Grim Reader, March 11, 2011: David Broder, Lina Ron and Johnny Preston
by Michael Schaffer
MARCH 11, 2011 TAGS:
As a journalist in Washington, Grim Reader feels somehow inadequate for not offering his own personal story of interacting with David Broder. As news of the veteran political reporter’s death circulated this week, everyone else was. And in the world of formal obits, Broder -- all of whose obituarists note he was known as the “dean” of the political press corps -- is the subject of unusually glowing coverage: He was “the best boy on the bus,” says Politics Daily, “a reporter’s reporter, a shoe-leather guy who always got on one more airplane, knocked on one more door, made one more phone call,” according to the New York Times, who “loved talking to politicians at every level, no matter how distant or obscure the meeting,” says Politico. A plethora of the capital worthies testifies to Broder’s humility and collegiality, including more than a few of the pols he covered. “David Broder set the modern 'gold standard' for those of us engaged in political life as we sought to persuade others, to legislate and to administer the successful progress of our country," one of those pols, Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, tells the Washington Post, Broder’s longtime employer. The sentence is a Broder-obit classic, casting the reporter as a guardian of high-minded self-governance.
The Post’s editorial page, using the one-word, old-fashioned description Broder most preferred, headlined its editorial tribute “David S. Broder, Reporter.” Politico, on the other hand, casts him as something modern: His hybrid of opinion and reporting is called a precursor to today’s bloggified political journalism. The same obit, though, makes it clear that his penchant for spending days reporting a 700-word column is distinctly out of sync with the economics of 21st-century journalism. But the obits also seem to be missing a big part of the recent Broder story: Though everyone notes that the columnist was the consummate centrist, there is little acknowledgement of how controversial that stance has become in recent years. Only the Los Angeles Times tries to unpack the vitriol directed at Broder: “It became fashionable to disdain Broder's centrist instincts and wariness of extreme political outsiders, leading some to describe him as a promoter of conventional wisdom and an example of what was wrong with Washington,” the obit reads, though it doesn’t offer any specific examples of that criticism -- and is quick to quote Broder’s old editor rebutting the charge. Alas, the same blogosphere where Broder’s style was disdained as unmoored split-the-difference-ism is generally silent about him this week, which is its own form of tribute.
Most obits remember Walter Zacharius as a publisher with “the savvy and sales talk to help romance novels make the transition from drugstores to superstores to the Internet,” as the Associated Press puts it. He succeeded in becoming what the New York Times calls the “leading purveyor of bodice-rippers and other romance genres.” A veteran of pulp magazines, Zacharius made a mint, and horrified publishing colleagues, by inking deals with Walmart, selling books on QVC, and introducing holograms on book covers. A Wall Street Journal obit offers a more sophisticated read of Zacharius’ success, noting that he “built one of the largest independent book publishers in the nation by exploiting niches the bigger houses ignored. Among the niches: African-American and gay/lesbian themed romance, medical guides, and insta-books (an O.J. Simpson tome was churned out within six days of Nicole Brown Simpson’s murder). He also ventured into niche periodicals, simultaneously publishing Swank, a smut magazine, and Nashville Gospel, which was aimed at Evangelical country-music fans.
Death comes in twos: Latin leftists edition. The Obitosphere this week brings us coverage of Alberto Granado, whose South American motorcycle road trip with Che Guevara “helped to spark Guevara's revolutionary spirit and served as the subject of the film ‘The Motorcycle Diaries,’” according to the New York Daily News. Six years Che’s senior, Granado was a doctor when he and his fellow Argentinian took off for what the Telegraph likens to a “gap year.” But the boyish misadventures were tempered by what the Washington Post labels their “growing awareness of the poverty and disease that plagued the continent's cities and far-flung villages.” When they finally separated, in Venezuela, Guevara had decided to become a revolutionary, and Granado was determined to take his medical skills to the poor, rather than his fellow bourgeois. When Guevara’s allies took over Cuba, he invited Granado to move to the island, where he lived the rest of his life. Interestingly, only the Guardian mentions one break in that stint: Granado briefly traded medicine for war, joining an ill-fated rebellion back in Argentina in 1963. Afterward “Granado returned to his scientific research, and never referred again to his participation in this Argentinian episode,” the obit says.
Meanwhile, Venezuelan leftist and Hugo Chavez supporter Lina Ron “was one of the best known activists on the radical wing of Mr Chavez's revolutionary movement,” according to the BBC. Not that they were always in public lockstep: Ron, who called herself the “ugly part” of Chavez’s revolution, did jail time for attacking an anti-Chavez TV station and drew regular flack from the president. But Chavez opponents saw this as so much tactical posturing: As a radical outside his government, she was able to help create extra breathing room on the strongman’s left.
Death comes in twos, unusual baseball people edition. Harvey Dorfman ”sharpened minds and beefed up egos in baseball's major leagues as a sports psychologist to the game's top athletes” says the Washington Post. “Dorfman confronted players who had been ‘coddled their whole lives, worshipped in every setting,’ and spoke to them bluntly about their lack of mental focus.” He also wrote books about the mental game of baseball, one of which, years ago, was discovered by the wife of pitcher Roy Halladay back when the Phillies great was a struggling minor-leaguer. Philadelphia Inquirer sports columnist Phil Sheridan uses that history to open a piece on what a Dorfman-free landscape would look like: “In some parallel universe, there lives a successful insurance salesman named Roy Halladay. Nice guy, good family man, almost made it as a big-league baseball player.”
Wally Yonamine was the “Nisei Jackie Robinson,” according to the Associated Press, the son of an Okinawan father and a Maui-born mom who became the first American to play pro ball in Japan. The English-language Japan Times notes that Yonamine, a former U.S. minor leaguer, introduced Japan to sliding, which was initially thought too aggressive. And the New York Times explains that the Jackie Robinson comparison goes beyond their both being path blazers: “Yonamine was reviled by fans and players alike, who resented his otherness, just as Robinson had been vilified.” Bonus fun fact: Before going to Japan, Yonamine played a few games for the San Francisco 49ers, making him the NFL’s first Asian player.
Also in sports, Frank Chirkinian is remembered by colleague Jim Nantz as “the father of golf television.” His New York Times obit explains the complexity of turning the placid game into compelling TV: “Mr. Chirkinian transformed it into an imaginative spectacle, using more than two dozen mobile cameras as well as a camera in a blimp along with split screens showing two golfers putting at the same time.” But for all the quick cuts between competitors, he also sought to preserve golf’s patrician aura, once telling a play-by-play broadcaster he’d kill him if he raised his voice more than half a decibel.
In music this week, Texan singer Johnny Preston gets cursory stateside obits -- which do little more than note his hit song “Running Bear” -- but, in typical roots-musician fashion, he is treated much better abroad, where the Guardian runs a longer obit that traces the song’s roots to a Dove soap ad and a Shakespeare play. ... Same goes for bluesman Eddie Kirkland, who gets short shrift in every American outlet but the New York Times, but draws a long Telegraph obit, which notes he “invented his own unique open-chord guitar style, updating the acoustic delta blues to electric, using his thumb rather than a pick.” And Mike Starr, once the bassist in the band Alice in Chains, might not have rated obits by the likes of Reuters, except that he later appeared on the wretched reality show Celebrity Rehab, which features in the ledes of most of his obits.
Elsewhere in the entertainment industry, Charles Jarrott is remembered by the Associated Press as a “director of acclaimed period movies”. … Sam Chwat is labeled the “dialect coach to the stars” by Variety. He helped actors play regional roles -- and also helped non-actors lose regional accents, for a price. Disappointingly, none of the obits have audio tracks, though NPR’s links to an old radio story. … And 1943 Miss America Jean Bartel is credited by the Los Angeles Times with pushing the pageant to award scholarship dollars, either a step away from cheesecake-ism or a fig-leaf atop it, depending on your perspective. Bartel also declined the traditional victory pose in a bathing suit. Disappointingly for anyone who’d like to imagine she introduced an era of viewing pageant winners as more than just beauties: The obit says scarcely a word about her life after 1947.
Michael Schaffer’s Grim Reader appears Friday in Obit. He is the author of One Nation Under Dog, about culture and the American pet industry.
The Post’s editorial page, using the one-word, old-fashioned description Broder most preferred, headlined its editorial tribute “David S. Broder, Reporter.” Politico, on the other hand, casts him as something modern: His hybrid of opinion and reporting is called a precursor to today’s bloggified political journalism. The same obit, though, makes it clear that his penchant for spending days reporting a 700-word column is distinctly out of sync with the economics of 21st-century journalism. But the obits also seem to be missing a big part of the recent Broder story: Though everyone notes that the columnist was the consummate centrist, there is little acknowledgement of how controversial that stance has become in recent years. Only the Los Angeles Times tries to unpack the vitriol directed at Broder: “It became fashionable to disdain Broder's centrist instincts and wariness of extreme political outsiders, leading some to describe him as a promoter of conventional wisdom and an example of what was wrong with Washington,” the obit reads, though it doesn’t offer any specific examples of that criticism -- and is quick to quote Broder’s old editor rebutting the charge. Alas, the same blogosphere where Broder’s style was disdained as unmoored split-the-difference-ism is generally silent about him this week, which is its own form of tribute.Most obits remember Walter Zacharius as a publisher with “the savvy and sales talk to help romance novels make the transition from drugstores to superstores to the Internet,” as the Associated Press puts it. He succeeded in becoming what the New York Times calls the “leading purveyor of bodice-rippers and other romance genres.” A veteran of pulp magazines, Zacharius made a mint, and horrified publishing colleagues, by inking deals with Walmart, selling books on QVC, and introducing holograms on book covers. A Wall Street Journal obit offers a more sophisticated read of Zacharius’ success, noting that he “built one of the largest independent book publishers in the nation by exploiting niches the bigger houses ignored. Among the niches: African-American and gay/lesbian themed romance, medical guides, and insta-books (an O.J. Simpson tome was churned out within six days of Nicole Brown Simpson’s murder). He also ventured into niche periodicals, simultaneously publishing Swank, a smut magazine, and Nashville Gospel, which was aimed at Evangelical country-music fans.
Death comes in twos: Latin leftists edition. The Obitosphere this week brings us coverage of Alberto Granado, whose South American motorcycle road trip with Che Guevara “helped to spark Guevara's revolutionary spirit and served as the subject of the film ‘The Motorcycle Diaries,’” according to the New York Daily News. Six years Che’s senior, Granado was a doctor when he and his fellow Argentinian took off for what the Telegraph likens to a “gap year.” But the boyish misadventures were tempered by what the Washington Post labels their “growing awareness of the poverty and disease that plagued the continent's cities and far-flung villages.” When they finally separated, in Venezuela, Guevara had decided to become a revolutionary, and Granado was determined to take his medical skills to the poor, rather than his fellow bourgeois. When Guevara’s allies took over Cuba, he invited Granado to move to the island, where he lived the rest of his life. Interestingly, only the Guardian mentions one break in that stint: Granado briefly traded medicine for war, joining an ill-fated rebellion back in Argentina in 1963. Afterward “Granado returned to his scientific research, and never referred again to his participation in this Argentinian episode,” the obit says.
Meanwhile, Venezuelan leftist and Hugo Chavez supporter Lina Ron “was one of the best known activists on the radical wing of Mr Chavez's revolutionary movement,” according to the BBC. Not that they were always in public lockstep: Ron, who called herself the “ugly part” of Chavez’s revolution, did jail time for attacking an anti-Chavez TV station and drew regular flack from the president. But Chavez opponents saw this as so much tactical posturing: As a radical outside his government, she was able to help create extra breathing room on the strongman’s left.Death comes in twos, unusual baseball people edition. Harvey Dorfman ”sharpened minds and beefed up egos in baseball's major leagues as a sports psychologist to the game's top athletes” says the Washington Post. “Dorfman confronted players who had been ‘coddled their whole lives, worshipped in every setting,’ and spoke to them bluntly about their lack of mental focus.” He also wrote books about the mental game of baseball, one of which, years ago, was discovered by the wife of pitcher Roy Halladay back when the Phillies great was a struggling minor-leaguer. Philadelphia Inquirer sports columnist Phil Sheridan uses that history to open a piece on what a Dorfman-free landscape would look like: “In some parallel universe, there lives a successful insurance salesman named Roy Halladay. Nice guy, good family man, almost made it as a big-league baseball player.”
Wally Yonamine was the “Nisei Jackie Robinson,” according to the Associated Press, the son of an Okinawan father and a Maui-born mom who became the first American to play pro ball in Japan. The English-language Japan Times notes that Yonamine, a former U.S. minor leaguer, introduced Japan to sliding, which was initially thought too aggressive. And the New York Times explains that the Jackie Robinson comparison goes beyond their both being path blazers: “Yonamine was reviled by fans and players alike, who resented his otherness, just as Robinson had been vilified.” Bonus fun fact: Before going to Japan, Yonamine played a few games for the San Francisco 49ers, making him the NFL’s first Asian player.
Also in sports, Frank Chirkinian is remembered by colleague Jim Nantz as “the father of golf television.” His New York Times obit explains the complexity of turning the placid game into compelling TV: “Mr. Chirkinian transformed it into an imaginative spectacle, using more than two dozen mobile cameras as well as a camera in a blimp along with split screens showing two golfers putting at the same time.” But for all the quick cuts between competitors, he also sought to preserve golf’s patrician aura, once telling a play-by-play broadcaster he’d kill him if he raised his voice more than half a decibel.
In music this week, Texan singer Johnny Preston gets cursory stateside obits -- which do little more than note his hit song “Running Bear” -- but, in typical roots-musician fashion, he is treated much better abroad, where the Guardian runs a longer obit that traces the song’s roots to a Dove soap ad and a Shakespeare play. ... Same goes for bluesman Eddie Kirkland, who gets short shrift in every American outlet but the New York Times, but draws a long Telegraph obit, which notes he “invented his own unique open-chord guitar style, updating the acoustic delta blues to electric, using his thumb rather than a pick.” And Mike Starr, once the bassist in the band Alice in Chains, might not have rated obits by the likes of Reuters, except that he later appeared on the wretched reality show Celebrity Rehab, which features in the ledes of most of his obits.
Elsewhere in the entertainment industry, Charles Jarrott is remembered by the Associated Press as a “director of acclaimed period movies”. … Sam Chwat is labeled the “dialect coach to the stars” by Variety. He helped actors play regional roles -- and also helped non-actors lose regional accents, for a price. Disappointingly, none of the obits have audio tracks, though NPR’s links to an old radio story. … And 1943 Miss America Jean Bartel is credited by the Los Angeles Times with pushing the pageant to award scholarship dollars, either a step away from cheesecake-ism or a fig-leaf atop it, depending on your perspective. Bartel also declined the traditional victory pose in a bathing suit. Disappointingly for anyone who’d like to imagine she introduced an era of viewing pageant winners as more than just beauties: The obit says scarcely a word about her life after 1947.Michael Schaffer’s Grim Reader appears Friday in Obit. He is the author of One Nation Under Dog, about culture and the American pet industry.
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