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.