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Recent
Stories
June
6, 2003
David
Krieger
The Big Lie
Ramzy
Baroud
Sharon and the Myth of the Peacemakers
Anthony
Gancarski
Sharansky: "Crucifixion is a Privilege"
Sam
Hamod
His Own Little Country
Sean Carter
Why Indict Martha Stewart and Not Ken Lay?
David
Lindorff
Cracks in the Consensus
Stew Albert
Ari's Great Set
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft the Insatiable
June
5, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Pools of Fire: The Looming Nuclear
Nightmare in the Woods of North Carolina
Imraan
Siddiqi
Ann Coulter's Foul Mouth
Michael
Leon
Clinton, Reno & Waco: Remember What They've Done
Robert
Jensen
Texas Pledge Law Undermines Democracy
Ann Harrison
Rosenthal is Free, But the Fight isn't Over
Paul
Dean
How You Can Be Deliriously Happy in the Age of Bush
Gary Leupp
When Spooks Speak Out
Website
of the Day
Evidence in Black and White?
June
4, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Federal Judge Blinks; Rosenthal
Walks
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
The Isaiah Crowd: The Threat of Neo-Christianity
Jason
Leopold
Manufacturing the Iraq War
John Chuckman
Blackmail as Policy
Mazin
Qumsiyeh
Summit: Peace or Pretense?
Issam Nashashibi
Sharon's Sword of Damocles
Steve
Perry
Wolfowitz of Arabia: the VF interview transcript
June
3, 2003
Chris
Floyd
Copycat Killers: Bush, Jakarta and
the Slaughter in Aceh
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Tells All
Elaine
Cassel
We Interrupt Your Normal Show to Bring You an Important Message
from Michael Powell: "Go to Hell, Americans!"
Tom
Crumpacker
The Politics of US Cuba Policy
William
S. Lind
Fourth Generation Warfare in Iraq
Sam
Hamod
The Final Brick in the Wall
Uri
Avnery
The Altalena Affair
Hammond
Guthrie
Stepping into Some Deep DARPA
Steve
Perry
The WashTimes'
al-Qaeda nuke "exclusive"
June
2, 2003
Arundhati
Roy
Day of the Jackals
Norman
Madarasz
Behind the Neo-Con Curtain: Plato,
Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom
Alain
Frachon and Daniel Vernet
The Strategist and the Philosopher: Strauss and Wohlstetter
Anthony
Gancarski
Anti-Imperialism, Then & Now
Standard
Schaefer
Wasted at the Pentagon
Jason
Leopold
Rocky's Advice to the Dems
Guthrie
& Albert
HUAC 58 Years Letter
Steve
Perry
The Politics of Terror Alerts
May
31, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
A Whiner Called Horowitz
Gary Leupp
The Frauds of War
Dave
Lindorff
Clinton, Bush, Lies and Impeachment
Tom Stephens
Does It Matter that the Bush Administration Lied?
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
Who Is Next?
Joanne
Mariner
Trivializing Terrorism
Wayne
Madsen
Ayatollah Ashcroft's Busy Week
Larry Magnuson
Is a Television a Radio or a Billboard?
Elaine
Cassel
Wake Up, America!
Gila Svirsky
Waiting for the Lament to End
Susan
Davis
Kitchen Dreams
Chris Clarke
Barbra Streisand: Environmental Hypocrite
Chris
Floyd
Bush Locates Source of World Evil: God
Adam Engel
Gravity's End Zone
Poets'
Basement
Reiss, Guthrie, Orloski, Albert
May
30, 2003
Ben
Tripp
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Agenda
Neve
Gordon
The Bad Fence
Todd
Steiner
Endangered Ocean
Robert
Freeman
Bush's Tax Cuts: a Form of National Insanity
Sean
Carter
Utah Gets Fired Up for Executions
Daniel
Bacher
How Bush's War Violated International Laws
Tariq
Ali
Re-Colonizing Iraq
Steve
Perry
Bush Wars
Web Log
May
29, 2003
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Jason
Leopold
Despite Thin Intelligence Reports,
US Plans Overthrow of Iran Regime
Ron
Jacobs
Popular Uprising, Inc.
Michelle
Ciaccorra
Bush's Nuclear Policy: Do As I Say, Not As I Do
Yves Engler
The Economics of Health Care in
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Kimberly
Blaker
Vouchers for Jesus
Harry
Browne
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Stew
Albert
Cops of the World
Steve Perry
Greens 04: In or Out?
Hot Stories
CounterPunch
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WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
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Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
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Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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June
7, 2003
The Last Byline, a
Review
The
Way Journalism Used to Be
By DAVID LINDORFF
The decrepit newsroom is a relic from the turn
of the century. Rats scurry under and through desks, the paper's
archives are stacked in precarious ceiling-high piles behind
reporters' chairs, harried hacks peck away at their assignments
on old manual typewriters or fight over a handful of "tubes"
(computers) in the center of the room--computers that routinely
crash to a chorus of swearing and the occasional thrown typewriter
or keyboard.
Welcome to the Los Angeles Chronicle,
a hellish yet painfully authentic vision of author and veteran
daily journalist Rip Rense, whose brilliant first novel The
Last Byline (Xlibris, $24.99) was recently published
by Xlibris Books.
Rense, who scrivened for years at the
Los Angeles Daily News, back in the days when the San Fernando
Valley daily with its puce-colored first page was known as the
Green Sheet, and also at the Herald Examiner during its death
throes, has a knack for spotting the bizarre little quirks that
made daily journalism what it was during its heyday.
The Last Byline's hero, Charles Bogle,
a feature writer at the Chronicle (fondly known to its staff
and readers as the "Chronic Illness"), is a prematurely
cynical reporter who is watching his financially troubled paper
morph into just another demographically targeted, market-driven
infotainment rag. His defense against the efforts of the new,
corporate editors is that he basically doesn't care any more.
When they send him off against his will
on a strange police case involving a loopy self-styled guru who
was found to have a house bulging with weapons and high explosives,
and then try to undermine his story when he actually delivers,
he just keeps going through the motions, in the process getting
deeper and deeper into the story (and nearly murdered in the
process) and then angrier and angrier at the way his work is
being deep-sixed.
Along the way, we're treated to a delightful
cast of characters scarcely to be found anymore in today's sterile,
cubicle-infested newsrooms: the aging besotted pro, Shag, who
has seen it all and gets through his days by stopping off at
lunch for a liberal ministration at a bar in the nearby Veteran's
hall, Rhonda, the journalism school grad sleeping her way up
well past her competence level, Max, the token black reporter,
relegated to "black" stories, Lenny, the city hall
reporter, who, though perpetually blotto, knows more about what's
going on than the government officials he covers. But it's the
high-velocity madness of the newsroom that really gives this
story both its verite and its laughs. Like when Bogle continuously
receives misdirected calls from the paper's congenitally fouled-up
switchboard:
Ring.
"Bogle"
"You forgot to airbrush the nipples!"
"I uh--what?"
"In my Broadway ad. You forgot to
take the nipples off my lingerie models! They're showing through!"
"Uh--This--this is not display advertising, ma'am."
"How many times is this going to
happen?"
"May I suggest that your models
investigate the possibility of acquiring opaque undergarments?"
"What? Who is this? What's your name?"
"Titsling. Inventor of the modern
brassiere."
Click.
Or his meeting with the executive editor,
Louise Abigail Adams Francis or LAAF, about his request to get
a column:
I sat down, smack in the middle of the
LAA sanctorum, a world of cheap wood paneling and hairy red shag
carpet. It reminded me of the inside of a pothead's '73 Ford
Econoline van--absent only the righteous stereo and bitchen babe.
There was a window, apparently, but the blinds hiding it hadn't
been opened anytime since the Korean War. I took note of a framed
sign on the wall: No sniveling.
"There are several things that make
this problematic," said LAAP. "First, you and everybody's
second cousin in this city wants a column."
She rolled her eyes and smiled again.
An upper and lower teeth job.
"Right. But I come from a different
family." My turn to smile. "Well that may be -- and
may not be," said LAAF, swiveling sideways in her black
leather chair.
"Another reason is that you have
been known to disagree with editing decisions."
Yes and I talk back to people who dial
wrong numbers.
"Uh--yeah. That's correct. I didn't
know that was a crime in journalism. I thought that was my duty.
When an editor inserts something inaccurate, or chooses a phrase
that I think is hackneyed, I point it out. I lobby on behalf
of accuracy and freshness."
"Never make excuses for your behavior."
"Huh? Well, uh, I wasn't really
making excuses. I was offering an explanation. Besides, you should
see all the times I don't question editorial decisions. Why I'll
bet it's nine our of ten, or at least seven."
I chuckled. I thought it was kind of
funny. After all, I was in the managing editor's office, and
had been asked to come in and sit down. We were being convivial.
We were colleagues. We were chums.
"Also, as a columnist, you might
sometimes be asked to write about subjects you wouldn't want
to write about." I actually thought she was kidding, for
a second. Hadn't she just finished that sentence with a wink?
"Well, um, forgive me for saying
this, but what do you think I've been doing for a living for
the last nine years?"
I laughed, then I laughed some more,
mostly to make up for the fact that she wasn't. I guess we weren't
as convivial as I had supposed. Maybe I should have phrased that
last point more diplomatically."
"Forgive me again," I continued,
"but you invited me to write these sample columns. Weren't
you able to read them? I worked very hard on them and --"
Again the high beams.
"Of course I read them! Thank you
very much for writing them. It shows you care about our newspaper,
and I appreciate that. In fact, I'll be happy to cut you a bonus
for them. Fifty bucks a column -- $250."
In the end, Bogle doesn't get the column:
"Here's the truth of the matter.
You lack grist." Her teeth sliced the words neatly, and
spat them out. "Other columnists have been through more
than you have. Maybe it's because they come from tougher cities,
like New York, and have had more of the bejeezus knocked out
of them, or maybe it's just -- of whatever. But you lack grist.
You're a California boy. Things are slower and easier here. That's
it. Come back and ask again in a couple of years." LAAF
looked at me without blinking and smiled. Or rather, she peeled
back her lips so that most of her teeth were displayed. I wouldn't
call it a smile. It was too bestial. It jumped off her face and
chased me out of the office. I lacked grist.
The Last Byline will be read with a smile
of recognition--and perhaps an occasional wistful sigh --by journalists
wizened enough to remember the days when many newspapers were
still family enterprises with a history and a culture, back before
marketing and demographics gained the upper hand in the newsroom.
It is also sure to entertain younger journalists who missed that
era of copyboys, vaccuum tubes and spikes for copy. In an era
where giant corporations now own almost all the print media in
the country, The Last Byline should be read by anyone who cares
about news. If that sounds too much like work, rest assured,
this is an excellent read--funny and biting at the same time.
Dave Lindorff
is the author of Killing
Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
A collection of Lindorff's stories can be found here: http://www.nwuphilly.org/dave.html
Today's
Features
David
Krieger
The Big Lie
Ramzy
Baroud
Sharon and the Myth of the Peacemakers
Anthony
Gancarski
Sharansky: "Crucifixion is a Privilege"
Sam
Hamod
His Own Little Country
Sean Carter
Why Indict Martha Stewart and Not Ken Lay?
David
Lindorff
Cracks in the Consensus
Stew Albert
Ari's Great Set
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft the Insatiable
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