Howard Weaver’s Memoirs: Fiction or Non-fiction

By JOE LaROCCA

Former Anchorage newspaperman Howard Weaver wrote a volume of memoirs published about a year ago by Kent Sturgis’s Epicenter Press entitled Write Hard, Die Free. Howard is a former Anchorage Daily News reporter, later managing editor, then news executive with the ADN’s parent organization at McClatchy Newspapers in Sacramento. Howard,who now lives in California, revisited Alaska last year for a book and lecture tour.

Because of his Alaska celebrity status as a member of Daily News staffs which won two Pulitzer Prizes for public service back in the 1970s and 80s, Howard was deservedly accorded something akin to a hero’s return by virtually all of the news media in Alaska.

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, for example, published not one, but two rave reviews of Howard’s book. And the Alaska Dispatch, an ambitious online newspaper, ran a long, adoring review written by a former Daily News colleague of Howard. There were many others like them.

Not so deserved, however, was the unanimity of high praise awarded by reviewers and editors who pretty much accepted Howard’s auto-hagiographical version of certain events as he recollected and wrote of them.

After reading Howard’s fascinating memoir, which tells, in part, of the leading role he played in the 20-year “Great Newspaper War” and other epic conflicts in Alaska during the latter part of the 20^th century, I couldn’t decide whether to store his book on my fiction or non-fiction shelf. Certainly there are manifest elements of both within. But Howard is such a clever writer, it’s hard to tell where.

I’m one of the few newsmen still around who personally remembers Howard’s stints as a reporter and editor during his Alaska heyday. Not all is as it seems.

Howard’s tome is cast in bold allegorical terms: St. George (The Anchorage Daily News) versus The Dragon (The Anchorage Times). Would that it were that simple. To the dispassionate observer standing on the sidelines, it was often difficult to distinguish the saint from the dragon. Their parts were interchangeable.

Howard paints the Times and its legendary publisher, Bob Atwood as hard core conservatives who never saw a development or oil prospect they didn’t like, nor an environmental or social cause they could espouse.

The Daily News, on the other hand, especially under Howard’s tutelage, was Atwood’s evil twin, taking the diametrically opposite tack to the same extreme as the Times did, with concomitant offenses against ethical and balanced journalism on behalf of environmental and social causes to the detriment of the broader community.

Weaver’s book puts on full display his erratic and undisciplined genius. He is a devotee of the Bob Woodward school of journalism, fond of quoting protagonists after they’re dead or gone with little or no risk of contradiction, rebuttal or refutation. Witness, for example, his buffoonish portrayal of a job interview early in his career with the late Times Editor Bill Tobin who is characterized as an apoplectic goon. Though it makes good copy, I don‘t buy it. If nothing else, Bill Tobin was a gentleman, whatever one might think of his journalistic slant. As it happens, I , too, was interviewed for jobs by both Tobin and Atwood, although I didn’t get (or want) them, probably for some of the same reasons Howard didn’t, namely professional incompatibility. In my case, both Tobin and Atwood conducted themselves with genial affability. (Full disclosure: they did ask me - and I agreed - to write a weekly Sunday column for the Times, acknowledging up front that it probably would - and did - usually offend their entrepreneurial sensibilities).

Howard is skilled at covering his tracks when reciting transformative events adducing to his credit for which there is no evidence to support his self-centered version except his credibility with readers, or lack thereof. But in some cases enough doubt prevails to cast a shadow of suspicion on his journalistic integrity. In at least one compelling case - and there are others - the known facts forcefully reject his version, more redolent of hypocrisy than integrity. On that occasion, described herewith, I happened to be a firsthand and disinterested observer.

On Page 109, in one of many disparagements of Bob Atwood and The Times sprinkled ad nauseum throughout the book, Howard writes: “His paper clung to its identity as the voice of the Anchorage establishment. Its news coverage was deeply biased in favor of downtown commercial interests and for years it even refused to run letters to the editor critical of the paper or its friends (my emphasis).

And on Page 151, he writes: “Meanwhile the Times was running the same operation it always had, distant, arrogant, aloof. It wouldn’t run letters critical of the paper.” (my emphasis).

Way back on Friday, March 21 of 1986, while Weaver was managing editor of the Daily News, by then the largest newspaper in Alaska, it ran a news story from the state capital of Juneau during the annual legislative session written by the Associated Press correspondent Bruce Scandling.

His article focused initially on speculation that Native leader Al Adams, a Democrat from Kotzebue, chair of the House Finance Committee; Senator John Sackett, another prominent Native, co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Republican of Ruby, and Ray Gillespie, Governor Bill Sheffield’s chief of staff ,had traveled to San Francisco ostensibly to attend a computer conference, but secretly to put the finishing touches to the state budget away from the prying eyes of the Alaska news media.

All three principals later flatly denied they were there to work on the budget, and the AP could produce no proof to the contrary. The article also stated that a lobbyist for the computer company, Kim Hutchinson had paid for Adams’s trip to California.

The following day, Saturday, the Daily News published an article by its Juneau correspondent John Lindback essentially reiterating and expanding upon the AP story reporting that the lobbyist had paid Adams‘s way. Then in its Sunday edition, the Daily News published a scathing editorial condemning Adams for his supposed role in the matter and for pressuring a lobbyist with legislation pending before his, other committees and the legislature to pay his travel fares.

Upon his return to Juneau from San Francisco the following Monday morning, March 24, a furious Adams learned of the two stories and the editorial, told this reporter in Juneau that both the AP and Daily News had erred in reporting that Hutchinson had paid for his travel expenses, and produced a copy of a state “TR” (travel request), and later a credit card receipt indicating the state had paid his way.

He then composed a letter to the editor addressed personally to Weaver which he transmitted electronically to the legislative office in Anchorage, which in turn hand-delivered it to the Daily News that same morning and placed it on Weaver‘s desk.

In the letter Adams told Weaver, among other things, that “your facts are erroneous. While it is true,” he said, “ that Tandem’s lobbyist, Mr. Kim Hutchinson, did make the arrangements for the trip, it is not true that he paid for my expenses. The trip was paid for with state funds, and I would be happy to provide you with a copy of the State Transportation Request if you so desire.”

Adams also explained at length in the letter why he believed his trip at state expense was “entirely justified,” and concluded by telling Weaver “My only regret is that the Daily News failed to verify their facts prior to publishing their stories and editorial.”

However, Weaver was on vacation, and the letter languished unread on his desk. He did not see the letter until his return nearly two weeks later, on April 16. Even then Weaver failed to publish the letter until nearly two weeks after his return from vacation, accompanied by a glib editor’s note asserting - as though to hold the Daily News harmless - that the erroneous articles and editorial were based upon the lobbyist’s alleged but debunked statement to the AP that he had paid for Adams’s travel.

I contacted Howard and asked him why he suppressed Adams’s letter for so long, pointing out that the adage “justice delayed is justice denied” applies to newspapers as well as to jurisprudence. To make matters worse, when it finally published Adams’s letter, the Daily News deleted the date from it, making it appear that Adams had delayed his response to the erroneous coverage for more than a month, not the Daily News. I was left with the indelible impression that Weaver wouldn’t have published Adams’s letter at all if I hadn’t prodded him into it.

There was no apology for the long delay in publishing Adams’s letter correcting a monumental Daily News error, tantamount to not publishing it at all; no apology for engaging in scurrilous “gotcha” journalism by not contacting Adams for comment before running the false stories and errant editorial. Now that’s what I would call “arrogant, distant and aloof.”

The dilemma this narrative presents is whether or when Weaver is credible. He is not at all credible with respect to the treatment of letters to the editor under his management because I had firsthand knowledge of his duplicity in this key case. Yet there are scores of situations in his book where his credibility is crucial to his integrity and where he’s the sole arbiter of the facts. Given his conduct in the Adams case, is he believable in others? Readers must decide for themselves on an ad hoc basis.

In his book Weaver dwells at length on the two Pulitzer Prizes for public service awarded to the Daily News during his tenure. While he bestows lesser credit upon other colleagues who contributed to the award-winning dispatches - one in 1976 purporting to expose corruption and abuses of power within the powerful Teamsters Union in Alaska during the oil pipeline construction era; another in 1989 on the alarming suicide rate among young Native males in Alaska attributable primarily to alcoholism - clearly, he claims the Pulitzers as his personal triumphs.

Page 61: “When you win a Pulitzer at 25, many people think it’s cute to ask, “What will you do for an encore?” Page 61: When told he wouldn’t be getting an expected pay raise: “What do I need to do for a full raise?” I asked friends. “Win a Nobel Prize?” Page 63: “Can you believe it. Twenty-five years old with a Pulitzer Prize in my pocket.”

Weaver’s book is larded with self-congratulatory rhetoric and arm-busting pats upon his ample latissimus dorsi for Pulitzer Prize plaudits based not on merit but on narrow political cultism involving affluent eastern and midwestern liberal elites committed to shield the nation’s unique natural resource values in Alaska from Alaska’s predatory parochial interests symbolized by the Anchorage Times.

The Teamsters’ Pulitzer in 1976 had little to do with journalistic achievement, but was instead aimed by influential antagonists outside Alaska at undermining Atwood’s influence and the dominance of the Anchorage Times in the ongoing imbroglio over the fate of Alaska’s vast natural resources and environmental treasures. The Daily News and the Pulitzer board were merely dupes in that wider universe.

The Daily News’s 1976 Pulitzer purporting to expose Teamster corruption represented a triumph of packaging over performance. Much of the content had already been published over time by other news media.. In ”Write Hard,” Weaver co-opts Teamster misdeeds already widely reported by other news media or common knowledge, implying they were exclusive Daily News disclosures.

For example on Page 53, he writes :”Even more noteworthy were the thugs and felons we discovered working at North Star Terminals, a Teamster-controlled pipeline distribution warehouse in Fairbanks…the warehouse was actually run by the Teamster hierarchy. The number one union official there was Fred Dominic Figone, known to Alaska law enforcement as “Freddy the Fix.” His number three, Bernard House, had been convicted of murder but later was pardoned…The union’s number one yard man was Peter Rosario Buonmassa, another convicted murderer. Teamster boss number four in the terminal was Jack Martin, who had been convicted of violating the Mann Act, better known as the White Slavery Law against interstate tranportation of women for prostitution. About six months after our reporting, Martin’s badly decomposing body would be found not far from a rural roadway near Fairbanks. He had been shot twice in the head.”

Heady stuff, guaranteed to pop the eyes of Pulitzer Board judges when viewed in the vacuum fabricated by Howard, rather than the body of general knowledge from which it was drawn.

The Daily News merely pulled it all together under its imprimatur into a cohesive, be-ribboned bundle and presented it to the Pulitzer committee, whose members had no conception of the considerable work others had done in exposing the Teamsters in Alaska, or the relative role each had played in that process.

But that really didn’t matter. The fix was already on. The Daily News would have been awarded Pulitzer’s public service medallion if it had submitted the Anchorage phone directory. Did Daily News Publisher Kay Fanning, now deceased, with close ties to the Chicago Fields newspaper dynasty and fortune, foster frentic behind-the-scenes lobbying of the Pulitzer board through her connections with prominent eastern and Midwest liberals instrumental in bringing the prize to Alaska? If so, nowhere in his book did Howard mention, much less acknowledge it.

Howard’s erratic genius enabled him to disguise that fact that his, and by reference, the ADN’s contribution to Alaska journalism during his tenure by and large, was negative and corrosive. He sneered at prevailing journalistic conventions, writing and playing by his own rules, a glaring exemplar of the “new journalism,” where no rules applied. This is no idle speculation. Weaver freely admits it.

Howard dismissed as a meaningless bore what is one of the news media’s most important `responsibilities, accurate and comprehensive coverage of the state’s legislative function. It certainly would be boring, given Howard’s disdainful and mindless approach to legislative coverage.

Again, in his words; The Pulitzer “didn’t change my work in Juneau though. I hated it. Covering that legislative session remains the least satisfying newspaper assignment I have ever had,” a betrayal at age 25 of his professional immaturity. Like a kid in a candy shop, Howard craved instant gratification, unwilling to forebear interminable legislative floor sessions, endless committee meetings and elusive legislative politics to bring crucial information about the actions of key political operatives to the Daily News readership.

Howard’s ennui with conventional newspapering relentlessly led to personal successes at the highest level of his trade, but did little to ennoble it.

Joe LaRocca lived and worked in Alaska as a newsman for 20 years, during the ‘60s, 70s and 80s. Joe is the author of “Alaska Agonistes: The Age of Petroleum - How Big Oil Bought Alaska” published in 2003. He now resides in his hometown of North East (Erie County), PA. He may be contacted at jlar5553@verizon.net and 814.725.8926.