Me and My Third of an M-16

Me and My Third of an M-16

Dave Rosso

It was 1966. I was in the Air Force. I knew my draft number would be coming up and decided to join rather than be drafted. So I joined the Air Force to see the world.

I saw San Antonio, Texas, Wichita Falls, Texas and Amarillo, Texas. That was the world I saw in the first two years of my four-year enlistment.

We were fighting in Vietnam and my desire to get out of Texas and my natural curiosity of what was going on in Vietnam prompted me to volunteer. I wanted to see it for myself. And I didn’t get any argument from the Air Force.

To prepare for my tour in that war zone, I was ordered to report to the firing range where I was handed an M-16 rifle, which was deployed for jungle warfare in Vietnam in 1963. This was my introduction to this new weapon: I was shown how to take it apart and put it back together and then was given a cartridge of 20 rounds, which I fired at a target on the firing range. And there I was, an experienced M-16 rifleman.

Then it was off to Vietnam. The plane landed at Ton Son Nhut Air Base in Saigon July 21, 1966. As I stood at the top of the stairs looking down at the tarmac, I saw a flatbed truck loaded with silver caskets. Hello, Vietnam!

I had been assigned to Cam Rahn Bay Air Base north of Saigon. But it took a while before a plane was available for a flight from Ton Son Nhut to Cam Rahn Bay. I lived out of a duffle bag until the plane finally was available for the 185 mile flight to Cam Ranh Bay on July 27.

When I arrived on base, I was greeted by the lieutenant colonel in charge of my squadron, a wiry, red-faced man whose only advice to me that night was, “Beware of the sun.” I said, “Hell, I’m from California, I don’t worry about the sun.” Within a week I had one of the worst sunburns I had ever had and learned something about how the sun hits California and how it hits Southeast Asia.

I was also introduced to the squadron’s protection – a small wooden building that contained racks of M-16 rifles, cartridge belts and steel helmets. Enough for one-third of the personnel in my squadron. I was assigned to a team and instructed that when my team was on duty, if the base alarm sounded, I was to run to the rifle room, gather my rifle, helmet and cartridge belt and head out into the sand to a bunker surrounded by sandbags and await the enemy or the all-clear sound.

The other two-thirds of the squadron stayed in their hutches and hoped we knew what we were doing.

The one time I was on duty when the base alarm sounded, I ran to the building, gathered my M-16, helmet and cartridge with two clips of 20 rounds of ammunition and headed far out across the sand to a bunker. And I waited.

In short time the second lieutenant who worked with me in the base finance office approached my bunker. I looked at him while cradling my weapon. He looked at me.

Then he barked, “Why didn’t you challenge me?”

“Sir, I know who you are. I work with you every day,” I said.

“You are supposed to challenge me and ask for identification,” he insisted.

“Yes, sir,” I said, adding, “Then am I supposed to ask permission to load my weapon?”

He didn’t respond.

I had a loaded weapon once during my year in Vietnam. I was on a flight to an outlying base with a large box loaded with money to pay the troops. I remember being in the terminal with my back against the wall sitting on the box of money with a loaded M-16 in my lap. On the flight to the base, I U.S. Air Force jet flew in front of us firing two rockets at a target on the ground.

I had fear twice during that year. One time a large rat wandered into our squadron as we were hearing reports of bubonic plague. The other time a jet flew across the base almost scraping the roof of our finance office. We dove under our desks. Turns out our base commander had a warped sense of humor. It he who took off in the jet and buzzed the base.

I joined the base choir – the Cam Ranh Choraleers. It was the choir that kept my sanity in check. At Christmas time we sang for Billy Graham when he visited the base and we attended Bob Hope’s show on the nearby Army base. The choir sang for the troops and on Christmas Eve we hopped n trucks and sang for the military police guarding the base at its farthest outposts, then sang for the kitchen crews preparing Christmas dinner.

The Ed Sullivan television crew came to the base and recorded the choir singing in front of fighter jets on the tarmac with the mountains in the background. The segment appeared on the Ed Sullivan Christmas Show. I never saw it.

On Christmas Day we played host to a large group of Vietnamese orphans and then escorted them back to their orphanage. I couldn’t help but wonder how many of those orphans were because of U.S. bombings.

That was Christmas 1966. I had eight more months and then I would say a third of a good bye to my M-16.

Those Football Days

Those Football Days

When I was 10 years old, my father said I should play football. My immediate reaction was, “I’ll get hurt.” Well, I had just been through a very disturbing couple of years.

But, when my father spoke, it became law and I joined the Pop Warner football team. I put on a flimsy leather football helmet, pants with thigh pads in them and shoulder pads that I didn’t think I would ever grow into.

Once in uniform, it was time to get hurt.

I didn’t. I loved it. It was only six-man football, but it had hits and tackles and runs with the ball and cheering parents on the sidelines. And I loved it.

We played other teams and after the games, my father would take us to an ice cream place and treat us to sundaes.

Then I went to military school at Manlius, New York. This was big time. The team had 11 players and the knocks got harder. I played line, even though I didn’t weigh much. I was the skinny one on the line.

But I made tackles and I blocked bigger guys. And I loved it.

I loved it even when I got hurt. During one game, I started by breaking through the opposing line and tackling their quarterback two plays in a row. On the third play, the players on either side of me across the line of scrimmage came up with their elbows into my chin. Everything went black and I went straight up and down flat on my face. I recovered moments later after the coach came onto the field to check on me and escort me off the field.

I played three years at the military school and then my family moved to California where I played for Redwood High School. I played line. I weighed 160 pounds. You don’t stand out when you play line. I remember the girls on Friday asking me if I was going to the game. Yeah, I said, I’ll be there.

I played well, but nothing spectacular. I didn’t need to be spectacular. I wanted to be good and get the job done, learning the plays, knowing when to go and where to go, who to block, how to block.

The next year, my family moved over the hill to San Rafael and I played for the San Rafael Bulldogs.

It was my senior year and I still weighed 160 pounds, despite my hearty eating. On the first day of practice, while in the gym getting ready to go onto the field, one of the players, Randy Petrini, a solid muscle-bound guy, asked me what position I was going out for. I said tackle. He looked at me and said, “Good luck. That’s my position.”

I played tackle.

And then we played Redwood High School. I was new on the team and did not start at the beginning. But during the Redwood game I ran clear across the field to make a flying tackle on one of my former teammates as he was heading for a touchdown. The impact took him off the field and I could hear my coach yelling, “Who was that? Who made that tackle?” I started the next game.

Late into the season during practice I got slammed in my left thigh, contracting a very painful Charlie horse. My mother was there when the doctor said there was no way I would be ready to play in the next game.

I played the next game.

During the season I told my coach, Dick Reed, that for all my football years – this was my eighth – I had always played line and I wanted to try backfield and to carry the ball, make a touchdown.

Coach Reed said not this season, saying I was a fast player and he needed speed on the line. For the rest of the season I played line, but I told Coach Reed, “Next year when I go out for the team at College of Marin, I’m going out for backfield.”

Next year at College of Marin, I signed up for the team and there was my coach. Dick Reed had transferred from San Rafael High School to College of Marin.

I played line. I weighed 165, but they listed me on the program as weighing 185. Trying to scare the 200-pounders lined up across from me.

On the last game of the season, just before the first half ended, I was hit from behind after the whistle had blown, knocked to the ground and suffered a separated shoulder – my third injury in nine years.

But then I was experiencing headaches and migraines and after an examination by my doctor I was told I could play the next season without any problems, or I could get hit in the head and be seriously injured, even to the point of death.

When I went home, my father asked me what I was going to do. I said I was going to play. He said it was my life.

When the new season started, I went onto the field, ran sprints, hit blocking dummies, got a headache and quit, ending nine years of football, the game I was afraid to play, because I might get hurt.

this is a test

getting back on board. Have been quiet for many, many months. Time to start adding new posts. need to change email address and phone and birth date and address and car license and original phone number that started with letters -- GL3-4701. How many people have letters in their phone numbers?

hello to Sabra

I have not visited my Good, the Bad and the Ugly site for a long time and now I see the note from Sabra. If you can read this please contact me at drossowa@gmail.com about the Choraleers.
Dave

Best Dressed

NOT BEST DRESSED
Another in a series of semi-informational treatises on life in Switzerland.

OK. Did that scare anybody off?!

Last night, Friday, March 23, 2001, I went to a FUNdraiser-auction for American Citizens Abroad. The event was held in the five-star Richemond Hotel in Geneva on an almost balmy night.
I was dressed appropriately – slacks and a short-sleeved sports shirt that almost matched the pants. All of my former wives would have been impressed. Those of you who have work with me would have considered me well-dressed. For those who have never seen me in the work environment, well, I have never subscribed to CQ.
I didn’t know too many people at this event. My friend was volunteering for the auction, so I was left pretty much on my own to mingle, introduce myself and try to blend in. Blend is something I do not do well. I made small talk with folks as white-uniformed waiters worked the room with trays of nibblies. OK, hors-d’oeuvres.
At one point, I found myself facing an elderly woman. At my age, I have to use the word elderly with discretion. She had white hair done up with a black ribbon and was dressed to show off money. She looked at me and said, “Are you an American?” I said, “Yes,” happy that I did not have to utilize my French lessons (Oui, je suis Americain. Je m’appelle Dave Rosso. Je suis journaliste).
“Where are you from,” she demanded.
“Washington, D.C.,” says I.
“Is that how they dress in Washington? Around here you wear a tie.”
“Oh, well, I don’t wear ties.”
“Well, you do here, baby. Look around you. You will never be a success if you don’t know how to dress.”
“I think, the way I dress won’t make much difference at this stage of the game for me,” I said, turning and walking away.
Shortly after that incident, the auction began. To warm up the audience, the MC-auctioneer made a few comments and introduced members of ACA and other organizations, as well as the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., who made some remarks.
My friend was introduced and she took the proffered microphone and made brief remarks. Then, to my utter surprise, I was introduced as the veteran United Press International journalist who had taken over as editor of the ACA newsletter. I sat there, in the front row, directly in front of the MC, who was holding the microphone towards – for benefit of those who prefer the Brit spelling) me. I stood up, took the microphone and faced the audience and stumbled out a few words. And there I was. Standing there. In my slacks and short-sleeved sports shirt, sans tie. Never to be a success.
I was very happy when my friend introduced me to a fellow journalist who writes for the International Herald Tribune, who was dressed in jeans, open sports shirt and weather-beaten jacket, note pads, pens and papers sticking out of his pockets. My kind of man!
It’s too bad my French teacher wasn‘t in the audience when I made my impromptu speech. She would have thought, “God, he can’t speak English any better than he speaks French.”
The lessons are coming along. I have actually spoken whole sentences in French. I got a laugh out of my teacher Thursday. The entire class time is conducted in French. So, when I have a question, it has to be asked in French. OY! But I did manage to get out my question in good enough French for her to understand enough to appreciate the humor I had intended. I asked why is it that the word for “problem” is masculine while the word for “solution” is feminine. She said something to the effect of, “But of course.”
Until next time.
Dave
PS: OK. A contest. Who can come up with the best parting shot to my fashion critic?

Picking on the Jew

This is from my memoir from my school days at Manlius Military Academy 1956-1959. It was an eye-opener (that started with an eye-shutter)
Picking on the Jew
Interesting about ostracism. When I was a kid at military school I learned by my second year to make friends who then became part of our group. This was a natural boys school trait. There were joiners and outsiders. At that age it came down to personalities and character. A pecking order was quickly established that went beyond cadet rank that was worn on our shoulders.
My father ran the school's publicity, but he pulled no punches for me and I never went to him for special favors. I never made any rank either -- because that's the kind of guy I was.
I got in my share of fights on the hill behind the water tower. Our small group that was formed by me and my best friend consisted of other hell-raisers. None of them ever made any rank either.
Of course, when you have groups, those groups have to have others that are outside the group and, therefore, open to taunts and tricks. And I had a favorite target. Until one day another cadet came up to me and told me to leave him alone and blasted me alongside the head with a right hook that I never saw coming and the warning that he didn't like people picking on Jews.
Besides being physically stunned, I was also mentally stunned. Until that moment, I did not know what a Jew was. I did not know that certain names were Jewish names. Nor did I know that Jews were picked on.
Another cadet named Wertheimer was someone I had a tremendous amount of respect for because as I was a hell-raiser to buck authority, he did it calmly, quietly, cerebrally, and I thought he was so cool. But I never thought he was a cool Jew. He was just a cool guy.
As the right hook shut my eye, it opened my eyes to something I had never been aware of in my pretty sheltered life.
My parents taught me and my siblings that we should not discriminate. But that lesson was directed toward blacks. We were never, ever to use the N word (so I never got to advertise Dick Gregory's book).
Of the 360 cadets at the school, none was black. And that was the case during the three years I was there. I left Mr. Lerner alone, not because he was Jewish, but because I didn't want to get whomped alongside the head again. And I continued to respect Mr. Wertheimer, because he got under the cadet leaders' skin, quietly with his brains and passed with honors. And he always had this confident smug grin on his face.

Good luck, John

Today was a sad, tough day. My crew of four and a half reporters had to come up with enough copy to fill four days of newspapers because of the three-day weekend. Oh, the four-and-a-half reporters. Yeah. Well, one of them left early. For good. My staff is now down to four
But that was the sad.
Because the staffer who left was so much more than just a staffer. Much more than just a reporter.
John Driscoll was a veteran of 11 years at the Times-Standard. But even that doesn’t explain my loss. John was our natural resources reporter. He knew Humboldt County and the issues that affected Humboldt County better than most of the people in the county. John easily could have worked at The New York Times or The Los Angeles Times. But John loves Humboldt County and wants to stay right here. He is staying. He is now working in the Eureka office of Rep. Mike Thompson.
But it goes even deeper than that. John could cover anything. And he did. He covered the cop beat. He filled in on the politics and elections, even while expressing his dislike of politics. He wrote a weekly column. He could write in an instance. And his copy was always clean. Almost always.
And it goes deeper than that. John could talk to anybody in the county and make them like him. He had personality. He could get the answers from the most unanswerable people. He had a phone list that covered the entire county.
But really, it goes farther than that. John was a leader. He was liked and respected by everybody in the newsroom – along both ends of the newsroom, the photographers, every reporter, the managing editors through the years, the city editors through the years, the night desk, the copy editors, the publishers.
And John left at 5 p.m. every day. Unless we really needed him. And then he came back. And he worked with us and among us and for us and beside us.
He had a great sense of humor, a great sense of news, a great way with words, a great sense of urgency, a great sense of camaraderie.
We will miss him, the newspaper will miss him, the readers will miss him. I will miss him.
Yeah, we all move on. And now John has moved on. But he left an awful lot behind.

The Trench Coat Connection

The Trench Coat Connection
It was my first year in Manlius Military Academy. The school was just outside Syracuse, New York. I was 13 years old and this was another new experience.
Our first year, fall was short and we quickly found ourselves in New York’s cold, wet period when it was cold, but not cold enough for snow and the uniform of the day always included the long grey trench coats to ward off the cold and rain.
The coats buttoned up the front and were cinched at the waist with a belt. We discovered another feature — the epaulettes on each shoulder that everybody else had taken for granted because it had no use except for officers who used them to hold their lieutenant or captain bars. Until we noticed that the epaulettes had buttons.
One dark and stormy day we were in a classroom during a period that had been set aside for study. We were expected to sit at our desks and read or work on homework. We were able to move around the room quietly to check out some of the resource books along walls on the sides and back of the room.
While getting a book in the back of the room, I passed the area where the trench coats were hanging on hooks. The area resembled a long walk-in closet. Once in that area, you could not see the classroom -- and the classroom, and more importantly, the teacher, could not see you. I stood in the back and flipped through a book, my forehead deeply furrowed as though I was seriously seeking answers to the universe. And I stole glances into the closet, checking out the coats hanging side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder, epaulette-to-epaulette. Epaulettes that could be unbuttoned and rebuttoned. There were 15 of them.
Nobody was paying any attention to me. The teacher, sitting at his desk in the front of the room, facing the class, had his head lowered into a book. He was monitoring the class with his ears and not his eyes. I was hoping it was a very good book as I slipped behind the wall that separated the class from the closet.
I reached the first coat and unbuttoned the left epaulette, slipped it under the right epaulette of the coat next to it and rebuttoned it, attaching the second coat to the first. Cool. That didn’t take long. I moved to the second coat and undid the left epaulette, slipped it under the right epaulette of the third coat and rebuttoned it. Down the row I worked, listening intently for any sound coming from the classroom.
I reached my coat and went on to the next one and then doubled back. Dead give-away if my coat wasn’t also sabotaged, so I connected my coat to the coats on either side of it. In very little time all the coats were attached at the epaulettes. My work was done. I walked back to the beginning of the closet and glanced around the doorway into the classroom. Nobody looking in my direction; the teacher still engrossed in his book. I held my book up to my face, took out my notebook, scribbled some notes, replaced the book back on the shelf and took my seat, studying my notes and waiting for the bell to ring signaling the end of the period. Gary shot me a quizzical look, but I only smiled and went back to pretending to read my notes.
Finally, the buzzer sounded, the teacher snapped shut his book, called us to attention and dismissed us. We all went back to the closet to retrieve our trench coats and bedlam broke loose. Gary complained with the rest, but perhaps I complained too much and too loudly as we all tried to pry our coats apart from the coats attached at the shoulders to coats on either side of them.
The teacher, dressed in a military olive-drab uniform, tried to restore order while at the same time trying to act in authority and get to the bottom of what had happened. He threatened to keep us all in detention until the culprit came forth. Gary looked at me and turned to the teacher and said, “We were all in the room. It was probably somebody from outside who came.” Good move, Gary. Finally, in frustration, the teacher barked that we had 3 minutes to get to our next class and we better get moving and left us to our own devices to straighten out the coat problem. In our haste to leave, most of us left the classroom and dashed to our next classes with our epaulettes flapping in the wind.

All: This Is My Last Day - Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16
On June 21, 2007, United Press International celebrated its 100th anniversary. Well, "celebrated" is generous. Here is how Philip Stone, UPI Helsinki in the 1970s, put it: "Yes, there is still a UPI today, but it is not even a shell of its former self, having moved from bankruptcy to bankruptcy to new owner to new owner. And Thursday marked a rather sad anniversary – UPI – that is, what is now called UPI, turned 100 years old. Regretfully, many of those "Unipressers" no longer with us would turn in their graves at what they would see those initials representing today."
He was not alone. Many former Unipressers marked the day with sadness.
This from Emil Sveilis: "I'm sorry, but however crudely I put it, the UPI I knew is dead. Just because the logo still exists, it does not mean that it is the same UPI organization that we all worked for and toiled for. This centennial celebration is a lot of PR and puff to reunite this current outfit with the honorable name of UPI, no matter how much we bitched and groaned when it was still a viable company. I'm sorry, but I would not partake in this project."
Another, Art McGinn, weighed in with this five years earlier: for the record: there are some ex-unipressers, or at least this one, who see no legitimate connection between the current bearer of the name united press international and the news organization which the public has associated with that name. beyond that, best wishes to them all. art ex-sx

On July 11, 2007, Editor & Publisher reported:
UPI Staff Cuts Include White House Correspondent
By Joe Strupp
NEW YORK -- United Press International is cutting 11 positions from its Washington, D.C., bureau, including its lone White House correspondent, Richard Tomkins. The move marks the first time in its history that UPI will have no one on that beat.
We learned on the following days that the United Nations beat, run by veteran Unipresser Bill Reilly, would also be discontinued -- also for the first time in UPI's history.
The official word:
Changes at UPI
Yesterday we started implementing changes at UPI that have been the subject of rumor for some time. I want to explain what those changes are and why we are making them. It has been clear for many years going back to earlier owners that UPI could no longer compete in the market as a general news agency. When News World Communications bought UPI it sought to control costs and improve revenue and has succeeded in both in recent years. In addition, current management has diversified and refocused UPI content in order to find a new market niche where we could once again be successful. That was why the specialized segments in Health, Energy, Security, and International Intelligence were created two years ago.
They were designed to combine existing expertise at UPI with market possibilities that research had identified. Of course, there were no guarantees and the segments themselves were always considered as active tests of the market.
Unfortunately, while the segments have earned money, the gap between revenue and costs remained significant and was not closing quickly enough to justify continued investment in them in their existing form by News World. As a result, from July 31, we will be changing our product lineup. We will focus our global intelligence coverage more tightly, concentrating on defense intelligence, with an emphasis on emerging security threats, defense strategy and security technology, and resource wars. Our health coverage will continue in the form of Consumer Health Tips. NewsTrack will continue to publish as will News Pictures. As a result of the changes, eleven editorial positions will be eliminated.
Looking to the future, UPI will actively explore possibilities in new media and interactive forms of journalism to capitalize on the opportunities offered by emerging digital technologies.
Everyone whose job is affected by these changes has been informed. I want to stress that none of this is any reflection on the quality of work or the commitment of any of UPI’s outstanding editorial staff.
They are the unhappy but unavoidable result of market imperatives. I want to offer my thanks to everybody for your loyalty and a job well done. To those who are leaving you go with our gratitude and best wishes for the future. To those who remain, let’s make the most of the opportunities before us.
Warm regards,
Michael Marshall
Here's what UPI provided to the Illinois secretary of state for publication in a book that office published every two years. What's quoted comes from the 1963-64 and the 1965-66 editions:
United Press International serves more than 150 daily newspapers, radio and television stations in Illinois. These subscribers are among more than 6,000 throughout the world served directly by the manifold facilities of UPI. ... available to subscribers in 111 nations. UPI maintains 264 bureaus in 62 nations, and employs more than 10,000 full- and part-time reporters, telegraphers, photographers, editors, and technicians. UPI dispatches are translated into 48 languages and are fed out over a communications network of 500,000 miles of leased land and underwater circuits and a series of intercontinental radio teleprinter channels.
In 1982, UPI employed 1,737 people in more than 800 newspaper subscribers and more than 4,000 broadcast clients around the world. In 1989 -- only seven years later -- UPI employees numbered about 650.
When Marshall announced the company's changes in July 2007, the joke among former Unipressers was: "They are eliminating 11 positions. Does that take their personnel to minus 5?"
In a release, UPI stated that the change in focus was needed for "increased competitiveness and profitability among consumers of news and analysis in a 21st century media marketplace."
It continued:
“UPI provides news, video and photo content worldwide in English, Spanish, and Arabic to traditional and online media outlets, governments, businesses, policy groups, and academic institutions, according to company officials.
"UPI is taking initial steps to strengthen our coverage of international hot spots seeking on-the-ground coverage from our international network of journalists," Nicholas Chiaia, UPI's chief operating officer, said in a statement. "We are also exploring various options for training aspiring journalists in international news coverage.”
On Oct. 13, 2007, Billy Joe McFarland, who worked in the Portland, Ore., bureau, said the “beginning of the end for UPI came for me in February of 1982, shortly after Publisher Fred Stickel of The Oregonian told me as we exited the building together that UPI was up for sale for $1. That devaluation spelled sinking ship of UPI with its Oregon clients and after Bobbie Ulrich left for The Oregonian's sister paper -- the Oregon Journal earlier -- I said hello The Oregonian -- "I accept your fourth and final offer to come through your doors to continue my journalism future as your new Regional Editor ... beginning Feb. 2, 1982. From the floor below I saw the beloved UPI slowly sink into near oblivion.”
Vin Crosbie, a professor at S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University, who had worked sales for UPI in Albany and New York City, said: “To UPI's sales people (most of whom had news backgrounds), UPI's end was perceptible by the late 1970s.
"It had become apparent by the close of the 1970s that American newspapers didn't need two full-service wire services. Note the verb that I use is need. Most of the 1,450 dailies in the U.S. no longer had local competitors; less than 30 U.S. cities had more than one local newspaper. The few dailies with local competition found that they could publish quite well, thank you, with one full-service wire plus one or two brand name supplementals or their own corporate chain's supplementals. They began to see that having a second full-service wire (one that delivered fewer stories) as a luxury, not a necessity. Meanwhile, more and more of the 1,420 other dailies that had no local competition chose to use the bigger full-service wire, the AP.
“Nails were added to that coffin when in the 1980s President Reagan 'deregulated' the FCC, dropping the requirement that radio station licensees must have news operations. Both the AP and UPI lose huge amounts of broadcast business due to that.”
As the year 2007 was drawing to an end, the Associated Press was hearing at least the beginnings of the death knell. On Nov. 2, 2007, Rich Ord, CEO of iEntry Inc., who could have had a vested interest, wrote in WebProNews.com that "AP is dead ... killed by blogs and aggregation."
According to Ord: "Blogs are the new AP." Journalists and aggregation services, which started with NewsLinx.com in 1996 (founded by me!) and which now include Google News, Topix, Techmeme, WebProWire and the new Blogrunner have made the AP much less relevant. There are now tens of thousands of bloggers around the world providing coverage and analysis of current events too! It comes down to why pay when you can get the news for free."
Advertising Age reported in 2008 that one of every 12 media industry jobs had disappeared since May 2002.
"The U.S. Media industry lost nearly 20,000 jobs over the past year and nearly 8,000 since a post-recession ad recovery began in May 2002.
“Newspapers get the blame; staffing at papers has tumbled 30 percent since its 1990 peak. Internet media companies and search portals are media's biggest job creators, but digital job gains are just a fraction of overall media losses."
Steven A. Smith retired as editor of The Spokesman-Review in October 2008. He had served as editor of The Statesman-Journal in Salem, Ore., and The Gazette in Colorado Springs, Colo.
On July 31, 2008, Smith posted something he called Still a Newspaperman, reprinted here with his permission:
I am a newspaperman.
For some unexplainable reason, I am compelled to say that tonight.
Something is coming, some turn in the media universe, a turn in the future of my newspaper. A turn that will mean the end of me, of us.
There will be reporters. Editors. Something called online producers and multi-media coordinators. Mojos. Slojos and Nojos. Bloggers, froggers and twitters.
But there won't be newspapermen. At 58, I am among the last of a dying race.
And what a race it was. An American archetype.
A newspaperman was a writer. An author. The true, first voice of history. A newspaperman chronicled the life of his times on old Remingtons with faded ribbons. A newspaperman wrote on copy paper, one story in one take. If he wanted a copy, he used carbon paper. If it didn't sing, it was spiked.
A newspaperman edited with pencils and always had a ready stack, freshly sharpened, at the start of every shift. A newspaperman smoked at his desk. And if the managing editor wasn't paying too much attention, he might steal a drink, too. A newspaperman knew how to eat well and finish off the meal with a stiff drink and a fine cigar -- all on the company dime.
A newspaperman wore black slacks, a bit worn. A short-sleeved white shirt and a thin black necktie. A newspaperman owned one pair of black wingtips for his entire career.
A newspaperman had nicknames, raunchy, rude and unashamedly affectionate nicknames, for all of the linotype operators in the basement. A newspaperman reveled in the composing room heat, the smells of melted lead and oily black ink.
But the newspaperman was most at home in the newsroom. A loud, smoky, smelly place. Wire machines. Real phones with loud rings. The morning news meeting held in the men's room, the last two stalls on the right, each editor doing his business while conducting business.
The newsroom was a place of boisterous rough housing, crude jokes and tough insults, none taken too seriously, unless they were taken seriously, in which case there might be a bit of a ruckus, maybe a swing or two.
And the characters. The copy editor who barked like a dog. The old city editor who ate reheated fish for lunch. The former war correspondent, hobbling around on one leg, the other lost to drink not combat.
The newsroom was no place for the meek. The young newspaperman knew that when the managing editor threw a coffee cup at his head, the proper recourse was to duck. There was no HR department ready to take a complaint.
The older newspapermen had their heroes. Ben Franklin. John Peter Zenger. Horace Greeley. William Randolph Hearst. Joseph Pulitzer, maybe. William Allen White certainly. And because he had the heart of a newspaperman, Edward R. Murrow and, later, maybe Walter Cronkite.
For the aspiring newspaperman, heroes were the veterans who welcomed him into the newsroom, all the while expecting he would stay quiet, pay his dues and eventually prove himself under fire. The brightest, most ambitious, most talented young newspapermen were grateful for every day they were able to work next to these great, principled and talented men.
Of course, they were not all men. And in this politically correct world, there are some who think the term "newspaperman" is inherently sexist. But the greatest newspaperman with whom I ever worked was Deborah Howell. Don't ever tell me Deborah Howell isn't a newspaperman. In our world, it was the newspaper that defined us, not gender.
A newspaperman knew the meaning of a deadline. He felt a chill when the presses rumbled at midnight and would look for a reason to be in the press room, slipping an early run paper from the conveyor to give the front page a quick look and maybe also to see his byline in print.
Newspapermen worked hard and played hard. The bartender at the dive across the street knew how many beers each reporter could consume between editions. And after the last edition went to press, the bar lights would be turned up just enough to let the newspapermen read those papers pulled fresh from the press.
The newspaperman was respected in the community. There was a mystique, a glamour that really didn't exist but which the newspaperman happily cultivated. In the movies, the editors were Cary Grant. Or Clark Gable. Or Jack Webb. Or Humphrey Bogart, the greatest of all.
The young newspaperman wanted to be Bogie, standing in the press room, screaming into the phone, "That's the sound of the press, baby." The young newspaperman aspired to challenge authority, defend the defenseless and right wrongs. If he was a Don Quixote with a pen, his windmills were politicians, bureaucrats, crooks and thugs. He thought of his job as a calling and truth was his holy grail.
The old newspapermen have died or are dying. One of my great mentors, Dan Wyant, passed away just a week or two ago. The younger, my generation, are fading, too, facing a future in which journalists serve products and platforms not communities and their newspapers.
The young Turks have become the old farts. We pray at the old altars.
We worship the old gods. The new media moguls have their shiny new religion. And our passing is seen by them as both timely and just.
But there is more to be lost than warm, rosy recollections. It's not all about nostalgia.
No instrument will ever serve the public interest so relentlessly as the daily newspaper. New media will successfully distribute data and information. "Communities of interest" will develop around niche products. And while print newspapers will survive to serve a small, elite audience, they never again will serve the larger geographic communities that gave them life and purpose. Democracy will have to find a new public square.
Even as I try to articulate a coherent and meaningful future for my newspaper and my craft, even as I struggle to innovate, to experiment, to manage a frightened workforce, I weep for what is lost. Oh, I still hang on to the trappings. The fedora. The rumpled raincoat. I have the aging wingtips and 25-year-old ties. My battered old typewriter can still churn out memos. But the life I aspired to, that has defined me for nearly 40 years, is going, is mostly gone.
It is a sad thing. And tonight, I find myself mourning the fading, disappearing American newspaperman, the bison of the information age.
The wooly mammoth and, bless us, the dodo.
Tomorrow I'll try to think again about what happens next.
Steve

All: This Is My Last Day - Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15
In 2000, UPI was bought by News World Communications Inc., founded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. It was the final blow for veteran UPI White House correspondent and Bureau Chief Helen Thomas. She said her good bye quietly and without fanfare – that was done by those who knew her.
Helen's departure came amid quite a bit of speculation and false claims. Arnaud de Borchgrave had been quoted as saying she would stay no matter who bought the service.
He had told the Associated Press, "She told me 48 hours ago that if I stayed, she was staying." On the following day, de Borchgrave was quoted in The Washington Post as saying of Helen: "It's a sad day. The whole country knows Helen Thomas. Those are terribly big shoes to fill. But, I'll have to move on. Everyone is dispensable.”
Grant Dillman, former Washington bureau chief and the man who hired me 31 years earlier, had this to say: "Gwen and I had Helen to dinner Wednesday night and she said flatly that she made no such statement to de Borchgrave or anyone else. In substantiation, she also said she cleaned out her White House desk five days before the announcement of the acquisition. Moreover, she said Lori Santos and her other UPI colleagues at the White House could verify it. And Helen Thomas does not lie."
Lee Katz, UPI International editor, also resigned, saying, "I simply could not work for the new ownership for a single day. Those types of affiliation should not be part of a mainstream news organization. It was hard to leave a job where you travel with the president and secretary of state, work with a legend like Helen Thomas and guide a dedicated staff. But it would be harder to stay under the circumstances."
Nice words, but I don't know who that dedicated staff was that Katz guided. The desk team of editors did everything they could to rein him in and point him in the right direction.
After much back and forth on the subject, Jennifer Brooks, who had occupied a seat very close to Helen in the UPI booth in the White House, had had enough. She sent the following on May 25, 2000:
All right! That does it! To settle, once and for all, Arnaud de Borchgrave's claim the Helen promised to go skipping hand-in-hand with him into the merger with the Moonies:
I got the word two weeks before the sale that Helen would quit if UPI sold out to the Unification Church. ... I spent seven glorious months squashed in the UPI White House booth with Helen Thomas, Lori Santos and Paul Basken. This I observed: Helen never lies. Helen never made any secret of her low opinion of the Washington Times. And Helen would never, ever embarrass UPI by resigning without good and sufficient warning (that she had good and sufficient cause goes without saying). If I knew two weeks ahead of time, Arnaud knew two weeks ahead of time.
Arnaud's broad hints that Helen had hitched her wagon to his star left me rolling on the floor in hysterics. There is no such thing as a private phone conversation in the White House booth, so I know that Arnaud's heart-to-hearts with Helen were limited mainly to efforts to scam invitations to White House galas.
His interaction with me was limited to efforts to describe a non-Helen future in which nanocomputers will be woven into our clothes so we can all read the newspaper on our sleeves. ... I never met anyone who loved her job as much as Helen did. She got to work first thing in the morning because she couldn't stand to stay away a moment longer. Some mornings she'd get there before the front gate guards and just plop down against the White House fence until someone came along to let her in. "Always remember," she'd tell me. "We have the best job in the world."
Do you have any idea what it must have cost her to give it up? Still, when her 57-year relationship with UPI turned abusive, she had the stones to walk away. You drove her away, Arnaud. Just like you drove away Lori and Paul and Dave Rosso and Don Folsum and Lisa Vandusen and Karen Byrne and Joe Warminsky and Pye Chamberlayne and every other reporter and copy editor who worked so heartbreakingly hard to keep UPI afloat for the two thankless years of your tenure. …
Jennifer, sometimes UPI White House and Capitol Hill reporter.
There was also a lot of debate over the influence the Unification Church would or would not have over UPI. At the time of the purchase, we were directed to an April 15, 1987, article in The Washington Post, which said, in part:
Washington Times editorial page editor William P. Chesire and four of his staff members resigned April 14, charging that Times editor-in-chief Arnaud de Borchgrave had allowed an executive of the Unification Church to dictate editorial policy. The Times is owned by News World Communications Inc., a corporation affiliated with the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's church.
"It is no longer possible, in my judgment, for the Times to maintain independence from the Unification Church under the editorship of Mr. de Borchgrave, if it is indeed at all," said Chesire.
I weighed in with a lengthy e-mail to my colleagues in which I brought up some of the complaints that drove a wedge between me and upper management under de Borchgrave.
"Editorial judgment at UPI died a long time ago. It especially died when ADB came in and dictated what the desk would pick up. It died when he surrounded himself with such a group of incompetents that he had full control over what went out over the wire. I and my team of dedicated editors fought to keep crap off the wire. It was an uphill and losing battle, especially when ADB's hires wrote much of the crap and pretended to be reporters. ADB would call Susan Older who trembled down to the desk and said why haven't you picked up the Washington Times story on such and such. Because we had it, it needed checking, we still have a reporter in that department who can check it and get a better story if one is warranted."
I added that reporting had died at UPI and noted that the new hires at UPI, the so-called special international editors, left a lot to be desired. One of those special correspondents, I said, "was the one who screamed at our stringer overseas and told the desk to pick up a TASS story about Yeltsin bolting a meeting under his nose. That same editor/reporter sat at the State Department and finally matched a story, quoting a State Department spokesman, when every other news organization was quoting Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at a news briefing at the State Department."

All: This Is My Last Day - Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14
Some have considered the sale of the UPI Radio Department as the beginning of the end of United Press International. That is a matter of debate. Many say the end began much earlier -- closer to two decades earlier.
The sale of Radio occurred in 1999. I returned to UPI in 1996. No, that was not the beginning of the end. But, in 1996, UPI went through a major change and more changes were coming.
In January 1997, UPI announced that it was closing several foreign bureaus, including Moscow, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Brussels, Bonn or Berlin, Jerusalem, Beirut and Cairo. It was part of the philosophy that was to consume the media industry worldwide in later years -- if you can't make the profit, get rid of the expenses, i.e. those on the payroll. What they didn't consider was that the reporters in the bureaus that were being closed were the ones producing the product.
In 1997, we were working under a new management team consisting of CEO James Adams, Editor-in-Chief Susan Older, John Walston and Publisher and Vice President Grey Burkhart.
In a glossy pamphlet bearing a picture of Adams, a former editor at The Sunday Times of London, lounging in a chair, shoeless with striped socks, Adams outlined what he saw as the new UPI:
"Information, however, is fast becoming the world's cheapest commodity. Too much is as worthless as too little. We don't need to tell you what you need; you need to tell us. To make that task simpler, UPI is developing new products and services that slice through the information glut and give you only what you want."
He added, "We call it Shaping Knowledge."
In the same pamphlet, Susan Older expanded on Adams' vision. Noting Helen Thomas's long tenure with UPI and having covered every president since John F. Kennedy, Older said, "Her reporting spells trust."
Older added:
"Trust is critical in shaping information into knowledge. Today's technology produces a flood of data devoid of context. The facts engulf and complicate, rather than simplify, our lives. We don't need more information, we need more knowledge."
The team also included John Walston. He was our cheerleader. He tried to lighten the mood when things were looking increasingly grim. Walston was enthusiasm, energy, optimism and encouragement. He mostly succeeded. But the obstacles were daunting -- and growing.
On March 19, 1998, Adams angered current and past veteran Unipressers during a speech at the Seybold Seminars' "Publishing 98" conference in New York.
"I can only relate to my own experience that began at UPI around seven months ago," Adams said. "I inherited a sclerotic, corrupted organization that had repeatedly tried to recreate its history instead of trying to embrace a different future. The result was failure. It meant replacing the tired hacks with a new generation who understood not the history of the global news wire but the opportunities of the Knowledge Age."
One retired Unipresser responded to his former colleagues: "I didn't realize how unfeeling, unaware, corrupt, hackneyed, mendacious, short-sighted, misogynistic and just plain incompetent I was until Emperor Adams came along and pointed out the error of my ways."
But Ron Cohen sent his response directly to Adams. In a note to Adams, Cohen told him to stop blaming "the loyal professionals who struggled beyond comprehension for years to overcome the stupid/venal/uncaring/criminally inept/criminally mendacious band of thieves, miscreants, Philistines and Barbarian owners who in the past 15 years have looted, pillaged and cosigned our beloved and unique news company to the brink of the grave.
"Think what you will privately, but for God's sake never again publicly shift the blame from those rapacious owners to the employees who never deserved their miserable pay and despicable treatment -- all they ever asked was not love in return but merely acknowledgment of their professionalism and dedication."
Cohen said Adams' response was immediate. He said Adams told him all he was trying to do was to restore UPI to its past glory. According to Cohen, Adams said that when he took the helm at UPI "the place was such a hell-hole ... that he has had to fire every manager and start fresh with people who have new ideas and new perspectives, to try to recapture the old days."
On April 24, 1998, Adams addressed staffers and gave an update on his vision for the company in a memo. He stated that:
UPI has four major alliances and partnerships in progress:
-- A strategic alliance with Microsoft for development and beta testing of media software.
-- A partnership with Media Exchange for distribution and sales of UPI products through the Internet, which will become operational in May.
-- UPI Productions, a TV documentary company.
-- FingerLakes, which will have space on the B2 level of Washington headquarters, which is a global radio station available through the Internet.
Adams pointed out that editorially, the company has:
-- Implemented an editorial quality assurance program that has improved the quality of the editorial product, though more remains to be done;
-- Is starting a "skunk works" for development of new products (so named for the famed Lockheed development program that produced the Stealth fighter), and that the first UPI knowledge package is the World Cup Soccer package now being sold (Adams encouraged all employees to submit ideas for new products);
-- Is building up the Focus Desk to enhance editing and tracking of stories;
-- been gaining wider distribution of photos, including pictures published in Life magazine, the Quill and the St. Louis Post;
-- Had a number of good exclusive stories, including stories by Pentagon reporter Mike Billington.
Adams also said the expense report process would be streamlined, and a new expense and payment schedule would be implemented under which employee expenses would be paid every two weeks. In addition, stringer payments would be processed by the 20th of each month.
Meanwhile, those stalwart Unipressers manning the bureaus outside Washington continued to do everything they could to keep the wire service up and running. Former Unipressers, reading about the trials and changes, asked those of us still at UPI just what were we doing.
Veteran Unipresser Dave Haskell, the Boston bureau chief, gave a succinct answer:
"I'm at one of the outposts, still doing what I've always done, in one fashion or another. My job is to write up the best stories from bh (Boston) and New England. Whatever 'shaping knowledge' means, what I and Phil Reed do is cover the news. It's what we did back when UPI was fat with people; it's what we do now. How we do it is different. Rather than have staffers physically at every event, electronics allows one person to do so much more than before. Working the phones, fax, the Internet, television and radio, I sit here and gather details on a wide variety of stories each day. They aren't the 800-word thumb suckers we used to do, but I produce some 6,000 to 10,000 words a day, writing two-sentence spotlights, 200- to 300-word focus pieces, 150-word wibs (world in briefs), headline packages. I'm proud of the product we produce for our growing list of mainly broadcast clients. I still get a kick out of hearing a newscaster at a classical or rock station voice my words. I still feel I -- and the rest of us at UPI -- are still providing interesting and compelling stories to a wide audience, whether it's over the air or in cyberspace. As Rosso said, what happens upstairs is another world; we're downstairs in the trenches. Whether I write for one client or a thousand, I still must put out an accurate report. Sure, I miss the old days when we'd get tear sheets back from dozens of small-town newspapers with our bylines prominently played, but these are different times in the news biz. The one constant is that a good story is still a good story, and I'm damned glad to be in a position to contribute my share of them."
Dave was one of the best and well respected by the rest of us. But in his description of what he did, he made an observation that would be telling in another year. He said he was writing for "our growing list of mainly broadcast clients," the very clients UPI was about to dump.
Adams' tenure was relatively short. He was replaced by Arnaud de Borchgrave, the company's sixth chief executive since 1992.
In a December 1998 article by Felicity Barringer, The New York Times noted UPI was an "organization whose chief executives seem to have a shelf life only slightly longer than a piece of wire copy."
At the time that de Borchgrave became the latest president and chief executive, Barringer noted:
"Except in Washington, Chicago and a few other cities, U.P.I. correspondents work in ''virtual bureaus'' (translation: home offices, or their kitchen tables), filing dispatches daily for clients that tend to be Web sites and local radio stations."
On Sept. 16, 1999, Burkhart, stated in a staff memo:
As most of you know, our Board of Directors met yesterday in Washington and were briefed by Arnaud and me on the progress we have made this year and our plans for the next 16 months. In the wake of the restructuring of the company over the past six weeks, we viewed this meeting as especially important for the future of UPI.
Arnaud described the meeting as "highly successful." At the meeting, the Board gave us the green light to investigate exciting opportunities for strategic partnerships with major organizations interested in the "new UPI." Negotiations are currently on-going with a view to forming new media alliances that will substantially enhance UPI's global presence.
The Board also appointed a new Strategic Committee with the mandate to facilitate our transition to a brighter future. Over the next several weeks, Arnaud and I, with the assistance of many of you, will be working closely with the committee to ensure that we move forward expeditiously. Until the committee's work is completed, we will not be launching any new initiatives, but -- rumors to the contrary notwithstanding -- UPI is very much alive. Thank you for all your hard work and continued support.
My favorite is when Arnaud had an exclusive interview with Slobodan Milosevic, the president of Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, during the Kosovo conflict. Since, while he was CEO of UPI he was also still affiliated with the Washington Times, the Washington Times fronted his interview story as their own, allowing the Associated Press to pick it up and credit the Washington Times.
However, the New York Times attributed the story to UPI, but said:
“Milosevic almost never speaks in public or grants interviews to foreign news media. But he gave an interview to United Press International on Thursday, and it was released Friday, coinciding with proposals that Milosevic aired privately with the Russian envoy, Viktor S. Chernomyrdin.
… The UPI interviewer, Arnaud de Borchgrave, 72, asked Milosevic few adversarial questions and allowed Milosevic to ruminate at length unchallenged. United Press International said the two-hour interview took place at a modest house outside Belgrade.
By the end of October 1999, the strain reached the snapping point and I pulled one of those "take-this-job-and-shove-it" moments, slammed a dictionary on the desk, yelled, "I quit," and stormed out. It was an argument between me and editor Tobin Beck. But the cause wasn't Tobin or the argument. It was the culmination of three years of deterioration. It was stringers not being paid, staffs cut to less than bare bones while new people were hired who proved on a daily basis that they were not up to the job.
A short time after my departure, I wrote up my recollections of my final months at UPI for my former colleagues:
After three years as senior managing editor for CongressDaily, I went off in search of new work. Having never looked for work, I got a book telling me what to do. It said to call everybody you know. I called Kathleen Silvassy, at the time UPI's Washington bureau chief. She said, "I need you."
So in 1996, I was once again in the embrace of the work I loved. But change was in the wind. It wasn't too long before there were massive layoffs. "Massive" was becoming a very relative term.
The format of UPI was about to change. Howard Dicus, of UPI radio fame, was running the show. The new dictum was short stories -- 150-300 words -- and the emphasis was on radio copy. I was eventually put in charge of the Focus Desk, responsible for all UPI print copy.
We fought to keep stories short. It was every reporter's nightmare. Some were convinced size mattered. Then, there was a change in management. In came someone named James Adams. And he brought with him Susan Older and John Walston.
Adams was fresh and alive. He met regularly with the editorial staff -- a surprising change from the past. Always a smile. Always energetic. He would put his feet up on the table without his shoes on. He wore a kilt to the White House correspondents' dinner.
But, he had an agenda. And he started to push it on the staff. One day, he attended a function and had a reporter write about a 700-worder, far over our limit. Adams was critical of a White House intelligence paper that was about to be released. The story was strong on criticism and very short on details from the report Adams said he was privvy to. And there was no response from the White House.
Diane Devore was in the slot that day. I had gone home. Diane called me and read the story to me. I talked to Tobin Beck and said the story had to be cut, it had to have White House reaction and it had to specify what it was Adams was complaining about.
I then told Diane: "I am your boss and I am telling you that that story does not move without my approval. You are only following orders. If they complain, send them to me.”
The story was rewritten. But it began a trend.
As time went on, we saw less of Adams. And then he was gone. Arnaud de Borchgrave, a Newsweek veteran and former editor of The Washington Times, was in.
Great plans were being bantered about. The Focus desk was going to expand from five to a dozen or more. Susan Older babbled incessantly that "it will be like a real newsroom."
A bank of televisions was mounted on the wall. Each desk had a headset so the desker could listen to whatever breaking news was on the television.
And then came the Pods. Everybody's first thought was, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." Pods?! Yes, a national security pod, a science pod, an intelligence pod. The focus was now to be on cyber-terrorism, Y2K, Internet terrorism, all very spooky.
The first run-in with de Borchgrave came after he had attended a seminar that included such stellar has-beens as Al Haig. De Borchgrave took copious notes and told UPI State Department reporter Sid Balman to take his notes and write a story. Sid refused. They passed the notes on to the Focus desk. Once again, I was called at home. I told the desk we do not write stories based on somebody else's notes. There is too much chance for misinterpretation.
So UPI Publisher Grey Burkhart wrote a story.
Then de Borchgrave began calling Susan Older at 3 a.m. telling her we needed to pick up a story from The Washington Times. This was beginning to be a habit.
Sometimes the story he wanted was marginal. Sometimes it lacked substance. Sometimes it was simply something we already had. No matter, Older said, It HAD to be picked up.
Then I started losing my desk. Jennifer Brooks went to Congress and then to the White House. Joe Warminsky went to Congress to replace Jennifer. Griffin Shea went to Agence France-Presse. And I could not hire replacements. What happened to the 12 deskers I was supposed to have? Oh. That was 'someday.'
The Focus desk ran 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It was at this time, 1999, the only around-the-clock bureau existing in UPI. When I interviewed applicants, I made it clear that everybody took turns working overnights and weekends. Only one editor worked Monday through Friday -- for family reasons.
Everybody else pulled all shifts.
But when one staffer's wife called to complain about his schedule, I was called into Older's office and questioned. She accused me of destroying the morale on the Focus desk -- and that further increased tension between Older, myself and the Focus Desk.
Then, we started getting some of the Pod-generated copy. These 'thoughtful' creations turned out to be monsters that took a good hour to edit. Most of the time, I gave the copy to Lisa Van Dusen, who could tell crap from substance, and we were getting crap.
On numerous occasions, she wrote memos to Tobin Beck saying the "analysis" she was reading was not analysis but opinion and should be described as such. On other occasions, the copy was sloppy -- or took an off-the-wall approach to a subject.
We worked hard to edit the "pod" stories, but they were taking more and more time and we were again losing editors without any hope of replacing them.
Then Susan Older and Grey Burkholt started a campaign of snide, sarcastic missives to the Focus desk pointing out typos.
This copy needed to be read twice and we did not have the people to do it twice.
Then on Oct. 30, Tobin Beck insisted he had to look at a story that had been read and I was halfway through re-reading for filing.
He took it from me and filed it. He did not correct it as I was doing, and it went on the wire with a number of mistakes.
Beck and Older were constantly asking what could be done to improve editing on the Focus desk. So when that story went down the wire, I lost my composure and stormed out, with an "I quit!"
I came back calmer Monday to talk to Tobin. Another desker had been sort of 'mediating' and tension had ebbed. I met with Tobin and he told me to 'chill' and he would talk to Older and try to get me reinstated.
I waited until 3 p.m. Tuesday -- much as Patrick Grey (Watergate fans), swinging in the wind -- before Beck called and said, "It is the position of the company...."
That Friday, Lisa Van Dusen handed in her resignation.
On Dec. 18, 1999, Editor & Publisher wrote that UPI was "struggling to control its personnel turmoil as it sorts through six potential suitors for the floundering wire service."
About halfway through the article, E&P stated:
"Dave Rosso, the longtime copy editor of UPI, resigned Oct. 29, after several disagreements with editors."
The article referred to my own farewell message.
Shortly after I quit, Jennifer Brooks e-mailed me and reminded me that I had left in such a hurry that I had not filed a farewell message. I typed one up and she sent it out. She was fired.
In that message, I stated: "This group in Washington that describes itself as the new UPI is perverting journalism. You are on the front lines to stamp it out. Don't make it easy for them."
De Borchgrave told E&P that I was a "respected journalist," but that "UPI changed and David still wanted to do things the old way."
At the time of my departure, UPI Publisher Grey E. Burkhart revealed that UPI had "a number of suitors," including Canadian Conrad Black and former CNN financial anchor Lou Dobbs.
The UPI owners at the time, the Saudi Arabia ARA Group International of Riyadh, which had lost $140 million since buying UPI in 1992, pledged to keep the wire service running until they found a buyer.
In an e-mail to the Downhold wire, a collection of former Unipressers, Brooks said:
Just thought you'd like to see the farewell message I would have sent to my ex-colleagues, if I still had computer access.
All:
I’ve been fired. Quite startling. But as I sit around the house, wearing flannel, whimpering piteously and plowing through my third tub of Chubby Hubby ice cream, it occurs to me -- I'm awfully glad UPI hired me in the first place. Even if I had to get off before the ride came to a full and complete stop, I think it was worth the price of admission.
So thank you, UPI. I applied for this job, terrified that the pace and demands of wire service work would crush me to jelly. I spent my entire initial interview trying to talk John Walston out of hiring me: "But I don't KNOW anything about copy editing!" I'd lost my last reporting job and was in my fifth miserable week as a temporary secretary in USA Today's newsroom. The very next day, like a bolt from a generous God, Monica Lewinsky erupted. Day after that, I started work as UPI's lone congressional reporter.
Thank you, UPI. In my first year, I covered the presidential impeachment and trial, a near government shutdown, the rise and fall of three House speakers in as many months, stacks of legislation taller than me, and an armed assault on the Capitol. Also, Strom Thurmond patted me on the behind. I wrote half a dozen stories on an average day. If I couldn't keep pace with AP or Reuters, I took comfort in the knowledge that I BURIED Agence France-Presse.
My second year at UPI, I covered the president himself, accumulated a tidy pile of commemorative Air Force One M&Ms, traveled to nine countries (if you count a refueling stop in Ireland, which I do), honed my Clinton imitation to terrifying precision, and became quite a connoisseur of airport tarmacs and motorcade minivans. I never quite overcame my awe at strolling through the White House gates every morning (I really think if I'd stayed there just a little longer, the cute guard would have asked me out) and plopping into a chair next to Helen Thomas. I left before I quite mastered Helen's knack for yelling the right question, or Lori's (Lori Santos) finesse of the news cycle and steely control over the Viet Cong tunnels that pass for the White House bureaucracy, or Paul's (Paul Baskin) cyber-empire of computer-assisted reporting. They did their best to teach me their ways. Be nice to them. I've left them short-handed.
Thank you, UPI for introducing me to Dave Rosso, for whom I would send a thousand farewell messages; mighty Joe Warminsky, who didn't let the Hill crush him to jelly, either; Lisa Van Dusen, who made the Zen potato and me very, very happy; Karen Byrne, who carries the desk on her slender shoulders (dusted lightly in condiments and dried in a windstorm); (k)night rider John Hendel; and Anthony Louis, who was of like mind about the shocking scarcity of shredded squirrels on the A wire. Ex-unipressers, feel the love: Ken Bazinet (here, description fails me), sweet Griffin Shea, divine Diane Devore, that dude Chris Sieroty, that ol softie Sid Balman, John Walston, Chris Long (remember him?), James Gordon Meek and Mike Rosenberg, the entire radio staff ('specially Don Folsom, Pye Chamberlayne and Jim Burns. Where did you go? What did you do?) Bye Pam Hess and Mike Kirkland and Ken and Kukis and Soni (you never get your propers in these "all" messages, girlfriend).
And Rose the secretary, who always kept a stash of fax toner and reporters' notebooks for me. Bye, vanishing state bureaus. Bye, unpaid stringers. Bye, elusive UPI photographers.
I've had a splendid time. I skipped to work most mornings. I went months without turning in time sheets because I couldn't really believe I was getting paid to do this job, never mind paid overtime. Now I'm back on the market, searching for a job as much fun as this one has been. Wish me luck.
I think I'm going to be just fine, apart from missing you.
Love,
Brooks-home
Date: 99-11-05 20:41:20 EST

Dear All,
After assuming for so long it was just a figure of speech, it's hard to believe I'm actually quitting over Rosso's dead body, so to speak.
I've told this story a few times in the past week, but will tell it again. When John Walston first dragged me by the Focus desk and asked Dave Rosso if he had time to meet me, Rosso, barely looking up long enough to actually look askance, barked, "I don't have time to meet anyone right now, I've got a job to do." I knew then that I wanted to work for him because, in a business tragically overrun by ciphers, poseurs and both failed and aspiring flacks, he seemed so remarkably lifelike.
The two years I have spent working with him have both enhanced that impression immeasurably and spoiled me for any notion of doing this job in his absence. I'd like to thank him for inspiring that kind of certainty and for tirelessly running interference so the rest of us could get on with it unmolested. He is a good man, a great boss and a loyal friend.
UPI has been graced with an exceptional concentration of outstanding broads and I really cannot say how thankful I am to have had their support and friendship. Lori Santos, the departed Diane DeVore, Jennifer Brooks, Pam Hess, and Karen Byrne are all tough, loyal, talented, compassionate and very funny women. I think it must be that Helen Thomas, as the walking UPI trademark, draws the good ones and weeds out the bulk of the undesirables just by sheer force of her personality. Thank you, Helen, for that and for carrying all of us in this place longer than our mothers did.
Joe "Allentown" Warminsky, the lamented Griffin Shea, Jorge Banales, Mark Kukis and Ken Layne -- I don't have room to do it properly, but thank you for entertaining, humoring, indulging and, as often as was required, ridiculing me. It made me less homesick for my four brothers in Canada. You are darling boys.
There is a handful of real reporters left at this organization -- some mentioned above -- whose copy it was a joy to read, edit and occasionally, as one of them once said, "arbitrarily and dangerously" display an annoying but well-intentioned proprietary interest in. I'd like to thank them for their bravery in maintaining the illusion of legitimacy by continuing to commit actual journalism. Some of them are stringers, some staff, and some gone. All of them, I wish well.
Until very, very recently, I was glad to come in here every day and very grateful that I was able to work in this game again despite the demands of single motherhood. I will always be thankful to the people who allowed me to do that and especially to my colleagues on the Focus desk for not whingeing about my banker's hours even though they had absolutely every right to. You are all damn fine Americans and it was a lovely run. Thank you. Chrs. LVD (Lisa Van Dusen).

all: Little did I know, two weeks back when I gave my notice here at UPI, that my departure would be so dramatically overshadowed by other events. This place continues to be very weird. Of course I prefer to leave a job quietly, like a Thief in the Night, and that's just how I am exiting on this cool Monday evening.
It has been an education and, often, a pleasure to work on this desk. There are many of you I only know via (the message wire), and many of you already departed, and some of you still here, and I'm not sure how many of my comrades will ever see this farewell but whatever, it's an old pagan tradition.
After all this talk of newsletters in recent months, I am now off to write for a travel newsletter published by a nice stable company I needn't worry about -- hell, I don't even have to show up at the office, ever. So in the coming months I'll be relocating to the southern coast of Spain, somewhere below Granada, where I hope to spend much time studying wine, books, the piano, language and the long-term effects of sleeping on the beach after lunch.
Everybody has their own version of the ideal UPI, but I imagine most versions would require the service to be influential and fully staffed and profitable and professional and fun.
There are things I'll miss about the wire service that was still hanging on when I arrived a mere eight months ago, and I hope for the sake of American journalism that some version of the wire survives.
The United States is becoming like the old Soviet Union with the old TASS: One source of information coming from one group of editors.
And I'm not very excited about having all my news come from Disney-ABC-Viacom-ClearChannel-TimeWarner-Yahoo-Microsoft outlets running AP, with a little finance news and world headlines from Bloomberg/Reuters.
Good luck to you all. OK, shift's over.
Chrs et rgds mi amigos, Ken Layne
Date: 99-12-27 18:32:36 EST

In late December, 1999, it was Joe Warminsky's turn.
All:
Today is my last day with UPI. I have taken a job with Congressional Quarterly here in Washington, DC. If you received this message, it is my small way of thanking you for whatever part you played in making my time at UPI interesting and rewarding.
I've spent only 18 months with UPI, but it feels like a much longer stint. To sum up my experience, I'll say this: I wish UPI could hand out degrees of some sort. I feel like I've been to the strangest graduate school in journalism.
When I first got here, the Focus Desk was in the basement, squeezed into a little corner of the UPI Radio studio. I was the last person hired for a team that turned out to be the smartest and most motivated group of people I've ever worked with: Rosso, Byrne, Devore, Shea, Hendel, Van Dusen, Banales, Sieroty. (Y'all know how I feel about you.) Within six months I found myself working totally alone, still relatively green, from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. on a Saturday when the House impeached Clinton, the president launched a new round of attacks on Iraq and Bob Livingston resigned as House Speaker-elect because of hanky-panky allegations. I think I filed about 90 items that day. Afterward, no news day seemed too ridiculous or too intense on the desk. Days like that can jade a guy, too. Byrne reminded me recently of when we were watching the Columbine situation unfold on CNN -- I was looking up at the television, dumbfounded, saying things such as: "This is fake .... This has to be a hoax." It looked so much like a movie. My six months on Capitol Hill were filled with similar head-scratching moments. How easy it is to become a cynic.
Ah, cynicism. I suppose it would be a dereliction of duty to write a completely positive farewell message -- UPI has changed too much in the past 18 months to warrant only sunshine from me. I'll put it this way: I hope UPI can succeed, but I wish some decisions in the past few months were different. Layne said it best in his recent farewell message. To paraphrase him: Now more than ever, the media industry needs as many reliable voices and as many good products as possible. Good reporting and good analysis, however, require solid resources. For the industry's sake, let's hope UPI can find or create more of them -- and keep the ones it has.
To other Washington staff members, past and present, I offer my thanks for all the support and guidance. Thomas, Santos, Basken, Bazinet, Brooks, Martin, Beck, Balman, Hess, Kirkland, Kukis, Anderson, Lawrence, Schuster, Walston, Long, Neslon, Salhani, Sieff, Meek, Rosenberg, Baker, Cook, Thompson, everybody in UPI Radio and so on -- you folks have each taught me lessons, including how to behave like a reporter (Helen, thanks for the chats) and how to play the angles (Lori, you know 'em all).
To the folks in the hinterlands: Bennett, Kreiter, Kjos, Magers, Koller, Haskell, Johnson, Ingwersen, Hawke, Butler, Cukan, Nason, Swanson, Schnaue, Reilly, Joseph, Bartholomew, Joseph and anybody and everybody I forgot -- I will miss seeing your three-letter IDs pop up on the xia printer, your vaunted message traffic and your many sardonic slugs (Kreiter, Bennett, I wish I could remember some of your zingers now. I'm sure somebody has a collection somewhere). I hope UPI will stick with the talent it still has in the field.
And last, but not least, to the international staffers and regular stringers: Thank you for working so damn hard and caring so deeply. Harbaksh, Joshua, Dalal, Sana, Saud, Rodpaul, Anthony -- I have gotten to know you better than many other people at UPI because you are all willing to talk about yourselves as well as your work. Now that there are so few UPI reporters in Washington, you and the many others in the field are the backbone of the company's news product.
And to anybody else who I didn't mention, I apologize for the oversight.
Good Luck,
Joe Warminsky"

Dear colleagues
Today is my last day at UPI. With affection, nostalgia and thanks, I salute all the reporters, stringers and deskers who keep this wire humming. It’s been an honor and a delight to work with you all.
It takes a certain kind of lunatic to do this job. The only person crazier than the witness to history is the person driven to test the veracity of the witness. It’s a divine calling: between curses, say thanks that it chose you.
The UPI wire is thinning and stretching. Stay with it if you want and while you can, but remember, you can employ your savvy elsewhere. Who knows, you might even get respected, and paid on time.
Of course, you might also be dangled about like a string puppet and made to grovel for your pennies. Gotta guard your ass in this business.
And that is my last word.
Karen Byrne
UPI-WA

Dear colleagues,
It is with regret that I write to tell you of my impending departure from UPI. In the 2.5 years that I have been editor-in-chief of this news operation, I have worked with the best, most dedicated journalists I’ve ever known. I certainly can’t deny that there have been difficult times for all of us, but your professionalism, your friendship and your generosity have made my job more rewarding and my life easier.
I have taken the position of chief content officer for an integrated health services company operating largely on the Internet. My last day at UPI will be Friday, May 5. After that time, I’ll be working in my new position from home until the end of June, when I’ll move to Manhattan.
Please keep in touch. I will miss each and every one of you — and you will be in my thoughts as you make your transition to new ownership.
Susan Older

Sunday, April 30, 2000
Well, it’s goodbye. Today is my last day at United Press International.
I would like to express my admiration and gratitude to all the stringers, writers, editors and photographers who every day keep the UPI wire an endless stream of copy and pictures despite sub-par working conditions, job uncertainty and the never-ending management changes.
It has been an honor to work with all of you.
Cheers
To those who remain: It is the beginning of the 21st century, don’t let them treat you like it’s the end of the 19th.
Jorge