My first assignment was to follow-up a story about a whore's union being founded in San Francisco. Then I wrote up a government press release about a study of the effect of dissolved gas on fish.
After I called the founder, and the Portland police, and some local prostitutes the story was killed, My first byline was on a story about three gas stations on one corner in SE Portland. It was a sidebar to a gas shortage story. Very few stories get bylines.
My worst byline appeared on a story headlined, "40% of Portland Police May Cheat On Wives."
Intended to refute the contention of a writer to Ann Lander's that 90% cheated, it came out looking like a positive article that 40% do. A semi-apology appeared soon thereafter, written by someone else.
The managing editor later admitted: "It was a mistake to assign it to a newcomer, it was a worse mistake to run it, it was a disaster to put that headline on it."
Anyway, there was something of a semi-apology in the paper a few days after the original article cited here (even though my name is spelled wrong, it is me they mean) appeared. This attack was reprinted in the weekly "shopper" newspaper, the Community Press, where it received much wider distribution. The Rap Sheet is a monthly publication of the Police Benevolent Association. The chaplain was trying to bailout. The original article is best left unduplicated. It would have been better never published. I did identify myself as a reporter. The reverend did suggest the figure.
The positive power of misspelling: to date two major errors on that front. The first came in a concert review. Kris Kristofferson introduced an unexpected guest from the stage, but failed to spell his name. No one had ever heard of him, and no one was allowed backstage, I guessed how his name was spelled, I was wrong, It was not Bobby North, it was Bobby Neuwrith.
The second misspelling, while worse, was not my fault. The medical Examiner (equivalent of a coroner) read me the name of a two-year-old drowning victim, and spelled it the same way twice: wrong. It appeared in 3 out of 4 editions that way, but fortunately a relative called before the largest edition, the home delivery (4 dot) was run. The error was corrected.
Another retraction, beyond my control, may have to be printed eventually because of a police report typographical error which reported two men in the same apartment, when actually one lived in 35 and the other in 36.
There is an Oregon law which requires retraction of defamatory material. Interesting point: it requires that the newspaper express regret over publication of the error.
The other paper in town [The Oregonian] beat us on the story of an old time postman (27 years on the same route) retiring. There was only one fresh piece of information in my story, the fact that he had delivered 6 million pieces of mail, a calculation based on his route statistics which the other reporter had not thought to make.While I was out following him on the route, for a story to be filed the next day, an ad came in which created an odd-shaped hole. When I returned, I was told I need a 20 inch story (five typewritten pages) in 20 minutes. It says a lot about a small-town newspaper that this piece of fluff was treated as urgent; it was that, or fill a local news page with wire copy, a sin considered worse than death. For the only time in my career, the city editor sat next to me, taking each page as it emerged from my typewriter and sending it to the press room. It is a miracle the story made any sense, and a shame I forgot to put my byline on it.
