This Week: P-T, P-T and more P-T

Marvelous story, Dave [Dave Wielenga’s “‘Dad Roasts Devil Tot’: Remembering When the Press-Telegram Was the Most Important Paper in Town,” April 2]. I enjoyed it as much for the writing as I did the content. Your insight, your thoughts on the industry—couldn’t agree with them more. The P-T could be the poster child for the ailing industry. Unfortunately, it’s too late for most papers, but at least some of them put up a much better fight. I’m envious that you wrote it and not me, ’cause I know it had to be cathartic, and I could use something to temper my own anger and grief.
CHRIS CHRISTENSEN
Former Press-Telegram columnist
Via thedistrictweekly.com

I’ve been enjoying your dissections of the Press-Telegram. Quite sad about what has
happened there. Anyway, just for the record, the “Father Roasts Devil Tot” headline wasn’t written by Andy Stephenson. A fellow named Keith Reekie came up with that classic.
TIM NEAGLE
Former Press-Telegram News Editor
San Francisco

I worked as a general assignment reporter at the P-T from 1997 to 2000, before deciding that newspapering was dying a horrible death and moving on to finish a bachelor’s degree. I don’t usually get choked up reading a news story, but what can I say, you got me—it didn’t read so much like a business obit, but a goodbye letter. The few years I spent at the P-T were very important to me, and I am extremely proud of the work I did there and of the people I worked with. They were, and in my mind still are, what everyday news reporting is made of. So the long, slow descent into mediocrity and irrelevance has been a sad experience. There is no workplace in America like a big-city newsroom; the frenetic energy, perpetual motion, the background crackle of police scanners and television news, and hundred years of history tacked, taped, waxed, gum-sticked to every available square-inch of wall space. That half-bright Charles Foster Kane wannabe Dean Singleton took it from me. From us.
JOSHUA LOWE
Former Press-Telegram reporter
Via thedistrictweekly.com

Dave: A nice recap of P-T history. I grew up in Long Beach, my family never left and now I’m back after 31 years in the Inland Empire. Weird, how it all came full circle. When I was at Long Beach State, I aspired to work for the P-T. But I had to go out of town first before such a high ambition could be realistic, back when the P-T practically required serious experience before it would talk to you, when the sports department was loaded with stalwarts such as Loel Schrader, Ross Newhan, Don Merry, Gordon Verrell. Now the P-T is reduced to hiring children—when it hires at all. I went to the San Bernardino Sun to get a job, and that ended up working out just fine. I had a great time—almost to the minute that Singleton fired me, after 31 years-plus as sports columnist and editor. I’ve checked in on the P-T regularly, because of my family ties, and it’s been sad to watch it dissolve into the same nothingness that has crushed The Sun in San Bernardino, as well as the LA Daily News, the San Gabriel Tribune, the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, ad nauseam. I’m glad you’re on record with some history of the P-T, because memories of these newspapers is all that we—and their now-underserved communities—have left.
PAUL OBERJUERGE
Former Sports Editor/Columnist
San Bernardino Sun

Ron Kaye, the hard-hitting, pugnacious editor of MediaNews Group’s LA Daily News, is being forced out. His sin: digging up and cutting through the crap for the readers and expressing his concerns over downsizing. Kaye leaves. Rich Archbold, who has spent his career showering the powers-that-be with Valentines, stays. A fitting addendum to your excellent piece on the P-T’s self-inflicted implosion.
BEACHCOMBOVER
Via thedistrictweekly.com