4 revealing spotlights on Larry Williams

Former BJ super writing coach Stuart Warner had such an excellent post about the late Larry Williams, who was primarily responsible for the 1987 BJ Pulitzer for coverage of the Goldsmith/Goodyear crisis, that I will just put it here, verbatim:

Larry Williams worked in Akron for only about three years, so many of you may not have worked with him, but his legacy lives on, even though it may have taken some of us longer to appreciate what he left us. I know I never properly thanked him for the lessons learned. Here's a brief recounting of what he did to win us a Pulitzer in 1987:

From the day in October 1986 that Business Editor Doug Oplinger discovered that Goodyear was in play, until the day in November that Sir James Goldsmith walked away with $94 million of the company’s money Larry Williams pushed us to cover the story like we were the Wall Street Journal, not the Beacon Journal.

More than 35 reporters, more than a dozen artists and photographers and countless editors told every aspect of the takeover attempt, from the financiers at Merrill Lynch to the sweeper at the company’s barbershop. We reported from New York, Washington, Columbus and the neighborhoods of Akron as well as city hall.

And when that was done, we ratcheted up the reporting another notch. Larry assembled a team of Rick Reiff, Larry Pantages, Melissa Johnson and me, along with Doug, John Greenman and himself to produce a 20,000-word reconstructive narrative on what had just happened to our community. In five days. During Thanksgiving Week.

I was to be the lead writer. Needless to say we worked through the nights, into the early mornings.

“I remember walking into the news room at mid-morning on Thanksgiving Day to check on the story’s progress,” Editor Dale Allen recalled in his unpublished memoir. “The first person I saw was Larry Williams, his feet propped up on a desk in the middle of the newsroom, sound asleep, a file folder crammed with notes strewn across his lap. He had been at the paper throughout the previous night. For Larry, that was probably a very exciting way to spend Thanksgiving.”

Larry did give us two hours off in the afternoon to have dinner with our families. I remember swallowing some turkey and mashed potatoes with my wife and our 2-year-old, who most people knew as Baby Corner. Then I must have crashed for an hour- long nap. Once again I was refreshed and back in the office by 5 p.m.

We continued to write until 4 o’clock Friday morning, completing all 11 chapters of the draft.

All that was left was the final edit. Piece of cake, I assumed, even though I hadn’t had any cake or pie on the holiday. I was used to my copy sailing through the desk. How long could this take? Three or four more hours and we’d be done, I thought.

I’d never experienced the kind of deep dive into a story Larry Williams put us through for the next 20 hours. He questioned every assertion, wanted more information for every . . . It was a clinic in professional editing.

There were no shortcuts, even as we worked past dawn on Saturday morning. Anyway, Larry was not about to skip over a single word. We started with page one, line one, and worked our way through the draft.

As we approached the finish, I realized we had no ending. Writers struggle over their lead, but often forget the significance of a great finish. I had nothing.

Then one of my colleagues noted that Goldsmith had never been to Akron through the ordeal.

And there was our walk-off.

“Left behind was testimony to the enormous power of Goldsmith’s brand of capitalism. He had terrorized Akron without once stepping foot in the city.”

Akron had learned a lesson about finance; I had learned a lesson about the value of deep editing a major project, one that I didn’t fully appreciate until years later.

RIP, Larry Williams. Thanks for pushing us to be our best.

 

Former BJ and current PD pop culture critic Mark Dawidziak also had a revealing comment about Larry Williams:

Mark Dawidziak I spent most of the summer of 1988 in Los Angeles, thanks to Larry. When that year's devastating Writers Guild of America strike shut down the TV and movie industry for several months, Larry decided we should take the lead on this ongoing story for the Knight-Ridder group. That was Larry. Why not us?

Former BJ chief artist Art Krummel also posted:

·         Larry knew what he wanted as far as graphics, too. He held a meeting with me and Bill Hunter and ?? and told me he wanted an illustrated sig for every chapter in the narrative! I whined "that's 20(?) illustrations Larry!" he just shrugged and said OK.

ASo Balogh was busy for an intense couple days. I was busy doing design and was working late along with Dennis. I left first and headed home. I had been working so intensely that I never took time to get gas so I ran out right near the x-way entrance. Luckily Dennis came by shortly behind me and picked me up. We drove up to a gas station across from Art's Place and I bought a can, got some gas and we drove back to Art's and had a few.

·      

·         There was a big debate about the cover, too. I wanted the photo of Goldsmith with the arrogant look sucking on his glasses. Someone else wanted a shot of the blimp hanger with a big crowd of Akronites showing solidarity with Goodyear. My argument won and the arrogant SOB photo ran. Dale Allen made the call. The Blimp shot was the back cover.

 

A Bowling Green State University article on the 1987 Pulitzer also shed light on Larry Williams:

SERIES CHRONICLED ATTEMPTED GOODYEAR TAKEOVER

 

When Akron, Ohio’s economic stability was threatened, the staff at the Akron Beacon Journal made sure to thoroughly cover the events of the “The Goodyear War,” earning them the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting.

The award winning article, “The Goodyear War,” covered Sir James Michael Goldsmith’s attempts at taking over the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. in Akron.

Goodyear was the source of Akron’s economic life, as it was the largest employer for the city at the time. Many feared the takeover of Goodyear would result in an economic blow to the community.

 

Stuart Warner, the lead writer of “The Goodyear War,” recollected the events in a 25th anniversary piece.

 

“It was an emotional time for Akron and Northeast Ohio, facing the prospect of a foreigner taking over the Goodyear blimp and the rest of the nation’s 34th-largest company,” Warner wrote in an article for Inside Business in 2011.

 

The story came about when Doug Oplinger, the business editor of the Akron Beacon Journal, was reading stories about the stock market and noticed rumors of a Goodyear takeover.

 

“In Akron, just about everybody had a relationship with a tire company. We were the tire capital of the world. We had four major companies here, and Goodyear, by far, was the largest employer,” he said. “It was tens of thousands of people who had some direct connection to the company.”

 

The staff collected five to six paragraphs of information about the takeover rumors, and Oplinger had it put on the front page of the Beacon Journal the following afternoon.

 

News about the potential takeover was quiet for over a week, but Goodyear’s stock activity saw prices going up. Eventually, the rumors were confirmed and the staff at the Beacon Journal began their coverage.

 

“We put out three editions a day, and we were changing the story and the headline from edition to edition,” Oplinger said.

 

“Every two hours we were getting new information and changing the story dramatically.”

 

When the Akron Beacon Journal’s truck would pull up to Goodyear’s building in Akron, people would flock from the building to buy newspapers.

 

“You couldn’t report it fast enough,” said Oplinger.