A few days before Christmas, an anonymous caller told a St. Louis Post-Dispatch editor that a young woman had died at the home of August A. Busch IV, the ex-beer baron of Anheuser-Busch.
If true, it was a huge story in the region where the name “Busch” conjured near-royal status. Busch’s grandfather, often referred to as Gussie, had not only steered the big brewery to national dominance, but also owned the St. Louis Cardinals during glory days in the 1960s and 1980s. On special occasions he would drive into Busch Stadium on a wagon pulled by Clydesdale.
But by 2010 the brewery had been sold to the Belgian brewer InBev. August IV confided later that he was battling depression, one factor in his deciding to leave the InBev board earlier this year.
CNN’s coverage of the popular uprisings in Egypt and other countries has brought to the forefront once again the question: If reporters know that official statements or press releases do not reflect what is happening on the ground, should they report it without comment? Should they ignore it, or should they report it with a commentary highlighting the lack of veracity, in brief, that the official statement is wrong, if not an outright lie?
Traditionally, newsroom ethics draw a sharp line between editorial opinions and news reporting.
In Brooklyn, where his hits rattled off the right field wall like corn in a popper, Dodger fans, filled with respect and awe, first dubbed him “The Man.” On the day of his final game, the commissioner of baseball, Ford Frick, said, “Here stands baseball’s perfect warrior. Here stands baseball’s perfect knight.”
Stan Musial earned those descriptions, just as he earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which he was awarded recently by President Barack Obama. Frick, once a New York sports writer, offered higher praise than the medal itself, which has been awarded to some 20,000 people since Harry Truman presided over the first ceremony in 1945.
From hot lead to computers; from a p.m. newspaper to an a.m.; from Pulitzer ownership to Lee Enterprises, four veterans who have written and edited for a total of 135 years, recently walked out of the Post-Dispatch for the last time. It was a big loss of talent, experience and institutional memory.
They are: Phil Sutin, John Duxbury Ron Cobb and Joan McKenna.
The following people were named to the St. Louis Media Hall of Fame in the radio category. The ceremony will be June 8 at Gio’s Ristorante and Bar. Doug Eason, after working as a broadcast specialist for the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service, made his mark in commercial radio in a career that spanned
The following were named to the print portion of the St. Louis Media Hall of Fame to be held at Gio’s Ristorante and Bar June 8 in St. Louis. Linda Eardley showed up for her first day of work at the Post-Dispatch in 1969 to see row after row of white men typing, smoking and
The following people will be inducted into the television portion of the St. Louis Media Hall of Fame June 8 at Gio’s Ristorante and Bar in St. Louis. The members are: John Auble came to St. Louis in 1967 to work for the old St. Louis Globe. After newspaper work in other cities, he returned
An older man meets clandestinely at night with several young people beside a building in midtown St. Louis. He hauls items from his vehicle to give them. They talk about 10 minutes and then go their separate ways.
A drug ring? A cell of conspirators? An editorial meeting?
It’s the third. The man is Avis E. Meyer, who meets each Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. with some of the section editors of the student newspaper, U. News, at St. Louis University. Professor Meyer brings them snacks and mentors them about story leads, headlines and layout. They return to a long night of work of putting the issue to bed.
