OPINION

MASTERSON ONLINE: Times at the Sun-Times

Arriving at the scrappy Chicago Sun-Times in 1980 as an investigative reporter for what was then the fifth-largest circulated paper in America was like walking into a bustling, 1950s-era newsroom with black-and-white checkered floors, a quarter coffee machine and dozens of gritty veteran reporters and editors who looked and acted the part.

Pulitzer Prize winner Art Petacque was the grizzled crime reporter who wasn't known for his writing prowess but knew every mobster in the city by their nickname. Celebrated film critic Roger Ebert and columnist Mike Royko, also Pulitzer winners, were regulars in the paper's recognized cast. All have long since departed this world.

There had been five Pulitzer Prizes awarded to Sun-Times staff members by the time I walked through the door. Three more would follow after I departed. In 1978, the paper had gained international fame for a 25-part series after purchasing and operating its own watering hole, aptly named the Mirage Tavern, where Chicago city inspectors and other officials were caught on camera accepting bribes for permit approvals.

I'd been hired when the leader of that effort, Pamela Zekman, departed for the allure of television reporting.

Then the paper had just courageously dethroned the corrupt and powerful Archbishop of Chicago Cardinal John Patrick Cody after a more than year-long investigation of fiscal impropriety and sexual scandal. The threats were such that reporters secretly kept pertinent records in the trunks of their cars for safekeeping.

Having spent time covering inland San Diego County for the sedate and snooty Los Angeles Times with its long and eloquently written stories, moving to this Windy City job represented a 180-degree turn on the reporting I had been doing.

Rather than introspective and cerebral pieces that rewarded an embroidered writing style above all, in this metropolis of 7.2 million, the journalism was taut, fast-moving and investigative. It had earned its reputation for hard-charging reporting and intense competition with the Chicago Tribune just a five-minute stroll over on State Street.

I knew from the first morning I shed the icy mukluks and shoved them into my assigned locker (along with the subzero parka) that this Ozarks boy was about to get an immersive baptism in the best public-service journalism classroom in America.

I also realized the many veterans who'd seen journalists pass through their sacred downtown newsroom for decades wouldn't be easily impressed, especially by some Arkie in his mid-30s just arrived from the land of fruits and nuts. Every ounce of respect had to be earned.

Yet I also knew there had to be logic behind the top editors' decision to bring me aboard with this experienced crew. Thankfully, realizing that was enough to provide at least an ounce of initial confidence.

The first day at my centrally located desk not far from the nerve center known as the city desk, which oversaw the publication of eight daily editions beginning with the first at 10 a.m., I was handed a sheet containing three incomplete tips compiled the night before by the City News Service. Then, like everyone else, I was told I had just over two hours to turn those limited paragraphs into full-fledged stories.

Every reporter, regardless of rank, reputation or specialty, joined in filling the first edition.

Shoving a quarter into the coffee machine, I watched a watery version fill my cup, then sat down, strapped on my headset and began making phone calls to track down enough information from those tips to fill a relatively small news space with solid information.

Where 50-inch articles had been the norm in California, a 10-inch story in this then commuter-driven paper was considered generous. That transition meant I had to learn to urgently pack many facts and details into limited words. No room or time to get cute or paint word pictures.

After the first week, I'd pretty much gotten the knack and some sense of timing down. And deadline invariably would arrive while I was hoping for and waiting out just one more returned call as I continually shaped my three stories until the last possible second.

After 40 years, I can still picture Alan Mutter, the abrupt, wild-eyed city editor, with a phone in each ear bellowing at reporters across the newsroom: "Get your stories in now, and I mean right now!"

After the initial edition hit the streets, we could feel the building shake as the presses quickly began to roll and things slowed down. We were free to pursue our own original stories as the "rewrite desk" assumed control of updating the initial stories and anything new coming in during the day.

Until then in my career, I'd never experienced a rewrite desk. So I was naturally intrigued and impressed by a row of six or so salty veterans who'd become masters at reworking stories or taking hurried information from a calling reporter and quickly shaping it into 10 or 12 inches of liquid prose.

Petacque, the crime reporter with a rumpled trench coat and extensive knowledge of crime bosses and their henchmen, was known for never actually writing a story. Instead he routinely phoned in the latest from Chicago's mob world to pour out a barrage of disconnected facts involving players with nicknames like "Big Nose" and "Jawbreaker." The very next edition, the story under his byline flowed like honey.

I'd introduced myself to Royko on my second or third day at the paper as we passed in the hallway. A talented yet distant "everyman" sort of blue-collar columnist who lived alone after his wife's passing, Royko was known as one who'd befriended only a small circle of younger adoring reporters.

He also spent considerable time two blocks away under the streets at the Billy Goat Tavern, a newspaper cafe and bar made famous in the Saturday Night Live "cheeseburger" sketch, where reporters from the Tribune and Sun-Times regularly gathered to chide each other over drinks. Yellowing copies of their previous blockbuster stories lined the walls. Royko even had his own chair at the bar.

I rose from my desk one morning and turned to see him standing at the coffee machine immediately behind me. He didn't bother replying to my "good morning." And that became the extent of my relationship with Mike Royko.

During 14 months at this populist Guild paper (before strong rumors of its selling to the sleaze-oriented news tycoon Rupert Murdoch and virtually every real reporter, including me, began bailing out), I'd actually fit into the cadence of covering the city.

Working on projects alongside Mike Lyons of the city's Better Government Association, I was able to root out stories on corruption in state government, the Chicago Police Department, the city medical examiner's office and nursing home owners who were mistreating and causing the deaths of developmentally disabled residents. Truth is, any topic I chose to examine after scratching the surface exposed corruption.

It was such that the stories of corruption that would have made banner front-page headlines in most papers were so frequent that they often were relegated to page 3 or 5. Chicagoans had become desensitized to such behavior by their officials.

By the time I was leaving to return to Arkansas and head investigations for publisher Walter Hussman at the Arkansas Democrat (and the state's WEHCO Media daily papers), most of the Sun-Times' stalwarts had stopped by to wish me well. I'd managed to earn their respect in this tough city, then rightly considered to be the nation's Mecca for hard-driving and fearless reporting.

It also was the same year comedian John Belushi of Saturday Night Live fame was featured as an investigative columnist for the Sun-Times in the film Continental Divide, filmed in paper's actual newsroom.

Today, sadly, the daily circulation of the once-honored and respected Sun-Times, formerly located along the Chicago River, sadly has dwindled to about 120,000. But the memories linger.

Now go out into the world and treat everyone you meet exactly how you want them to treat you.

Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist, was editor of three Arkansas dailies and headed the master's journalism program at Ohio State University. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.

Editorial on 04/04/2020

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