Gannett (and BJ?) newsrooms getting unpaid week a month for 3 months

Gannett will put newsroom employees on unpaid “furloughs” for 1 week for each of the months of April, May and June if they are making more than $38K a year.

Guess Gannett will let the taxpayers cough up the difference?

Executives will take a 25% pay cut.

Gannett paid 7 people $18 million in compensation last year, including $4.5 million to its new CEO who oversaw the stock drop from $12 to $1.76!

Unfortunately, the BJ is a Gannett newspaper . . . unless there’s been yet another sale of the BJ.

Go to

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/gannett-announces-unpaid-furloughs-pay-174624193.html

to read the article.

Donna Howard Barone, who was BJ Production secretary under Tony Agnello and Don Baker at the BJ, passed away.

Donna’s husband is Tony Barone, who managed the BJ paperhandlers.  He had an office in the old Erie Depot building across the street from the BJ 44 E. Exchange Street building for a time, where shipments of newsprint came in by rail.  He also had an office at the south end of the pressroom, shared with the pressroom foremen during the time the north end was being redone with the new presses when Mike Mayo was production manager.

 

BJ Circulation Department retiree Janet Hall posted:

“Rest in peace Donna Barone. You had a hard fight with Alzheimers. Now rest in peace.”

BJ Advertising Makeup retiree Mike Williams tells me that Donna was at the BJ from 1978-1985. And that Donna was on the Tower Topics and Sidebar boards and the Explorer Post committee and that she wrote several articles for Tower Topics.

Bill Heinbuch worked in paperhandlers with Tony Barone. Bill and Shirley Fertick Heinbuch and Donna and Tony Barone stayed close after retirement.   Although Bill and Shirley live in Mogadore, Shirley attends Unity Church of Light on North Thomas Road only a few blocks from my Tallmadge condo. 

Inspiring!!!!

Despite severe cutbacks in personnel the BJ continues to rake in Ohio Associated Press Managing Editor awards.

Eight this time.

Marla Ridenour

Cleveland Browns reporter Marla Ridenour got first place for best sports feature writer.

Browns Magazine 2019 got a first place for best special sports section.

Photographer Phil Masturzo won second place for best sports photo called “Game Winner” and third place for best news photo for “Call to Duty.”

Bob Dyer got second place for best columnist, one notch below his ranking in almost double-digit previous years. If you count APME, Ohio Society of Professional Journalists and the Cleveland Press Club, Bob has ELEVEN state-wide awards as best columnist.

I guess all the advice I gave Bob during our two decades of lunching together in the BJ Blue Room paid off, huh, Bob?

 
Best enterprise reporting: Stephanie Warsmith and Paula Schleis won second place for best enterprise reporting.

Amanda Garrett won third place for best news writer.

Marla Ridenour won third place for best sports enterprise.

 
Since only 35 as listed in the current BJ newsroom directory, including clerks, and more than 10 were involved in getting these awards, that means about ONE-THIRD of the BJ newsroom staff are award-winners!

 
That is astounding!

 
The Beacon Journal competes in Division V for newspapers with a daily circulation of more than 60,000.

Art Cullison’s brother passes away

Don Cullison, brother of former BJ copy editor the late Art Cullison, passed away Tuesday, March 10 in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Their parents were Ernest and Emma Cullison.

Don moved to Murfreesoro from Akron in 2010 to be near his children.

Art, who retired in 1985 after 36 years at the BJ, passed away in 2012. His wife, Helen, joined him in the afterlife in 2014.

Art also was assistant State Desk editor and TV, movie and night club reviewer at Ol’ Blue Walls on 44 E. Exchange Street.

I remember the time that Art realized that he had put his foot in his mouth when he came over to my TV Editor desk. He was the copy editor of an article I had written and he was going to impress upon me that I should write the way you would talk to the reader, not in a stilted language, as I'm sure he often had done to other reporters.

Art began: “You sure do talk funny.” My response: "Yeah, I do. Since birth."

Then he realized that my speech was distorted by my cleft palate deformity from birth. The look on Art’s face when he realized the gaffe of what he had said to someone who does, indeed, “talk funny” because of a birth defect, was priceless.

Have you ever heard Art Cullison stutter? I did when his remark hit his brain. And blush. One of the most erudite people in the BJ newsroom, out-done only by Hal Fry, had a language misstep. Even the king can do wrong, huh?

Since I’ve spent a lifetime dealing with people embarrassed by my deficiency, I shrugged it off. Just another instance for me, like women who mouth the words as I talk to try to help me speak clearer. Well-meaning, but noticeable to those of us with a handicap as a constant reminder of our handicap.

Don Cullison’s obituary:

Donald W. Cullison

Donald Cullison, 92, passed away peacefully on Tuesday, March 10, 2020 morning surrounded by his family in Murfreesboro, TN. He was born in Akron, Ohio on April 21, 1927 to the late Ernest and Emma Cullison. He was a WWII veteran and served in the Army-Air Force from 1945-1947; and retired from the post office in 1982 after 39 years of service. Don was a member of Firestone Park United Methodist Church, an active member and past Master of Victory Lodge #649, and a past Monarch of Yusef Khan Grotto until 2010 when he relocated to Murfreesboro with his wife, SaraJane, to be near his family. Don was preceded in death by his parents; his wife of 62 years, SaraJane; brothers and sisters-in-law, Karl Cullison (Ruby) and Art (Helen Louise) Cullison. Don is survived by his daughter, Judith Hennessy (Francis De-Sales) of Murfreesboro, TN, and son, William (Brenda) of North Canton OH; granddaughters, Amber (Aaron) Schmuhl of Murfreesboro, TN, and Dr. Jennifer Cullison of Perrysburg Ohio; and great granddaughters, Isabella, Chloe and Alice Schmuhl of Murfreesboro, TN. Private family services will be held with the Reverend Francis De-Sales Hennessy, III officiating. Burial will follow at Greenlawn Cemetery where American Legion Post #566 will conduct military honors. The family would like to thank the staff of the Villages of Murfreesboro for their love and care of Don. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the LaVergne First United Methodist Church at 248 Old Waldron Road, LaVergne, TN 37086, or to the Villages of Murfreesboro at 2550 Willow Oak Trail, Murfreesboro, TN 37129. The Schlup Pucak Funeral Home is honored to serve the Cullison family. Messages and memories of Donald can be shared at schluppucakfh.com  .

Lloyd Stoyer passes away

Former BJ assistant managing editor Lloyd Stoyer passed away.

Lloyd Stoyer

Lloyd has an extensive resume: Conneaut News Herald, Beacon Journal, Hiram College PR director and journalism instructor, Akron Betterment Council executive director (proposing county charter), Niles Times editor, Lapeer (Michigan) County Press, Republic Steel PR director and Modern Tire Dealer editor.

Faye Ann Good Stoyer, Lloyd’s wife, passed away in 2012. She was born in Struthers, Ohio and graduated from nearby Poland High School.

Lloyd’s obituary:

Lloyd Stoyer, 91, is finally at peace after an increasing struggle with dementia. Lloyd was born on November 18, 1928 near Youngstown and was the first son of Wayne and Nellie Stoyer. He grew up, nearby in Poland and graduated from high school there in 1946. While in high school, he met the love of his life and future wife, Faye Ann Good. Lloyd majored in journalism at Ohio State University, where he graduated with honors in 1949.

Faye Good Stoyer

After college, Lloyd began his long work career. He started as a reporter for the Conneaut (Ohio) News Herald before being drafted to the Korean War. Lloyd and his wife were married in Poland on Oct. 7, 1951, a few days before he was assigned to Aomori, Japan, where he spent two years with the army’s Counter Intelligence Corps.

After returning to civilian life, Lloyd and Faye moved to Akron, then Wadsworth, then Bath and he spent 15 years with the Akron Beacon Journal as a reporter, the Sunday editor, and then as the assistant managing editor. In 1968, he took a job as the director of public relations at Hiram College, where he also taught a journalism course. In 1972, he was asked to be the executive director of the Area Betterment Council, sponsoring a proposed county charter to improve local government efficiency. He then became the editor of the Niles Times and its six suburban weekly papers.

When the Times was sold, Lloyd and the family moved to Lapeer, Michigan, where he edited the Lapeer County Press. The paper was three times named 'America’s best community weekly by the Inland Press Association.

Lloyd and Faye returned to Ohio in 1980, where they bought a home in North Canton. Lloyd became the public relations director for Republic Steel’s five plants in Stark County. Later he worked at Republic’s headquarters in Cleveland as director of internal public relations for the entire company. When Republic went bankrupt in 1984, Lloyd became editor of 'Modern Tire Dealer,' the tire industry’s leading trade publication. Shortly before Lloyd retired in 2000, he was elected to the tire industry’s Hall of Fame.

Lloyd’s life has been centered around work, but more importantly about his family. His loving wife, Faye, passed away in 2012, after 60 years of marriage. They had a busy and active life, which included raising two children and extensive travels all around the country and world. After his retirement and Faye’s passing, Lloyd worked hard to downsize and sell his home. He moved to Chapel Hill, a United Church Homes Community. There he moved from an independent home to assisted living, and then to the memory unit. He had amazing support throughout his almost 6 years in this progressive community.

Lloyd is survived by his two children, Judy Stoecklin and her partner, Stuart McDonald in Sanbornton, New Hampshire and Jerry Stoyer in Sachse, Texas. He is also survived by his brother, Lyn Stoyer and his wife, Dorothy; his grandsons Spencer Stoyer and Seth Stoyer.

The family invites you to visit www. reedfuneralhome.com.

 

“When Truth Mattered,” former BJ managing editor Bob Giles’ account of the Beacon’s Pulitzer-winning coverage of the 1970 carnage of Kent State students by the Ohio National Guard, should be required reading for every college journalism student in America.

United Press International got it wrong when it reported that two National Guardsmen had been shot.

Jeff Sallot, a BJ summer intern and campus stringer for the Beacon who was there, said and wrote otherwise. The BJ printed Sallot’s article that the only shooting victims were Kent State students: 4 killed and 9 wounded. Reporter Bob Page was sent to the hospital and verified that NO Guardsmen were among the wounded, only the students.

Governor Rhodes, in the midst of a tight battle with Robert Taft for a U.S. Senate seat that Jimmy lost after the Kent State debacle, and the National Guard officer in charge tried to claim that a sniper’s shot caused the Guard to react by firing back. The BJ disproved that, too.

Bob Giles accurately credits State Desk editor Pat Englehart’s whipcracking passion for the truth and accuracy displayed by the BJ.

I consider Pat the #1 reason that the BJ got the Pulitzer. Pat was my hero, my role model for what a great newspaper editor should be. Time after time he sent reporters back to their desk and their phones to dig deeper, to find collaborating sources, to shine a giant spotlight on truth.

Pat was no “enemy of the people,” only of politicians and authorities who tried to cover up, obfuscate or murky-up the truth.

Trump would hate Pat. I loved Pat. He was the best editor I worked with in my 43-year newspaper career and, even though I was 38 years old when I came to the BJ and had 16 years of newspaper experience, I learned more from Pat than I had from anyone else in my path at newspapers.

I found it an interesting juxtaposition that the fire-eating Pat, he with the deNobil cigar and the window-shattering demand for a story to be bear-hugging the truth, and mild-mannered Ray Redmond, the Casper Milquetoast of the newsroom, played the most pivotal roles in shattering the charade that the National Guard was the victim.

John Knight made the ultimate decision that the BJ, and not Knight-Ridder, would submit the nomination for the Pulitzer because it was the BJ that did the grunt work, the investigative work, that revealed the FBI report that nailed the National Guard as not being at risk when it fired, that time after time shot down claims promulgated by politicians and other journalists that tried to deflect the blame away from the National Guard.

JSK even told J. Edgar Hoover to piss off (Mr. Knight didn’t use those words but that was the message) when President Nixon got Hoover to demand that the BJ retract key parts of its article about the FBI report.

JSK stood up to Nixon over Vietnam; J. Edgar was no match for the best newspaper owner in American history either.

Bob Giles was at the BJ from 1958-75, and later editor of the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle and Times Union in New York, editor and publisher of the Detroit News and curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard.

Jeff Sallot was with the Toronto Globe and Mail as bureau chief in Moscow, Ottawa and Edmonton before joining the Carleton University Journalism and Communication faculty in Ottawa. Jeff met his wife, Rosemary Boyle, at the Globe and Mail. They still live in Ottawa.

Bob Page, tired of hearing all the swearing in the newsroom and composing room, became a minister and is associate pastor at the Live Oaks Community Church in The Villages, Florida, which has a drive-in parking lot where you can hear and watch the services from your car.

I’ve been there and also played golf with Bob and late BJ printer Hugh Downing during my winter months in The Villages with Paula Stone Tucker, author of another book tied to Kent State, “Surviving: A Kent State Memoir,” available on Amazon.com.

Pat Engelhart and Ray Redmond passed away.

Bob Giles’ book will be published March 30 by Mission Point Press in Traverse City, Michigan, where Bob lives with wife Nancy Giles, a psychologist specializing in dealing with trauma. Bob is on the editorial board of the Traverse City Record-Eagle.

Like Paula's book, Bob's masterpiece is available on Amazon.com.

Bob is scheduled to be at an author event May 4 at the Kent State Book Store, 10-11 a.m. Unless it becomes another coronavirus cancellation.

Cleaning crew may out-number journalists in PD newsroom

PD will lay off 22 more newsroom employees.

When the PD jettisoned 14 from the newsroom in 2019, that was about a third of the staff. Cutting the newsroom to 33.

So laying off 22 more sounds like maybe a dirty dozen will be left. Sad time for democracy.

Two decades ago the PD had 340 journalists.

There are a lot of ghost empty seats in the newsroom these days.

Will the last reporter or editor left please turn out the lights. The party's over.

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2020/03/staff-cuts-in-the-plain-dealer-newsroom-announced-as-industry-financial-pressures-grow.html?fbclid=IwAR0KLc9c_TiNMFw2WoBwbfOBE3xLZjk1FXOLDsWVYRcU8sCtLigoAaHLj8M

This story is 8 years old, but as BJ dinosaurs know, no good story should be allowed to wither and gather dust but must be exhumed and exposed to the spotlight and sunshine.

This is about retired BJ copy desk editor Charles S. Montague, or Chasm as we dinosaurs know him, and Jim Naughton, former Philadelphia Inquirer editor.

Naughton was born in Pittsburgh and grew up in Painesville, Ohio where he began his newspaper career by delivering the Painesville Telegraph.

He went from Notre Dame Journalism School to the Marine Corps to the Plain Dealer to the New York Times where he was joined at the hip with Gene Roberts to the Philadelphia Inquirer (with Roberts, of course) as the Inquirer racked up 17 Pulitzers, the Valhalla of journalism. Naughton left the Inquirer to become president of Florida’s Poynter Institute, a bastion of information about the media.

He was almost as famous as a prankster who would dump enough frogs in Roberts’ bathtub to match Roberts' age on his birthday or wear a swami hat or a chicken head to interview a Presidential candidate.

This story first appeared August 14, 2012 as an op-ed guest column in the Cleveland Plain Dealer two days after Naughton passed away, under Chasm’s byline.

I’ll let Chasm tell the story . . . again:

News of the death Saturday, two days shy of him turning 74, of James M. Naughton, former ace Plain Dealer reporter, storied New York Times correspondent and even more storied top-tier Philadelphia Inquirer editor, jolted me as I sipped my first early morning coffee and read his obituary on the big screen of my Google-equipped TV, linked to my digital subscription to the Times.

Jim Naughton was a hero to me and this is the story of why.

In the searing summer of 1968, there was an intense presidential campaign going on. (I think I've heard about something similar here and now, 44 years later.) Cleveland was excited because the Democratic nominee, Hubert Humphrey, was coming to town for what was then an unusual kind of campaign appearance.

The editors of the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram decided about 11 a.m. on the day of the event that the small paper 30 miles west of Cleveland would get in there with the Big Boys and cover the Humphrey stop.

They chose to send an eager kid, just 21. Banging away on a manual typewriter with copy paper and carbon paper, he had in his few weeks out of Ohio University in Athens, Ohio produced stuff that was just readable enough to warrant the assignment.

He was me.

Back then, the drive from Elyria to Cleveland was not the relatively smooth sail east on I-90 that it is today. (I covered, in the summer of 1969, the opening of a section of I-90 from Route 57 east for a few miles.)

I motored on two-lane roads with a thousand stoplights, got on Detroit Road and finally wheeled my 1962 Ford Fairlane into the parking lot of Burke Lakefront Airport, where Humphrey was to arrive by small private jet, got out, soaked up the scene, listened and started writing notes.

But it was pretty obvious to any Trained Observer of People and Events that I looked like I didn't really have a good handle on what I was doing. A voice from behind said, "Hi. Jim Naughton. Plain Dealer." I introduced myself. He looked about 10 years older than me (actually, it's eight). I had seen his byline.

He handed me some papers, said they were Humphrey campaign briefing stuff, said he was done with them. "But first, you need to see those two guys," he said, gesturing toward a nearby stern gray suit, who was a Secret Service agent, and a harried rumpled black suit, a Humphrey campaign aide.

They looked at my I.D. and issued me a credential.

As Humphrey's plane landed, Naughton told me how to get to Cleveland City Hall, where I would probably find a parking spot nearby and how I would be in an office that would have one black-and-white TV with one small speaker, showing what a stationary camera viewed inside the City Council Chamber as Humphrey held a town hall meeting with the council members. As the local media pro, Naughton would be in the council chamber.

As things started to roll, I thanked Naughton for his help. He smiled and said, "Get the story. Get it right." I smiled back. I knew that for him, since the PD was a morning paper, it was also get it fast, which he did, of course. I was at an afternoon paper, so I could stay up all night writing my article, which I did.

The cramped and crowded office where the traveling press, which had landed at Cleveland Hopkins, was stashed seemed to have only one open chair. I sat down. Next to me, an older man who I thought I recognized extended his hand and said, "Martin Agronsky. CBS." I shook his hand and said my name and affiliation.

I also thought, "Holy dung! This is a colleague of the legend, Cronkite -- a man who calls him Walter!"

Humphrey and the Cleveland pols went on and on and even my largely uninformed ears could tell that it didn't sound as if something really significant was happening here. Agronsky and the other veterans in the office grew antsy.

When Humphrey looked as if he was getting ready to leave, Agronsky rose from his chair and shouted at the TV.

The line he said has been recounted as being said by others at the events of other politicians. I don't know who said it first; I don't think it was Agronsky.

What he shouted at the TV was: "Hubert! You can't stop talking. You haven't said a lead!"

(Which is also spelled "lede." It refers to the first paragraph of a news report, which is supposed to be the Really Significant Thing that you are reporting.)

The same thought was evident inside the council chamber. I saw Naughton move into the picture and speak into the ear of a Humphrey aide, who spoke into the candidate's ear. Humphrey sat back down and proceeded, a few minutes later, to say a lead.

I called Naughton a couple of days later and thanked him for his help. He said he appreciated that.

"Stay after the story," he told me.

I said I would.

In 38 years, nine months and 10 days at the Akron Beacon Journal (not to put too fine a point on it), I was proud to be a member of a staff that won three Pulitzer Prizes. I played my part in each.

But I am just as proud that every so often, as I aged before taking a buyout at 62 on easy-to-remember 10-09-08, that I had the opportunity to help a young person or just be nice to them. Some are out there today, not so young anymore, but doing great work in these trying times for newspapers.

Charles Montague, a retired reporter, desk editor and copy editor for the Akron Beacon Journal, lives in Stow.

The reason that I resurrected this story is because it is important that everyone doing the glorious task of journalism, so crucial to a democracy, is that we help others just coming into that glorious profession. In my 43-year newspaper career in West Virginia, Florida and Ohio, others did just that for me, just as Naughton did for Chasm.

In West Virginia, sportswriting legend and West Virginia Journalism Hall of Famer Mickey Furfari took me under his wing when I was working 40 hours a week as a reporter for the Morgantown Dominion-News, particularly when the alcoholic managing editor left to drink his dinner and didn’t return for hours. Since I also was taking 19 credit hours a semester at West Virginia University School of Journalism at the same time, sleep was a rare commodity for me. So Mickey was a great help.

Mickey and I were friends for more than a half-century and chatted on the phone every month about WVU sports, our health and life up until Mickey passed away in 2016.

After my 1954 WVU graduation I became sports editor of the Williamson, West Virginia Daily News while Jim Van Zant was serving his country in the military. When Jim returned, I slid over to news editor.

Jim was so revered along the Tug River that divides West Virginia from Kentucky that they re-named the Willliamson Stadium the Jim Van Zant Memorial Stadium, used for both football and baseball. Jim helped me at that stage of my career.

Next I joined the sports department of the Charleston, West Virginia Daily Mail, sister paper of the Charleston Gazette, the state’s largest newspaper. Dick Hudson, the sports editor, was another West Virginia legend and Journalism Hall of Famer. He put up with my foibles and gave me guidance. Dick passed away in North Carolina at the age of 102.

Then I went to the Dayton Daily News where Si Burick was sports editor and almost an annual recipient of Ohio Sports Columnist of the Year awards. He, too, helped the coal miner’s son from West Virginia be a better sportswriter.

My final stop was the Akron Beacon Journal. State Desk editor Patrick T. Englehart, his assistant Harry Liggett, founder of this BJ Alums blog, editor Ben Maidenburg and managing editor Scott Bosley gave me helpful nudges and tips along the way.

The message, if you haven’t gotten it yet: If you are doing a veteran journalist, take time from your hectic life to help the newbies who come your way. Chasm knows what I’m talking about. Now so do you.

My thanks to Larry Pantages, who spent some time in the sports department at the BJ, for discovering and posting Chasm’s column on Facebook.

BJ dinosaurs bond with BJ young pups

Those dinosaurs among us who worked at the BJ when John Knight walked into his corner office every year, after he went to the Kentucky Derby horserace the first Saturday in May and until winter was near and he skeddaled to his Miami Herald office on Biscayne Bay, enjoyed the Golden Era of newspapers with the best newspaper owner in America history.

But we also feel a kinship with those who are at the BJ today, even though it no longer it as 44 E. Exchange Street but in a former Goodrich factory. We know fool well that they have a much tougher task than we did when there were 250 in the newsroom compared to maybe 50 or less today. But we feel a bond because they, as we were, are dedicated journalists.

Retired BJ copy editor Charles Montague, referred to as Chasm by his fellow dinosaurs during our time together at Ol’ Blue Walls, and I have exchanged thoughts about those days and these days. I thought you might appreciate our insight.

Chasm began this exchange when he emailed this to me:

I see from the first column by the new media critic of The New York Times, in which he comments on The Times’ rebirth from its struggles in 2014 to the colossus it is today, that the current starting salary for most reporters is $104,600.
Serious money.

(OLESKY NOTE: Not if you’ve living in New York City where $104,600 is about like $50,000 in Akron).

Back in the day, John S Knight and Ben Maidenburg weren’t exactly lavish with pay for new people, but they knew that if they were going to put out a paper better than the Plain Dealer and Cleveland Press, they had to pay better than the bigger papers.

To mildly toot my horn a little, Maidenburg looked over my 22 months of clips from the Elyria Chronicle Telegram and started me at $10 a week above Guild scale, big money in April 1970 for a 23-year-old with a wife and 9-month-old baby boy at home.

And I never forgot it.

And worked my butt off.

Later editors did same — for their own reasons.

Paul Poorman was a notorious cheap guy, but he liked being able to lord it over the guys at Detroit that his Beacon Journal was winning journalism awards and they weren’t, and he fought like hell to limit raises, but then gave in.

Mark Etheridge, when he arrived, discovered that some the best newsroom people were active in Guild and on negotiating committee. The Guild lawyer told us that he had been informed by back channels that Etheridge wanted new Guild contract settled quickly because he wanted those people back doing daily newspapering and not tied up in pay talks.

I think things started to go in dumper when McMillion was big boss. One of his people told the Guild lawyer that he didn’t like not being able to cut a person’s pay. Said he found it good way to get rid of people he didn’t like.

My point is newspapers get what they pay for.

Had chance a few weeks ago to pay surprise visit to new BJ in AES Building. The great Katie Byard was kind enough to show me around on what was my first time back since I took buyout and left on 10/09/08. The great Mark Price had not come in yet, but I got to say hello to some folks I worked with who still make BJ great — Jim McKinnon, Stephanie Warsmith and Darren Werbeck, among others. The dynamo Phil Masturzo also had not come in yet.

My reply to Chuck’s email:

Chasm:

When I was interviewed for a job at the BJ, after being fired by union-hating Cox Newspapers' Dayton Daily News (Maidenburg knew it was for union activities and said, because I had there 13 years, that "I was their fault" and brought managing editor Dan Warner into Ben's office and told him to negotiate a salary with me).

Dan offered me top Guild minimum but I said living costs were higher in Akron than in Dayton so he gave me $25 more than the Guild minimum. My late brother-in-law said I was the only person he knew who could be out of work for 5 weeks and blackballed by Editor Jim Fain letters to everyone who inquired about me when I applied elsewhere that would demand a pay raise!

When I began at the BJ, Pat Englehart was called into Maidenburg's office. Pat came out, walked over to me and said, "You are the assistant State Desk editor," so I immediately got another 10% bump in my weekly paycheck. When I checked the Guild list I was #14 in salary among Guild members.

Maidenburg was the best thing that ever happened to me because he was hellbent on reclamation projects, which included me. His only advice to me was, "Pick a side and stick with it." So I chose management side because of Maidenburg and crossed the Guild picket line during a strike.

But when Giles and Fitzpatrick in later years called me into Giles' office after they broke up the State Desk and suggested that I might be happier working somewhere else I applied for Guild membership. I'm sure Giles and Fitzpatrick were following Ethridge's orders, but that broke the covenant I made with Maidenburg.

So I applied for Guild membership, and was accepted, over Jim Ricci's strenuous objections, and became an ardent and active Guild supporter, as you know. After all, I was on a union picket line before I was born because my pregnant mother stood in a line alongside my father while coal company goons on horseback, including our neighbor across the street, tried to intimidate United Mine Workers.

By the way, my father, a United Mine Workers coal miner and check weighman, also was fired for his union activities. It's a badge of honor in my family. My father's transgression was that when the coal in a coal car was weighed and dumped and the company hack said 50 tons my father as the union checkweighman would say 70 tons. They would settle for 60 tons, costing Consolidation Coal Company a lot of money during the years my father was the union checkweighman.

So when my father was covered up in a coal cave-in (his 2nd and he survived both even though fellow miners had to remove FOUR FEET of coal to get to any part of his body) and was hospitalized, Consol removed him from the payroll, glad to get ride of a union troublemaker. When my father returned to work 9 months later he had to find another mine to risk his life to feed and clothe me. My father is a hero to me.

Later, when I was shuffled off to Makeup Editor by management as part of the breakup of the State Desk and the loyalty and power than Englehart engendered, printers Terry Dray and Red Reeves told me, when I explained my precarious job situation, “Don’t worry; we’ll take care of you.”

Did they! When I was Makeup Editor on Saturday night for the Sunday BJ the paper NEVER went in late. When I would NOT be Makeup Editor for the Sunday paper (vacations, etc.), the paper would go in late. Giles and Fitzpatrick, unaware of my support group, months later called me into Giles’ office again and said, “You were a round peg in a square hole.” No more threats of shoving me out the door. I will be in debt to Terry and Red, both no longer with us, till the day I die.

Old farts like you and me have some great stories to tell about life at the BJ. Keep them coming.

And, can I use any of your email in the BJ Alums blog, along with my tale about my entrance into the BJ?

Stay healthy and keep fighting the good fight for unions and your family and friends. I still do, every day.

John O.

After my response, Chasm emailed:

Darren also introduced me to a couple of young people who started at the BJ since I left, some quite recently. Gosh, they look so young — because they are. It was another reminder that I have gotten older — not old. They have the same bright eyes and enthusiasm that I did as a 23-year-old in April 1970.

My point is this. To my fellow newspeople of the past: Yes, today’s BJ is not the paper we put out. But the whole business has changed.

Realize, though, that even though 44 E. Exchange is no more, even though our once-hated competitor the PD handles circulation and classified ads and even though the paper is printed in, of all places, Canton at the Rep, it is still the BJ, with a few cagey veterans and more great young people working hard every day to put out a paper that I think JSK and Ben M would be proud of.

I know I am proud of them and the paper.

Charles S. Montague
BJ. 4/20/70 to 10/09/08
refall50@hotmail.com  
330-524-3231

I am proud of the work they do, too, Chasm. Under circumstances far more difficult than we had. Having BJ in your resume makes you part of the brotherhood/sisterhood of a special group.

Oh, I see the obvious errors in spelling and grammar because there’s no Hal Fry, the genius on the Copy Desk, to make sure everything is in the King’s English. But when you’re on a speeding treadmill it’s not easy to see clearly and speedily. Particularly when a handful of people in Austin, Texas are calling the shots.

So, BJ whippersnappers, remember: Even when the dinosaurs talk about the good ol’ days it’s not a slam on your work. We admire what you do with what little weapons are left compared to the howitzers we had. We’re in this together, trying to help democracy by keeping the BJ readers informed.

Also, Chasm was a formidable force of the Guild when it came to contract negotiations with BJ management. I supported the Guild in every way I could but people like Chasm, Jane Snow, the late Terry Oblander and the late Harry Liggett, who rattled the windows slamming a door so hard after one session that management called Knight headquarters in Miami and the Guild got a much better deal, had a much greater impact than me.

And, as Chasm indicated, McMillion began the deterioration of relations between the Guild and management. His reaction to double time for Sunday, “Sunday is just another day,” set the tone for his ripping into workers’ benefits.

McMillion certainly was no Ben Maidenburg when it came to caring about those who worked at 44 E. Exchange Street.

But those at 388 S. Main Street can be assured that the dinosaurs at 44 E. Exchange Street care about you.