Debbie Fox retired from the BJ as customer service and call center manager.

Debbie wrote:

“I had 30 plus years. I’m going to enjoy sleeping in and spending time with my family. So far so good!”

Debbie is a Springfield High graduate.

Camping and Las Vegas may be in her future.

Debbie Fox and friends at her retirement party

 

David Hertz became Cleveland Jewish Publication Company board chairman June 25.

Beth Thomas Hertz, a BJ page layout and design editor for four years, was there to share in the moment.

So was David’s father, Harlan Hertz.

Cleveland Jewish News, a weekly which morphed into Cleveland Jewish Publication Company, was formed in 1964, succeeding the Jewish Independence, founded in 1906, and the Jewish Review & Observer, whose history began with the Hebrew Observer, founded in 1889.

After being located in Shaker Heights and University Heights, Cleveland Jewish Publication moved to its current location in Beachwood.

David left Ol’ Blue Walls in 2006 after 15 years as night metro editor, deputy business editor, region editor, business editor, metro editor and enterprise editor to become vice president in the media relations department of Dix & Eaton in Cleveland. On the same day, 24 left permanently with 335 years of combined BJ service.

David and Beth will celebrate their silver (25^th) wedding anniversity October 23. Their wedding was at the Civic Theatre where their BJ friends showed up to applaud.

David came to 44 E. Exchange Street after 5 years at Knight-Ridder’s Boca Raton, Florida newspaper.

Beth left the BJ to become managing editor in the Communications Department at the Cleveland Clinic and left that position to be a full-time freelance writer.

They live in Copley with children Alyssa and Josh.

Former BJ deputy Metro editor Arnie Rosenberg and New York City product Fran Sherman Rosenberg celebrated their 5^th wedding anniversary Friday, June 19 in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, where they live.

Arnie wrote:

“Five years ago today, I said, ‘I do,’ and every minute since, I'm glad I did. Fran -- my wonderful wife, my companion, my partner and my best friend -- has made this a wonderful ride . . . and one destined to get even better as we share our lives. Happy Anniversary, My Love.”

Arnie is Treasure Coast Newspapers editor. Its circulation of 100,000 is spread over 5 counties and includes Vero Beach, Fort Pierce, Port St. Lucie and Jupiter in southeast Florida.

His other management stops included Newsmax, Palma Beach County Sun Sentinel, Denver Post, GIE Publishers, Sun Press/Messenger/Observer/News and Paineville Telegraph.

The Ohio University and Beachwood High graduate married Fran, a Staten Island High graduate, in 2013.

Arnie runs into former Ol’ Blue Walls occupants in Florida regularly.

Such as 1996-2000 BJ reporter and Wickliffe native Melanie Payne, a columnist for the News-Press in Fort Myers, Florida, in Arnie’s Stuart, Florida newsroom; and BJ business writer Betty Lin-Fisher in West Palm Beach, Florida, in 2016.

Between them, Arnie and Fran's children are Amanda and Zach.

Arnie’s parents were Elise Kahn Rosenberg, a combat pilot instructor during World War II, and Murray Rosenberg, who came from Brooklyn to live in Beachwood after their 1948 wedding.

Arnie’s siblings are Carol Rosenberg Greenspan of Wellington, Florida and Lori Rosenberg of University Heights.

Memorial program for Oren Dorell, who was killed June 8 when a hit-and-run driver struck his motorcycle in Washington, DC.

His widow is former BJ copy editor Virginia "Ginny" Knapp Dorell.

Author and former BJ columnist David Giffels and wife Gina, a special education teacher, are celebrating their 30^th wedding anniversary in Paris.

I can tell you, since Paula and I had an anniversary observance there, that it’s a perfect place for a romantic getaway.

David and Gina’s children are Evan and Lia.

David wrote:

“Thirty years ago today, on a sunny afternoon in Akron, Ohio, this beautiful person became the best part of my life. Today, we’re in Paris, celebrating all those good years and all the good ones to come.”

David also is a guitarist and vocalist in the local May Company band and is devoted to Devo. He is an assistant professor of English at the University of Akron.

Giffels took one of the many buyouts at Ol’ Blue Walls (his came in 2008 when 5 centuries of BJ experience walked nostalgically out the door).

He began at 44 E. Exchange Street in 1994.

He was born to the late Thomas Giffels and Donna Mae Auseon Giffels.

Billionaire former surgeon takes over 
LA Times on Monday

Biotech billionaire Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a South African native and former UCLA surgeon, on Monday will take control of the Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union-Tribune, which have existed for more than 135 years.

Soon-Shiong forked over $500 million for the priviledge. The deal, which was announced Feb. 7, returns The Times to local ownership after 18 years under Chicago control.

The emphasis will switch from the printed newspaper to digital coverage. Newspaper advertising revenue in America peaked in 2005 at nearly $50 billion. It’s less than $17 billion and dropping now.

Soon-Shiong also owns six California hospitals.

The 800 employees will move from Los Angeles, the paper’s home since 1935, to El Segundo by the end of July. The Times once had 1,200 journalists on its payroll. About 400 remain.

To read the full article, go to http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-patrick-soon-shiong-latimes-sold-20180616-story.html

Former BJ movie critic and “Side Streets” columnist and features writer and current author Bill O’Connor threw a party for wife Elsbeth’s 75^th birthday on Saturday, June 16 “at the edge of a woods,” as one of Bill’s book sites says of their Bath Township home.

Bill married his Switzerland native in 2002. They both have four grown children from previous marriages. At least three of Elsbeth’s offspring were there.

So were Paula Tucker and I, of course, for another reunion with a former co-worker. Other one-time Ol’ Blue Walls people like artist Art Krummel and his wife, Charlene Nevada, a reporter, showed up, too.

And dozens of Bill and Elsbeth’s non-BJ neighbors and friends rambled their way to their residence.

Bill spent time at St. Francis College and Bowling Green University as a student and at Montana University on the faculty and also emigrated from a seminary.

He keeps writing novels nowadays – “Bums and Hersey Bars,” “The Legend of Horn Mountain,” “The Era of Long Thoughts” and “Saint Leo,” his latest.

Paula and I were at the 2012 bash for Elsbeth’s birthday, too. The magic survives.

When Bill and I talked about our days at the BJ, and being blessed with John Knight as the owner, it was reminiscent of what Bill wrote in this blog in 2005 to its late founder, Harry Liggett:

“The further I am from the time at the Beacon, the more I realize how privileged I was to work with such talented people.”

Indeed, Bill. I second that emotion.

Rob Rogers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial cartoonist since 1984, was fired because, as former BJ cartoonist John Derf Backderf put it, “he refused to draw pro-Cheeto cartoons.”

Hillary got 75% of the Pittsburgh vote for President.

But John Robinson Block, whose family has owned the Pos-Gazette since the 1920s, and also owns the Toledo Blade, is an avid Trump supporter.

So the guy who owns the football decided who gets to stay on the team.

Ironically, Rob was curator of this 2003 national cartoon exhibition: “Too Hot to Handle: Creating Controversy Through Political Cartoons.”

In 1999 he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

He is past president of the Association of American Political Cartoonists.

Oren Dorell a hit-and-run fatality

Oren Dorell, at the BJ 1998-2000 before he left for the Raleigh, North Carolina News & Observer and, later, 13 years at USA TODAY, was killed Friday by a hit-and-run driver who struck Dorell’s motorcycle.

D.C.’s Metropolitan Police arrested Daryl Grant, 47, on charges of second-degree murder, driving under the influence and fleeing the scene in his Toyota Camry.

Oren met his wife, Virginia "Ginny" Knapp Dorell, at the BJ. She was a copy editor.  They married in 2003. They have two sons, Malcolm, 12, and Leo, 11.

Oren began at USA TODAY as a breaking news reporter before his globetrotting foreign affairs beat.

Born in Canada in 1964, Oren lived in Bolivia and Philadelphia, but considered his home to be Haifa, Israel, where he lived from ages 5 to 12. 

Oren’s late father, Harold Dorell, was director of civil rights in the Federal Highway Administration Southeast Region 9 during the Reagan Administration. His job was to ensure that contractors who built the nation’s highways, tunnels, transit systems and light rail lines hired workers fairly, without regard to race, ethnicity, religion, sex or disability, in line with the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Harold is a military veteran buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Gevalt leaving Vermont project

Geoffrey Gevalt, former BJ assistant managing editor, is stepping down as director of the Young Writers Project he began in 2006 in Burlington, Vermont.

Geoffrey said the YWP worked with 110,000 children by reading or sharing their work, teaching and giving them feedback.

He will leave YWP at the end of June.

Geoffrey was at the BJ 1992-98.

In 2006 he left his job as managing editor at the Burlington (Vt.) Free Press, where he first started in 2003, to head the Vermont Young Writers Project.

New top editor for Wall Street Journal

Matt Murray will succeed Gerard Baker as Editor-in-Chief of the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires.

Baker becomes Editor-at-Large after 5½ years as EIC, where circulation grew by one-third under Baker.

Northwestern graduate Murray joined Dow Jones & Company in 1994 as a reporter for the Pittsburgh bureau, in 1997 moved to the Journal’s Money & Investing section, covering banking, in 2008 became Deputy Managing Editor and in 2013 was elevated to Deputy Editor-in-Chief.

Mr. Murray joined the news desk in 2004, and later served as a deputy national editor and national news editor.

After stints at the Bank of England and Lloyds Bank, Murray became a British Broadcasting Corporation producer, then went to the Financial Times and the Times of London before joining The Wall Street Journal.

To read the full article, click on

https://newscorp.com/2018/06/05/matt-murray-named-editor-in-chief-of-the-wall-street-journal-and-dow-jones-newswires-gerard-baker-to-become-editor-at-large-will-host-wsj-conferences-and-a-new-wsj-program-on-fox-business-news/

BJ #1 daily in Ohio; racks up many other awards

The Press Club of Cleveland named the Akron Beacon Journal the best large daily newspaper in Ohio.

Elaine Guregian, former culture reporter at the BJ, had a major role in Northeast Ohio Medical University’s 2^nd place award for Best Trade Publication in Ohio for NeoMed's Ignite Magazine. 

Elaine is assistant public relations and marketing director at NeoMed in Rootstown. Previously, she was Development Officer for Corporate and Foundation Relations with the Summa Foundation.

The Beacon Journal and its staff received 29 awards — 12 for first place.

Edna Jakubowski received a Best in Ohio first-place award for page design. 

Other first-place winners were reporters Stephanie Warsmith, Rick Armon, Marla Ridenour, Clint O’Connor, Doug Livingston, Craig Webb, Nate Ulrich and Theresa Cottom. 

Photographers Phil Masturzo and Karen Schiely got first-place awards along with artist Rick Steinhauser.

The Beacon Journal’s Ohio.com was named the second-best newspaper website in Ohio.

Here is a list of the Beacon Journal winners:

Akron Beacon Journal — Best in Ohio: Daily newspaper, first place.

Edna Jakubowski — Best in Ohio: Page design, first place.

Bob Dyer — Best in Ohio: Essay writing, second place.

Michael Douglas — Best in Ohio: Editorial, third place.

Stephanie Warsmith, Rick Armon, breaking news, first place — Seven die in Akron house fire.

Marla Ridenour, obituary, first place — Legendary coach Ara Parseghian passes into eternity.

Phil Masturzo, studio photography, first place — Butternut squash soup.

Clint O’Connor, reviews/criticism, first place — Blade Runner 2019.

Doug Livingston, general news, first place — Call to arms.

Rick Steinhauser, illustration, first place — Bob Dylan.

Craig Webb, arts and entertainment, first place — Disc Dog league.

Nate Ulrich, sports column, first place — Failed trade bolsters Hue Jackson’s case.

Doug Livingston, Theresa Cottom, analysis, first place — Opioid epidemic: Party politics stymie resolutions.

Karen Schiely, general news photography, first place — Changed forever.

Betty Lin-Fisher, business columns, second place — Vintage tire ads preyed on concerns of motorists.

Malcolm X Abram, obituary, second place — Musician Ralph Carney.

Phil Masturzo, portrait photography, second place — Second chance.

Staff, breaking news, second place — Summa leaders to resign posts.

Amanda Garrett, Doug Livingston, Stephanie Warsmith, ongoing breaking news, second place — Police chief resigns.

Malcolm X Abram, arts and entertainment, second place — Himalayan music academy.

Clint O’Connor, personality profile, second place — Fathers, sons and “Field of Dreams.”

Mark Turner, single page design, second place — White in America.

Doug Livingston, public service, second place — Tent city.

Darrin Werbeck, Deanna Stevens, Dan Kadar, newspaper website, second place — Ohio.com.

Bob Dyer, single essay, third place — Stanley Ford case is not about police chief.

Edna Jakubowski, single page design, third place — Escape room.

Betty Lin-Fisher, consecutive days same topic, third place — Summa Health System.

Craig Webb, arts and entertainment, third place — Cleveland Orchestra has to fine tune.

Michael Douglas, single editorial, third place — Judge Adams and his “Dangerous Work.”

Press Club members residing outside Ohio made the selections.

J.R. Smith, who dribbled out the clock with the score tied in regulation time, didn’t make the only blunder of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ Game 1 loss to the Golden State Warriors in the NBA title series round.

The great photo in the BJ gave the score as

Cavaliers 124, Warriors 114 in overtime.

The score was right and the overtime was right.

But the points totals were assigned to the wrong teams.

Another cost of decimating newspaper staffs, including the guardians at the gate, the copy desk.

Marla and everyone else got the score correctly.

CAVS LET WARRIORS OFF HOOK

NBA FINAlS | GAmE 1: WArrIOrS 124, CAvAlIErS 114 (OT)

Victory was within grasp, but missed free throw, reversed call take toll

By Marla Ridenour