Tidbits and Tales From the P-I Memorial
Some of the news that's unfit to print, from last night's P-I memorial party at the Ballard Elks...(Mainly to deter TV cameras and - serious! - keep things off the record, a sign at the door said "No working press," which made a lot of the press, many of them fresh out of work, laugh weakly)..."The FBI once investigated me on the suspicion I was the Unibomber," said former copy editor Tom Robbins, now a bit of an author. "They spied on me, and then sent two female agents to interview me. They knew my weakness"...Sports columnist Art Thiel plans to launch a sports web site with ex-columnist/editor Steve Rudman; Thiel also has a book coming out and is writing two columns a week for the eP-I (where he works as a freelance, thus he was able to quit the P-I and collect his severance pay when the print edition folded this month). "It looks like the site will be linked to the P-I's, like [cartoonist Dave] Horsey's site," said Thiel...He, like Horsey, wore a tux to the gathering of several hundred former print P-I staffers - dating back 50 years - and a number of current eP-I staffers...A party organizer, onetime police reporter George Foster, was fondly remembered for the day he covered the funeral of a Seattle cop, then had a few drinks and ended up on the plane that was taking the officer's remains back to his hometown (Foster's call from Georgia the next morning began: "Where am I?")...
One after another, recently departed P-I writers and photographers said they were working on books and web sites, save those that still toil away on the P-I's electronic pages...."Everybody seems to have a blog," said pop-rock writer - and blogger - Gene Stout. "It doesn't cost a lot to get going, but the question everyone has is how long can I sustain this and will it ever make money?"...In addition to the downsized staffers we wrote about earlier, web newcomers include former editorial page editor Mark Trahant; his comix-like site, Post-Tattler News, bills him as a Clark Kent, "More powerful than puny discourse, Able to leap tall rhetoric in a single bound"...
Photog Dan DeLong is shooting for the AP, and ex-P-Ier Amy Rolph has caught on at the Herald in Everett...eP-I columnist Joel Connelly says he's also working on a web site that will focus in part on Alaska and British Columbia politics...Among attendees were former P-I staffers Evelyn Iritani - who, after a long career at the LA Times, now works for a LA public relations agency specializing in crisis management (No. 1 advice to clients: Shutthefugup!) - and her husband, Roger Ainsley, still a Times editor (which leaves him and sports columnist Bill Plaschke as the last ex-P-Iers on the LAT staff)...Investigative reporter Eric Nalder will be heading up a Hearst I-team that will write for the chain's remaining papers as well as for its TV stations and magazines, Esquire included...
Nearing midnight, a group of long-ago P-I photographers including Dave Potts and Cary Tolman gathered at a corner table in the crowded hall, sifting through a box of photos from the 60s; that was back when "art" was cropped and airbrushed by staff artists, who painted balls off dogs and udders off cows because the P-I was a family paper...Potts recalled how former artist Ray Collins used to roll his eyes when he was asked to touch up a photo of the Aurora Bridge - putting in a white dotted line to show where a jumper leaped off...Collins did so many of those dotted lines that he suggested the P-I install toilet roll dispensers along the bridge railings so jumpers could grab the end of a roll before leaping, creating their own dotted lines...and so on, and so forth, into the wee, final, hours...
-30-
18 comment(s)
Ex-Times says:
Thanks for this. And I loved the -30- at the end.
Posted On: Saturday, Mar. 28 2009 @ 2:54PM
Ex-P-I says:
F you, Rick. It's bush league and rude to blatantly disrespect the request made by those who planned the wake to keep the evening off the record. If you wanted an on-the-record event, you should have planned it yourself.
Posted On: Saturday, Mar. 28 2009 @ 5:55PM
Don, Retired P-I says:
What's more ludicrous than reporters giving all those no comments when they were asked by a fellow P-I reporter if they'd been hired by the online P-I? Those same reporters having a going-away party that was off the record! Good for you Rick. I was there - there were no state secrets discussed. And the invites said nothing about no working press, by the way.
Posted On: Saturday, Mar. 28 2009 @ 6:46PM
Gemini Gypsy says:
Thanks, Rick.
No disrespect to Ex P-I above, but to some of us, that paper and the people who worked there--past and present--have been at our tables every day for decades...like our family, too. We've heard the stories, grieved when a reporter, artist or editor died or moved on, and laughed at the "inside" jokes that were never as "inside" as some may have believed. This was our paper. It belonged to us, too, and we miss it dearly.
Oddly enough, last night I felt antsy and went for a walk past the Elks Club, wondering in passing at the activity. Had I known, I would've laid a rose at the door.
Thanks for sharing the evening with us, Rick.
Posted On: Saturday, Mar. 28 2009 @ 6:50PM
Ex P-I says:
Gypsy: I totally get and respect what you're saying. I am grateful the community feels connected to its newspaper. The reverse is true. And most of us have dedicated our entire adult lives to careers advocating for openness and accountability. But this was a single evening where our family wanted to grieve/ party privately. Staffers paid for it and planned it. It was a private party and was not a matter of public interest.
Don: Again, it was a PRIVATE party. After lifetimes of serving the public, we should have been allowed a single night. And the invitations said current and former staffers only; the door said no working media. Those who didn't want to honor that were welcome to throw their own party.
Posted On: Saturday, Mar. 28 2009 @ 7:36PM
Don, Retired P-I says:
Private? People strolled in and out who weren't invited - I know that for a fact. I'm still waiting to hear what wasn't honored - that a reporter can't report what reporters tell him? - it was purely innocent stuff (and, with links, promos for them); the rest was memories and the good old days. I'd think you would WANT a record of such a nice evening.
Posted On: Saturday, Mar. 28 2009 @ 8:01PM
Former P-I reporter says:
Rick,
You're a piece of shit. You should fucking try honoring the profession sometime. You want to know why reporters get a bad rap? Because of fuck-wads like you.
Truly classless, you asswipe.
Posted On: Saturday, Mar. 28 2009 @ 8:35PM
Anonymous says:
Ex P-I, I wasn't suggesting that it should have been a public event, I respect the privacy of those involved. But the stories in Rick's article have been floating around for years--in print and orally--and I, for one, am glad to know where people will be going, how they're doing and to have an opportunity to share some memories, if only second hand. I don't know who you are, or how long you've been around, but you should show some respect and apologize.
Posted On: Saturday, Mar. 28 2009 @ 8:51PM
Gemini Gypsy says:
Ex P-I, I wasn't suggesting that it should have been a public event, I respect the privacy of those involved. But the stories in Rick's article have been floating around for years--in print and orally--and I, for one, am glad to know where people will be going, how they're doing and to have an opportunity to share some memories, if only second hand. I don't know who you are, or how long you've been around, but you should show some respect and apologize.
Posted On: Saturday, Mar. 28 2009 @ 8:51PM
Rick Anderson says:
Thank you brave ex-P-I's for your anonymous slurs. As ex-P-I, I was also invited, and there was no off-record agreement, period. There was a piece of paper lying on a table with a hand-written note. That does not constitute an off-record privilege nor does it speak for all of the 200-plus there - not one who told me no comment. I openly took notes and asked at times if I could quote people when the information seemed sensitive - none of it was anyway, particularly those ripened old newspaper tales. Most reporters are always "working press" and "no comment" is always the enemy.
Posted On: Sunday, Mar. 29 2009 @ 8:57AM
Ex P-I says:
Gemini:
I've been around for decades. I can't imagine what you think I have to apologize for. Objecting when Rick flouts our request to gather privately and turns it into blog gossip? It's our right to decide when/where we'll tell you where we're going after the P-I. After years of putting our names on the line for the public good, I think we earned one night to ourselves.
And I WAS respectful to you. I wrote: "I totally get and respect what you're saying. I am grateful the community feels connected to its newspaper. The reverse is true."
It is Rick who disrespected us.
Don: You don't get it. It doesn't matter whether you think the details warrant privacy. It was wrong of Rick to disregard our request. Good journalists never disrespect off-the-record requests simply because we deem them unnecessary. And the fact we didn't guard the door doesn't justify Rick's behavior.
Posted On: Sunday, Mar. 29 2009 @ 9:01AM
P-I survivor says:
Rick: That's totally disingenuous. You wrote about the sign at the door so you obviously knew the rules.
The sign (printed not "hand-written") was posted at the door by those running the show. You should have respected it. There is no hypocrisy in wanting one fucking night to ourselves.
By the way, I can't tell you how many facts you have wrong in your piece. As usual.
Posted On: Sunday, Mar. 29 2009 @ 9:10AM
Jay Q. Public says:
These P-I folks seem to be examples of why that paper failed, whining about "the rules" and "one night to ourselves, wahh!" How many of them have broken "the rules" (although it doesn't sound like there were any), and how many of them have invaded the "one night" (privacy) the rest of us might have wanted at times!? There's a word for that.
Posted On: Sunday, Mar. 29 2009 @ 9:20AM
Insulted says:
Rick obviously took a day off in journalism ethics class. Whether people inside the party spoke with you or not, the event itself made it clear that working press weren't allowed. Even The Stranger got the message, judging by their post on the party on Slog. Anderson can rationalize all he wants about his version of what "on" or "off-the-record" means, but his post here should only serve notice to readers as to what kind of journalism he practices.
Posted On: Sunday, Mar. 29 2009 @ 10:54AM
Ron Barr says:
Wow, so many sanctimonious journalists, so little time: I was there - didn't even see that sign, wouldn't mean anything if I did; that's no "rule," no privilege, nor did it make anything "clear." (He also wrote about it in the story). Like he said, it didn't speak for everyone - anyone? - there. Sure didn't speak for me. (And OMG, you're invoking the Stranger as an example of ethics?) I'm delighted to see this fun story. Get a life the rest of you.
Posted On: Sunday, Mar. 29 2009 @ 11:16AM
david stoesz says:
So how about Liz Brown? Does her account of this event in the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild make her a "piece of shit," too?
Posted On: Monday, Mar. 30 2009 @ 11:03AM
regina hackett says:
These people calling Rick names couldn't possibly have worked at the PI. An agreement is only binding if the reporter agrees to it. These complaints come from random crazies. Not that we didn't have our share of those, but ours wouldn't waste their crazy on a trivial non-issue like this one. Nice report, Rick. Regina Hackett
Posted On: Tuesday, Mar. 31 2009 @ 2:18AM
MMT says:
In addition to the Guild, other "pieces of shit" who wrote about the P-I party:
http://dongeyer.blogspot.com/2009/03/p-i-farewell-party.html
http://www.myballard.com/2009/03/29/seattle-pi-holds-good-bye-party-in-ballard/
Posted On: Tuesday, Mar. 31 2009 @ 7:45AM