MAY 2013

Published by The Society of The Silurians, Inc., an organizationof veteran New York City journalists founded in 1924

Society of the Silurians

EXCELLENCE INJOURNALISM

AWARDS DINNERThe Players Club

16 Gramercy Park SouthWednesday, May 22, 2013

Drinks: 6 p.m.Dinner: 7:15 p.m.

Meet Old Friends and Award Winners

(212) 532-0887Members and One Guest $100 Each

Non-Members $120

Hurricane Sandy Coverage Dominates 2013 Silurian Awards

Continued on Page 6

Richard Harbus of The Daily News won the top award in the breaking news photograph category for his shot of the Pennyfield seawallin the Throgs Neck-Edgewater Park section of the Bronx as it is hit full force by Hurriane Sandy.

JoAnneWasserman

Continued on Page 2

BY WARREN HOGE

I was in an undergraduate English class onSpenser’s “The Faerie Queene” when the pro-fessor said something that pretty much set me up

for the rest of my life. He talked about a principle hecalled “the recreative impulse” and explained it meantthat something hadn’t really happened to you until youtold someone else about it. Bingo, I thought, so that’swhy I’m driven to telling stories all the time.

I had spent two teenage summers working as a potwasher in the galley of a New York State MaritimeCollege training ship that sailed to ports abroad, and onthose trips, I remember feeling somehow incompleteuntil I could retreat to my cabin, pull out my portabletypewriter and compose lengthy letters about all the ad-ventures I was having. A foreign correspondent wasbeing born.

This realization that experience is validated only whenit’s communicated is what led me into journalism 50 yearsago, and it’s what’s behind the advice I most frequentlygave reporters. I’d tell them that when you sit down towrite, imagine you’re filling in your best friend on whatyou’ve just covered, listen to the way you set out thefacts, and you’ve probably stumbled onto the lede.

I recall a lot of times when I was on the metro desksof The New York Post and, later, The New York Times,and people would come in from an assignment. I’d beon two or three phones at once, and I would look up andblurt out some form of “What happened?” The report-ers would fire back with key details, and I’d tell them to

give me so many words. When the story dropped a whilelater, it often bore little trace of what the writers had toldme in the earlier rushed moments. So I would summonthem back to the desk (memorably, in the case of TheTimes, over a sonorous city room microphone) and tellthem to trust the instincts they used to get my attentionthe first time and write the piece that way.

Decades later, when I was the London bureau chiefof The Times and covering the Northern Ireland peaceprocess, I was giving my take on the recreative impulseto Brendan Kennelly, the great Irish poet and profes-sor of modern literature at Trinity College Dublin. Henodded excitedly in agreement. “Do you know,” he said,“the literal translation of the morning greeting in Gaelicis ‘What’s your news?’” In other words, in Ireland,the greatest yarn-spinning land I know, people say goodmorning to each other by asking them what their storyis. Bingo, I thought again.

Now, if story telling is at the essence of journalism, italso is at the heart of why I have loved my life in jour-nalism. Simply put, can you imagine a greater work-place than a room full of gregarious story tellers? Iworked in three such places: the newsrooms of The(Washington) Evening Star, The Post and The Times.

The Post is where I had my introduction to New Yorkjournalism, and it is also the place that is on my mindwhen I go to Gramercy Park for Silurian lunches be-cause I am always reminded of a wonderful colleaguethere, Helen Dudar, who, with her husband, the master-

Coverage of Hurricane Sandy by anassortment of news organizations sweptthe 2013 Silurians Excellence in Journal-ism Awards for outstanding work lastyear. A blue-ribbon group of judges citedSandy-related entries in the print, photo,radio, television and online categories.

Named to receive the2013 Peter KihssAward is JoAnneWasserman, formerBrooklyn bureau chiefof The Daily News, forher work as an outstand-ing reporter and herdedication to helpingyoung journalists, in thetradition of the legend-ary New York Timesreporter. Alas, soon af-

ter the award was announced, Ms.Wasserman was laid off by the paper aspart of a major staff reduction.

Multiple award winners includeNewsday, The New York Times, TheDaily News, The Wall Street Journal,Bloomberg, The Record, NY1 and CBS880 radio. The awards will be presentedat the Society’s annual awards dinnerMay 22 at the Players Club.

The judges of the prize competition

Kihss AwardTo Wasserman

DIVIDED LOYALTY: Warren Hoge with a couple ofsouvenirs from a lifetime of journalism.

Hoge on Journalism 101: Tell the Story

were Myron Kandel, chairman; AllanDodds Frank, co-chair; Jerry Eskenazi;Herb Hadad; Barbara Lovenheim; BenPatrusky; Wendy Sclight ;and JosephVecchione.

The winners are:PRINT JOURNALISMBreaking NewsThe prize for breaking news in print

goes to The New York Times for the

paper’s comprehensive in-depth coverageof the devastating impact HurricaneSandy wreaked on the city and on coastalareas in New York and New Jersey, as

PAGE 2 SILURIAN NEWS MAY 2013

This photo of Michelle Paulin of California and Storme, a Dogue de Bordeaux, awaiting their turn at the Westminster Kennel Club Showat Madison Square Garden, won Robert Sabo of The Daily News the best feature picture category.

Continued from Page 1

Continued on Page 3

well as of the aftermath of the storm. Thatcoverage, by virtually every departmentof the paper, was augmented by outstand-ing photos, graphs and maps and was ac-companied by a massive live interactivefeed. The 13-day coverage grew to 643news posts and represented the mostambitious multi- platform operation in thepaper’s history.

MERIT AWARD To The New York Postfor the paper’s gripping deadline coverage ofthe shootings outside the Empire State Build-ing, when a gunman shot and killed a formerco-worker. The Post published crisply writ-ten articles and sidebars on the event, includ-ing incisive portraits of the shooter and hisvictim and testimony by eyewitnesses.

MERIT AWARD To The Record for itswide-ranging coverage of Hurricane Sandyand its impact on northern New Jersey, in-cluding individual reports on two dozentowns in its area. Its reports were accompa-nied by a number of striking photographsshowing the effects of the storm.

Feature NewsWinners of the prize for feature news

are William K. Rashbaum, WendyRuderman and Mosi Secret of The NewYork Times for their thoroughly-reportedand sensitively-written article on the lifeand death of Cecilia Chang, a dean at St.John’s University in Queens, who com-mitted suicide the day after testifying ather federal trial on charges of fraud andembezzlement. They unearthed notes anddocuments that helped them chronicle thebizarre events concerning her career andthe details of her grisly death.

MERIT AWARD Daniel Bases, a reporterat Thomson Reuters, wrote a fascinating, well-written and diligently researched article on alittle-known expert who influences how na-tions run their finances, emerge from defaults,pay their debts and re-enter the internationalfinancial markets. He illustrates how a com-plex and often-obscure corner of global fi-nance can be brought to life by focusing onone key individual.

MERIT AWARD Jay Levin of The Recordis one of the best-read writers for this north-ern New Jersey paper. His specialty is death,and his obituaries and special features on thesubject ring with authenticity, sensitivity andreality. Among his other work, he is cited forone gripping piece for which he spent monthsinterviewing four hospice patients about theirfeelings about death and the nature of theirlives. Rather than dwelling on pathos, his ar-ticles reflect what one patient said shortlybefore his death: “I am at peace.”

Investigative ReportingThe prize for investigative reporting

goes to Sam Dolnick of The New YorkTimes for his fiercely reported exposé ofthe horrific conditions that prevailed atNew Jersey’s privately-run halfwayhouses for newly-released prison inmates.In his dogged, 10- month pursuit of thestory, he tracked down and interviewedcurrent and former officials, facility work-ers and inmates (there’s not one anony-mous quote to be found in the three- partseries). He fashioned a devastating ac-count of unrelenting violence, widespreaddrug use, rampant gang activity, unmiti-gated mismanagement and lax oversight.The series led to the introduction of 14reform bills, huge fines and the resigna-tion from the $100-million-a-year companythat ran the system of a top official andclose friend of Gov. Chris Christie.

MERIT AWARD Newsday reportersKeith Herbert and Jennifer Maloney win aMerit Award for their investigation into thedeaths and injuries that have turnedHempstead Turnpike into Nassau County’s“16 Deadly Miles.” Their work resulted in ahost of government actions to try to makethat heavily-traveled highway safer for pe-destrians and drivers.

Sports ReportingMembers of the sports staff of The

Daily News win the sports award for theirreporting of the bizarre case of MelkyCabrera, the baseball star who was sus-pended after testing positive for elevatedlevels of testerone, including his machi-nations to avoid any sanctions and someof his shady associates.

MERIT AWARDBloomberg reporters Curtis Eichelberger

and Elise Young receive a Merit Award fortheir article showing that Rutgers Universitypours more money from taxpayers and stu-dent fees into sports than any other largeU.S. university. Their hard-hitting reporting,based on a financial data base built fromdocuments obtained using public recordsrequests, found a sharp contrast betweenspending on sports and rising tuition and fees.

Business/FinancialThe prize for business/financial report-

ing goes to Susan Pulliam, Rob Barry andJean Eaglesham of The Wall Street Jour-nal for their exhaustive six-month inves-tigation that uncovered insider trading bya thousand corporate executives whotraded stock in their own companiesahead of potentially market-moving cor-porate news announcements.

MERIT AWARD After Hurricane Sandydevastated homes on Long Island, Newsdayreporter Joe Ryan delved into the complexi-ties and limitations of flood insurance with aseries of well-researched articles that elicitedwidespread reader response and earned hima Merit Award.

Science/HealthThe award for science/health report-

ing goes to Delthia Ricks of Newsdayfor three crisply reported stories that ad-dress both the majesty and the darker sideof modern medicine, including how high-tech artificial limbs have enabled a youngwoman who lost all four limbs resumeher life; the danger of infection resultingfrom hip-replacement surgery; and thethreat posed by the growing influx ofcounterfeit medications.

MERIT AWARD Lindy Washburn of TheRecord wins a Merit Award for her compel-ling and wide-ranging coverage of the healthbeat that eloquently brings to life the people

and issues involved. Her articles range fromabuses in the medical field to inspiring ex-amples of organ donations.

Arts/CultureThe arts/culture award goes to Thane

Peterson for his wide-ranging and inten-sively researched investigation into thequestionable production and sale of post-humous bronzes stamped with the signa-ture of Salvador Dali. His influential ar-ticle, published in ARTNews (with addi-tional reporting by George Stolz andCharles Rump), revealed a detailed pic-ture of a flagrant abuse in today’s artmarket.

MERIT AWARD An arts/culture MeritAward goes to Pia Catton for an engaging se-ries of her Culture City columns in The WallStreet Journal, in which she visited each ofthree museum shows of Caribbean art witha different New York-based Caribbean-American artist. Her creative approach to asprawling, 500-work city-wide exhibition of-fered new perspectives and made intriguingconnections.

MERIT AWARD Philip Boroff ofBloomberg is honored for his groundbreakingcoverage of the business side of the Broad-way theatre, notably his article on the hugesums earned by the creators, investors andproducers of the blockbuster musical“Wicked,” which he found by analyzingnearly 1,700 pages of documents obtainedthrough the Freedom of Information Act.Boroff shed new light on the profits and com-pensation of hit shows, which are usuallyclosely-guarded secrets in the theater world.

Editorial WritingNewsday’s editorial board wins the

prize for editorial writing for its powerfuland continuing series of editorials in theaftermath of Hurricane Sandy. In the 62days from the arrival of the devastatingsuperstorm to the end of 2012, the paperran 32 editorials on the subject, amongthem demands that the Long IslandPower Authority be privatized; exposingfailures in the local emergency-responsesystem, and questioning the wisdom ofbuilding in dangerous shoreline locations.

News AnalysisSusan Antilla wins the prize for com-

mentary for a series of eye-opening

Bloomberg columns that illuminate howabuses by financial firms, lax regulationand unfair industry practices harm inves-tors, consumers and even employees.

Community ServiceThe award for community service goes

to a penetrating series of articles by MaryBeth Pfeiffer in The Poughkeepsie Jour-nal that explores the extent of Lyme dis-ease in the paper’s area and exposes theshortcomings and conflicting interests ofthe medical and governmental communi-ties in dealing with the ailment. Hergroundbreaking reports vividly demon-strate how a public health crisis has beenmismanaged and minimized. A MeritAward is also given to John Ferro for hiscontributions to this series.

MERIT AWARD New York Post reporterJosh Margolin receives a Merit Award for hiscoverage of shortcomings in the city’s 911response process and the BloombergAdministration’s efforts to suppress a reportcritical of the emergency-dispatch system.

MERIT AWARD Sophia Hollander ofThe Wall Street Journal receives a MeritAward for a thoroughly-researched series ofarticles on divorce that uncovered the tollthat shoddy legislation has taken on fami-lies as a result of muddled court rulings andlopsided alimony awards.

MAGAZINE REPORTINGBloomberg reporter Esmé E. Deprez

wins the prize for magazine reportingfor her sensitive and finely-tuned pieceon income inequality and its ramifica-tions on social mobility. Titled “PoorForever? Connecticut’s Ribbon ofHardship,” it chronicles two families asthey struggle to move up the financialladder against great odds. Shepoignantly brings to life the reality ofthe growing gulf between rich and poor.

PRINT PHOTOGRAPHYBreaking NewsThe winner in the breaking news

photograph category is RichardHarbus of The Daily News for hisevocative photo of the brunt of Hurri-cane Sandy as it hits a seawall byPennyfield Avenue in the Bronx nearthe Throgs Neck Bridge.

Hurricane Sandy Coverage Dominates 2013 Silurian Awards

MAY 2013 SILURIAN NEWS PAGE 3

JoAnne Wasserman’s Winding Road to City HallBY GEORGE ARZT

If ever there was a newspaperwoman who personified a moviecharacter it’s JoAnne Wasserman.

She is so reminiscent of Hildy Johnson of“Front Page” that she should play thepart in the next remake.

JoAnne is very deserving of the PeterKihss Award not only because she is agreat reporter, but because she fully em-bodies what this award is all about — herwillingness to help younger journalists.

JoAnne came up through the ranks ina very traditional way. I do not believereporters come up like JoAnne did any-more, and she may be among the last gen-eration to do so. After graduating fromPurchase College in 1977, she waitedtables while freelancing at local commu-nity papers, making 50 cents a columninch. She was soon hired to freelance atthe Soho Weekly News by the legendaryeditor Al Ellenberg. It was Al who gaveJoAnne one of her first story ideas afterasking how she was surviving on hardlyany money. Al assigned JoAnne a pieceabout waitressing.

When she told him she wanted to writefor a major newspaper, Al told her touse his name with Myron Rushetzky,who at the time was the City Desk as-sistant at The New York Post. Myronbrought JoAnne in as a substitute copygirl, and she was eventually hired to takedictation.

When computers first began to takeover the newspaper business, reportersat the bureaus were still using typewrit-ers so they would have to call in theirstories. On the other end of the line wasJoAnne taking dictation from some of themore colorful characters in newspapers. JoAnne was learning the business by tak-ing dictation from court reporters like starcriminal court writer Mike Pearl andcrime columnist Jerry Capeci. Their useof language gave JoAnne the opportu-nity to hear how great writers and re-porters do their work.

JoAnne became a reporter for

the Post in 1979, work-ing the graveyard shiftwith rewrite men likeMichael Hechtman andCy Egan. It was dur-ing this time that TheNew York Times re-ported that NelsonRockefeller died in thepresence of his youngaide Megan Marshack,with whom he waswidely rumored to havehad an affair. The City Desk sent JoAnne tostake out Rockefeller’sapartment. As a resultof JoAnne’s aggressiveefforts to get a story,she made the doormanat Rockefeller’s build-ing cry. The followingday the Post ran thestory from the TheTimes on page 1, but withthe addition that afterbeing denied access tothe building by the door-man, their reporter made him cry.

It was while working for me at thePost’s City Hall Bureau in 1981 thatJoAnne was thrown into the deep endof the pool. Every young reporter has a“working without a net” moment and forJoAnne it was when she mixed up “con-demn” with “condone” in a story and noone at the copy desk caught it. We allhave that first experience of humiliationin print.

JoAnne worked in Room 9 with leg-ends like Clyde Haberman, JoycePurnick and Mickey Carroll. She learnedfrom the best. But she was a fierce com-petitor in Room 9, opinionated and ag-gressive. In fact, she often believed Iwas not pushing her stories enough withthe desk, and once accused me of “try-ing to destroy her career.” It is an epi-sode that encapsulates her drive and whyI am so fond of her. JoAnne and I are

still friends, and the charge of my tryingto destroy her career is our private jokeand it still punctuates all our emails andphone calls.

JoAnne broke many stories in Room9, and she always had great sources. Once she found out a Health and Hospi-tal Corporation president, an émigré fromDenver, used an unfortunate phraseabout a woodpile before an African-American group. That HHC Presidentwas soon replaced.

JoAnne learned to cover a special-ized beat at City Hall for the Post, and itis where she first made a name for her-self covering education. Steve Dunleavywas scanning the room looking for aneducation reporter, and since she was theonly one standing, she got the job.

In 1986, JoAnne moved to The DailyNews, where she began as thatnewspaper’s education reporter. She

had quite a few beats atThe News, and shebrought an unflinchinginvestigative eye to eachone.

In 1994, she receivedan award from the NewYork Press Club for herpiece, “Dying of AIDS, AMother Seeks a Homefor Her Son.” The storywas later made into a tele-vision movie. JoAnnewas recognized by theDeadline Club for theLearn to Read series inthe News, and the Citi-zens Committee for Chil-dren for her coverage ofchildren’s issues. In2002, she received a BigApple Award for storiesexposing dangerous con-ditions in city buildings.

In 2004, JoAnne wasnamed the Brooklyn bu-reau chief of the News,and quickly turned the

section into a must-read. One of her laststories as a reporter was written withBrian Kates, and was a five-part se-ries on the immigrant middle-class inNew York City. This month, Ms.Wasserman was laid off by the Newsas part of yet another round of staffreductions by the paper.

When she was at the paper, JoAnnealways demonstrated a willingness tomentor younger reporters, just as PeterKihss helped so many of us. Just howeffective a mentor JoAnne is can be seenby the list of quality reporters who arealumni of the Wasserman Brooklyn bureau.

It is also what makes her such an idealhonoree for the Peter Kihss Award. Like the legendary Kihss, JoAnne hasthroughout her career demonstrated ex-cellence in reporting, attention to detail,and being an inspiring mentor to juniorcolleagues.

JoAnne Wasserman

Hurricane Sandy Coverage Dominates 2013 Silurian AwardsMERIT AWARD Todd Maisel of the

Daily News receives a Merit Award for astriking photo taken during the height ofthe massive fire that destroyed more than100 homes in Breezy Point, Queens, duringHurricane Sandy.

MERIT AWARD Winner of a MeritAward is Corey Sipkin of The Daily Newsfor a photo taken from Greenpoint, Brook-lyn, showing the southern half of Man-hattan without power in the immediate af-termath of Hurricane Sandy.

Feature NewsThe award for the best feature picture

goes to Robert Sabo of the Daily Newsfor his amusing shot of Michelle Paulinof California and her dog Storme, a Doguede Bordeaux, waiting for their turn at the136th Westminster Kennel Club AnnualShow at Madison Square Garden.

MERIT AWARD Showing his versatility,Robert Sabo also wins a Merit Award for hisphoto of New York Yankee shortstop Derek Jeterfracturing his ankle during the 13th inning ofa playoff game against the Detroit Tigers.

Continued from Page 2

Irina Ivanova, a student at the CUNYGraduate School of Journalism, is the2013 winner of the Dennis Duggan Award,given to a student at the school whosework reflects the tradition of the late presi-dent of the Society of the Silurians.She finished near the top of the classduring her first semester and has beenselected by her fellow students to serveon the search committee looking for thenext dean of the school.

Ms. Ivanova, a native of Kiev, Ukraine,graduated cum laude from Amherst Col-lege, where she worked on publicationsdealing with politics, culture and the arts. Before coming to CUNY, she interned atthe Indypendent, a multimedia Web sitedealing with community and cultural is-sues in New York, and then worked thereas a reporter, writer, editor andphotographer. She later did communityrelations work for the Fashion Institute ofTechnology and had a fellowship with in-

vestigative reporter Wayne Barrett at TheNation Institute.

According to the CUNY faculty, someof her work brings Dennis Duggan tomind. One of her professors recentlysaid: “She did a classic Dugganesquestory last semester when she followeda long-time postman on his last deliverybefore he retired after 20-plus years onthe same route.”

Duggan was for many years a colum-nist for Newsday, specializing in storiesabout ordinary people — teachers, cops,fire fighters, shopkeepers — that capturedtheir spirit and dignity. He died sevenyears ago, just when the CUNY Jour-nalism School was launching, and theSilurians established an annual awardin his name for a J-School student.

Ms. Ivanova has specialized in busi-ness and financial reporting and will spendthe summer as an intern at Crain’s NewYork Business.

Dennis Duggan Award to Irina Ivanova

RADIOBreaking NewsThe staff of WCBS Newsradio 880

worked around the clock before, duringand after Hurricane Sandy to keep theNew York area informed about theprogress of the superstorm and the dam-age, power outages and transportation dif-ficulties it inflicted.

InvestigativeReportingIt started with a conver-

sation with ex-NBA starChris Herren and his ad-diction to drugs. ReporterIrene Cornell knew an im-portant story when sheheard it. She spent twomonths tracking prescrip-tion drug traffic in the met-ropolitan area, resulting ina 24-part series that shedlight on doctors, addicts andthe families caught in apainkiller epidemic.

TELEVISIONBreaking NewsNY1 News wins the

breaking news award for itsconsistent, authoritativeand restrained coverage ofHurricane Sandy before thestorm arrived, in the midstof its havoc and in thedays, weeks and monthsthat followed. Its continu-

ous live coverage provided New York-ers with a vital lifeline during a time ofunprecedented hardship and anxiety.

News FeatureWhen Al Campanis, the Dodgers gen-

eral manager, stumbled in a 1987“Nightline” interview in trying to explain

Continued on Page 4

Robert Sabo of The Daily News, winner of the best featurepicture, also won a Merit Award for his photograph of theYankee shortstop Derek Jeter fracturing his ankle duringa playoff game last October against the Detroit Tigers.

PAGE 4 SILURIAN NEWS MAY 2013

PresidentMYRON KANDEL

First Vice-PresidentALAN DODDS FRANK

Second Vice-PresidentBETSY ASHTON

TreasurerMORT SHEINMAN

SecretaryLINDA AMSTER

Board of GovernorsIRA BERKOWBILL DIEHLGERALD ESKENAZIRICKI FULMANLINDA GOETZ HOLMESBERNARD KIRSCHENID NEMYMAX NICHOLSBEN PATRUSKYKAREN BEDROSIAN- RICHARDSONJOAN SIEGELJOSEPH J. VECCHIONE

Governors EmeritusGARY PAUL GATESHERBERT HADADROBERT D. McFADDENLEO MEINDL

Committee ChairpersonsAdvisory

TONY GUIDA

DinnerBILL DIEHL

LegalKEN FISHER

MembershipMORT SHEINMAN

NominatingBEN PATRUSKY

Silurian Contingency Fund TrusteesLARRY FRIEDMAN, CHAIRNAT BRANDTJOY COOKMARK LIEBERMANMARTIN J. STEADMAN

Silurian NewsBERNARD KIRSCH, EDITOR

Society of the SiluriansOfficers 2012-2013

For These Silurians,No Generation Gap

A trio of second-generation Silurians: from left, Allan Dodds Frank, Linda Goetz Holmesand Kenneth Crowe form a select group.

BY LINDA GOETZ HOLMES

I have always been proud of the factthat I am a second-generation Sil-urian. Then I discovered that I was

not alone. There are four other activeSilurian members who can claim thatdistinction, including one father-and-sonduo. They are Fred Ferguson, AllanDodds Frank, and Kenneth C. Croweand Kenneth C. Crowe II.

My father, Theodore B. Goetz, whoretired in 1970 after 43 years as newsbureau chief at Westchester County Pub-lishers, with headquarters in White Plainsand now owned by Gannett (all the re-gional papers were renamed The Jour-nal-News, which has recently gainednotoriety by publishing the names andaddresses of Westchester and Rocklandresidents with legal gun permit applica-tions; Dad is turning in his grave, I guar-antee you.)

Dad always found it hilarious to be amember of a society named after fossils.You know the story: four veteran news-papermen got together for lunch in 1924;at the end of the lunch, one remarked,“Us old fossils have had such a good time,we should form a club and meet once amonth, inviting a speaker to talk about thenewspaper business.”

The second one said, “What will wecall the club?”

The third: “Well, the first layer of fossilrock in which you find human fossils isthe Silurian layer.”

And they all agreed: “That’s what we’llname the club!” So the rest of us havebeen explaining that name for the last 89years.

The Westchester newspapers didn’thave a pension plan; as a result, the man-agement allowed aging editors to remainin their jobs, even as they showed signsof — shall we say, forgetting things. Dadsometimes complained about “that oldfossil at the Ossining desk” — so hethought the name of our society was per-fect for veteran newsmen. And when hedied in 1973, Dad had his current Siluriansmembership card in his wallet. I servedas president of the Silurians 2004-06 andhave been an active member of the Boardof Governors ever since I left that office.

Fred Ferguson’s father, Fred Sr., an earlymember of the Silurians, had a long jour-nalism career. He was a boyhood friendof Roy Howard (of Scripps- Howard fame)and joined United Press in 1906. Theyounger Fred recalls that Howard sent hisfather to France to replace WestbrookPegler, who had run afoul of Gen. John J.Pershing, the World War I American com-mander there, and that he periodically vis-ited the general after the war.

And when the Dionne quintuplets wereborn in May 1934, Ferguson Sr. rushedup to Quebec and got an exclusive inter-view with the quints’ doctor, Dr. Alan RoyDefoe, and persuaded him to speak at aSilurians luncheon. The junior Fred re-members his father bringing him toSilurians luncheons at the Lotus Club inthe late 1940’s. Fred Ferguson Sr. waspresident of the Newspaper EnterpriseAssociation syndicate for many years. Hedied in 1960.

Fred Jr. worked for UPI for 27 years,starting as a photo messenger and risingto reporter, bureau manager and generalnews editor. He then moved into publicrelations and later headed news featuresat PR Newswire. A long-time Silurianboard member, he remembers his fatherbringing him to society luncheons at theLotus Club in the late 1940’s.

Allan Dodds Frank’s father, MortonFrank, joined the Silurians in 1981 andserved as president in 1987-8. He wasborn on Flag Day, June 14, 1912, and diedon Pearl Harbor Day, Dec. 7, 1989. Allanhimself, the incoming president of theSilurians, has a special connection withour meeting place. He and his wife Lilianwere married in front of the fireplace atThe Players Club.

Mort Frank spent his entire working lifein the news business, mostly as an editorand publisher. He worked on newspapersin Pennsylvania, Ohio and Arizona, and

then spent three decades at the nationalSunday newspaper supplement FamilyWeekly, where he served as publisher,president, chief executive and chairman.He died in 1987 at age 77.

Allan worked at The Anchorage DailyNews before moving on to The Washing-ton Star, Forbes magazine, ABC televi-sion, CNN and Bloomberg TV. He cred-its summer trips with his father with hisown knowledge of the newspaper busi-ness. “He would bundle my sister, brotherand me into his station wagon, and wewould spend six weeks touring the coun-try, stopping into newspaper offices alongthe way,” Allan says.

Allan has continued the family tradi-tion by bringing his own twin daughters toSilurian events. Melissa and Katy cameto the luncheon with Jules Feiffer, be-cause Melissa is an aspiring cartoonistand both are writers who were ardentreaders of Feiffer’s children’s books.And he brought Katy, who is co-editorof Hunter College High School’s E-magazine, to last year ’s LifetimeAchievement Award dinner to hearGloria Steinem first hand.

Our late colleague Walter Lister wasalso a second-generation Silurian. His fa-ther, Walter B. Lister, was a newspaperreporter and a co-author of the Broad-

way play “Spread Eagle.” He died in1967. The younger Lister, a long-time re-porter, editor and foreign correspondentwith The New York Herald Tribune andthen with CBS News, was treasurer ofthe Silurians when he died in 2011.

But the Kenneth Crowe team is stillwith us. Ken Sr. has won four Silurianawards. Three came for being part of aNewsday investigative team in 1968,1969 and 1970, which covered land scan-dals in the Suffolk County towns ofBabylon, Brookhaven, and Islip.Newsday won a Pulitzer gold medal in1970 for that coverage. He received afourth Silurian medal in 1998 for his in-dividual efforts reporting the exploita-tion of illegal immigrant workers.

“One of the joys of being the fatherpart of a father-and-son Silurian duo isattending some of the organization’s lun-cheons with my son, Ken,” he said, not-ing that Ken now seldom gets a chanceto attend our luncheons since he works atThe Albany Times-Union. The juniorCrowe became president of the AlbanyNewspaper Guild and won the national

Newspaper Guild’s award for out-standing local leadership; his Guild unitalso won a Human Rights award.

Now who’s going to become the firstthird-generation Silurian?

why blacks did not have managing orcoaching jobs in baseball, the momentturned into a national discussion. On the25th anniversary of that show, ESPN’sJeremy Schaap and producer WillieWeinbaum put that event into perspective,talking to major figures involved and dis-cussing the impact it had on baseball.

ONLINE SERVICESBreaking NewsWeb-only DNAinfo.com became a vi-

tal and reliable source of information dur-ing the days and nights of HurricaneSandy and its aftermath, with reportage,pictures, maps and graphics. It helpedNew Yorkers keep up with the latest de-velopments and enabled them to findsuch basic necessities as food, shelterand water and kept them abreast of

transportation problems.MERIT AWARD NY1’s political director,

Bob Hardt, rode out Hurricane Sandy fromhis home in Rockaway Beach. He kept read-ers aware of the impending storm and thenits rolling effects as he posted blogs and vid-eos during the worst of it. Then, when it wasover, he wrote about the aftermath in a deeplypersonal way, giving the reader a sense ofhaving survived it.

Investigative NewsNicole Hannah-Jones of Pro Publica

receives the award for her penetratingexamination of why segregated housingpatterns have persisted in the U.S. fivedecades after the passage of the landmarkFair Housing Act. Focusing on both his-torical and present-day issues, includingthe situation in Westchester County, herstartling findings showed that both Demo-cratic and Republican presidents have

chosen not to enforce one of the nation’smost important civil rights laws.

News CommentaryJohn Sandman receives the award for

shining a light on the abuses of payday-lending services that charge exorbitant feesfor customers who can least afford them.His work was published in the online jour-nal City Limits and was reported in part-nership with The Investigative Fund at theNation Institute. He found that some un-scrupulous payday lenders are circumvent-ing usury restrictions by using the internet.

MERIT AWARD Murray Weiss, criminaljustice editor of DNAinfo.com, receives aMerit Award for his commentary, reportingand analysis of the controversial policy of“stop and frisk” by the New York City PoliceDepartment. He found that the mountingnumber of such actions had little impact onimproving crime statistcs.

Hurricane Sandy Coverage Dominates 2013 Silurian AwardsContinued from Page 3

Mort Sheinman

MAY 2013 SILURIAN NEWS PAGE 5

Betsy Wade, WomanOf Many FirstsBY JAMES BOYLAN

If they asked me, I could write abook. But they didn’t ask me, sothis will have to do.

My acquaintance with Betsy Waderuns back to 1951, when she was a stu-dent at the Columbia School of Journal-ism, one of only 10 women in her class,and I was a sub-sub-editor at a Sundaymagazine supplement. We met at Pete’snear Gramercy Park at a bachelor din-ner. Betsy, born in the city, went to schoolin Bronxville, attended Carleton College,and graduated from Barnard. She hadwanted to be a journalist since junior high.

Flash forward a year or more. Wemarried while she had a job in thewomen’s section of The New York Her-ald Tribune, which was abruptly termi-nated when the editor, Eugenia Sheppard,learned she was pregnant. Out. Sheworked briefly at the School of Journal-ism and, once our son was born, found ajob at the Scripps-Howard NEA Syndi-cate, writing under such house names as“Alicia Hart.”

In 1956, she took The New York Timesup on its complaint that it could not findgood copy editors. Try me, she said, andthey did, perhaps unaware that they were

making a 45-year commitment. As the105-year-old newspaper’s first woman onthe copy desk, she was started in thewomen’s department (where she replaceda male), then moved to the main event, aspot on city copy desk, then replete withspittoons and mossbacks, after our sec-ond son was born.

Thence to the foreign copy desk, andshe became its head during the critical daysof the Vietnam War, polishing the filings ofsuch stars as David Halberstam. In 1971,she served on the elite team that editedthe Pentagon Papers in a secret hotel suite.She became a colleague and friend of thegreat Homer Bigart and years later com-piled an anthology of his war correspon-dence, titled “Forward Positions.”

So far, a rapid enough rise. But thestory became complicated. There wereunanticipated obstacles, such as the Vic-torian policy that forbade a woman towork a very late shift. Moreover, Betsyalways wanted to do one more thing. Onher own time, she freelanced dozens ofarticles for various sections of the news-paper. She taught part-time at the Colum-bia Journalism School. She gave blood.Most important, she became shop stew-ard in the Newspaper Guild unit and aperennial contract negotiator.

The Guild went out for the long strikeof 1962-63 and, fearing poverty, she con-stantly baked beans for us and workedon one of the temporary papers publishedduring the strike. Then the Guild, seekingto create a pension plan, had a strike ofits own in 1965, and she was a picketcaptain and later a pension trustee. In1975, she was elected to the Guild’s In-ternational Executive Board and becamea member of a faction called the “Sui-cide Six,” which was ultimately instru-mental in severing the Guild from an al-liance with the CIA.

If the Guild activities were not alreadycreating hazards for her career, she foundthe women’s movement, or vice versa.To the burden of running a copy desk, try-ing to improve her union, and seeing twosons through high school, she added theTimes Women’s Caucus, which came tolife in 1972 when a group of employeesperceived that their way to the big jobswas blocked by an institution that hadnever conceived of women as figuresworthy of equal pay or authority.

The struggle stretched over six years,starting with unrewarding conversationswith management and ending in Federalcourt. The women found a tough law-

yer—Harriet Rabb of the Columbia LawSchool’s Employment Rights Project. Bothsides began playing for keeps and on Nov.7, 1974, the case called, for short, Boylanv. Times, was initiated. Boylan wasBetsy’s payroll name.

The struggle, narrated in detail in NanRobertson’s 1992 book, “The Girls in theBalcony,” went on for four years andended in October 1978 in a severely quali-fied win—a minor cash settlement and anaffirmative action plan to last four years,which led eventually to increased oppor-tunities for the next generation of women.Betsy and her fellow plaintiffs had thereward of continuing to work. Lookingback, she commented: “We know that weopened doors for a new generation thatmay not know they were ever closed.”

On the heels of the settlement, Betsybecame the first woman president of Lo-cal 3 of the Newspaper Guild, founded in1933 by the sainted Heywood Broun. Nomotion upward at all now. She was sentupstairs in 1977 to serve as assistant traveleditor and then returned to the newsroomin 1981 to join the rim of the national desk.Nor did the Guild readily accept her re-form ticket or the salience of women inher administration. The leadership she andher colleagues had displaced fought herand her allies by means fair and foul, andher service to the Guild ended in 1982.

In 1987 she was offered the Times’sPractical Traveler column, created byPaul Grimes, and she remained in travelnews for 14 years. She worked hard atmaking the column much more than a si-necure. She sought out the real problemsof mass travel, pioneered in seeking ac-cess to transportation for the handi-capped, and often raised questions thatclashed with the generally soft materialin the section. To augment her work, shebecame a member of the new Interna-

tional Society for Travel Medicine, whichhelped her develop many stories on trav-elers’ health, injuries and illnesses and—as always, one more thing—she servedthe ISTM as its parliamentarian.

She continued active in women’s andjournalism organizations—mainly theJournalism and Women Symposium(JAWS), a durable coalition of the youngat heart. Not incidentally, she was nomi-nated a member of the Silurians by JoanCook and Richard Shepard, and is now a25-year member.

She has received awards from all ofher colleges—Barnard, Carleton, and theColumbia School of Journalism, not tomention recognition from the NationalWomen’s Hall of Fame, which gave cita-tions to all the named plaintiffs in the caseagainst the Times.

In June 2001, she accepted a buyout,but had one last argument with the news-paper. She was asked to write an articleon travel refunds and cancellations afterthe attacks of September 11. She wrote itonly to find the Times would not publish itunless she yielded her claim to all the workshe had ever freelanced for the Times.She refused and sold the article to Con-sumer Reports.

She has continued to seek out rewardsin her post-retirement years. She servedas copy editor for ponderous United Na-tions publications, and, with her husband,has edited a series of local history worksfor the Stonington (Connecticut) His-torical Society. And there are still thosetwo sons, now with spouses, and threegrandchildren each, but not a journalistamong them.

Jim Boylan is founding editor of theColumbia Journalism Review. He andBetsy observed their 60th anniversarylast December.

Betsy Wade, circa 2013, was the first woman on a New York Times copy desk.

Silurians in the NewsRobert Lipsyte has been appointedESPN’s fifth ombudsman. He will beginhis 18-month term in June with critiqueand analysis of the network’s content. Inaddition, he will write pieces that will ap-pear on ESPN.com, conduct on-linechats, and other multi-media interactionswith fans. Lipsyte was the recipient ofThe Peter Kihss Award last year.

Allan Dodds Frank will be the recipi-ent of the Guardian Award given eachyear by The Association of CertifiedFraud Examiners (ACFE). The awardis bestowed annually to a journalistwhose “determination, perseverance,and commitment to the truth have con-tributed significantly to the fight against

fraud.” Frank will receive the award atthe 24th Annual ACFE Global Fraud Con-ference, June 23-28, in Las Vegas. A regu-lar contributor to Fortune.com andNewsweek/The Daily Beast, Frank waschosen in recognition of a broadcasting andprint career in investigative reporting dur-ing which he has specialized in complexfraud cases. The ACFE is the world’s larg-est anti-fraud organization and premier pro-vider of anti-fraud training and education.

Gerald Eskenazi, former sportswriter forThe New York Times, will join the ranksof such notables as Justice Felix Frank-furter, Dr. Jonas Salk, and lyricist IraGershwin on Nov. 7 when he receivesthe Townsend Harris Medal, the highesthonor awarded to graduates of the CityCollege of New York. The award is for

career achievement and Gerry’s achieve-ments include 40 years with The Timeswith more than 8,000 bylines, 16 books,and, currently, travel writing for theHuffington Post.

Lewis Grossberger’s newly published“Game of Cohens,” a parody of HBO’sGame of Thrones, is available atamazon.com. Lewis guarantees twolaughs per page or your money back.

Max Nichols was inducted into the Okla-homa Historians Hall of Fame on April 19in Clinton, Okla. . He has written a monthlycolumn for the Oklahoma Historical Soci-ety since 1990, when he became its publicrelations director, and has continued to doso even after retiring in 2002. The columntells about events occurring in museums

operated by the society and appears innewspapers all over the state.

Ira Berkow‘s 20th book, “Summers atShea” (Triumph Books, $14.95), is onthe shelves. Subtitled “Tom SeaverLoses His Overcoat and Other Metsstories,” it includes 40 years of columnsand articles about New York’s NationalLeague team by our Pulitzer Prize win-ning colleague.

E v a n Wi e n e r ’s n e w e - b o o k ,“America’s Passion: How a CoalMiner’s Game Became the NFL in the20th Century” about the origins of pro-fessional football in the coal mining coun-try of western Pennsylvania, came outrecently on smashwords.com and canbe purchased for $2.99

In 1974, Ms. Wade addressed the TimesCompany annual meeting, urging thepaper to appoint women to its board.

PAGE 6 SILURIAN NEWS MAY 2013

Hoge on Journalism 101: Tell the StoryContinued from Page 1ful Newsweek writer Peter Goldman,lived in the building on the east side ofGramercy Park.

The paper we worked for was the oldbleeding heart liberal New York Post.People at the time cracked that an aptheadline would be Cold Wave Hits NewYork/Jews, Negroes Suffer Most. I wasone of the very few from my tribe to beat The Post, and I was grateful to Helenfor sticking up for me in my first year ascity editor after I had asked who wantedto do the Purim story and pronounced itPure- Im.

Jew-WASP humor was to provide mean identity I embraced at The Post, andyears later, when Max Frankel, the ex-ecutive editor of The Times, asked me ifI knew what a megillah was, I was ableto tell him that you couldn’t become cityeditor of The New York Post of my timespeaking only English.

Helen was one of the stars of a news-room that had an exceptional line-up oftalented women. Just to name a few, therewere Nora Ephron, Fern Marja Eckman,Judy Michaelson and Roberta BrandesGratz, with Anna Quindlen soon to come.And, of course, our publisher was the for-midable Dorothy Schiff, who gave hermale counterparts at the other New Yorkpapers fits.

In four decades of newspapering, I’velived through a host of ways to file, start-ing with walking my copy over to the West-ern Union office near the National PressBuilding in Washington where a guy in aneyeshade and sleeve garter would tap itoff to New York; through my foreign cor-respondent years in Latin America whenyou had to punch a paper tape full of per-forations and then thread it through a Telexmachine; to the early days of electronictransmission with bulky machines thatyou’d plug a telephone receiver into andhope for a connection while the minutes todeadline ticked off. One of the women inThe Times’s Albany bureau lost an entirefile one cold upstate winter morning whenher flannel skirt rose on static electricityin the air, pointed towards the early gen-eration word processor on her desk anderased her entire story from the screen.

I prided myself in finding telephonelines for sending dispatches under fire inthe midst of guerrilla wars in Central

clutter this copy with self-regard but toshow what a land of opportunity and ad-venture newspaper journalism has been forme. At The Star, I covered police head-quarters and the courts; at The Post, I wasthe Washington correspondent, editorialwriter and city editor; at The Times, localreporter, deputy metropolitan editor, re-gional editor, editor of The New York TimesMagazine, bureau chief in places as di-verse as Rio de Janeiro, London, and TheUnited Nations and assistant managingeditor overseeing, at various points cul-ture, style, sports, the book review, travel,and the management of the newsroom.

I have long thought that the most chal-lenging and fulfilling job I ever had, theone that best presented the test of ana-lyzing and communicating remote situa-tions and struggling, dying to find just theright phrases to tell the story was being aforeign correspondent for The Times. Butlet me mention another one which I par-ticularly loved because it represented thestick-shift nature of big city tabloid jour-nalism that I reveled in long before I be-came a dedicated broadsheet Timesman.

It was the hot type era of galleys andchases and turtles and flyboys and banksand mats and hulking linotype machinespressing sentences out of bars of moltenlead alloy and a line justification proce-dure enticingly called “trimming widowson the stone.”

I was the night city editor of The Post,working the lobster shift. It began at mid-night, and I would take three trains downto the East Broadway stop from my Up-per West Side apartment, walk throughthe lower East Side darkness (storefrontItalian–American “social clubs” on ev-ery corner were said to make it safe) tothe paper’s South Street headquarters,enter the building through the compos-ing room back door, and make my wayto the newsroom passing by all thecounter tops of empty page forms that itwas my job to fill by dawn.

Seven hours of furious pencil pushing,take-out Chinese and sign language con-versation with deaf mute compositorslater, Paul Sann, the legendary Bronx-borneditor and self-described “garmentcutter’s skinny boy from Belmont Ave,”would arrive in his perp-walk swagger,dressed in signature cowboy boots andblack shirt. He’d ask what “the wood”was, spew the room with endearing in-sults and profanities, and then break out

the whiskey for our after-deadline drinkwhen the presses in the basement wouldrumble to life.

Afterward, I would leave the buildingand step out into the rancid morning mistoff the East River with the fresh bulldogedition under my arm. That, my friends,was big city daily journalism, and I wasdeliriously happy to be part of it.

Let me end this not with a tag, but witha headline. It was written by Post manag-ing editor Robert Spitzler, and it was aboutthe moment in the Watergate hearing thatWhite House aide Alexander Butterfieldrevealed the existence of the tape record-ing machine that President Nixon secretlyhad installed under his desk. How to cap-ture the story with the gravity it deservedbut with the attitude we gloried in?

That day The Post would read: “NixonBugged Himself.”

Warren Hoge is the Senior Adviserfor External Relations at the Interna-tional Peace Institute, an independentnot-for-profit think tank devoted toconflict resolution through multilateraldiplomacy that he joined in 2008 onleaving The New York Times. For morethan four decades prior to that, he la-bored in another not-for-profit enter-prise called the newspaper business,working for The Times (32 years), TheNew York Post (10 years) and The(Washington) Evening Star (2 years). The author gets his story on cocaine by visiting the coca fields of Bolivia.

What? Me panic? Another day in theTimes’s newsroom.

Warren Hoge with Abe Rosenthal, left, and Clyde Haberman in Panmunjom, the village near the 38th parallel where the truce ending theKorean War was signed in 1953. As a foreign correspondent, Hoge reported from more than 80 countries.

America, but my New York Times Lon-don bureau colleague Alan Cowell did meone better. When he was a wire servicecorrespondent in East Africa, he filed bycarrier pigeon. These days, 30-somethingswho run their cursors all day over the words“Cut” and “Paste” look at me in wonder-ment when I tell them that I actually had apair of scissors and a paste pot on my desk.

I’ve been blessed by great mentors whohave also become cherished friends, likemy boss at The Post, Paul Sann, and atThe Times, Abe Rosenthal. I’ve hadmodel writers to look up to, like MaryMcGrory at The Evening Star; PeteHamill, Murray Kempton, JimmyWechsler, Max Lerner and all thosewomen I mentioned at The Post; and toomany to name at The Times, though BobMcFadden is high on any list of them. WhenI was the foreign editor of The Times, wehad a sudden three-month opening inthe London bureau, and Abe suggestedwe make the assignment a gift to our fa-vorite person in the newsroom. So we sentRichard Shepard, everyone’s favorite.

I cite the roster of jobs I have had not to

MAY 2013 SILURIAN NEWS PAGE 7

Thursdays at the Players Club

A Lifetime of Writing

Our Unhealthy Health System

And the writing goes on: Gail Sheehy is at work on a memoir.

Steven Brill: His curiosity took him on a 25,000-word journey on U.S. medical care.

George Arzt; JoAnne Wasserman, center; and Joyce Purnick had plenty of Ed Koch stories to tell the Silurians.

It received more than 1.2 million cita-tions on Google, and more than a monthafter his groundbreaking Time magazinearticle on the state of American medicalcare, Steven Brill attracted a full house atour Silurians’ April luncheon at the Play-ers Club.

Brill, the lawyer who also founded CourtTV as well as the magazine AmericanLawyer, said at the event, “What you haveis a system that’s completely broken.”

He laid out in fascinating detail the gen-esis of the 25,000-word story — “BitterPill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us”— the longest by one writer that Timehas ever run. He told how The New Re-public had come to him to help launch itsrevised magazine, how he spent severalmonths researching the piece, how hewrote it, and then withdrew it from TheNew Republic when it decided to use itfor its second issue instead (he said he

was pre-empted by an interview withPresident Obama). Thus, history wasmade at Time.

In his talk to the Silurians, Brill alsoused the story as an illustration of whathe tells his writing students at Yale:“The best stories are the ones you’remost curious about.”

He immersed himself in the arcaneworld of hospital billing, even looked athelp wanted ads for medical-equipmentsalesmen on the Internet, and discov-ered bizarre charging schemes thatsaw, for example, one woman go to ahospital for stomach pains and wind upwith a $20,000 bill—for indigestion.

But Brill also said he did not havethe solution to America’s spiralinghealth-care costs. He did concede,however, “with transparency comes thekind of solution we’ll need.”

— Gerald Eskenazi

Gail Sheehy said she was 7 yearsold when her grandmother gave her atypewriter. It started her on a lifelongpassion – writing. Lots of writing. Fif-teen books to date, including her 1978landmark best seller, “Passages.”Sheehy, now 76, is working on a mem-oir about her life as a journalist, andsharing that life with Clay Felker,founding editor of New York magazine,who hired her early in her career. Theymarried in 1984. “Felker pushed me tothe edge,” she said. “It was the newjournalism.” No more summary leadparagraphs; instead, tantalize the readerwith an opening scene. The New Yorkstories, Sheehy told a Silurians luncheonin February, gave birth to a genre. Theconsequences not only entered the cul-ture, but revised it.

During a Q & A after she addressedthe audience, Sheehy was asked if shewas pleased with the progress womenhave made since the birth of feminism.“You bet I am,” she replied. Is sheworried that the Supreme Court might

overturn Roe v. Wade? “Not with Obamathere, especially if he gets to appoint anew Supreme Court Justice.” Will HillaryClinton run for President? “Clinton is oneof the few people in the country, perhapsthe only person, who doesn’t have to runfor President to be effective and have alegacy. Imagine leaving her last post morepopular than the President. But if she de-cides to run—and I’d like her to run—she’ll have a huge [women’s] networkready.”

When asked about Felker’s final daysin 2008, Sheehy gave a poignant remem-brance: Felker, then 83, was sufferingfrom throat cancer and learned he wasnear the end. Felker loved jazz andSheehy took him to Dizzy’s Club, whichhas a beautiful view overlooking CentralPark. “There was a full moon that nightand there was a man his age playing jazzpiano,’’ she recalled. “At one point thepianist stopped. ‘You know,’ he said,‘there’s a lot of bad stuff out there in news-paper headlines, a lot of dissension. Musicis supposed to make all of that go away,

and I’m going to play an original composi-tion, ‘Life Is What You Make of It.’

“That was Clay’s philosophy,” saidSheehy. “Clay, who had been a drum-mer as a boy, began drumming on thetable with swizzle sticks. And for the

next hour he was a young boy drum-mer again. We got home, and hewanted to talk. He took my hand andsaid, ‘That was a magical evening.’He died two days later.”

— Bill Diehl

RememberingMayor Koch

It was a luncheon that Ed Kochwould have loved. The subject: EdKoch.

Three people who knew him well.and found him, in the words of JoycePurnick, “frustrating, exhausting, andfun to cover,” formed a panel that en-tertained a Silurian luncheon onMarch 21.

Ms. Purnick, the former City Hallbureau chief of The New York Times,was joined by JoAnne Wasserman ofThe Daily News, and George Arzt,New York Post City Hall chief whobecame Koch’s press secretary.

The Koch stories were classics.Like the time he told the press thathe almost choked to death in a Chi-nese restaurant on sautéed water-

cress. “Years later,” Arzt said, “he ad-mitted it was a piece of pork.” Hechanged it to watercress because “hewas afraid he’d lose the Orthodox vote.”

The panel agreed that Koch invented24/7 news before cable. “He lived to

be in print, and on camera,” Ms.Purnick said. But it was daunting, sheadded, to get past the mayor’s “how’mI doin’?” to get to what was really go-ing on.

As for getting in print, well, he was

successful till the end.On his last day, when he was going

back into the hospital, Arzt recalled,Koch called him to say, “I’m going backin. I want a press release.”

— Bernard Kirsch

Allan Dodds Frank

Mort Sheinman

PAGE 8 SILURIAN NEWS MAY 2013President’s LetterBY MYRON KANDEL

This is my last report as Presi-dent, and I’m happy to saythat I can turn over the of-

fice into the good hands of Allan DoddsFrank with a sense of satisfaction. It’sbeen a successful year, with high-qual-ity luncheon programs, very high at-tendance, many valued new membersand a solid financial footing. Despiteinternal turmoil at the Players, the clubhas been a great venue for our meet-ings and the food and service havebeen first-rate.

Perhaps the highlight of the yearwas the presentation of our LifetimeAchievement Award to Gloria Steinemand her stirring remarks about her owncareer, the women’s rights movementshe spearheaded and her insights intothe field of journalism. And this month’sPeter Kihss award to JoAnneWasserman of The Daily News hon-ors someone who follows in his tradi-tion of outstanding reporting and help-ing younger journalists.

Our luncheons have been varied incontent but universally admired. Westarted with recollections of workingwith Mike Wallace by Marlene Sand-ers, Sandy Socolow and Gary PaulGates, followed by the husband-and-wife duo of Steve Shepard and LynnPovich, both discussing recently pub-lished memoirs. Steve wrote about hislong service as editor of BusinessWeek and more currently as the found-ing dean of the CUNY Graduate Schoolof Journalism, and Lynn chronicled thegroundbreaking class-action suit by thewomen of Newsweek, which shehelped lead.

The year 2013 started with a memo-rable talk by two-time Pulitzer Prizewinner and former Taliban captiveDavid Rohde, who is now a columnistat Thomson Reuters. Then came au-thor and journalist Gail Sheehy andmemories of Mayor Ed Koch by JoycePurnick of The Times, JoAnneWasserman of The Post and TheNews, and George Arzt, who was CityHall bureau chief for The Post and thenKoch’s press secretary. The luncheonseason ended with Steve Brill discuss-ing his amazing 25,000-word coverstory in Time magazine about the out-landish cost of U.S. health care.

I recite all this to recall the qualityof our luncheons and to remind youabout what you missed if you skippedthem or will miss if you don’t come.

The future is in good hands withAllan Dodds Frank as incoming presi-dent; Betsy Ashton and Joe Vecchioneas first and second VPs respectively;Karen Bedrosian Richardson as trea-surer; and Linda Amster continuing assecretary. Other new board membersare Jack Deacy and Anne Rophie.Departing board members deserving ofour thanks are Max Nichols and JoanSiegel, who also performed dedicatedservice as secretary for many years.

No one deserves more praise thenMort Sheinman, who steps down astreasurer, a post he re-assumed afterserving as president. Fortunately, Mortwill remain on the board and continueas membership chairman, and hemerirts our deepest thanks. Continu-ing to do yeoman work are BernieKirsch, who’s been editing splendidissues of the Silurian News, and JoeVecchione, who has revitalized andupdated our Web site, Silurians.org.

And my thanks to you all for allow-ing me to serve as president a secondtime around, and all good wishes to aworthy collection of journalists for agreat future as our society moves intothe second half of its 90th year.

For Stan Isaacs, A Fond Farewell

The Silurians new hierarchy effective after the May 22 dinner: Allan Dodds Frank, center, who will become president, with first vicepresident Betsy Ashton and second VP Joe Vecchione.

BY IRA BERKOW

I loved Stan Isaacs. How could younot? He was so honest and fair anddecent and thoughtful and profes-

sional and caring and warm. Well, maybenot everyone loved him, at least for somesmall period of time, as I saw it. I remem-ber when Stan and I, he at Newsday, meat The Times, took Howard Cosell to taskin print for something or other at sometime which I no longer remember.Howard took such exception to the criti-cism that Stan and I had leveled at him –legitimate, reasoned and even-handedcriticism, to be sure – that Howard, it cameback to us, referred to we two noblescribes as Sleaze One and Sleaze Two. Itook pride in believing it was me who wasSleaze One, but Stan insisted that it washe who was Sleaze One.

Stan and I never resolved the issue,but that was probably the only conflict weever had. (Howard eventually saw thewisdom of our position, to some extent,and we got back on better personal termswith him.)

On the night of Tuesday, April 2, StanIsaacs died in his sleep at his home inHaverford, Pa. He was 83, and the loss,as great as it was to his family (includinghis three daughters, Nancy, Ann and Ellen— his adored wife of 58 years, Bobbie,had passed away last year), it was alsoprofound within the journalism commu-nity, particularly that peculiar but, it sayshere, indispensable segment known assports writing.

Stan, with a delightfully, sometimesodd-ball approach, appropriately enoughnamed the sports column he wrote for agood part of the 40 years he was em-ployed by Newsday, “Out of Left Field,”.

Remember, for example, that he wasthe one who asked the now famous, and,yes, odd-ball question, to Yankee pitcherRalph Terry, after he had pitched a WorldSeries game in 1962. Terry was calledaway from answering questions at hislocker to get a phone call. When he re-turned, the reporters wanted to know whatthe call was about. “My wife,” said Terry.“She’s feeding the baby.” And Stan asked,“Breast or bottle.”

Stan later explained that Bobbie hadgiven birth not long before that, and thathe “knew about things like that.” But heconsidered it a flippant line, a joke (Terrysupposedly took it that way), part oflocker-room banter. It may also have dem-onstrated the two sides of Isaacs the jour-nalist. One was that he was seeking an

original angle (even in flippant form), theother is that he was going just a bit deeper(if even, well, in this case, something of astretch).

It was part of what has come to becalled “the Chipmunk” concept of sportsreporting. A group of young writers,mostly from afternoon papers, began inthe early `60s to seek ways to tell a storybeyond what was then the generally con-ventional one. In the recently published,“Keepers of the Game: When the Base-ball Beat Was the Best Job on the Pa-per,” by Dennis D’Agostino, Isaacs said:

“I had this vision of being the equiva-lent of a city-side reporter – the guys whocovered politics and crime and things likethat. You do a good job, cover the story,and you don’t become pals with those youcover. One day, when I was starting out,Joe DiMaggio was involved in a weirdplay. I asked him about it, and he gave anon-answer. I walked away, and JoeTrimble of The Daily News came overto me and said, ‘Stan, you don’t go overand ask Joe about the play. You wait untilhe lets us know he wants to talk to us.’ Iwas stunned. That’s not the way a cityside or political reporter would do it. I

came at it from a different angle.”Stan broke some stories, such as San

Francisco Giants manager criticizing hisLatin and African-American players.His yearly listing of the best chocolateice cream in the world (readers wereinvited to send in their nominations) wasan annual treat. His drive to have astatue erected of the moment on the dia-mond that PeeWee Reese put his armaround the shoulders of his Dodger team-mate, the rookie first baseman JackieRobinson, despite sniper death threats toRobinson, resulted in that statue nowstanding outside the minor-league ballpark in Coney Island.

Stan, born in Brooklyn, was 10 yearsolder than me. I met him shortly after Icame to New York to work as a sports-writer in 1967. He was then a successful,highly respected sports columnist, but al-ways generous with advice when asked,and information when asked. I quotedhim in regard to perspective in a columnI wrote in January 1970, when I lamentedthe difficulty for me upon turning 30, of“growing old.” Stan shrugged the shrugof an old-timer. “Well,” he said, “waituntil you turn 40!”

That’s how long ago it was. It was alltoo short a time.

IRA BERKOW wrote sports for TheNew York Times from 1981-2007, andNewspaper Enterprise Associationfrom 1967-1976.

Stan Isaacs

New MembersOlga Henkel, former senior researcher for CBSNews, former senior researcher and director ofpolitical research, ABC News.

Colleen Katz, whose magazine backgroundranges from Woman’s Day to New JerseyMonthly to The Journal of Accountancy.

Gail Sheehy, best-selling author (“Passages”and more than a dozen other books), andaward-winning journalist and lecturer.

Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., chairman andpublisher, The New York Times.

In MemoriamLawrence Racies, 97, a Silurian and CBSNews cameraman, died last month.

Gene Boyo, 92, longtime Silurian, veteran ofFairchild, New York Herald Tribune, New YorkTimes and Olin public relations, died last month.

Society of the SiluriansPO Box 1195

Madison Square StationNew York, NY 10159

212.532.0887www.silurians.org