YELLOW JOURNALISM WRAPPED IN RED, WHITE AND BLUE: The "Columbia Journalism Review" has finally posted its enjoyable "Darts & Laurels" feature. This month's "dart" highlights some dirty reporting at two competitive Wilkes-Barre, Pa., newspapers. One paper, the "Citizens' Voice," accused the editor of the competing "Times Leader" of not being properly patriotic because he "stood silent" during the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance at a local board meeting. Later, the "Citizens' Voice" attacked an educator because he was seen not standing during the Pledge of Allegiance at his school. This was not some post 9/11 witch hunt for the unpatriotic; both attacks had some dubious ulterior motives.

This kind of crap goes on fairly regularly out in the hinterlands, especially among those vaunted "family-owned" newspapers that are supposed to be so much more objective than the corporate-controlled dailies. The thing is, the family-owned outfits often have their own petty, small-town vendettas and biases, and there's no corporate standards to reign them in. For example, the first newspaper I ever worked for put meetings of the Kiwanis Club on the FRONT PAGE! Why? Because the paper's owner and publisher was a member! This wasn't some tri-weekly in a town of 3,000; this was a family-owned, 25,000-circulation, six-day-a-week afternoon paper in a town with a population of roughly 45,000. That paper was something else. I think I'm gonna include those days in a future "Profiles in Discourage - The Early Years." A quick hint: In 1989, my GROSS pay from that paper (January to December) was $11,436! And that is not a typo! I've still got the W-2's to prove it!