My life in newspapers

Kathleen Anderson writes The Sage Connection in The JOLT.

When I was old enough to become interested in newspapers, I sought out the fun news. The papers I chose were the ones that ran Erma Bombeck. Herb Caen was my go-to guy in the San Francisco Chronicle. And Ray Orrock was a must in the East Bay Area of California. Humor and wit were my destination. Doom-and-gloom stories were ignored.

When I was a little older, I read headlines – if it sounded interesting or something new to learn, I would read more. Now I know they are called feature articles. I still pretty much ignored the doom--and-gloom, which is not to say I didn’t follow JFK’s assassination or what was going on in the Civil Rights Movement. This was when I discovered the value of hard news.

And then, I started writing a weekly column for Lesher Communications, owned by Dean Lesher. The chain began with The Contra Costa Times and expanded to eight or nine other papers in other areas.

In 1977, the California Press Association awarded Lesher with its Publisher of the Year award. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan presented Lesher with the highest award granted by the National Newspaper Association for distinguished leadership, so it is safe to say he was good at his job. He was also a well-known philanthropist in the San Francisco Bay Area.

At the same time, Floyd Sparks was running his own little publishing empire in the same area, and the two men hated each other. The office gossip was delightful. For instance, when Lesher died, we found out his will forbade the sale of his newspapers to Sparks. There was a bidding war which included The New York Times Co., but Knight Ridder won out and bought the chain. Today both chains, along with the Oakland Tribune, merged in 2016 into the new East Bay Times, are owned by the Bay Area News Group, which seemingly everyone except they themselves call BANG. 

During the heyday of these papers, in 1983, Robert Maynard and his wife Nancy Hicks Maynard, bought the Oakland Tribune from Gannett, and became the first African American owners in a major metropolis area. The Oakland Tribune won its second Pulitzer Prize in 1990 for a photo taken during the 1989 record-breaking Loma Prieta earthquake. 

More importantly, to me, was the fact that during this earthquake both the San Francisco Chronicle and The San Francisco Examiner offices lost power. The Chron got its next paper printed at another plant it owned. But I recall that Maynard stepped up to the plate and offered the use of his printing presses to his colleagues at The Ex so they could cover the devastation of their beloved city. The Trib ran its newspapers during the day and Examiner ran theirs at night. News flowed uninterrupted.

I am proud to say I wrote for both The Oakland Tribune and one of the Lesher newspapers, The Valley Times. I was mentored, supported and encouraged by some of the best editors it has been my pleasure to work under.

I was a columnist. As I never attended college, I offered to go back and study journalism, but my mentors told me that I would end up writing like everyone else. So here I am.

As time went by, I moved to other areas and wrote for newspapers in Arizona and Texas. Today I write for The JOLT – a “digital-native” (online) publication, the kind I and many of my cohorts scoffed at in the 80’s and 90’s. It will never catch on, we thought.

For many publications, columnists are pretty much ignored in favor of politics, sports and hard news writers. So, I’d like to leave you with this little story.

As I mentioned earlier, I adored Ray Orrock, a syndicated columnist for the Floyd Sparks newspapers. Although we worked for competing newspapers, we became great friends. When he celebrated his 20^th anniversary with the papers, I sent him a dozen roses with a card that said, “Twenty more please…”.

He later told me it was the first time a woman had sent him flowers. He also told me the editors at his paper had set up a ‘call in’ for readers to call and talk to their favorite writers. They asked all the sportswriters to be on hand, some of the news guys and at the last minute, told Ray he could come, but didn’t have to stay long if he didn’t want to.

Nobody called to talk to the news reporters. The sportswriters got three calls. All the rest were for Ray -- and there was a boatload of them. When he arrived to work the next day there was a freshly painted parking spot, next to the front door, with his name on it. And it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

While I was the first columnist for The JOLT , I’ve not been the last and I eagerly read my fellow columnists before anything else on the news site. I learn from them, grow with them, smile with and enjoy them. Hope you do too.

Kathleen Anderson writes this column each week from her home in Olympia.  Contact her at  kathleen@theJOLTnews.com or post your comment below.   

CORRECTIONS: 11/13/21 - This story was edited to correct a misspelled name and certain facts about the San Francisco newspapers.  We regret the errors.