NORTH COAST TIMES E A G L E, WINTER 2000
PAGE 7
THE ANNOTATED EDITOR
BY BRUCE ANDERSON*
The following is from the Santa Rosa Press
Democrat (California) of Sunday, December 12, 1999
It is called 'Keeping News, Opinion Separate', and
was signed by Pete Golis, the Press Democrat's Chief
Editor
The plain type /s the work of Mr Golis. The
italicized comments, elucidations, deconstructions and
random bits of scholarly insight (in parenthesis) are mine.
I offer this guide to the thought processes of the editor of
the North Coast's dominant media as a public service
"When the year (1999) began, the writers who share
this Editorial Notebook decided we would devote an occasional
column to the workings of the editorial pages. Assistant Editorial
Director Marilyn Duck has written about how we choose local
and syndicated commentaries...
(She applies the [DavidJBroder Standard: the column
must be a statement of the obvious, blandly delivered and must
fall within the Democrat/Republican parameters of received
opinion.)
...Editorial Page Editor Paul Gullixson has described the
wonderful wDrtd of Letters to the Editor, and provided Gullixson's
Top-10 list of howto make sure your letter is published.
(200 words of corporo-prose. Any letter emitting signs of
life are culled. All letters are printed at least a week after the
opinion or news item that provoked them, if they aren't tossed on
the grounds of bad taste, assuring that most readers will have no
idea of what Letters to the Editors refer to.)
My job today is to explain the Editorial Board and its role
in maintaining a fire wall between News and Opinion.
(What's sad about this statement is Golis is obviously
stupid enough to believe it.)
The first thing to be said is that the reporters and editors
who work in the newsroom want you to know that they're not to
blame for what happens on the newspaper's opinion pages.
(But they don't dare make an issue of it or they're out the
door.)
That responsibility belongs to the people who write and
edit the daily editorial pages and the Sunday Forum section.
(And a sonrier crew of semi-illiterate, denatured hacks
ever dominated an American newspaper.)
\Ne are separate and independent by design...
(The design of the New York Times.)
...The New York Times Co., which owns the Press
Democrat, insists that its newspapers maintain stand-alone
departments for Opinion and News — each with its own budget
and each reporting directly to the publisher.
(The bottom line is, after all, the bottom line.)
The five people who produce the Opinion pages occupy
a humble warren of the third floor, while the 100 or so editors,
reporters, artists, photographers, researchers and editorial ass
istants who produce the daily news pages occupy quarters on
the second floor.
(Golly, they probably wouldn't recognize each other if
they met on the elevator. The whole show is headquartered in
a bunker-like building in the dying heart of Santa Rosa where
it's protected by an elevator pass system presided over by a
minimum wage lass sitting in a plexiglass pillbox in the lobby.)
Opinion whters do not see news stories before they
appear in the newspaper. News editors and reporters don’t see
opinion pieces, or even know the topics, before their publication.
(The bom slut doesn't need anatomy lessons.)
\Ne don't share press releases or phone calls or inter
views. We maintain separate schedules of meetings with candi
dates and newsmakers. When people come to the newspaper,
they meet with one department and then the other
(Which are interchangeably suburban, white, dull-
normal, anxious to remain employed, trained by the 'AP Style
Book'.)
To an outsider, this may sound like unnecessary effort,
but it's important to us.
(Frankly, Pete, no one gives a shit, and those who do
know it isn't true.)
As it does at every major newspaper, this fire wall
ensures that judgments about news remain independent of the
opinions of the newspaper's editorial board.
(Almost all your "news" is pulled from the wire services.
The Press Democrat, enormous staff notwithstanding, does very
little reporting and much of the reporting it does is inaccurate and
always edited to reflect the neo-fascist views of Santa Rosa's
dominant business interests.)
Newspaper people aren't under the illusion that this
separation will persuade every reader of the independence of
the two departments. Anytime people don't like something they
read, they will find an ulterior motive.
(Actually, most people aren't as stupid as you assume
they are. They understand that newspapers are businesses
dependent on advertising revenues. If the daily Press Democrat
production makes the businesses unhappy, the newspaper is out
of the free enterprise news game: hence the Press Democrat.)
But we will keep operating the same way because we
think this arrangement works and because newspaper people
have a certain old-fashioned sense of right and wrong.
(Please. You will keep operating as you are because
you send big annual profits back to the New York Times mother
ship. As for the morality of newspaper people, especially you
and the rest of the sad sacks holed up in the Mendecino Ave
bagnio, Bill Clinton looks like John of the Cross.)
\Ne also love opinions, and we think they deserve a
place in the newspaper.
(Excuse me. Pete, but have you been drinking?)
We get letters, for example. More than 5,000 Letters to
the Editor will cross our desks this year
(Fascinating stuff here, Pete, a regular joumalo-mother
lode of breakthrough info )
We receive hundreds of locally written commentaries,
published under the banner of 'Close to Home'. Consider the
issues ventilated here just in recent weeks — the high cost of
living for seniors, holiday customs, school shootings and the
over-worked family, press coverage of the World Trade Organi
zation, the need for help for Alzheimer's patients, the daycare
crisis. Thanksgiving in France, a pro and con on transportation
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MATTWUERKER
taxes, creating park for hikers, a pro and con plus other com
mentaries on vineyard expansion, a Veterans' Day appreciation,
the public library and Internet fillers And more.
(Did you say you ventilate over-shot French school
families on Alzheimer's Day?)
We publish the best syndicated columns and cartoons
we can find —the unabashed liberalism of Molly Ivins, Maureen
Dowd's wicked profiles, religious conservatism of Cal Thomas,
David Broder on national politics, Ellen Goodman and George
Will, Thomas Friedman and Trudy Rubin of foreign policy. Leon
ard Pitts on real people, Peter King on the real California, Dan
Walters on state politics.
(Wunnerful, wunnerful. Unabashed canned opinion from
far far away. Beats talking pavement, water and methyl bromide
The range of, opinion here is mainstream candyass lib to neo-
fascist. )
And we write editorials
(And I don't hesitate to tell you, Pete, that no newspaper
in America produces, day to day, a more fatuous, a dumber
collection of clunkers than you and your cretinous assistants.)
Don't tell anybody, but it's a really cool job.
(It's safe with me, guy.)
Every morning we sit around reading newspapers (Press
Democrat, S.F. Chronicle, N.Y. Times, L A Times, Wall Street
Journal, Sacramento Bee, San Jose Mercury-News). We comb
the wire, check CNN. surf the net.
(Gibberish in, gibberish out.)
The Editorial Board — the publisher, three editorial
writers and the section editor — convenes around 9:45 a m.
(And we're outta here by 10 am.)
We exchange ideas, and writers are assigned to
assimilate the Board's comments into the next day's editorials.
We debate the relative merits of the latest local and syndicated
commentaries; we decide if more space is needed for Letters
to the Editor; we review cartoons; and we talk about plans for
Sunday Forum.
And we get paid for this
(Yep, it's ridiculous, isn't it?)
What a scam.
(You said it, Pete, I didn't)
We do not escape criticism. Nor should we It’s part of
our job description to promote and publish letters and commen
taries with different points of view, especially opinion pieces that
UNIONTOWN
218 WEST MARINE DRIVE
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take exception to an editorial. Because we are crazy newspaper
people, we like doing this.
(O you're a wild and crazy bunch down there in the
Mendo Ave. bunker! Does Gaye do the can-can at your alcohol-
free Christmas Party?)
By popular acclaim, our editorials are (a) too liberal, and
(b) too conservative
And the fellow who says we are too liberal could never
imagine anyone thinking we're too conservative
(Hate to break it to you, Mr. Golis, but the five people
who read your editorials simply think you're a moron, and each
time you sit down at your word processor you confirm our
opinion.)
And vice-versa.
(You really shouldn't write when you're loaded. This is
painful, Pete.)
When readers don't like something we do, where do
they most often place the blame?
(On the madam, not you girls in the $5 cribs )
That's easy. It's the interlopers from the mothership in
New York who order us to be too conservative, too liberal and
too whatever
(So long as you make your annual quotas, Mother Big
Apple could care less what its outback papers do )
When this comes up, I try to explain that we screw up all
by ourselves.
(No! Not you. Pete!)
I've never discussed editorials with anyone from New
York, I say, and since I first arrived in Sonoma County in 1947,
I probably don't qualify as a carpetbagger.
(You'll do as a carpet though. Besides which, why would
anybody in New York want to talk to you?)
This seems to placate people until the next time those
bad people from New York order us to commit some horrible
offense
(O Pete, your irony is just too, too rich.)
As the person with the final responsibility for what
appears on the editorial pages, I think it's fair to say this is
a newspaper with a moderate to liberal editorial policy. We
support more spending for schools, parks, affordable housing
and social programs. We tend to recommend Democratic
candidates (in part because Republicans have a hard time
fielding qualified candidates in an area with large Democratic
majorities). We support urban growth boundaries, the open
space tax and transit — which impresses environmentalists
We favor freeway widening — \Miich does not
(Bold stands, every one of them! I want you to know that
I am standing at attention in my kitchen in silent tribute to the
lion-like stance you've taken here.)
So it goes
(Nobody ever said being chickenshit was a walk in the
park.)
Most of all. we want our pages to be fresh, provocative,
informative and full of diverse opinions And on the days in which
we fall, we want to keep on trying
(Well, by my reckoning, you've failed for 5,678 consec
utive days, but I admire your persistence )
I'm proud of the people who York on these pages, in
part because they do so much with fewer people and fewer
resources than you find at larger newspapers
(This is all very, very sad. Pete I think you should have
kept it to yourself rather than reveal the depths of your depravity
like this The great newspapers are long gone, as are the great
journalists It's sad that the great legacy of a free press for a free
people is now in your hands May you spend eternity locked in a
small room with nothing to read but the Press Democrat)
Let me know what you think My direct line is 526-8651
Email pgolis@pressdemocrat com Fax 521-5305
(/ think you're a very limited person. Pete, but just right
for your job )
I promise to report back what I learn, even if you blame
those terrible people from New York **
"Bruce Anderson is the editor and publisher of the
famous 'Anderson Valley Advertiser' published in Boonville,
California, from which this article is reprinted
""Among those terrible persons from New York is former
Oregonian reporter Bill Keller, now managing editor of the N. Y
Times