I never knew or had the privilege of working for Jim Bellows, but I was fortunate to be a regular reader of his mid-'70s Washington Star and became a total fan. He was the kind of newspaper editor they just don't make anymore, a bold, creative, aggressive leader who wasn't afraid to tweak anybody in print. In fact, he seemed to revel in such tweaking, and in playing the underdog to more powerful competitors. His newspapers had real personalities and attitude, something you just don't see these days—and probably a reason why newspapers are losing readers.
As editor of The Star, Bellows ran scrappy opposition to the bigger, more powerful Washington Post, fanning a newspaper war that was endlessly entertaining (I still have an "I Followed Doonesbury to The Washington Star" bumper sticker pinned up over my desk, in fact, a souvenir of a key battle in this war). Underfunded and understaffed, the Star delighted in hassling the Post every way it possibly could, making both papers better in the process.
These days, when we barely have one-newspaper towns, it's hard to remember how competitive (and wonderful) great two-newspaper towns could be, and Bellows was a master of the game, never letting up on his crosstown rival as editor at the Star, the New York Herald Tribune and Los Angeles Herald Examiner. No wonder his autobiography was titled "The Last Editor: How I Saved The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times from Dullness and Complacency." He didn't (directly!) edit those three papers–but he kept them on their toes through relentless, creative and resourceful competition.
Three more examples of Bellows' distinctive style that I remember offhand:
- When he suspected that The Washington Post was lifting a syndicated item from the Star (long story!), he tinkered with the first letters of the first few paragraphs to that they spelled out something like "Hello Ben," to tweak rival Ben Bradlee—who was thus caught redhanded when the Post reproduced the altered copy verbatim. Gotcha!
- The Washington Star's gloriously irreverent Ear gossip column, written by Diana McLellan, which seemed to be mostly about the Post (aka "O.P." or "the Other Paper"), Bradlee and Sally Quinn (aka "The Fun Couple"). It was endlessly entertaining, a daily soap opera of high life in Washington. (Come to think of it, I think Bellows' Star also ran a daily soap opera feature that was mostly a thinly veiled insider version of life at the Post. Great stuff.) When the Star died in 1981 (post-Bellows), the Ear—and Doonesbury—moved to the Post, but it was never the same.
- What may have been Bellows' greatest moment, which happened when he was editing the Los Angeles Herald Examiner: In 1979, President Jimmy Carter was allegedly attacked by a crazed rabbit while out on a solo fishing trip. Not surprisingly, the story was a little hard to believe, especially when the White House was unable to produce a photo of said rabid rabbit. Bellows had the solution: He ran a large blank rectangle on the front page of the Herald Examiner, above the fold, with a tiny caption that said something like, "This space reserved for photo of rabbit when it is released by the White House." Absolutely hilarious—the best use of white space on a newspaper front page ever. I still have a copy somewhere.
It wasn't all gags–Bellows papers were also damn good, doing more with less than any of his larger competitors. After leaving newspapers, Bellows went on to help turn Entertainment Weekly into a TV juggernaut, and he even brought smarts and personality to proto-Internet companies Prodigy and Excite as an executive and editor.
Bellows died today, at age 86, in Los Angeles, and the dwindling list of great living editors (still headed by Bradlee) is reduced by one. Alas, in today's constricted, corporate, cash-strapped newsrooms, we won't be seeing his likes again. But some of his scrappiness and pizzazz will live on in blogs and other new media. I sure hope so.
There's an appreciation of Jim bellows on
http://denishorgan.com/2009/03/07/james-g-bellows/
Posted by: Denis Horgan | March 07, 2009 at 02:51 PM