Editors of all sorts sat at Journal’s helm

‘Others can measure exactly how far we went. I’m satisfied with the belief that we drove fast and hard and didn’t try to run over anyone in the process.’

— Tom Lindley, Journal editor, 1988-99

By Paul M. Keep
Journal Editor

Through its first 125 years, The Flint Journal has seen editors of all kinds.

PAUL M. KEEP Journal Editor

There have been at least 13 men — no woman editor yet — who have held the title. Some stayed for decades, some for only a few years. Some had big dreams for the newspaper and its community. Others were more focused on day-to-day challenges. Each added to the foundation of today’s Journal.

• Charles Fellows got the whole thing started on April 5, 1876.

• George McConnelly made the decision to start publishing daily on March 3, 1883.

• Myles Bradley was managing editor when The Journal was purchased in 1911 by Booth Newspapers Inc., which owned the paper for the next 65 years.

• C.M. Greenway was editor when The Journal used an airplane to deliver papers to Owosso in 1919.

• J.R. Taylor had taken over by the time The Journal was among the first newspapers to offer motor route delivery in 1921 and when the first Sunday edition was published on Nov. 12, 1922.

• Michael A. Gorman, who served 30 years in the job, saw The Journal’s current printing press installed in 1953. Under him in 1953, Journal photographer William M. Gallagher won the Pulitzer Prize for his image of a hole in the bottom of Adlai Stevenson’s shoe.

• Ralph Curry was in charge in late 1961 when The Journal’s circulation surpassed the 100,000 mark for the first time.

• Glen A. Boissonneault helped the paper shift in 1973 from the old hot metal production method to computerized photocomposition.

• Raymond L. Gover was editor when The Journal was purchased by the Newhouse family in 1976.

• Ray Stephens emphasized investigative reporting in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

• Alfred L. Peloquin oversaw further circulation growth in the 1980s and played an active role in the community.

Tom Lindley

• Tom Lindley’s news team produced an “extra” edition as the Persian Gulf war began and chronicled every move in the UAW strike against General Motors in 1998.

• I became editor in 1999.

Now working in Oklahoma City, Texas native Lindley praised his newsroom staff with a trip analogy:

“Others can measure exactly how far we went. I’m satisfied with the belief that we drove fast and hard and didn’t try to run over anyone in the process.

“The ‘extra’ we produced the night allied planes bombed Baghdad was special. So was our coverage of the Michigan connection to Tim McVeigh, Terry Nichols and the Oklahoma City bombing. And our strike coverage in the summer of 1998 had no equal.”

Lindley put the first female reporter on the Flint City Hall beat shortly after he took over in late 1988.

“For the rest of my tenure, we worked hard to mirror our diverse society, both in the newsroom and in our news coverage,” he said.

Lindley said he is proud of the personalities he helped bring to Journal readers.

“While the paper had its editorial voice, we also showcased individual voices, the strong and clear voices of the columnists who brought personality and compassion to our pages.”

Peloquin had been managing editor at The Saginaw News and had grown up in Bay City.

“I found the Flint area in an ongoing deep depression,” he said of the early 1980s. Unemployment was at 24 percent in the city of Flint. He said he was proud of a “six-part in-depth series on Flint area unemployment, its causes, the need for new GM projects along with diversification (and) the importance of labor-management harmony.”

But Peloquin’s Journal also tried to promote change in downtown Flint. He “found a united effort under way by community leaders to help solve the problem: rebuilding the downtown area and promoting Flint as a new tourist attraction,” Peloquin recalled. This helped spur the newspaper’s support of the now-demolished AutoWorld.

“In hindsight, we erred in endorsing the construction of AutoWorld without having conducted adequate research,” Peloquin said.

He said he is proud of the paper’s record of investigative reporting and in-depth series. In addition, he said, as the area’s population shifted during his tenure “we assigned a greater percentage of staff to the suburbs, the townships and the cities of our seven-county area.”

Raymond Gover, editor from 1976 to 1978, recalled that “during my short two years as editor, the ownership of The Journal changed hands and that was an interesting story. At that time, it was the biggest newspaper sale on record.

“I remember the city battling to regain momentum of the ’50s,” he said. Moving the University of Michigan campus to downtown Flint was important news.

Gover started as a general news reporter at The Journal in 1954, when Gorman was editor.

“A vision was developing for Gorman in the ’50s that ultimately resulted in the College and Cultural Center and the Flint College of the University of Michigan,” Gover said. “It was my good fortune to be assigned the responsibility for covering the events involving the planning, financing and ultimately the building of the center and the Flint UM.”

When Gorman died in Ann Arbor in October 1958, future editor Gover covered the funeral.

“It was one of the most difficult assignments to come my way because I had come to revere this man for his profound qualities of modesty, honesty and tenaciousness,” Gover recalled.

Editor Paul M. Keep started at The Journal in 1999. You can reach him at (810) 766-6227 or pkeep@flintjournal.com.