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Breaking Journalism Rules An Age Old Problem for Ink Stained Wretches
Jousting With J.C., MSU Bureaucrats Gave Columnist His Start 50 Years Ago
April 04, 2008
By Dave Rogers
I just caught a little bit of the radio news broadcast last night.
"A British journalist has been jailed in Zimbabwe for breaking Journalism rules . . ."
My gosh, I wondered, what could those Journalism rules be? The cardinal rule of Journalism -- never assume -- is broken all the time.
How about the other rules of Journalism?
Print the news and raise hell!
Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable!
Trust, but verify.
All those rules are important to the trade but are unwritten and should be followed religiously but are not subject to civil penalties if broken.
I thought back to the beginning of my Journalism career 50 years ago and how I had apparently broken the "rules" by stating opinions and reporting the truth as I found it.
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Health center scandal came to a head at Michigan State University on May 29, 1958, in this editorial in The State News.
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Those days of yore came rushing back when I received my State News Alumni Newsletter, sent to all the S'News alums who had worked in the electic atmosphere of late nights at the Campus Press, with ink stained coffee cups and missed 8 a.m. classes because it took until 3:30 to read proof on the next morning's edition.
"Ninety-nine years, millions of memories," read the headline on the newsletter. It seems the State News, now an independent student-run publication of Michigan State University, is in its 100th year. I recalled my memories of working on the paper 50 years ago.
Ah yes, half a century ago, with one year of Miss Lizetta Harris's English 3-J (Journalism) at Bay City Central High, I began to work on newspapers, believing everything she said about truth and industry being the prime qualities for success.
The dean of Bay City Junior College, Dr. Eric Bradner, apparently hadn't taken Miss Harris's class so when myself and a girl from Saginaw named Ruth Allen started writing editorials in the college newspaper we were summarily fired.
What had we done? We soon found out that our opinion that students should be allowed to join fraternities and sororities was not what the dean had in mind. His idea of editorials were "Vote for the Apple Pie Boy and Girl" and "Attend the Sock Hop." So we were out.
That was my first lesson in the unwritten rules of Journalism. Don't rile up the administration even if you don't know what might rile them up.
After pre-emptorily transferring to Michigan State as a sophomore in the fall of 1957, I joined the staff of the State News, deciding to give Journalism another try.
At my first staff meeting, the staff of the State News was up in arms about the Olin student health service. It seems if you got sick after hours in those days you had to go to the police department, tell them what was wrong and trust to the cop to call a doctor -- if he thought it necessary.
"Somebody has to do something," they said in a staff meeting, noting that the Asian Flu epidemic was raging and the health director had failed to order the flu vaccine.
"Somebody" turned out to be me, who agreed to interview the old curmudgeon and find out about the vaccine and why a pregnant young woman had been turned away from the health center at night. She had a baby in a cab on the way to Sparrow Hospital in downtown Lansing.
The staff was cautious about the director, a boozy former industrial hospital veteran from the Upper Peninsula. So they got a tape recording device from a staff member's German boyfriend and rigged me up, just as a backup for verification. The microphone was a fake watch with a wire that ran up to the recorder in my inside pocket.
Sounded a little CIA-like, but I went along, coughed to cover the sound when I pushed the "on" button, held my arm with the watch on the director's desk and did the interview.
It was then I found out why no one else wanted to interview him. Such language! Such vituperation! Such intimidation! Who did I think I was asking him questions? And how the the student newspaper come off questioning the health policies of the Board of Agriculture, which then ran the college?
I treated the growling UP bear as fairly as I could but the facts were there. He hadn't ordered the flu vaccine. Forgot. Girls were being turned away from the health center, as well as boys, after hours. The birth of a child in the cab was not his concern.
After the toned-down story ran, I received a call from the office of the Dean of Students, the imposing Thomas King. "You lied in that story," he charged, "I heard from the health director that nothing was true."
The chickens, as it were -- 10,000 pound ones -- were coming down to roost on my head. Two weeks into my academic career at Michigan State, I was expelled. "Pick up your refund check at the cashier's office," barked Dean King.
"Sir, perhaps we should listen to this tape first," I suggested, pulling the German verification device out of my pocket. Wondering if it was entirely ethical, but glad I had it, I played the tape with health director's intemperate comments.
I was floored when Dean King said: "Young man, I am sorry. Please forget what I said. You are not expelled from Michigan State. In fact, you have done a very great service to this university." It seems the dean had promised in the State News that the flu vaccine would be available after faculty members and key football players, to say nothing of many students, were out of action because of the flu.
This was the same year, 1957, that Dean King raided the State News offices in the Student Services Building to confiscate photos of students "celebrating" after the basketball loss to South Carolina in triple overtime. He also suspended the sports editor in a show of administrative muscle, as then Editor Mel Reiter pointed out in a fall 2005 S'News newsletter.
So that was the start of my Journalism career, and the beginning of an exciting venture. So here I am half a century later, still writing, and stating opinions, never having learned my lesson.
Oh yes, the Board of Agriculture did nothing about the health director, Dr. Clifford Menzies, until the following year when a male student, Lloyd Weiler, died after being turned away at the campus police department after hours.
After the State News covered the story extensively, the newspaper called for an investigation into the death and questioned university health policies. Several students also wrote letters to the editor protesting the situation. As assistant editorial page editor, I wrote an editorial suggesting perhaps the director should go back to the classroom. Besides defending the policies that may have led to Mr. Weiler's death, that year Dr. Menzies had neglected to order the third vital series of polio vaccine. Students could take the final dose at home during the summer, he suggested.
The director finally was replaced by the Board of Agriculture in the summer of 1958 and a new director, the well-respected football team physician, Dr. James Feurig, was appointed.
I went on to work with another MSU student, Howard James, later a Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter with the Christian Science Monitor, covering the state capitol for radio and television stations. I also worked on the Saturday night desk of the Lansing State Journal. And, against all odds, I graduated from MSU in 1959.
Hard to believe, but the CIA came to campus and did offer me a job. But I stuck with Journalism figuring it would be more exciting and rewarding.
The Board of Agriculture finally changed its policy of police department triage, did away with the 25 cent fee to be seen at the health center and installed a fulltime staff to serve 18,000 students as had been advertised in the MSU catalogue.
Had I been in Zimbabwe I would probably have been in jail for these past 50 years.###
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