Craig Wilson obit can't stand TRIM HARD

Craig Wilson’s classified obituary appears on Page B7, col. 5 in Wedneday'a Beacion Journal and includes this recent photo of him.

If if were news copy, it could have been the kind of thing copy editors dreaded. The copy would have come to the desk with an editor’s instructions scrawled on it: TRIM HARD.

Some of us retirees today are thankful that those kind of tough chores are long gone. Today we can just say “Click on the headline to read the full story.”

Craig probably would have noted that it is 25 1 /2 inches in newspaper column length with 16 graphs, 824 words, 31 sentences and average 27 words per sentence.

Calling hours and other information already have been posted here.

[Source: Beacon Journal, Akron, OH, Wednesday, April 5, 2007, page B7, cols. 5 and 6]

Calling hours for Craig Wilson

This information is from Elizabeth Wilson:

Calling hours for Craig Wilson are Friday, 2-4 and 6-9 p.m. at the Campfield Hickman-
Collier Funeral Home on West Park Street in Barberton.

Additional viewing on Saturday for one hour from 11a.m. to noon and at noon a friend of his, Wyatt Patterson, will lead a short service/memorial about Craig.

Then at 1 p.m.we are planning to go to Anthe's at Portage Lakes for a lunch and chance to reminisce, share anecdotes, etc about Craig. We realize Saturday is the day before Easter and with travel etc, we don't expect to get as many people as we would hope for on another day. Since we are estimating over fifty for lunch, Anthe's is going to have us take the buffet instead of a sit down dinner and very much needs an estimate in advance of the number planning to attend.

If you will be able to join us for lunch, please send me a return email with the number planning to attend. If you know other friends of Craig's or mine who don't have email or I might have missed here please let them know as well. This will be covered in the newspaper tomorrow and Friday. We are really hoping for a good-sized crowd to share Craig's life one last time with us. If you email me, there is no need to call the funeral home as suggested in the death notice.

Elizabeth Wilson
Barbertongirl@neo.rr.com

Dawn Wilson writes about her Dad

You are very correct about the referencing. During my teen years, I began to realize that most of my friends didn't get to grow up in homes where everything was "dated and labeled." Vegetables on the right; fruits on the left. Akro-Mils cabinet drawers, each with its own label. When I finally got my own place, I thought it was fascinating to have a junk drawer, like other people. Dad, of course, had no such thing in his home.

I have learned so much from him. He is truly an inspiration to me and I’m appreciative to have such a great dad.

Here is a later picture of Dad (2001), pens and notes handy as always. Also, Dad was never the fashion plate but my stepmother, Elizabeth, became a good influence on him in this regard. Note that the 50’s glasses in your photo series finally changed to a 90’s model.

Thanks to you and all of Dad’s Beacon family. You meant a tremendous amount to him.

Dawn Wilson

Beacon newsman Craig Wilson dead at 79

Craig Wilson made the front page.

In his heyday, Wilson would have dutifully clipped the item and placed it a white envelope bearing his name carefully alphabetozed with others in a file drawer in the “morgue.” As all blog readers know, that’s the name that was given to the old reference library. Wilson, a precise, methodical man, probably would have attached a couple of notes to record information such as the home address or other facts left out by the obit writer. Craig knew the facts might be important later.

Wilson, who had 40 years at the Beacon Journal, died of cancer at 4:45 p.m. Tuesday at the hospice on Ridgewood.

He was probably best known as editor of the old Action Line, but his true craft was referencing.

When this blog first opened someone sent in an old group photo from a Beacon Journal picinic. Readers went wild trying to identify everyone in the picture. But it soon was learned that Craig had traced the outlines of those in the photo, numbered them and typed a list properly identifying everyone. He knew way back then soomeone would want this information.

You will find his obit by clicking on the headline. It was written by Connie Bloom, but Craig had all the information ready to make her task easy placed carefully in a white envelope..

Click on the photos to enlarge for a better view.

Craig Wllson dies

This sad post from Elizabeth Wilson:

With the greatest of sadness I am informing you that Craig Wilson passed wasiy
comfortably and to what I could tell painlessly at 4:45 p.m. today, Tuesday,
April 3 at the Hospice on Ridgewood.

Today marks the end of a very horrible year for us but I would not trade it for anything.

I owe more thanks than I ever could repay to many of you in our family  and friends, we
could not have made it this past year without you. The final arrangements are to be
handled by Todd Collier at Campfield Hickman Collier and are not set yet. We are thinking
of having calling hours on Friday and a memorial service on Saturday, followed by a
luncheon at Anthe's if we can arrange it.

We hope as many people as possible can join us but please look for the newspaper item
to confirm the details.

We do not need anything right now. I am going to try to confine phone calls to family and
friends who do not have email, and deal by email with those who do. There is so much
to be done and I have let so many important things only I can do slide during this last
year of Craig's illness.

I regret having this notice come by email but it is the only way I can manage right now.

If you know us very well you know Craig and I locked horns on a regular basis and every
now and then stepped on each other's toes. Maybe he stepped  on yours too once or
twice but I can assure you Craig Wilson is the finest man I have ever met. He had a pure
heart and a genuine concern for his fellow man and his surroundings. His loss to the
community, the family and to me personally is immeasurable. I am honored he chose
me as his wife. I am only sorry our time together has been cut short.

Big payday for Tribune execs

By Mark Fitzgerald, E&P's editor-at-large

CHICAGO While anxious Tribune Co. employees and gimlet-eyed Wall Street analysts weigh the benefits and perils of ownership by an ESOP (employee stock ownership plan), one thing is certain: Sam Zell's $8.5 billion winning bid Monday will make for a big payday for top management.

And a prompt one, too.

Last October, Tribune directors amended the company's bonus deferral, defined contribution and supplemental retirement plans to allow for quick lump-sum payments due top executives under the plans in the event of a "change in ownership or effective control of the company, or in the ownership of a substantial portion of the assets of the company."

Zell's $34 per share bid will also results in some substantial executive nest eggs. Chairman, President and CEO Dennis FitzSimons, for instance, would receive $21.3 million for his shares, based on the number reported in February in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Based on his latest filing, Tribune Publishing President Scott Smith, who is also publisher of the flagship Chicago Tribune, would have holdings worth a cash value of $9.2 million.

---

Mark Fitzgerald (mfitzgerald@editorandpublisher.com) is E&P's editor-at-large

Philly papers to sell Page One ads

An Editor & Publisher Report:

The Philadelphia Inquirer is the latest daily paper to offer advertising space on the front page, the paper said in a statement Monday.

"The advertisements will run on the bottom of the front page in the right-hand corner Monday through Sunday beginning on April 15 and will reach almost one million daily readers and 1.8 million Sunday readers," the release stated. "The Inquirer is providing an opportunity for its advertisers to make a strong impression and reach a broader audience than ever before."

The first Page One advertiser will be the University of Pennsylvania Health System, with ads scheduled to run every Sunday for a year, the release said.

Source: Joe Strupp. Editor & Publisher

Zell wins auction for Tribune Co.

CHICAGO - Tribune Co. has accepted a buyout offer from real estate investor Sam Zell in a deal valued at about $8.2 billion and plans to sell the Chicago Cubs at the end of this season, the media company said Monday.

The owner of the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and various other newspapers and TV stations spent six months soliciting bids and reviewing offers.

Tribune had set a self-imposed March 31 deadline to announce a spin-off, buyout or reorganization.

In addition to the Zell bid, the Tribune considered a competing offer from Los Angeles billionaires Eli Broad and Ron Burkle.

The company has been under pressure from key shareholders to boost its stock price and, along with others in the newspaper industry, has been losing readers and advertisers to the Internet. Tribune is the nation's second biggest newspaper publisher after Gannett Co.

Tribune said Zell plans to invest $315 million in the deal and will eventually become chairman of the Chicago-based company's board when the buyout is complete sometime in the fourth quarter.

The buyout will be conducted as a two-part deal, the company said. The first stage, expected to be completed in the second quarter, will involve a cash tender offer of $34 per share for 126 million shares, more than half of the outstanding Tribune shares. The remaining shares will be purchased later at the same $34 per share price.

Broad and Burkle also had offered $34-per-share, and the company's board reportedly spent much of the weekend sifting through the two offers.

Zell, 65, made his fortune reviving moribund real estate. After a bidding war culminated in February, he sold his company, Equity Office, to the private equity firm Blackstone Group for $23 billion.

If Tribune decides to accept another buyout offer before its shareholders approve the deal, the company will have to pay Zell a $25 million breakup fee.

Experts said that low figure would easily allow Broad and Burkle to submit another counter bid, but that prospect seemed unlikely.

Tribune shares climbed 85 cents, or 2.7 percent, to $32.96 in midday trading Monday on the New York Stock Exchange.

Click on the headline to read the full AP story, see earlier stories or Google for later information:

Editor & Publisher:

LA Times article:

Newsday article:

Commentary in three parts on our downfall

It would be nice if this really was an April fool’s joke and not a sad commentary on a rainy Palm Sunday. Not to spoil your day, but because we think you will want to read it, please click on the headline to see our commentary on the "Aftermath of the Knight Ridder takeover." Since it is commentary, it is posted on the web site in that section.

It is in three short sections with these subheads:

Pruitt says timing of Knight Ridder deal was 'awful'
A report was printed March 29 in the Sacramento Business Journal:

Tracking McClatchy stock since Knight-Ridder purchase
Former BJ staffer Ken Krause has been tracking McClatchy to report how the stock has fared

Pruitt Compensation valued at $5.6 million
McClatchy chairman, president and chief executive Gary Pruitt received compensation in 2006 valued by the company at $5.6 million, according to a regulatory filing.

Weinreb writes book on chess team

Michael Weinreb, a freelancer sportswriter in New York City who left the Beacon Journal in 2000 after five years as a sports writer, has a new book out this month with a long title: The Kings of New York: A Year Among the Geeks, Oddballs, and Genuises Who Make Up America's Top High School Chess Team.

It’s the story of a year spent with Brooklyn's Edward R. Murrow High School chess team as it strives for a national championship.

You can read reviews from the New York Times and Christian Science Montior and a bit about Weinreb himself on his website at
http://www.michaelweinreb.com/

Weinreb attended a graduate program in fiction writing at Boston University after leaving the Beacon Journal. His first book of short stories, Girls, Boys Etc., was published in 2004. He was a staff writer at Newsday until April 2006. He grew up in State College, Pennsylvania, and attended Penn State University.

The book, 304 pages, is published by Gotham Books which launched its debut list of books in the winter of 2003. ( ISBN: 1592402615, March 2007, $26.00)

Gary has no regrets, he tells E&P

The following was included in a report by Joe Strupp of Editor & Publisher on the ASNE convention in Washington, DC:

A year after brokering the biggest newspaper deal of 2006, Gary Pruitt has no regrets. In fact, the chairman of the McClatchy Company says his chain would have been worse off during the recent economic downturn of newspapers if it had not taken over Knight Ridder.

“I don’t regret doing it because our performance was actually better,” Pruitt told E&P during McClatchy’s Tuesday night reception at the ASNE conference inside the J.W. Marriott hotel in Washington. “Our advertising revenue performance and cash flow would have been worse had we not done the deal. The Knight Ridder papers actually improved our performance, advertising revenue and cash flow. Both are improved for our having done the deal.”

If the deal had not occurred, “we still would have suffered ad revenue decline, only worse.”

He noted, however, that the last few months of poor newspaper economics did not help. “Unfortunately, the timing of the deal corresponded almost precisely with the downturn in advertising,” Pruitt said. “A lot of people confuse the deal wit the environment.”

Pruitt spoke as guests drank up at the open bar and noshed on egg rolls, tuna ahi and dumplings, all courtesy of McClatchy. During remarks to the crowd, Pruitt joked that McClatchy, which has thrown such a party two years in a row at ASNE, at $50,000 a pop, would decline in 2008. “Next year, another company can do it,” he said with a smile.

Please read the comment by Ken Krause
*

Taking the newspaper out of logo

One of the first changes members of the American Society of Newspaper (ASNE) noticed at this year’s conference in Washington, D.C., which opened Tuesday , was the logo. No more does the ASNE name rest on a red and white box, with its formal name written out, surrounding the logo with the folded corner.

The new logo does not even mention the word, “newspaper,” stating, in a slick black and white design, “ASNE – Leading America’s Newsrooms.”

ASNE president Dave Zeeck acknowledged the “identity transfer” during his address to members. He said the idea was to expand the newspaper image beyond just print and on to online and other facets of the business. “That is what moving ASNE forward looks like,” he said.

Zeeck, editor of the News-Tribune in Tacoma, Wash., also said the word “newspaper” may eventually be removed from ASNE’s full name. “It deserves consideration,” he said. “Do we work for newspapers or news companies?”

He also said the conference, currently a four-day event, may be shortened to two or three days to save members time and money. More association with the Online News Association also may take place. “It is all being considered,” he said.

[Source: Joe Strupp in Editor & Publisher]

Yahoo Taps McClatchy for Foreign News

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Yahoo News said Wednesday it reached an agreement with McClatchy Co. under which the newspaper operator's foreign correspondents will provide international coverage for the Yahoo website.

The project is named "Trusted Voices" and will include McClatchy reporters in select regions, such as Iraq, the Middle East, China and Latin America. Reporters will file traditional news stories as well as personal blog reports only available through Yahoo.

"The daily blog contributions from the international correspondents, combined with their traditional news reports, will offer our readers an on-the-ground perspective unavailable from traditional news outlets," said Scott Moore, head of Yahoo News.

Shares of McClatchy Co. fell 21 cents to $31.39 Wednesday while Yahoo Inc. fell 24 cents to $31.31, both on the New York Stock Exchange.

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Life in Vermont: First boil of maple syrup sap

Life in Vermont; From Geoff Gevalt's blog:

The sap began running last Wednesday, March 21. The latest the first sap has been in years. I had gotten the new rig all set up — new pan, arch with fire bricks and new stove pipe — and we had our first boil Thursday night the 22nd. Oldest daughter Anna and her friends helped out.

Naturally I had to go away this weekend: The Soccer Tourney From Hell in Baltimore Maryland. If Jacob’s soccer club suggests one more tourney out of state, I think I will scream. Teams from as far away as North Carolina and Vermont got to spend the day Saturday watching the rain — all games not scheduled for artificial turf (read: most) were cancelled. Eventually the organizers cancelled the tournament for most of the age groups.

An interesting cultural note: We wandered around Baltimore Saturday, stopping long enough to eat some oysters and crab cakes. A few of went to Lexington Market, an eclectic collection of booths and stalls in a block-long enclosed building with people selling everything from ham hocks to mangos, fried chicken to soups, chitlins to sausage. A lot of spots have stools or bars where you can get a crab cake and a beer or, for that matter, just about any type of food imaginable, except, perhaps, French on white table cloths. I lived in Baltimore for several years a long time ago. I used to eat at least one meal a day (with beer) at Lexington Market.

For me, the experience was great; while it was changed it was also the same; familiar stalls and businesses that were still there, after 25 years. Some of the folks I was with, though, noticed something else: We were the only white people for miles. They were discomfited by that; they were made uneasy. “Hey,” said one of the parents, “I’m a seventh generation Vermonter from a small little town without any black people.”

Fact is, I hadn’t noticed. Or, more accurately, I hadn’t made notice of our minority status — I didn’t really care. Now that doesn’t make me any better than the others; it just shows the value of diversity, and the value of my own experience. We fear what we don’t know. I saw smiling faces of people enjoying a Saturday afternoon at the market; they saw people staring at them.

On Sunday, my son’s team played two games, losing 1-0 to a team from New Jersey with a mom so loud I swore I was at a taping of the Soprano’s. They lost on a mistake in the final two minutes. Next they tied a very good team from Virginia that was, boy for boy, far better than they were. But the Vermont team just would not let the Virignia team score and they almost scored a couple of times themselves.After a seemingly endless trip home, we made it. Tommorrow (oops, today) I’ll work in the morning and boil sap the rest of the day.

Crutchfield gets title at Arizona State

TEMPE, ARIZ. - James N. Crutchfield, former publisher of the Akron Beacon Journal, has been named director of student media at Arizona State University.

Crutchfield also was appointed as the Weil Family Professor of Journalism at the university's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Crutchfield, 58, stepped down from his position as publisher of the Beacon Journal after the sale of parent company Knight Ridder last year. He joined Arizona State as a visiting professor in journalism ethics this semester.

As director of student media, Crutchfield will oversee the student media department, which publishes the university's independent student newspaper, The State Press and the paper's Web edition, a weekly magazine and operates the school's TV station.

The endowed Weil family professorship is named after Louis ``Chip'' Weil, former publisher of The Arizona Republic.

Crutchfield is a graduate of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and worked as a newspaper reporter, editor, manager and publisher for more than 30 years.

[The Beacon Journal,, Akron, OH, Saturday, March 24, 2007, page B4, col. 1]

Small Ohio daily seeks copy editor

An Ohio daily newspaper with a circulation of about 23,000 has an opening for a copy editor which is not being advertised. If interested, send email to hliggett@sbcglobal.net and I will put you in touch with the editor.

Tricia Colianne goes to Cleveland Clinic

Tricia Colianne, who started as an intern at the Beacon Journal in June, 2001 and became a full-time member of the Copy Desk staff in October of that year, has accepted a position as managing editor for development at the Cleveland Clinic. She will be managing editor of Cleveland Clinic Magazine which goes mostly to clinic donors.
The magazine is published twice each year.

Tricia also wrote the wine column, the Cellar Dweller, for the BJ until the end of last year and filled in on the national desk regularly. She taught copy editing at Kent State University last semester.

“I've had a lot of opportunities at the Beacon; it's a difficult place to leave,” she said..

Tricia is originally from Barrington, Ill., which is a northwest suburb of Chicago. Her family still lives in the Chicago area. She started at the Beacon Journal just after receiving her journalism degree from Ohio University.

Tricia’s husband, Pete Schellenbach, is a chef at Jac’s in the warehouse district in Cleveland. They will continue to live in West Akron.

Tricia’s last day at the Beacon Journal is today. She will begin her new duties on Monday.

Her email address is tricia.colianne@gmail.com.

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Salute to Gutenberg

From This Day In History:

1457: The Gutenberg Bible became the first printed book.