A Word on Words; 0867; Ronald Cohen

delving into the world of books and their authors tonight ronald e colin talks about down to the wire your host for a word and words mr jon seaton owner publisher of the tennessean and editorial director of usa today once again welcome toward own words singing and our guest is a friend he is a fellow journalist he is so a best editors in this country or he has been so clear by magazines and critics as well as money he is also the author of the new book welcome ron cohen editor ron cowen not is the co author with the with greg gordon gregory gordon of down to the wire this is a story of that has been not described by oscar off as an exciting tale of bravery in the trial and says as suspenseful as fiction and he says he wishes it were fiction

not the fact because it chronicles follow a great trees of journalism in the hague in the atf arson that ubs united press international united press international one of the two great american based wire services and then there was one in the associated press this is a story of how beauty eye the news agency that davis first walter cronkite before television adam davis so marilyn smith the great white house again the press corps helen thomas who remains their remains with u p i even as the tet titanic sank of and i pray that i pray that the that the leaks stopped what i'm fearful great actors like roger to terry and the great executives like memes thompson you and greg oden will part of it

now that the glory days are over and he began bad talkin about an event in which an executive lewis new balance got word that you just been far and everybody thought it was so what we had there that day when mandela's got that word i was not very happy it was and it was i was back in washington but it was quite astonishing because what the nogales had been trying to do with the time john was forced out the ownership of upi the band wood fired him don't ruin the guys for one of the men were hired and several months before tried turned upi around he became disenchanted with the way they were running things and so he felt that the only way to save this great news organization was to get rid of the owners which is kind of an interesting idea in business ah that a president should fire the orders and it had to do so but they are still march on them and the fourth

he could fire them they fired him and that's where the book starts in and down the wire that chronicles the precipitous downfall of flow of an organization i worked for for twenty five years and then it and then it that ends up on uniquely with an account of why lorio dedicated journalists have remained there without those and then arresting so the way out but you also tell us after that is so close group where some of the players are now that they're out of the piano but i must go back to the beginning not the beginning of your book but something closer to the beginning of a story and then you'd be i came to glory as a result of the commitment scripps howard news on set correct it in nineteen oh seven the deadliest grips with publisher owner of several midwestern newspapers an

idea a very colorful individual who was given the wind woman song an occasional poker games aren't found that he could not because of the restrictive clauses in the eighties charter setup purchase a war on the ap wire service for his newspapers and and the real curmudgeon he said well i'll fix these guys all start my own a nineteen oh seven he did he started the united press and off for many many years as it grew into prominence and became a competitive force with the ap's it labored under great difficulties not very much money equipment that was antiquated best none of the parts that you know about intimate in a modern newsroom and what happened was the commitment of of the oppressors as you get people like to call themselves odd basically from that first day making a seven and going through to today is what has kept this company alive for a leash years and it's this a

book without a lot of the loans but there is no question about the heroes are the heroes of the workers of upi the reason our at the end of the book that guy hatched the idea to go back and talk to ask eight or nine in a prestigious to work there why they stood through all of the aggravation and travail and turmoil of the year isn't in and hung in there are because even after greg and i had written four hundred and twenty pages we we wondered whether that commitment these professionals really shown through was as much as we we wanted and so we decided well let's tell let's let them tell in her own words and got eight or nine in there and odd they'll say it differently male say but basically what it was was it was fun and even people of left the united press after years of service they all when i get together at a bar having dragons and and and sling some ball about the old times

some license and trees some half truths they all say even though we're better off than we ever were were were richer our jobs are more secure to a person they say will never had more fun than we did there and we never will again this is the most fun we ever had on the job and and that's really the reason that i thought this book needed to be right well i think people who are interested in journalism were interested in the news media people who were wonder about what makes reporters and editors people like you may take people who wonders about the dynamics behind is making will find out who aren't a fascinating account they also find their of the tragic accounts cause what happened to be i really didn't have to happen a series of events beginning with scripps howard says surgeon to a low

that the property really brought us to the point which is i have read you and ray conclude is the is all downhill slide a question their eighties and upi perhaps belatedly is trying to find other niches in the er in the information industry outside the normal traditional sources of revenue like newspapers and and broadcast clients and perhaps if they had done this twenty years ago instead of now they might have a better chance it says but my feeling is that even if you get survives and i think it might survive in some form another because the initials ep i are certainly a marketable commodity my contention is in this book is that it's never gonna really regained the glory days of the walter cronkite sin and the arcs of rights and david brinkley the great samba greats got their start but there it sits

in their duty and went on to fame and fortune in another run another media arm i don't think it's ever going to get back to that point where it is a serious full time competitor with the associated press which is kind of ironic because if either of these scripts started the united press so that the ap would not be a monopoly and the way you guys is going now are assiduously downhill arm these at the ap for all intensive purposes of regained its monopoly standing you know of a grizzly that's all about the audience many little insight to a wire services mean they might not realize that the vast majority of movies that comes from out of state and sometimes out of citi either the pages of a newspaper or on television newscast already an intense that news

is initiated by ap the associated press for its competitor united press international and most of the news my four years in journalism so called wine is news from afar has come to our readers sent to viewers and communities all across this country and watch television and those mysterious most that news has come from those two sources allison supplemental wire services provided by various news organizations what you're now saying is that this decline continues rebecca monopoly won international wire service based in this country maybe the associated press or an oil united press international might survive it won't survive as a viable competitor to me that if we go beyond that i mentioned helen thomas selling many people watched the night at a white house press conference and they see this lady in the red dress get up and they listen to those insightful tough question democrat or republican helen thomas has

no peer and putting a tough question people admire that you remember that she really represents hundreds of talented professionals who have hung on and they were left who wish they'd been able to hang on but financial reasons didn't well illegal why did switch out what is low so well for some number of reasons won one primary one was that the breakdown for the actual newspaper in this country at one time have been peppered with a dominant papers in morning papers with a smaller thinner ones odd now the situation been reversed entirely the morning papers are the big ones the afternoon once a struggling to stay alive art and the upi always serve the afternoon papers very well because they were quickly are they were able to get a lot of information on the wire fast aren't there were there was competition in new york there were there were four five different papers even in the young nineteen sixties that that competed for afternoon our commuter

sales and who would put would replay to put new additions on the pitch on the streets with the latest headlines are television came in and made that basically unnecessary television and radio get news to people faster the newspaper scandals in newspapers lost that competitive edge as far as street sales were concerned n n u p i went on felt that very strongly because uv i was always a separate wire service newspapers had u p i to help keep the a pianist but if they had they if they only had one in many cases it would be a pay and starting in nineteen sixty one ep i began to lose some money the losses were small at first in the make crew and they do more and they grew more and by the middle nineteen seventies the losses were in the millions and the nike ad which is the year which we call a quadrennial which is the year that their presidential primaries a political conventions and national

elections olympics summer and winter huge strains on the cash reserves of even even wealthy companies you tell us the million dollars a month and they either the scripps company which had been the benefactor and founder of upi for raul seventy eight years suddenly started saying to themselves it's we've lost a lot of money and week we guess that diamond in that since nineteen sixty one when the losses started that upi has lost conservatively a hundred thirty five and probably considerably more million dollars and that's a big big chunk of money for anybody and then the scripps company decided that they'll try to get rid of it because this was a burden that they had children alone for many years and it was now time to ditch all the w's legacy and i the interesting thing is how they went about it they had some potential bidders who look like it's a money and some interest of peter ueberroth was there for a while and and the reuters news agency and the british competitor was there for a while and even at one point

they ask of slow hundred giving it away for tax breaks to national public radio which was at that point was not much better financial shape than u p i r n as it turned out the inner in june it to they turned p i over the two businessmen from nashville on the group of chrysler are neither of war of whom had done any real experience and his medium are certainly no experience in a company as large and pervasive is as upi and never had on the face the kind of promise that they will go in the business world they're going to have to face with this with this giant company and dime not only did mr or mrs rowan vassar to put a betting money but scripps howard gave him five million dollars to take upi off their hands and then subsequently sweetener they e and i added a little bit more of that four pension benefits things like that the money interests at this point the human to nashville mile hometown and i think as an

appropriate for me to fall song this flammable goes old john singleton it inevitably creeps in that book in a number of different places all of the book very can to tear over in st paul less planned to sell my friends but it was inevitable i guess that sell my friends turned up so my point is churned up the group build ice are people i know i've had many friendly hours will amaze you recount one time they'll find it called my inbox don't work you beyond that was eight years ago and i'm glad i didn't go well i'm glad you chronicled it because you made me a more infamous than isle of an art it was gone but from growing about the ruined i say as you say you were totally unprepared for four o's possibility of taking this or why

would it not have been in scripps howard zinn trips to give it to people with background and made it he would get the one thing that the five years of investigation has never really one cover to our satisfaction is why and why he's even the scripps company which is a huge and his organization did not do the kind of due diligence and not do the kind of investigation of these two men's backgrounds that you would think a uk company would do especially if they're going to give away their their baby basically they're orphan child thing that they had nurtured for so many years audie and the only thing like no reason i'm opposite they panicked they just were so anxious to tell us that our panic they just needed to go get it off their hands and distance themselves from this thing which was threatening they have the trust that the eve of his trip to

it's about before his death is fair to say that there was not much success and a room guys were from the outset there were turbulence massive problems they couldn't successfully do with money and absence of money was a big part you might give only agency in given five million bucks when you're also given one that's running a million dollars a month i mean that i was seven million dollar deficit the and the first year we get in i hit the ground running and he has it and i didn't ask both clinton and for a lot of different reasons they couldn't i know i could have done and didn't fry they ran across mile friend john joker look or not to renew your eyes oh they thought he might to be able to raise some mindful and i think that's what they did in that are that the yeah the link between wuhan veteran and judge a worker did not last for long

a couple months in a nineteen eighty three when it three and he was gone they made in his chair and their chairman and they hope that he would be able go out with his connections with his connection to outline some money out of their problem was that they never wanted to relinquish any control of this company they wanted an angel fly out into the out into the room and say or i will turn ten million dollars over you and let you run the company and a good hard business people are not going to do that there if they're gonna put a bunch of their own money into that and will venture they're gonna want some control over how it's spent and diamond guys who were the kind of people who want to give up any control plus they were not the kind of pre possessing individuals that the audit would give heart to an investor and that his or her money would be well protected and has it turnout the money was not protected all the girl and the guys are never put a nickel on their own money and the upi and yet in less than three years they not only had run through the original five million dollars budget on

upi thirty million dollars into that website difficult proposition yes and in the process some solo distinguished names in journalism and robbie doesn't rob small but i was a news executive from illinois who brought initially some respectability he couldn't damage straight in a controlled know it still small and related to one of the best known names in and television is tough tenacious hard nosed same would say he was fired after a period and m dollars six brian in his way stability and there is another revolution there look who's an accountant finally a and we're short circuit in store in the interest of time dollars is out windows into and dice are up then we go abroad for now i mean

bankruptcy at that point the reorganization of the bankruptcy laws is inevitable and they go to mexico to find some of the bailout bankruptcy a hand here they get some live from a different press culture but meyer alaska's runyon came and i suppose what is my worth mouth was at least we remember that the fed in nineteen eighty two upi we are was given away with five million dollars to regard for yet at the end a bankruptcy in a night in june of nineteen eighty six which is just exactly four years later my advice giver of bp i was such is still such a good commodity in and his lies that he put up forty million dollars to buy the company at a backwards and in the space of a love a year and a half last thirty million dollars more so his investment the loss of his treasure trove total seventy million dollars in eighteen months are and he quickly lost party also came in with lots of strikes against me had he had no command of the english language

you could not read an american newspaper he was not used to doing business and in the united states so he did not know the nuances audie mexico city they do visit a different way and it does it at his way didn't work in the united states and dime yeah his is when he first came in is the first thing that he did was to fire lewis no doubt and somehow it had done rest of the company from advice to guided through re our bankruptcy reorganization and found somebody willing to spend forty million dollars are going to buy out of bankruptcy and their egos clashed with two man of logic's traction with enormous he goes on are alaskans ronnie was not a stanford was no doubt hang around so the first very first thing that he did was to fire nogales and that was to enormous credibility among the american press because those people have come to you to respect your balance is a man who was business and was honest and pass along the way it seemed to a

head they began to lose all the distinguished journalist ron cohen among them who simply sought an end in sight i'm sure that you know you some ways happy egg in a new service is not a must be a sense of nostalgia when you see a upi logo on think about the good ole so well it was so i was denied that had enormous fun there the reason i stayed for twenty five years of because was great fun every day you came in something new was going it used to be a problem an might be survivable of like the instrumental but you knew that you were coming into the exact same thing he did yesterday knew that tomorrow you'd come men entered a whole new senate of of problems and you never knew when a challenger was going to blow up in europe has been eight straight days in office you never knew when when a man was going away take a shot at that president reagan and wounded men and that you're going to have to make a decision

whether to go with everyone all the other media say that james brady the presidential press secretary of kilometers in the assassination attempt are whether you're gonna hold off on the face of tremendous pressure until you could pass buy yourself a confirmed that this was true and that was my decision and i hung off of invasive they'd be enormous pressure from our clients for you get from our story that matched the ap and the networks and as it turned out my decision not to go out with that story proved repression you brady had not been killed in u p i was the only news organization that can get caught in that trap and now i'm on that night i felt terrific about i've done something i thought that that was very beneficial to mankind and certainly too jim brady who indeed were still alive and has made a miraculous recovery are those kinds of things were with were things that managing editor faced every day

at an organization where you were always on the brink of something really talk at the year at the end of it about those those vignettes from eighty nine you the eye veterans who stayed on in there and she could swallow says why do you know we did it because with most of us and being the ap use the most fun you know the standing up and any added that with this great line he said one minute you were punching the hot markets and the next minute you're telling the world on this list and that's what u p i was an athlete so so you can just page after page book is chock full anecdotal material and you've told it really in dramatic form it is needed but it is not surprising to me that the review that the reviews have been for now on must be surprised to degrade the outset you know

having read the book and reading love the account that i like i'm not surprised that the reviews of the night go back and i keep looking for on the bestseller list but there is that well written and that gets that though the reviews of that so it's actually promoted inevitably is that attracts all reach it makes people love story brought up right there as a matter fact i have been very pleasantly surprised by the response both the the people who have who have written about it quickly as and book reviews or news stories also my old colleagues upi president passed to have the right call every day telling me basically thank you thank you for doing this is needed to be done in and you can't buy that kind of their satisfaction in that and i hope the book sells well but even if it does i feel we've accomplished or one of the dozen we've accomplished are our goal and that is to bring an important story bill's not about journalism only but about business because it says it even more than girls but with a business book this is how not to do something are there

was there were more are there was more often boxing up a great organization are then they're deserve to be there was wondering i'm wondering beyond recognition and you just you know people need to know about this the new york daily news wrote something interesting in their review they said uh this is a book for everybody who ever looked at his boss and said he must know what he's jury wouldn't be in charge and that's exactly how i feel when i'm the the fact that this week magazine was good enough to open the top of his list of the ten best business of the year indicates i think that there's an audience beyond just the journals of buffalo i think without any doubt there there's a big business audience out there but i think that there's a popular audience do you know lynn knew that a great tragedy this is a story in what in many ways it's a tragedy one of the tragedies is not told us what happened to your colleague greg gordon me after hanging on to the very end after collaborating with you on this book he refuses to you the manuscript a new management upi and they find in that story is not to be in the book

say well it's it's not in the book but it's in the notes at the end it said it we tried it were i have to tell you that were and were as well as being observers auden actually were protests benson and the upi story and we tried to because the train journalists stay out of it as much as we possibly could so greg story was not in america but it's in another nods at the end and basically says islanders the first amendment company that they're denied one of its employees his first amendment rights they demanded to see an unfinished manuscript are due to basically the sensor to find out whether there's anything bad about upi and when he rightly refused to do so are they fired him and job and i'm glad to say that that was the story was picked up by major newspapers who also wondered how for cinema company can get away with something like this

author of down to the wire as ben our guest ana were downward featuring jon seaton this program was produced in studios of the bbc in television till tennessee