The Pozcars polls are now closed, and totals are being tabulated. I’m hoping to have complete results up on New Year’s Day … or certainly by Jan. 2. Thanks for playing. In the meantime, a little piece of me died on Dec. 31.
* * *
Another afternoon newspaper died Monday, the fourth one I’ve managed to help knock off in my relatively short life on this earth. The Cincinnati Post printed its final edition on the last day of 2007. The huge headline on the front was the iconic “-30-” that newspaper people for more than 100 years have used to denote the end — end of a story, end of a page, end of an era. Even when I was young and using the old Teleram (a sort of early computer that weighed 495 pounds and had a screen roughly the size of a Halloween-sized Snickers bar), we had to put that “-30-” at the end of the story or it would not be transmitted into the system. Of course, there were many ways to keep a story from getting transmitted on the Teleram. If anyone sneezed within the greater metropolitan area, the story would not get transmitted. The Teleram wasn’t exactly a marvel of technology.
ASIDE: I love old newspaper lingo like the -30-, the green eyeshade and all that. You will still hear newspaper editors say something like, “Give me four or five grafs on that,” in which “grafs” mean “paragraphs.” I remember the first time I covered a high school basketball game, the editor asked for seven or eight grafs, and I was so scared I didn’t even ask him what he meant. I spent many hours wondering what kind of graphs he wanted — a diagram, maybe, that followed the points of the game, maybe some sort of bar graph that compared team rebounds, I’m being quite serious here. Later, an editor asked me for a “note” about an upcoming event and so I took out a piece of paper and scribbled “Magic Johnson will appear at a local department store” and handed it to him. Man, I was greener than those eyeshades.
I grew up in an afternoon newspaper house. My father packed his lunch in a brown sack, and he was in the Chevy Nova and off to the factory by 6:30 a.m. every morning. So there was no point in us getting a morning paper. We got the afternoon paper, The Cleveland Press, which was delivered at — well, whenever my delivery route batch was plopped down at the house. I delivered the Press on Warrendale Road pretty much all of my childhood. My brother delivered the Press on Colony. My mother helped us fold the papers. My father would drive me around on the days when the snow was overwhelming, which in Cleveland pretty much covered every day between Oct. 23rd and April 17th. We were a Cleveland Press family.
I loved The Cleveland Press. Loved it. Loved the little lighthouse on the cover. Loved the bold headlines. Loved the way the ink stained my hands. And I hated the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the morning paper. I was 10. I felt so sure, in that kid’s way, that the Press was the real paper, the one read by real people. hard-working people in tiny and neat box houses, one rusty car in the driveway, dinner tables bursting with conversation and grandmas who lived two doors down, who had flowery tins filled with cookies. And the Plain Dealer was the rich person’s paper, read by sour-faced couples sitting at opposite ends of dark cherry tables as long as stretch limos, each of them tapping their spoons daintily at hard-boiled eggs. Yes, that’s how I imagined it.
ASIDE 2: To give you an idea about that absurd imagination .. I was absolutely certain that I could tell the difference between an NFL game on NBC and an NFL game on CBS based entirely on the color. To my eyes, NBC games always had a little bit brighter, more exuberant color, sort of like the after-picture in the Cheer commercials (those Cleveland Browns orange pants never looked more orange!). And CBS games seemed a bit darker, more stark, like Tim Burton’s Batman. Years later, in a moment of weakness. I mentioned this insanity to my great, good friend Chuck Culpepper — the only man I know who can recite, word-for-word, entire Howard Cosell halftime highlight monologues. And Chuck said that he had noticed the same thing, the same color difference (though he recalled CBS being sharper and more in focus, but that’s because he was a Rams fan). So maybe I’m not insane. Or maybe we’re both insane.
In any case, 10 years old, and I had chosen sides. I was an afternoon newspaper man. I honestly believed then — believe now too — that this made me a certain kind of person (a person, perhaps, doomed to being a casualty of technology). When I was in high school, I sold the afternoon Charlotte News door-to-door. I was terrible at it, but I still remember the pitch that Leon– the large and somewhat creepy guy who sounded exactly like Larry the Cable Guy and would drive us around — taught us, the part about how, “There’s no better feeling in the world than coming home from a long day of work to a newspaper with the latest news.” I guess this sounded better than, “There’s no better feeling than coming home and finding a newspaper in your yard filled with stuff you already knew.”
My first columnist job, I wrote for both The Augusta Chronicle (the morning paper) and The Augusta Herald (the afternoon paper). The Herald was an old relic on its last legs by then — it seemed to remain in print only because someone forgot to pull the plug. But I had a special feeling for the old fossil. At that time, we were just reprinting everything in the Chronicle for the Herald, but every so often I would write a special column just for the five or six Herald subscribers. I suspected they were still in box houses with one rusty car, or grandmas with cookies in tins. It was a great practice newspaper. You could write anything in the Herald. You could put STATE SECRETS in the Herald. Nobody read it.
They all died, of course. The Press, the News, the Herald, they were all closed down within a couple of years of my working there. So I knew the score when I took a job as columnist of The Cincinnati Post, one of the last big-city afternoon papers in America. It was like signing on to write disco songs in 1983. And yet … it was one of about three or four big decisions that have marked my life. The Post was still feisty when I signed on. When I arrived they had an ad campaign about me — supposedly I was on the side of a bus, but I never saw it. The campaign was basically, “He grew up in Cleveland, but he’s still OK.” I’m not kidding. That was the campaign. Circulation, you will note, did not skyrocket.
But we were one helluva sports section. I mean that in every way that “helluva” can be used. The talent has scattered now — Jeff writes Red Sox in Boston, John writes baseball for SI.com, Todd writes fabulous stories in Columbus, the smaller Todd writes Cowboys in Dallas, Skinny and Gambo (last I heard) did one of the most popular talk shows in Cincinnati, Bill writes Bearcats for the Crosstown Enquirer, Janet’s working nights at the Detroit News, Mark runs a slew of smaller newspapers in the most scenic part of Florida.
And it was beautiful. Have you ever had that feeling that you were living in a sitcom? Well, you probably have. But have you ever been in a situation where EVERYBODY IN THE ROOM felt like they were living in a sitcom. That was the Post. The star of the show was Bear, who could be pretty easily identified by the fact that he was wearing a baseball cap that said “BEAR” on it and he tended to refer to himself as “Bear.” He often referred to the wife as “Mrs. Bear.” He was one of the sweetest souls I’ve ever known. He also would sometimes start talking in some sort of mock Japanese for no apparent reason.
“Hello?” I said in that groggy voice that you have when it’s 7 a.m., and you were fast asleep, and the phone rings.
“Joe,” the voice said on the other line. “Bear thought you wrote one helluva column today.”
“Thanks Bear.”
“Hong cha, Yah, Okaboo.”
“OK, see you in the office.’
Mark, the sports editor who shaped me more than anyone, would be sitting in his small office and fretting about how to keep the paper from dying before 3 p.m. I love that guy. The great thing about Mark was that you always knew within 2.8 seconds of calling what he felt about the story you sent in. When I wrote something decent, I would call and say, “Hi Mark,” and he would say “HEYYYYYY, Joe, how ARE you?” And when I wrote something crap, I would call and he would say, “Oh, hi.” Sometimes, the “Oh hi,” was actually because someone else wrote something crap — he thought my story was fine — and I’m embarrassed to say that I felt better when that happened.
Not that Mark was some sort of tyrant — no, quite the opposite. Greatest guy in the world. You never wanted to disappoint him. He worked so hard to make the sports section good, to beat the morning Cincinnati Enquirer, to keep us vibrant and, mostly, alive. He cared so much about fighting the good fight, even though the war had long been lost. He kept us going. We woke up most days and felt like we had the better sports section. The days we didn’t feel that way were cold and dark.
Skinny and Gambo used to do a radio show in the office long before they had a radio show. They were beautiful — they could argue about anything. I mean ANYTHING. “Sarge (they always called each other Sarge), you know the Utah Jazz jerseys are brutal. I mean, seriously, get a real color.” “Sarge, they’re not that bad.” “Are you serious? They’re the worst. They look like they got mixed in with some colors in the wash, Sarge. I mean they’re BAD.” Every day, it was like that. Should jockeys wear silk? Who was the best spitter on Reds? Was it really worth it to win the lottery? Every day.
Every so often, I would get a note from Nick Clooney — George’s Dad — who also wrote a local column for the Post. Nick had to be the single nicest human being on the planet. I remember once he wrote me a letter saying, “Never forget that it’s supposed to be fun.” I never have forgotten that. More, though, I remember the time I ripped the fans for not showing up for Game 1 of the 1995 NLCS. In retrospect, it was a silly column to write, but I was 28 then and I felt it deeply and I don’t regret writing it. You could say people didn’t take too kindly to some Cleveland clown telling Cincinnati fans how they should act after a players strike. I got ripped pretty good for a little while … and then Nick Clooney wrote a column saying that he’d lived in Cincinnati all his life, and I was right, and settle down. And I never heard another word about it again.
Mostly, it was a daily grind. We’d bicker. Fight. Bitch. Moan. Drink together. Often at the same time. We all knew we were on a sinking ship — the water was already up to our knees. We complained to each other. We talked about getting out. We tried for big scores — tried to be noticed. It wasn’t much use. Every so often we’d break a big story, but it wouldn’t make any waves until the Enquirer reported it the next day. Every so often, we’d take a hard stand, but it wouldn’t shake the town until the Enquirer took the same stand (or the opposite stand) later. We’d stay in the locker room later, work harder, craft more, but it often felt like we were tracing words in the sand with a stick. Few seemed to notice — and fewer all the time.
Of course, it didn’t matter much to me. I was doing what I loved doing at a place I felt fiercely loyal to with co-workers who were friends. The only real trouble was that every day, we were taking on a more water. Sinking a little deeper. I knew it wouldn’t last forever. I knew I would have to jump at some point. We all knew.
It’s pretty obvious why afternoon papers have died. America has changed. News cycles have changed (or disappeared — we’re all on 24-hour cycles now). News is old by the afternoon. People’s lifestyles are different — they generally do not come home at 4 p.m. from long days at work, get their slippers out and read the newspaper before dinner the way my father would (my Dad didn’t have slippers; I just threw that in). I get it. The afternoon paper was already dead before the Internet exploded — it’s like they were hit by a meteor and then hit again by an ice age. The Post had to die.
And it did die, Monday, with a farewell edition and that -30- that signifies goodbye. The Post died fighting. The good people there made sure of that. The Post never had a problem finding good people. And it’s a funny thing … I knew the Cincinnati Post would die the day I got hired there. I knew it would die when I left. I knew it would die every time I thought about it — which was surprisingly often over the last 11 years. I knew it as deeply and certainly as I know my social security number. The Post was a goner. And yet, it did die, and it’s still a shock. That’s the kid in me, I guess. I always wanted afternoons to last forever.
-30- indeed.
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53 Comments, Comment or Ping
NCV
Poz,
I hear ya. I loved reading the afternoon paper when I was a kid, mostly because I would sleep until the last possible moment each day before I had to get up and go to school. We used to get the Chicago American in the afternoon. Then it folded. Then we got the Chicago Today. It folded. So we switched to the Chicago Daily News. It folded. On to the Chicago Sun-Times’ PM edition. Then it was discontinued.
I’m a little dense, but after a while I noticed a pattern here.
As I e-mailed to a friend who lives in the ‘Nati, working for the Post was the modern-day equivalent of working for a buggy-whip manufacturer in, say, 1930. Somehow, I wasn’t as sad about that demise as I am about this one.
Jan 1st, 2008
brandon
wow. good work joe…
Jan 1st, 2008
Jon Morse
And as I’m sure you realize but your readers from KC may not, you work for a dead afternoon paper NOW. When I lived in KC, I always liked the Star better than the Times, too. Felt it highly appropriate that when they shut down the evening edition, they moved the Star name to the morning issue.
Of course, as baseball fans, I think it only natural that folks like us would prefer the evening editions; after all, the morning paper almost never had the scores and boxes for the left coast night games.
Jan 1st, 2008
bulb
I remember when m hometown paper The Tallahassee Democrat changed from afternoon t morning with a absurd but funny ad campaign based on its pejorative moniker: The Mullet Wrapper. A fish with glasses holding up the paper with the tag line: mullet over al day long. The bigger tragedy when the paper was sold by Knight Ridder t Gannett.
I also remember when the SF Examiner did the same before being gobbled up completely by the Chronicle: what must WR Hearst be thinking, wherever he currently resides–not San Simeon surely!
Jan 1st, 2008
Paul White
I learned to read because of an afternoon paper. We didn’t subscribe to it, but my father always came home from work with a copy of the old Boston Record American Herald Traveler (or some such ugly long name like that). At the time I presumed that he stopped and bought it on his way home, but in retrospect I think he was bringing home the copy his company got every day. Anyway, after dinner he would read that thing from cover to cover, and when I was just three or four I would sometimes get to sit on his lap and he’d teach me what all the words were. That’s how I knew to read before starting kindergarten.
This was an exceptionally well-written tribute, Joe. The Post would be proud.
Jan 1st, 2008
Guelphdad
I delivered for an afternoon edition when I was 10, my first job. It paid off too. I won a trip to Austria in 1975 for getting the most new subscribers in my area.
The paper is still going, Hamilton Spectator (http://thespec.com) but the afternoon edition isn’t.
Jan 1st, 2008
Blue
I always liked the KC Times brand name better than the KC Star…anyone know what the story was behind moving the star name to the morning?
Jan 1st, 2008
Rick Denison
A lovely piece. I’ve worked for weekly, afternoon and morning papers, and you got the atmosphere just right, especially the dread and the sensation of having one hand tied behind your back that you feel when you work on a P.M. daily.
Have you ever looked at Mencken’s “Newspaper Days”? It talks about the business a hundred years ago in Baltimore, including the P.M.-A.M. rivalry. Of course many things have changed, but not the happily insane air of an active city room.
Jan 1st, 2008
C. Trent Rosecrans
Thanks Joe.
I too loved the headline. It was perfect.
I’ll tell you what, it was a sad day on Court Street. Can’t say I didn’t tear up a couple of times.
I hope we kept the spirit alive until the end. There are some very talented, hard-working folks left there until the end — and we stuck it to the Enquirer until the end. And the Enquirer business department stuck it to us ’til the end as well. Yesterday, the one day people were clamoring to get a Post, there weren’t enough. Had friends make six, seven stops to try to find them and couldn’t. One friend said he walked into a store and the guy working the counter saw him about to ask for something and screamed “NO POST!” Thanks Gannett. But hey, they didn’t get the extra money they could have gotten for them. So there you go.
Thanks for the solid obit chief.
Jan 1st, 2008
C. Trent Rosecrans
Joe,
thought you’d enjoy this as well… In the newsroom we had one of the old rack cards that had Doc, Nick Clooney and David Whecker — it said, “Only in The Post” — but someone had marked out the “o” in Post and put an “a” there. Gallows humor until the end.
Jan 1st, 2008
Jeff Horrigan
Poz:
Thanks for the wonderful way you captured the true spirit of the Boast. Like many of us, if I could have been guaranteed that the paper had a nice, long life ahead of it and Mark could always be our editor, I would have stayed in Cincinnati forever. It’s an underrated area generally inhabited by terrific folks. It was amazing that everyone on our incredible staff seemed to be locked into the same frequency when it came to humor, talent, humility, work ethic and mindset on so many things. Sure, it was frustrating at times but, in retrospect, I feel safe saying that it probably was the most precious and invaluable period of many of our professional lives.
Jan 2nd, 2008
Dave Heller
Joe -
As a former Post stringer/freelance guy in the mid-’90s (when you were there as well), you summed up the newsroom beautifully. I can still hear Skinny and Gambo arguing - or Gambo calling out some hapless stringer for a mistake.
And Mark Tomasik - what a great sports editor. Probably the best boss I’ve ever had. He really taught me a lot, knew how and when to push and when and how to praise.
Those were some great, fun and learning years. The Post might be gone, but at least I’ll (and everyone who worked there) will have their memories. And a crapload of stories.
Jan 2nd, 2008
Brian
Awesome stuff Joe, I was weaned on the Detroit News and then the Post, cut my teeth learning about the Reds from Earl Lawson… When I hit town to visit the in-laws my Father always had the POST.. until he moved to the northern suburbs and delivery was canceled.
All you guys (Earl, Mark, Jeff, and Trent) should be proud, you participated in a great paper that had a superior baseball outlook and for years trumped teh larger, glossier and blander Enquirer.
Somewhere Tom Swope is shedding a tear over this.
BTW
I too thought that CBS was drab looking color wise when compared to the peacock.
Jan 2nd, 2008
Gary Goulet
Joe,
I delivered a small town afternoon paper 9Fall River Herald News) growing up. It’s still around. I too learned to read with my dad. A little game we played was too find the typos (and tere were plenty to find). Great stuff.
BTW, you are definately NOT crazy re NBC CBS. NBC was much more vibrant, CBS more subdues. But I think you can see that in some of the Prime Time shows as well. Bonanza always seemed more artistically done than some of the more garish NBC shows.
Of course, it might well have been because of the outlandish AFL/ AFC uniforms.
Jan 2nd, 2008
Lance Richardson
I grew up in San Diego (still haven’t left) and my family was an Evening Tribune family. The Trib eventually merged with the morning San Diego Union to become the Union-Tribune, or U-T,” as we call it.
I’m certain you are right about the contrast between CBS and NBC. It seemed ALL of the CBS programming had a darker feel, similar to the way daytime soaps look.
Jan 2nd, 2008
Vincent
I had a tryout at the Post as a copy editor in November 2000. They flew me in and out from New Jersey in one day, spent a few hours at the place and I could sense its feistiness. I knew it didn’t have many years left on this earth — once the JOA was over, it would be the Post’s deathknell — but I’m still sorry I wasn’t hired there.
So the Post joins the Syracuse Herald Journal, the Washington Daily News (also Scripps-Howard) and Evening Star, the Macon News, the Baltimore Evening Sun and News American, the Richmond News Leader, and some other papers in the graveyard of history.
Ironically, Fort Wayne, Indiana still has competing morning and afternoon dailies, and both are supposedly reasonably healthy.
Jan 2nd, 2008
Josh Katzowitz
Poz,
Trent is right. We went down fighting all the way until the end, even as we tried to bail the water out of the boat. The last day at the office was bittersweet. I shook people’s hands I never before had met, and I hugged - and I never thought this would happen - Jim Osborne and Enos before I left. Weird to think I’ll never step foot inside 125 East Court Street again.
Random strangers came into the newsroom looking for the farewell edition, and they all tried to pay me their 50 cents when I handed them their Boast. I didn’t accept. A decision, if I don’t land a job soon, I might soon regret.
Anyway, thanks for the nice obit. I know the Post dying means as much to you and Horrigan and Shelman and Koch and Doc and Skinny and Gambo and Bear, et al, as it does to Trent, GoGo, Lonnie and myself.
Jan 2nd, 2008
Old Man Duggan
Not being from Cincinnati, I can’t bid farewell to something I don’t know, but it sounds like a little bit of America died today. I, too, miss the afternoon paper of my childhood.
As for your television aside, the programs still look different to me. I can still tell you if a show or event was broadcast on Fox, CBS, NBC, or ABC just by looking at it. CBS was more drab. NBC was more colorful. ABC is somewhere in between. I never thought I was crazy for it, and certainly don’t think you are either. I think there are a few that pass that line now, bout that probably has more to do with NBC/Universal producing shows for Fox or things like that.
Jan 2nd, 2008
Wes Covington
I always thought that the differences between CBS and NBC telecasts of the NFL were not the colors as much as the sound. We had a black and white TV in the house until the mid 1970s. CBS had audio that tended to have a crisp and sometimes attenuated sound. NBC’s sound was a little richer and broader in frequency.
CBS broadcasts also tended to look like they were appearing on film, while NBC’s were on tape even though both were on tape. However, CBS tended to use film for much of the programming I watched growing up (Mary Tyler Moore Show, Bob Newhart Show), while NBC used tape (Sanford & Son, Chico and the Man).
Jan 2nd, 2008
Old Post Reader
Joe, thanks for the great epitaph for the Post. I was a member of a Post family until about the time I graduated from high school. My dad drove to Dayton to work every day, and didn’t have time to read the morning paper before he left. So we got the Post in the afternoon. I grew up reading Earl Lawson and Pat Harmon. Then, my dad got a job in Cincinnati and we switched to the Enquirer.
I have not lived in Cincinnati for a long time. But for the past 10-12 years I have been reading the Post on line. Especially the wonderful blogs on the Reds and Bearcats by Marc Lancaster, Trent Rosecrans, and Josh Katzowitz. And great columns from Lonnie Wheeler. They always seemed a step ahead of the Enquirer guys.
As luck would have it, I was in Cincy over the weekend. On Monday, as we were leaving town to drive back to Chicago, I searched in vain for a copy of the last Post. When we finally got home, the first thing I did was to go on-line and read what the final edition.
I am back at work today, and the reality has sunk in - no Post header on the Cincinnati.com website. No Lonnie “Whee-lah,” Trent Rosecrans, or Josh Katzowitz. It’s like the neighbor down the street has died - a piece of life just fading away.
It’s just incredibly sad. RIP Post.
Jan 2nd, 2008
Matt in Toledo
Joe, I loved the part of this post where you talk about how when you were a kid, everything had sides. I was the same way as a kid. You had the Post over the Enquirer and CBS over NBC. For me, it was Coke over Pepsi, GM over Ford and the Free Press over the News.
That last one kind of puts me on the opposite side of the fence from you, though, because the News used to be the evening paper in Detroit. In my house, my brothers delivered the Free Press and after seeing the hassle delivering the paper was for my mom (who had to wake them up) and my brothers we kind of ended up making a value judgment against the evening paper. I think I saw them and their readers as loafers who didn’t want to get up early.
But silly childhood biases aside, this was a fantastic post that makes me wish I could have been familiar with that particular sports section.
Jan 2nd, 2008
Brian
In my house, my brothers delivered the Free Press and after seeing the hassle delivering the paper was for my mom (who had to wake them up) and my brothers we kind of ended up making a value judgment against the evening paper.
Nothing worse then stuffing Free Press inserts into your stack of papers in a stairwell in Ann Arbor on a dark January morning… just brutal.
Jan 2nd, 2008
steve
i know for whom the bell tolls. it tolls for the cincy post.
Jan 2nd, 2008
Perry
I always thought the AFL games on NBC looked brighter than the NFL games on CBS, but now I know why. The early NFL (on CBS) game was always the Browns, from Cleveland or some other gray eastern or midwestern city like Baltimore or Pittsburgh or New York. Then Curt Gowdy would bring us the late AFL (on NBC) game, which always seemed to be Chiefs-Raiders from Oakland or Broncos-Chargers from San Diego, under that bright California sun. No wonder I thought the AFL was brighter and more colorful!
Jan 2nd, 2008
Geof
Joe, that was beautiful. It- I swear to God, and this is embarrassing- made me almost tear up at the end, the line ‘That’s the kid in me, I guess. I always wanted afternoons to last forever.’
That was amazing writing. Long live the Post.
Jan 2nd, 2008
S.S.
Joe,
Another great post. Not sure if you saw it, but Klosterman has a piece in the latest Esquire about being able to tell between the networks by the look of the shows. Turns out to not be true. Interesting stuff.
Jan 2nd, 2008
Wenalway
Yes, dinosaur, it’s such a sad day. The problem can’t possibly be that writers and newspapers have failed to evolve. It HAS to be that the rest of the world has changed.
Yawn. I’ll let you wallow in your lame, unoriginally described self-pity as the minions crowd around to tell you how cool you are. But I have some dinner waiting, and a couple of newspapers I didn’t have time to finish at lunch. Let’s hope they offer some better writing than this.
Jan 3rd, 2008
Jeff Shelman
Poz,
Maybe this is sad and sappy, but so be it. Next time you talk to whoever hired you in KC, thank them for me. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.
The reason is simple: When you left for KC and TJones left for the Dispatch, enough dominos fell (if that ain’t a coaching search cliche, I don’t know what is) so that Tomasik thought it would be a good idea to hire a kid from a crappy, tiny newspaper in Central Illinois to cover Huggs and his band of characters.
Getting hired at the Post was the best thing that ever happened in my journalism career. I would have never been hired in Raleigh if not for the Post and would have never gotten hired at the paper I read growing up.
Now the place did have issues, no question about that. But the one thing I always appreciated about the Post was that we acted bigger than we really were. We covered as many big events as we could. We looked for ways to pick up another story when we were on the road. Our goal was to kick the Enquirer’s ass every day and we accomplished it often. TJones always likes to talk about how Boomer Esiason called the guys from the Post the guerilla warfare guys. It was probably pretty accurate and I’ll wear that as a badge of honor.
Shelman
Jan 3rd, 2008
Paul Knue
Poz:
Nice work, as usual. A lot of great journalists went through our newsroom, but you are one of the most talented. When we were looking for a sports columnist, one column in one applicant’s bundle of clips stood out (and I’m sure it still would) — your column about one golf shot at the Augusta National. One of the funniest pieces of journalism ever written.
Keep up the great work and make Posties everywhere proud.
Paul
Jan 3rd, 2008
Chris
Terrific piece, Joe. I miss afternoon papers…
Jan 3rd, 2008
Max
Great post about the Post. I have so many connections to this story… living in Cincinnati; delivering a morning paper, the San Diego Tribune (which is the best experience in the world for a 13-year-old); and the football TV quality/contrast issue. At age 10, my football TV world was on Sunday afternoons at the laundromat with a mix of black & white, sepia, and color (I’d happily spend an extra hour doing laundry) — My memories from 1978-80 are of the Houston Oilers — the differences in quality week-to-week, including the TV picture, were huge.
Jan 3rd, 2008
Brian
That’s a wonderful piece of writing there, Joe.
Jan 3rd, 2008
Randy Ludlow
Joe … I don’t think we’ve ever met. But, I put in 19 years at The Cincinnati Post. I was hidden at the Statehouse in Columbus while you were in Cincy. I today work with Todd Jones, and other Posties, at The Columbus Dispatch. I, too, was a PM man from way back. Delivered and worked at the PM (and RIP) Indianapolis News. Gads, I started there at age 16, a copy boy ripping bulletins off teletypes and running stuff up to composing where they set type in hot lead, a letter at a time. And, then, the Cincy Post. You so brilliantly captured its fighting spirit … we may be second dog, but we’re gonna kick No. 1’s butt … My dad sitting in the recliner after driving his truck, reading The News and the ever-longer-gone Indianapolis Times. We at The Post were the working man’s paper, the blue collar paper. No pretense. No BS. Working harder to get the story, striving to show that thinking outside the box represented truth. We were the people’s paper. The Enquirer could pose for the politicians and the powerful, we were the paper for the working man and woman. Thanks for bringing that back … consider yourself honored, and blessed, to be a PM man. I am.
Jan 3rd, 2008
Bill Kurtz
Loved your column. I grew up on PM papers too (Chicago Daily News, Minneapolis Star, Milwaukee Journal) as my family moved around. Delivered the Journal for four years in the late 60s and eventually worked there. In the meantime I got my first real job in Ohio, where I read the Cleveland Press in its last years. It was a lot like the way you describe the Cincinnati Post- feistier than the “Plain Dull” in the morning, and yes it had last night’s baseball. I must also plug one of the last remaining PMs- the Madison, Wisc. Capital Times. I went to school there, and have enjoyed the Cap Times ever since. There too the AM paper is the boring one- is it always that way?
Jan 3rd, 2008
David Flick
Joe,
I’ve read a lot of tributes from former Cincinnati Post staff members in the past few weeks and, as a Post veteran myself, I can authoratively report that a good many were crap. Yours was eloquent, honest and fun.
David Flick
Jan 3rd, 2008
Hans Laetz
Your perceptions about the difference in color values on NBC and CBS telecasts in your youth are accurate, but can be blamed on anything from the equipment used at your local affiliates to the channel assignment that your local affiliates were using.
NTSC, the set of technical guidelines for the analog TV transmissions that we still use, was designed 50 years ago and had a lot of variables.
And human beings at every step of the broadcast chain … from the camera to the truck to the ATT long lines engineer to master control at the network back to ATT long lines all over the country and then to the local master control and transmitter — every one of those engineers had a duty to adjust the color saturation and hue.
Then, your set at home could process color on a lower channel differently than on a higher one.
Engineers still refer to NTSC as “Never Twice the Same Color.”
Nice column, too.
Jan 3rd, 2008
JB in NC
My first couple of papers were PMs. A lot of the news seemed fresher because we were able to get in stuff that happened overnight and that morning. Of course, all that is moot now with newspaper and TV Web sites. Anyway, I was happy when I got a job at an AM paper because I didn’t have to get to work so darn early!
Keep fighting the good fight.
Jan 3rd, 2008
John Bryan
Teleram! Getouttahere! The Devil’s Typewriter…..I was always a morning guy — Ink-Wire denizen during the 80s. Never could understand you Post people who got up in the MORNING, for chrissake. Anyway, great writing, great memories. Thanks.
Jan 3rd, 2008
Wenalway
Yawn. I see the minions are still at it.
Yes, we need the good old days back, when people were paid twice as much as the job was worth, and they got lifetime contracts through the union for health care.
Now the older folks just have to hope we young ‘uns will work twice as hard to subsidize their retirement.
I can see why the Post died if it was like this — tired, old, clueless people spouting their tired, old, clueless ideas. Ignorance truly is bliss for many, I guess.
Jan 3rd, 2008
Sven
I used to deliver another local afternoon paper
http://www.concordmonitor.com/
But it too has entered morning delivery.
And computers? You had computers? I had type writers and white-out and exacto-knives… And you’re complaining about -30-????
Jan 3rd, 2008
Matt
Wenalway,
Hope your comments weren’t directed at Joe because, well, then none of them would make any sense and you might look kind of silly.
Jan 4th, 2008
Dan Kelly
I delivered the Norristown Times Herald when I was 10 in 1968. It remained an afternoon paper when I worked there 20 years later before the owners moved to a morning edition. I left the Herald to go to the San Antonio Light and left there just nine months before Hearst pulled the plug on the Light and bought the crosstown Express-News from Murdoch. After a brief stint in PR I’m now working for the Reading Eagle in southeastern PA. It’s one of the few independent, family-owned, mid-sized dailies left. The names are different but the cast of characters are all here, thriving for now in the only ecosystem capable of supporting such boundless yet quirky talent and flinching only when shadows of television or the Internet pass over head.
Jan 4th, 2008
Gary McCann
Joe:
What a terrific tribute. Loved every word. Reminds me of dragging around Burlington, N.C. tossing the Daily Times-News on porches and wondering if I’d get paid on Fridays. The little old ladies would come to the door with their buck 25 in hand and watch with eagle eyes as I carefully noted in my book they had paid. I’d rip out the little cardboard receipt and hand it to them and they’d always ask “you sure you marked me down young man?” And few people can understand the skill involved in throwing a rolled up newspaper from 40 feet onto a porch while riding a bicycle at roughly 84 MPH. And few can understand the hell you would catch when the paper landed not on the porch, but in the roses or, worse yet, on the roof. That’s where my newspaper career began 37 years ago, and the nine years I spent at the Daily Times News (later just the Times-News) remain the best years ever. Long hours, little pay. But it was fun, and the people I worked with made it better. Thanks for the walk down memory lane.
Gary McCann
Sports Editor
The Herald
Rock Hill SC
Jan 4th, 2008
Stu Robinson
Hi Joe,
I found a link to your piece on the Romenesko blog and really enjoyed.
I worked on the copydesk at The Augusta Chronicle and Augusta Herald when you arrived, and we worked together until I escaped shortly thereafter. Thanks for reminding me about the Herald, on which I could practice page layout with absolutely no repercussions. I particularly enjoyed the Herald’s final, USA Today meets New York Post incarnation — tons of color framing giant crime headlines.
I grew up in Toledo reading, and sometimes substitute delivering, The Blade, which ususally turned up about the time I got home from school. It’s since switched to mornings, but that was long after I left Ohio. But I share that love of p.m. dailies and tried to seek them out whereever I was. The Indianapolis News, the Phoenix Gazette, The Atlanta Journal (which “Covered Dixie like the Dew”), The Baltimore Evening Sun. It’s ironic that the JOA, intended to help second-banana newspapers, ended up killing them because they gave up their printing and circulation capbilities. The Honolulu Star Bulletin soldiers on, mainly because it found an investor who already owned his own presses.
My parents moved to Cincinnati in 1990, and I always thought The Post was the better paper. Heck, The Cincinnati Enquirer has to be the most vapid major daily in America. But I learned the lay of the land when my folks — accustomed to the afternoon Blade — subscribed to The Post. The Enquirer was responsible for its circulation and had little incentive to acually get it there. Delivery was inconsistent; the deliverers were incompetant. Telemarketers constantly pitched The Enquirer but were oblivious to The Post. Sad, really, how little the quality of journalism matters in many cases. My folks finally caved and switched to The Enquirer.
My sister still lives in Cinti, and I asked her to get me a final edition of The Cincinnati Post. She actually made a special trip downtown — even timed it for the p.m. cycle — but reported that she couldn’t find a Post anywhere. Stores either didn’t carry it or said it was sold out.
Well, that’s my trip down memory lane. Good luck with your writing.
Stu in Arizona
Jan 4th, 2008
Wenalway
Those comments are directed at any dinosaur — and there seem to be quite a few of them here — who somehow believes things have “just changed” and that none of journalism’s shift toward extreme failure and ineptitude could have been prevented.
I find it sadly amusing that so many writers come out of the shadows to wear their superhero capes after the battle is lost, especially when 98 percent of them hid silently at their desks during the battle. Today’s newsrooms are filled with wimps and infopimps; it’s just a question of who’s in which category.
But go back to reminiscing about the “good old days”; I’m sure that will fix everything.
Jan 5th, 2008
Mauichuck
Noting that, “Today’s newsrooms are filled with wimps and infopimps; it’s just a question of who’s in which category”, I’m curious Wenalway, just exactly what is your contribution to raising the level of discourse here?
Jan 5th, 2008
Matt
Wenalway,
I guess the difference between our readings is that all I saw were people remiscing, and you saw an active calling for change back to an old system. Well, I think we all know that that’s not even a possibility. The world has changed. But, when we (presumably you are young, as am I) get older, it’ll be fun to look back and remember the way things were.
Obviously you have activist tendencies and want to see attitudes change for the better, and I enjoy seeing such passion, but I think that change can be had through peaceful discourse to the exclusion of inflammatory comments and insults.
Jan 5th, 2008
C. Trent Rosecrans
seriously folks, don’t encourage him. anyone who has frequented any journalism forum on the internet knows this guy and knows how emotionally unstable he is. heck, just go to his site and look at his conversations with himself there.
Jan 6th, 2008
Craig McGill
Great post. Shame about Wenalway’s rudeness. There may be dinosaurs here, but they paved the way for today’s generation - and they were always polite.
Jan 6th, 2008
grr
hey Joe, I lived in all parts of the country and you could always tell NBC versus CBS and now with Fox vs CBS. Somehow the NFC teams always seemed to have the richer picture while the AFC teams seemed washed out and more distant. the effect was particularly noticeable during interconference play because a mental adjustment had to be made. may explain why I rarely watch AFC games.
Jan 10th, 2008
Wenalway
Thanks for the help, Trent. And of course, you would be one of the wimps who did nothing to solve the problem, and now you’re kicked to the curb. I hope that severance check lasts for you.
Jan 12th, 2008
Janet Graham
Joe,
Really enjoyed your tribute. It sure was a sad day but it’s been great hearing everyone’s memories of The Post. We missed you at the sports reunion in the fall! By the way, I’m working at the Detroit Free Press, not the Detroit News. Now, instead of worrying about athletes’ spectacular quotes, I rack my brain to write 1A headlines about the nation and world’s impending doom. Anyway, Chuck called me in Hawaii at 5 a.m. to tell me about this and I’m just getting around to it. (we do have a little auto show and a little presidential primary here though). Take care, Janet
Jan 16th, 2008
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