Reporters and Newspaper People

Newspaper reporters, and I have known quite a few, are a breed all of their own, characters you might call them They are supposed to find out facts about anything that happens to most anybody - someday it might be a high egghead and the next an urgent interview with a Madam. This usually makes them at home with anybody from Billy the Boodler to an Arch Bishop.

A reporter usually has some paper and a pencil but used them sparingly and carries names, addresses, ages and dates in his head and makes no more mistakes than a citizen filling out his income tax. As characters they are interesting, and their individuality is of the highest order, as lots of story and movie writers know and make use of.

One I know, George Stark, new president of the Michigan Historical Society and doing a good job. He has maybe written and reported more events from births to deaths than any reporter in Detroit. He is a fit subject for a good sized book on his own life filled with humor, excitement, wise cracks and plenty of adventure. Some of the reporters of that earlier period with Stark were C.C. Bradner, Al Weeks, (unknown), and (unknown) never a more adventurous group ever interviewed or looked for news in any city of this country. Bradner who wrote a column, and had a radio broadcast, was a wonderful guy who was loved by all the natives who heard his soft gift of tongue which occasionally has a blur in it and often he needed assistance with his speeches but to his audience he had a heart of gold. Often I saw the other reporters sitting around the table, in a bar room, helping him get ideas for his column and all he did was nod his head and believe me, or not, those columns were works of art. He was a man you could ask for advice and it was good sound advice as I really found out.

Weeks was a reporter with a fine sense of humor, a clever writer with a little sarcasm in his words but a very capable reporter - if the editor could locate him. He wondered in some strange places while looking for news which really is what a reporter is supposed to do

A reporter's work often keeps him out at odd hours and his wife is never sure whether he will be home to dinner or not. I lived close by some of these characters, and I would often try to help the dear wife to locate him - which was no simple matter. First you called the police and found out if they had a reporter sleeping there, if the answer was no, you called the hospitals and if it still was no, you called a small list of well known bars (if the answer was still no) you felt everything was all right and the wife went to bed and slept soundly. We never called the morgue, as that was the last place a reporter would be found.

After one of these sessions, I met one of the reporters the next day and asked him what happened. After a few beers, he agreed to tell me the sad tale. Three reporters started for their homes after a long tough day of traveling, mainly with leg power, and one of them suggested they stop in one of their favorite bars while he took his shoe off, rested and fixed a sore toe he had acquired that day. They had a few and the conversation drifted from women to good music and they couldn't agree on who wrote Brahm's Lullaby, so they played all the records in the bar and never found the right one. One of them remembered a good pal, who lived in Birmingham, had it and so they took a taxi out there to have their longing for that particular record satisfied. This took quite a bit of time because they found the pal in bed snoring peacefully but he got up and let them in. By this time, with the shaking up they got on the journey, they were rather confused about the record they wanted to hear - whether it was by Mozart or Beethoven. Their pal suggested they all go to bed and have the record played while they ate breakfast - they all agreed and went to bed. The next morning, around ten, they got up but their heads were in no condition to hear music and they all decided to go to work. Each one called up his wife and give her a different story about the misspent night, got a lecture that night which did not change the course of their lives at all. This event gives you a simple inside view of the lives they lived and how a simple event could grow into one of great importance - just like the news stories they wrote for their newspapers.

These boys lived, and loved their work and I hate to see this breed passing out of the picture. The newer reporters lack the old spirit although I do admit the new ones get more names spelled right and their ages closer to normal - but we will miss them as much as the old free lunch and the five cent cigar.

The newspaper cartoonists, like the reporters, had a lot of influence on people, especially the political ones. I remember some good ones like Lepsinger, May, Thomas who were all able to cartoon an idea and put it across in a dramatic way. May's "No Child without a Christmas" has a wonderful effect on the Christmas spirit of helping the children whom Santa Claus forgot to put on his list.

Thomas I always remember for his character of the average citizen as he portrayed that worthy person better than any other artist I knew. His drawings got their message across even if they had to be slanted to suit his boss's idea at that particular moment.

The spot cartoonists like, Shroeder, Nixon, Mash and lots of others helped add a sense of humor to the newspapers.

It's too bad syndication is knocking the personality out of the modern newspaper. They all buy their sport and political cartoons and funnies from the syndicate and although their papers may have a different format, the stuff inside is all the same. This hurts a city like Detroit, because it starts to have an odor of New York or Chicago.

Nixon was a cruel cartoonist. I know because he made at least fifty cartoons of me and what he could do to you and still keeps it looking like you, was murder. He was a minister's son but some place in his life, he slipped. He could tell you more un-publishable stories than any body in Detroit. One of his photographic cartoons was a wonder and was published in Life Magazine as one of the funniest of the year. He was a board member of the Scarab Club for years and he cartooned every artist that ever lived in Detroit. I wish I had a book of those cartoons as they showed the real character of those individualists better than a photo.