The Minneapolis Tribune Is a Stone Wall DRAG

“Hey Molly, I hear you’re leaving the Trib.”
“You lucky stiff—got any other jobs open at that paper in Texas?”
“So they finally drove you out.”
“Heard you quit—congratulations.  Wish I could.”
“Premack get to you?”
“That makes 12 staffers leaving before September.  This paper is going to hell.”
“What do you mean, going? The paper is hell.”

I worked for the Minneapolis Tribune for three years.  No, the paper is not hell—just a stone wall drag.  They were good years—good learning, good laughs, and some good work.

But more and more, toward the end, came the frustration, the undermining, the conflicting directions, the pettiness, and the bitching.

I guess it all started with the bitching.  Newsmen are notorious bitchers; it is with some a passion, with others an art.  For many years, bitching headquarters for the Star and Trib staffers has been The Little Wagon, a watering spot beloved largely for its proximity to the papers and its martinis.  Sometime during 1969, without anyone much noticing at first, the bitching took on new dimensions.  It was less frequently spiked with laughter, less given to wry anecdote and increasingly bitter.

To have been with the Tribune for two years is to be a senior staffer.  The Trib’s turnover problems are a standing joke.  The office going-away ceremony, featuring coffee, cake, and gracious speeches from the managing editor (ME) was a mildly pleasant ritual, and we bulled about making our fortunes by capturing the coffee-and-cake concession.

But it got too serious to be funny.  Good reporters left with depressing regularity.  Six police reporters quit in one year.  They stopped having coffee-and-cake.  The Wagon regulars took to reciting the list of the dear departed like anti-war protesters at the White House throwing placards with names of the war dead on them into an open coffin.

Feldmeier, the prince of MEs; Baird, the last jolly city editor (imagine having a jolly city editor, whispered new reporters in awe); Kelly the Cool; Friendly, who went to the Times; and the list kept growing.

Mona, the merriest of good fellows; Vizenor, the poet who couldn’t be taught to write “newspaper style;” Anderson, who was seized by a fit of idealism and joined the Teacher Corps; Ryan, a copy editor even reporters liked; and the list kept growing.

Old Timers (staffers with more than three years tenure) held to the thesis that there had been Good Old Days.  Since most reporters affect cynicism along with trench coats, the thesis was much scoffed at but the OT’s maintained that once upon a time, there was a Golden Era at the Tribune.

“When we had guys like Rohmer on labor and Cohn on science and Kleeman cover education,” said the OT’s, “well those guys were so good that no editor ever messed with’em.  They made more money then MEs. They came in and told editors what was a big story for the day.  They were . . . well . . . respected.

And then gloom would fall on the crowd at the Wagon as we meditated on current evils and realized we were not  . . . well . . . respected.

The realization was especially debilitating since behind it was the self-destructive suspicion that we might not be that good . . . that it was our fault that suddenly reporters were being treated like morons.  Management’s attitude was little help.  Reporters, along with being chronic bitchers, are great prima donnas.  In fairness to editors, it should be noted that reporters are impossible.  They need a lot of encouragement; but all they were getting was a lot of shit.

Mona said it: “You know what? It’s no fun to work here anymore!”  Mona had worked his tail off covering the Twins for a season and had done a creditable job.  “Do you know that not once, never during the whole season, did I get one word of thanks from Them,” he said, gesturing toward the south end of the Trib’s city room.  (By that time reporters had come to think of the city room as an armed camped with Them at the one end and U’s at the other.)

“They never even thanked me for trying,” said Mona glumly, Mona who never quit trying, who never got depressed, never feel into self-pity.  He left.