We interrupt this newsletter

To visit with my Columbia J-School alums

In the middle of writing my last post came this amazing ZOOM invitation from Stewart Kampel, the now retired editor of the Long Island edition of The New York Times. He was organizing an on-line alumni meeting of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, class of 1960. This was an elite corps of 60 students enrolled in the nation’s most selective journalism program.

Stewart opined that there were about 30 members of the Octo Class still alive. At the age of 23 that September, mine was either the average or median age for the class. Many students had intervening jobs prior to grad school. But I came directly from Brooklyn College, along with my classmate Carole Kahn, now a retired producer from NBC-TV News, rumored to be living in upstate New York. In all there were about 10 participants in the ZOOM call.

It was a typical meet and greet. We all reintroduced ourselves and summarized our activities since being graduated. Unprepared (as usual), I barely touched a few elements of my life. Hence, this follow up and plans to do a narrative resume later as part of this legacy newsletter that I just started.

Considering the unrecognizable state of journalism today, I was wondering if there would be any heavy hearts. I know that I came out of J-School with a zeal to change the world. Joseph Pulitzer’s edict kept me centered and I put it on the first page of every journalism syllabus for my courses:

“Never tolerate injustice or corruption; always fight demagogues of all parties; never belong to any party; always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers; never lack sympathy with the poor; always remain devoted to the public welfare; never be satisfied with merely printing the news.”

This dovetailed neatly with the Jesuit philosophy at Loyola University (Md.) where I taught for 27 years. Also check out Proverbs 31: 8-9. A lot more of that Columbia spirit is evident on my web site (www.ieiMedia.com) in the “About” drop down.

Right after J-School I was close to joining my colleagues Stewart, Joe Lelyveld, and Sy Pearlman at The Times. At first I accepted a copy boy position in what they said was an average 7 year progress to becoming a full reporter. Later I called back to say “no” since they wouldn’t give me credit for 18 months in the editorial department of the New York Daily News. Of course Joe went on to become Moscow Bureau Chief and Executive Editor, Stew a Section Editor and Sy an editor on the Travel Desk. I regret that my arrogance and impatience cut me off from that opportunity.

Another major opportunity soon materialized when I was invited to interview for a job in the Sports Section at Time Magazine. I consulted with Prof. Penn Kimball who advised me that once a sports writer always a sports writer. I never liked limitations. So there was my second “No.” And a missed chance to be part of Time’s 1960 Olympic coverage team in Rome, Italy.

Looking for a smaller pond, I wound up with the lowest starting salary of any classmate, $125 a week as Managing Editor of a start-up weekly, Manhattan East..The owners were heavy into Republican politics and I was later offered the # 2 press position in John Lindsay’s campaign for mayor of NYC. Again, “No.”

There was only one time I should have said “yes,” and that was when Columbia offered me a Visiting Professorship to replace Mel Mencher who was going on leave. After authoring the tech report that switched the program from hot type to cold strike-on technology, I had two really successful adjunct years at Columbia, where I designed and taught the first magazine course and headed the weekly all-day newsroom. I was always proud that one of the pages we designed was tacked to a board of “bests” for many year after. My admin/teaching position at Brooklyn College paid me slightly more and in the middle of negotiations the full time post went to someone else.

As a commuter student I never developed close ties with many classmates and was constantly late for the early a.m. start of each daily session. Prof. Larry Pinkham was so fed up that he blurted out, “Just because you are the best writer in the class, it doesn’t excuse your never being on time.” I went from the second ranked student after the first semester to near the bottom in the second. No one knew that I was seriously distracted by my relationship with a Brooklyn College senior, Linda Spivak, whom I later married.

That’s the tip of the iceberg in my post Columbia career. In our small ZOOM group there were many brilliant careers - Mayor of San Antonio, leadership on major dailies, and many published books, including best sellers. The academic route proved to be the best fit for me. I am now locked down in Moscow, Russia waiting for SBA funding to revitalize my Florida company (ieiMedia) which provides media study abroad for US college students.

If I were writing an autobiography, probably my admission to Columbia would have been the starting point. The day I opened my acceptance letter was the only time in life I actually jumped for joy. It was the affirmation I needed emerging from a not too brilliant undergrad career at BC where my work on the college paper had given me BMOC status. My bookend in that regard was Al Dershowitz, President of the Student Council, who mid-campaign promised he would never use student control of the paper’s budget to pressure our coverage.

The month was May and I was hanging out in the den of my best friend, Phyllis Starker, bemoaning my lack of direction, having been rejected by NYU’s masters program in English. “Why don’t you try this,” said Phyllis as she reached to a book shelf and handed me an unused J-School application. “It’s too late,” I said, “You belong here,” she said, and under her firm direction started to type. I opened the personal essay with probably the most effective line I have ever written, and the rest is history:

I was born at two minutes after midnight on January 1, 1935 and I learned at an early age that it wasn’t for me whom the bells tolled.

THEN and NOW