Chapter 25 - "J.F." Takes Over

"J.F." Takes Over

WHEN JOHN F. Fitzpatrick became publisher of The Salt Lake Tribune upon the death of A. N. McKay in 1924 he was ready to assume the responsibilities attached to that position. He had been observing and studying the newspaper operation for almost twelve years, and, beginning in 1918 when Thomas Kearns died, he had for all practical purposes, been functioning as the newspaper's owner. Had he been a man of ordinary ambition and dedication he could have continued in that role, delegating the job of editing, publishing and distributing the newspaper to subordinates who had been brought up in the business and who in varying degrees were knowledgeable in the details of the operation. Being a man of extraordinary ambition and dedication, he could be nothing less than a publisher in fact as well as in title. It is doubtful that any man ever applied himself more diligently or learned more about newspaper operation in a dozen years than Fitzpatrick did between the time he became Kearns' secretary and publisher of The Tribune. The Tribune organization was quickly made aware of the fact that the top man across the street knew what he wanted and was determined to get it. (Fitzpatrick's office was always in the Kearns Building across the street from the Tribune Building.)

The rather relaxed attitude which had developed in all departments of the newspaper as circulation, advertising and profitability had grown under the McKay regime, began evaporating and tensions started building up. In the news-editorial department, for example, an embarrassing error was no longer an occasion for a chuckle and a routine warning not to let it happen again but a painful crisis. Fitzpatrick, of course, did not expect to eliminate errors from The Tribune, but he was determined that those responsible were not going to be complacent about them.

Those left in day-to-day charge of the newspaper operation by McKay's death were experienced and competent newspapermen, as they had demonstrated. But they were not businessmen. Wasteful, hit-and-miss practices had been permitted to creep into the operation. To cite an example, editors did not dummy (lay out) inside pages and type was set without regard to the space which was going to be available when the issue was made up. Much of the editing was done after the stories had been set in type and galleys of overset (excess type) littered the composing room after each edition went to press. Fitzpatrick, who always retained an emotional fondness for railroading and its vocabulary, concluded that this was "a hell of a way to run a railroad," and, in 1927, he hired two members of the Telegram's staff to reorganize internal operations of The Tribune.

For superintendent of the backshop he selected H. Eugene (Mike) Glenn, who had been performing that same function for the Telegram on a lean budget and whose newspaper experience dated back to 1908 when he started work as a $3 per week apprentice in The Tribune's backshop. Glenn was given centralized control of the mechanical operation and, under Fitzpatrick's guidance, instituted reforms to reduce waste, improve the typographical appearance of the newspaper and, in general, to replace chaos with order.

To fill the void left by McKay's death, the new publisher chose G. B. (Bert) Heal to direct the news and editorial departments with the title of editor. He continued in this position until 1950 when he relinquished newsroom responsibilities and served as editor of The Tribune until his death in 1951. Heal was a kind-hearted, self-effacing individual who bore no resemblance to the fictionalized image of the hard-driving managing editor brought in to revolutionize a lackadaisical news department. With the backing and the prodding of Fitzpatrick he proceeded to do the job assigned to him in his own way. Except for an aversion to personal publicity or public attention, he was strikingly unlike Fitzpatrick. In a way they complemented each other. Because of his innate kindness, Heal might have become overly tolerant of shortcomings without some pressure from the publisher. On the other hand, without the insulation he provided between publisher and newsroom, tensions might have reached levels unconducive to efficiency. In any event, the combination did markedly improve the newsroom operation and the quality of the newspaper.

If there was one professional quality which Heal emphasized above all others, it was objectivity and fairness in news coverage. He had a passion for getting both sides of a controversy before airing it in The Tribune. To publish a news story which might be injurious to an individual or a group and then give the individual or group the opportunity for rebuttal the following day was not good enough for Heal. He insisted upon giving the party who might be injured an opportunity for rebuttal or explanation in the original story. If, for some reason, this was impossible before an approaching deadline, he preferred to get "scooped" on the story and publish it the following day. If The Tribune started covering a trial or adversary hearing, Heal insisted that the job be finished with comparable display. A misjudgment of reader interest in such a news event did not justify, in Heal's journalistic code, abandonment of the story after one side of the case had been publicized. The other side was entitled to "its day in The Tribune" as a matter of fairness, even if it was apparent that readers had lost interest in the affair.

Throughout his forty years in the newspaper business, as reporter for the Ogden Standard-Examiner, editor of the Herald- Republican, editor of the Telegram and editor of The Tribune, Heal immersed himself almost totally in his work. He was in his office at The Tribune during most of the twenty-four hours of each day; was frequently there on Sunday and took vacations only when Fitzpatrick insisted that he get away for a week or two. He had one consuming interest aside from work — children, everybody's children, not just his own. He was never without a stock of candy and gum in his pockets and desk to pass out to children he met on the street or who came to his office. It can be confidently asserted that the story which gave him the greatest inward satisfaction of his entire newspaper career involved children.

Shortly before school closed in the spring of 1948 he received a letter from Miss Elayne Christensen, a teacher in Antimony, Garfield County. Antimony is an isolated, rural Mormon community of about 250 population 220 miles south of Salt Lake City. The teacher explained that many of her students had never been in a city and that she was undertaking a project to somehow get them to Salt Lake City for a sightseeing trip when school closed. Could The Tribune, she asked, suggest places of special interest they could visit and assist in making arrangements? This was something that could really excite the unexcitable Heal. He immediately sent a reporter to Antimony to inform the teacher that The Tribune could do more than assist her in the project; it would be happy to make all the arrangements and pay all the expenses of the trip she was planning. As soon as The Tribune published a feature story about the projected trip, along with pictures of the children and interviews with them about what they had never seen and what they wanted to see, the proffers of assistance started pouring into Heal's office. Hotels, restaurants, theaters, amusement parks and industrial plants by the dozens wanted to serve as hosts for a day or a few hours. The job of selecting those to be favored became somewhat of a problem.

A large bus was dispatched to Antimony on the appointed day and fifty children, along with several parents as chaperones, were ready and waiting for the adventure. Much to the surprise of the reporter assigned to the story, the public reacted as Heal did. Newspaper readers were in a mood for something like this to provide relief from the heavy newspaper diet of postwar problems. Press services carried detailed accounts of the trip. Magazines sent reporters and photographers to participate in the coverage. The New York News, largest circulation newspaper in the United States, devoted the entire front page of one edition to a picture of the Antimony children disembarking from the bus and gazing at the top of the ten-story Hotel Utah which, to them, was a real skyscraper.

It is doubtful that The Tribune ever published a news or feature story which generated more letters of appreciation and requests for more of this kind of news than this one. It turned out to be more than a human interest feature story. The articles about the children and their school had described in a rather vivid way the dilapidated condition of the school building and physical facilities. The effect, which was neither anticipated nor intended at the time, was to focus public attention on the need for state aid to upgrade some of the state's rural schools. So the human interest story about children did more to bring about replacement of primitive school houses in rural areas of the state than pages of editorial argument and pleading could have done. Thus, Heal's heartwarming human interest story can be credited with much more than an exciting week for fifty Antimony children.

The assumption by Fitzpatrick of responsibility for the entire Tribune produced no startling changes in the general editorial policy of the newspapers, as some ownership or editorship changes in the past had done. The broad guidelines agreed upon by Kearns and McKay some thirteen years earlier were in accord with the ideas of Fitzpatrick, and so there was no occasion for basic policy changes. The new publisher and the executives he brought into the organization concentrated on the achievement of objectives already set but not always effectively pursued.

Viewed superficially, The Tribune published under the guidance of McKay and Fitzpatrick might have seemed to some of its readers a repudiation of The Tribune of the eighteen hundreds and the early nineteen hundreds. Certainly its journalistic style had changed dramatically. It was no longer the slashing crusader against policies of the majority ecclesiastical group within its circulation area. It was no longer the mouthpiece of a political party or faction of a party, although it asserted political preferences when the publisher felt it had a public responsibility to do so. It shunned assaults on personalities such as it had once reveled in. It deliberately sought to make itself essential as a source of information to the entire public rather than the zealous champion of a segment of that public.

The seeming break with the past, however, was more a matter of tone than of basic substance. From the time it was founded the publishers and editors of The Tribune had asserted and reasserted with almost monotonous frequency that their purpose was not to destroy an ecclesiastical persuasion; that if certain policies which they deemed inimical to the community and its future were abandoned the "irrepressible conflict" would disappear. Specifically, the newspaper declared that if attempts to establish a closed economic system, a dominant ecclesiastical political party and a religiously segregated society were stopped there would be no reason for the conflict; that if a genuine effort to suppress the practice of polygamy in violation of law were made The Tribune and those for whom it spoke would have no legitimate complaint on that issue; that a belief in plural marriage as an ecclesiastical conviction without practice in violation of law was no concern of those who believed otherwise.

In the light of changes which had taken place when McKay became general manager, and the further changes which had taken place when Fitzpatrick assumed the title and functions of publisher, it would have been repudiation of The Tribune's own commitments not to have changed the newspaper's policies. To have continued the old conflict after its causes had disappeared would have been to consign The Tribune to the Salt Lake newspaper cemetery which had claimed so many of its predecessors and contemporaries.

Fitzpatrick no doubt made his fair share of mistakes during the early years of his regime as publisher. Experienced staff members sometimes felt he relied too much on the opinions of friends outside the business and too little on in house advice. After all, his own experience was restricted in time and scope and he would have had to possess both genius and luck not to have made some blunders. However, he learned with incredible speed and thoroughness, and before many years passed associates accepted his judgments as well as his directives without question. The attitude of staff members who dealt directly with him is exemplified by one editorial writer who, after lamenting what he believed to be a wrong decision, shrugged his shoulders and began carrying out his assignment with the remark: "He can see around corners and I can't, so maybe it isn't a mistake."

Staff members who communicated directly with him only occasionally, or who never asserted a conflicting opinion in his presence, sometimes felt that he was intolerant of any questioning of his judgment. On many occasions, however, he sought and gave careful consideration to opinions differing from his own, and no doubt sometimes altered his own views and decisions as a result of the differences. But having reached a decision after considering the alternatives, the arguments were over. He expected and demanded that his decisions be carried out.

He rarely wrote editorials himself although he frequently specified in precise detail the position he wanted The Tribune to take on those issues he deemed important. Trained as he was in business communication, his own prose rarely satisfied him. He had an extraordinary ability to spot a fuzzy phrase and a talent for clarifying the thought. His most skillful editorial writers were not reluctant to concede that he could often improve their handiwork. He had a special aversion to subtleties carrying overtones of sarcasm, and ruthlessly excised such gems from any copy he edited.

As for news coverage, Fitzpatrick demanded clarity, objectiveness and fairness. Politics has always been an area especially subject to public suspicion of publisher dictation or interference. The writer of this history, during thirty-seven years of political writing for The Tribune, received suggestions from Fitzpatrick to give some special attention to political figures on only two occasions. In both instances the suggestions, and they were only suggestions and not directives, were to make a special effort to give complete and comprehensive coverage to events in which the political figures were featured speakers. One incident involved Senator Reed Smoot, a Republican and for a considerable number of years The Tribune's No. 1 political enemy. The other involved former President Lyndon B. Johnson, a Democrat.

His attitude toward the use of news coverage to advance political preferences can be illustrated by an incident in which the political writer was accused by an interested party of "slanting" a news story dealing with a controversial issue. The reporter firmly denied the charge of news "slanting" either intentionally or unintentionally, and as an additional defense, added: "But even if it were slanted, the bias was in the direction of The Tribune's editorial policy."

Fitzpatrick did not explode, as he was capable of doing in the grand manner. He calmly and coldly remarked:

"If you are going to be influenced in your news writing by The Tribune's editorial policy, I suggest that you stop reading the editorial page until this election is over."

If there was bias in The Tribune's coverage of the news during the Fitzpatrick era, the fault was in those writing and editing the news; it was not a result of publisher dictation.

Fitzpatrick's basic policy in publishing The Tribune was to set unreachably high goals, find key men who would strive to reach them and then drive himself and his key men in their pursuit. He was never the absentee publisher and he did not belong to the school of top executives who believe in delegating authority and then leaving the recipient of the authority to sink or swim without interference. He was, rather, a constant prod to keep his subordinates moving toward the objectives he had set.