The Press: Family Scandal

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Two of the nation's top newspapers last week drubbed their journalistic brethren for ignoring or suppressing a scandal in the family. Snapped the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "A conspiracy of silence." Added the Washington Post: "At best [a] crass indifference to a particularly juicy bit of news. At worst ... a cover-up of scandal within the family."

The scandal they were talking about was first turned up last month by Reporters George Thieni of the Chicago Daily News and Roy Harris of the Post-Dispatch. Thiem and Harris, who were covering the state capitol at Springfield, had spent two weeks digging through old Illinois state payrolls to unearth the smelly story. At least 33 Illinois editors & publishers of small-town newspapers, they reported, had been paid a total of $305,000 by the State of Illinois during the two terms of Republican Governor Dwight Green, defeated last November. Their relatives had pocketed another $108,183.

A few on the payroll had actually earned their money on responsible state jobs. But most of the others, reported Thiem and Harris, had been riding the "gravy train" as "field investigators" and "messenger clerks." One publisher drew $850 as a "public works laborer." But many did render substantial service to Governor Green, said Thiem and Harris —especially at election time. They had faithfully filled their newspapers with editorials and stories ground out by the Green publicity mill.

While venality in the press is rare enough to be big news whenever it happens, the Thiem-Harris exposé made no headlines in newspapers in other states for two weeks. The main reason was that most of the papers did not know about it; no news service had carried the story. Explained Executive Editor Alan Gould of the Associated Press: "In the beginning, we didn't think it was worth the wire space." Last week, after the A.P. got some calls from clients, it decided the scandal was news, after all, and put out the two-week-old story. This week Reporter Thiem turned up four names missed the first time, boosting the ante to $370,000.