, hangs in his study.
Doug is
survived by his wife Jane; two daughters from his first marriage, Sarah
Balz and Annie
Balz Florin (Luke); two grandsons, Jack and Andy; and a brother,
Dan (Nancy). A
memorial service will be held in March or April in Washington.
Memorials to
the Library of Congress.
--
A final note
from Sarah and Annie: Doug loved his daughters with tenderness and
tenacity. The
most memorable demonstration of his love was the tradition of
ending every
phone call for 20 years of childhood with the words, “I love you, I
miss you, and I
think about you all the time.”
Dad, we do, too.
Condolences may
be sent to Douglas Balz Facebook page and cards may be mailed to:
