Jim Bellows - The Last Editor: How I Saved the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times from Dullness and Complacency

The Last Editor: How I Saved the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times from Dullness and Complacency copyright 2002 by Jim Bellows. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews. For information, write Andrews McMeel Publishing, an Andrews McMeel Universal company, 1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106.

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APPR

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bellows, James G.

The last editor : how I helped save the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times from dullness and complacency / Jim Bellows.

p. cm.

E-ISBN: 978-1-4494-1322-4

1. Bellows, James G. 2. Newspaper editorsUnited StatesBiography. I. Title.

PN4874.B3699 A3 2002

070.41092dc21

[B]

2002018351

Book Design and Composition by Kelly & Company

Cover design by Nigel Morley

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For the girls:
Keven, Amelia, Priscilla,
Felicia, and Justine

T he first time I saw him he was standing in the conference room of the newspaper and he had a piece of paper tacked to the wall. It was the dummy for the first page of the second section of the newspaper, the split page.

He said this was the space for the column he wanted me to write. Now he told me what it was he wanted in it.

He writhed. He mumbled. He didnt finish a sentence. I didnt know what he was saying, but I knew exactly what he meant. He talked with hands and excited eyes.

Nor did I have any unique method of translating his shoulder shrugs and mumbles. Everybody on the newspaperand Ive seen him on two, this one, the old New York Herald Tribune and then the Washington Starknew what he meant. The list of those who went to the top, whatever that is, because of him is astonishing.

Then on this day he said, Great, and he left with a laugh.

This was the start of a livelihood for me, and just another small challenge for Jim Bellows.

He likes nothing more than a fresh challenge. I think this one worked for him.

Since then, he has found challenges everywhere. He switches jobs, he switches industries, he even switches technologies.

He does this with ease because he is a kid at heart and kids can change on a dime. He is a smart, tireless, eager, good kideven in his seventies.

I met him in newspapers. His great respect for good writing and his good ideas left us all whirling through days of excitement. I know of no newspapers that have come close to it. He would praise and then fight for anything he liked. If the idea wasnt his, he fought even more furiously.

Not surprisingly, he inspires loyalty, without demanding it, and he, in turn, is incredibly loyal, the textbook example of the friend for life.

I cannot recall a single solitary time when I didnt know exactly where he was and what he would do with any question.

I cannot recall a week in which I have not spoken to him. And each time I see somebody from the days with Bellows, any days, anywhere, the question is always the same: Spoken to him? Seen him?

Always in this climate there was a crackle, a joyous eruption upon reading or hearing something he loved, crystals of excitement snapping and filling the air and the story getting better on the machine at your hands. Going to work each day, the sky was brilliant, the breeze pleasant. On the worst days, the cold February rain mixed with sleet was refreshing. Because right upstairs in that old city room was air with the fragrance in it of the love of life. Often I feel this way when I go to work and dont realize that it is different, and then suddenly something will happena horn, a growl, a coughand that is enough to jar me, to make me realize it is not the same. Bellows is in my life forever but he just isnt in this particular room right now.

Jimmy Breslins column on sports began in the New York Herald Tribune in 1962, shortly after publication of his book Cant Anybody Here Play This Game? His column, which broadened its coverage to the entire city, ran until the very end of the Herald Tribunes life.

The longest rsum in the history of journalism.

Washington Journalism Review, June 1992

L et me give you my Top 10 list of reasons why I wrote this book:

To answer my daughter Justines letter urging me to write it. She was born when I turned 50 and kept running into people who asked her about my career. She didnt know what to tell them. So she wanted more information on the old man, and she was insistent. Do a book, Dadplease!

To give the reader a cross-country trip through the U.S. media, from newsrooms to television to magazines to the Internet.

To entice young people to sign on to the adventure of a career in covering the news, especially kids who are shy and insecure, as I was for most of my life.