Belated thanks to an editor

THE STOCKTON (ca) RECORD
Vintage Section

Paul Weeks
Published Tuesday, Dec 6, 2005

He was a great spokesman for freedom of the press. He not only spoke about it, but he also spent a career in newspapers practicing what he preached. It is always disheartening to withhold your appreciation for such a person until he has left us.

But J. Edward Murray, my managing editor when I worked at the old Los Angeles Mirror, said thanks but no thanks when I called him at his home in Boulder, Colo., a few months ago, asking him for an interview that I proposed to submit to Editor & Publisher, a highly respected monthly in our business.

Murray, 90, slipped quietly away Nov. 2, and his obituary has echoed through the nation's press. But I want my say about a couple of incidents of our crossing paths.

In the early 1960s, I was writing an exposé of Los Angeles' Skid Row, an assignment directly from Murray. One large property owner in the slums gave us some leads. But when we decided to interview him for publication, he suddenly refused.

So interested was he in our not writing about him that he sent his press agent up to the city room one day to seal our lips -- with cash. He offered $500 each to me and my partner covering the story.

No greater insult can be heaped on a reporter than that. I roared so loudly that the room probably shook. I ran into Murray's office immediately. He tried to quiet me down, grinning as he did it. The press agent had left.

He was back the next day. I watched. He walked into Murray's office. Moments later, Murray's usually quiet, steady voice had turned into a bellow.

He threw the man out physically. I think applause broke out in the city room. I'm sure I enjoyed a warm chuckle to myself.

Born in the little town of Buffalo, S.D., near the beautiful Black Hills, he knew the questionable reputation of a man named William H. Parker, also from South Dakota, who later became chief of police in Los Angeles.

Parker often offended minorities. The Mirror carried quotes from Parker that made him prickle, while other press seemed to give him more leeway.

He was the chief quoted as saying just a few hours after the Watts riot broke out in 1965, "We're on top. They're on the bottom." It took four days and a call-in of the National Guard before the ashes cooled and about 30 people had died.

"Paul, I want you to do an in-depth profile of Parker and the department," Murray told me. Parker was supposed to be a reformer. It was not long after I had been involved in an exposé of the previous leadership of the department, working for another L.A. newspaper, which had not endeared me to law enforcers.

Parker called the newspaper when my report started to run. That didn't soften Ed Murray. He backed me up all the way.

Murray also gave me the first assignment to write about the plight of the increasing Black population in Los Angeles, housing discrimination, lack of jobs and education opportunities.

He opened feature story opportunities for me to cover visiting delegations from the Soviet Union and to cover social issues that were seldom explored in L.A. newspapers.

And after I left newspapering to work for the RAND think tank in Santa Monica, Murray, who was president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, published a piece from me that he requested, emphasizing the importance of newspapers covering scientific information -- and the researchers understanding the importance of press coverage.

You were important to all of us, Ed. Peace be with you.

Contact Paul Weeks at features@recordnet.com