Bob Shaw: Minnesota Newspaper Association Manager Emeritus This interview was conducted on the second day of the

Minnesota Newspaper Association convention on Jan. 28, 2011. Jon Collins: Thank you very much for talking to me. I appreciate it. Bob Shaw: Youre welcome. Collins: It will be very interesting. Tell me where you started in journalism. Shaw: High school. Collins: High school. Where was that? Shaw: International Falls. Collins: In a high school newspaper? Shaw: Yes. Yeah, I was the editor. Got the feel of it. Got to do a little work when I was a senior with our local daily newspaper. Collins: And then after that where did you go? Shaw: World War Two. Four years. Got out. Went through the university. Got two degrees. Collins: What degrees? Shaw: First one was in philosophy, second one was in journalism. Collins: Where did those take you? What did you do with the degrees? Shaw: Got out, went to work. First I wanted to continue because I had some GI time left and I had become interested in the German language. So I got admitted. I took the test, got admitted to Heidelberg University. Went over there to continue my studies in history. Cause Heidelberg is a great place to do that. Ran out of money. Went south to Darmstadt where they were printing the Stars and Stripes. It was the army of the occupation. This was just after World War Two. Got a job there. And got me into journalism. Came back, worked for the Associated Press here, in Minneapolis. Then I wanted to have my own paper so I went to work for the Forest Lake Times. Went out west to buy a newspaper but the deal fell through. Ran a newspaper, I didnt own it, I managed it in the Columbia Basin. In Othello, Washington. And then I went to the University of Washington as an Assistant Professor. And was there for several years. And then I got into newspaper association work, which was my natural thing. And came back here

and was the, for what was it, 17 years or so I was manager of the Minnesota Newspaper Association. And I retired and here I am. Collins: Tell me about Stars and Stripes. What was that like being in Germany right after the war ended and reporting? Shaw: Very interesting. It wasnt the newspaper, it was the people. The newspaper was an army newspaper. It had no editorials, no columnists much, just straight, straight news. And not much of a spirit, not that I could detect. It was an army product. The people, many of them had been combat veterans who had taken up with German girls and most of them were shacked up. They were not married but some of them actually married. Viola. Surprise. And it was in some respects it was a corrupt situation because the black market was everywhere. The Germans wanted certain things that, and they knew what was in the PX in Frankfurt. They would come to me and say, hey, theres a, can you get me a Leica camera, we cant get it, but if you can get it well then Ill pay you, and so forth. So then it was chocolate and coffee, Nescafe and cigarettes. That was the little stuff, but that merged into some of the big stuff too. I was not comfortable there. It was a corrupt situation. And the people who stayed. I was not happy with them. The best people it seems to me were in the reserves and theyd gone back home. The regular army stayed there. So I was not happy there. An answer to your question. Collins: And so then you came back to the United State and you worked for a newspaper, or managed a newspaper in Washington? Shaw: Yes. Collins: Tell me about that. How did you get into the situation where you managed it? Shaw: Well I had a real good apprenticeship as an assistant editor of the Forest Lake Times. It had a very great editor who taught me things that I never had in my masters degree at all. And on a weekly newspaper, you know, you do everything. I asked to go out back in the back shop and help them, offered to feed the press and help them on press day. Take a bundle of newspapers down to the drug store, you know, stuff like that. You do everything. And that was a comprehensive experience that many people never get. They get in the news, they stay I the news. They dont know anything, they dont want to know anything about advertising. They dont want to know anything about printing. But I was different cause I was in that spot so when I took over as manager of this newspaper, I knew a few things about the different departments. Collins: What were your colleagues like?

Shaw: Out there? In Washington? Im thinking, Im thinking. I was the guy who did most of the work in front. The printers I had were a scrummy bunch of juvenile delinquents. Almost. I had a hard time. I had a hard time with the production of that paper. Thats where I started to feel my ears. But we were a pretty good tem. We were a good team. And we were doing important work in that town. Giving them information that they had to have about their government, about the school district, about their county. Sure. So our morale was good. Collins: Cause you were fighting the good fight, right? Shaw: Well I guess, yeah. I always had an editorial page. It got me in trouble a couple times. Collins: Hows that? Shaw: Well, I took a stand. At that time the Columbia Basin was changing in a radical way because the units, see, much of the Columbia Basin is irrigated by water that flows south from the Grand Coulee Dam, about 100 miles by the way, is that something for water to flow downhill 100 miles. Thats really a feat of engineering. And the units that the Department of Irrigation had set up were 60 acres. That was too small. You couldnt farm. You couldnt make it on 60 acres. So there was a hard, really rebellion going on there. Into this came the big developers. They wanted no limits. They wanted 10,000 acres. And I said wait a minute, this land was developed by the taxpayers who built Grand Coulee Dam, youve got no right to ask for 10,000 acres and so forth. That got me in a lot of trouble. Collins: Powerful people. Shaw: Oh yes. Oh yeah. Yeah. But oh I forget, a couple of, just printing the news. They were used to printing the news there. So I remembered the first time I went to a city council meeting with my little pad and pencil and sat there, they didnt know what to do. And one of them then and succeeding, hed turn around hed say, now we dont want anything in the newspaper about this and Id say oh no you dont, oh no you dont. His named happened to be Oscar. Oscar would always say, now we dont want anything in the newspaper about this. And Id say, oh no Oscar, thats why Im here. So they had to get used to it. So I had fun with that one. Collins: How long were you there for? Shaw: Two years. Then they recruited me from the journalism school. And I went there. I was there for three, four years.

Collins: Then back to Minnesota? Shaw: Yep Collins: And when you came back to Minnesota, you were managing another paper? Shaw: No when I came back, I was Manager of the Minnesota Newspaper Association. Trade association of all the newspapers. Its a big one. One of the biggest in the whole council. Collins: What sort of activities did you do? What did the MNA do at that time? Shaw: Well they do what any trade association does. Their basic mandate is to work for the betterment. Well, that can be interpreted many different ways. In our MNA, what they did, what they still do, and advertising, they sell a lot of advertising for the weekly newspapers and they take a cut out of that. That keeps them going. Its one of their main sources of revenue. But they have a very vigorous legislative program to keep meetings open and to keep records open. And thats a never-ending problem in state legislatures. Collins: When you were head of the MNA what sort of information availability issues came up? What sort of open records? Shaw: Amending, you see we have an open records and an open meeting, you probably know about that. I was trying to amend that to exclude them. For certain things. So theres, and these are public officials. And if I were a public official Id understand that because to have the press looking over your shoulder all the time is very uncomfortable. Especially if they dont like you, if they disapprove of what youre doing. So as I was saying, theres always this, every session, you can depend on them, theres some attempt to reduce the visibility of records and meetings and you have to get in there and keep away. Collins: What sort of battles came up around that? What sort of issues came up around that when you were at MNA? Shaw: Lets talk about the police. Now the police like to think that theyre, not a closed society, but if you were to go and ask them whos in jail, they would think what do you want to know for? Who are you? You know? That was one of them. Jail register. Is a public record or isnt it. And not only did we lobby in the state legislature, but we would take things to court every now and then, to have the court decide. Is this a public record or isnt it? And of course in one case the court said, absolutely this is a public record and the police have no business not telling you whos in jail. Thats just one of them. Others, related as I recall to the salaries of teachers in negotiations. They were saying thats a private, thats a matter of personal privacy. We said wait a minute, its taxpayers money. Its not

necessarily pure personal. And oh I cant think there are many others. There was an exception was made, Ive forgotten if it was made over our objections or not. And that is, when a city council is being sued, of course then they get their lawyer, then they get their city attorney, and theyre talking about strategy. Well, what the lawyer says is wait a minute, we cant talk about strategy in public. We cant do this. And I think the court, they agreed in the case just like that. There is an exception to the open meeting law. Then they can close the door and talk about how theyre going to win this case. Collins: So at the bottom of this, what is important about opening data up? Whats important to the public about making data available? Making information available? Opening meetings up. Shaw: Well Im sure you know the answer to that, thats something like democracy. Thats democracy. And that means that the people rule. The people have the final authority. This information belongs to them. It doesnt belong to the public officials. And they have a right to watch development of policy. Not the final rubber-stamp but to watch the way that the public officials do this. Because at the next election, if you dont have that information, you dont know who the hell youre going to vote for. You really dont. Collins: Whats your thoughts that the country and the state has taken in regards to meeting and free information. Shaw: I dont anymore I dont know. And these things change. But I tend to believe that were one of the most liberal. Most democratic states as far as openness of government. The thing about an open meeting statute is that you always have to defend it. And if you dont defend it, like for example I have a friend in Oklahoma, and I was down there. And I said let me take a look at your open meeting law. My goodness, there are 25 exceptions to it. Its a closed meeting law because everybody who wants a secret meting can get an amendment, get a loophole in there. So its something that trade associations typically have done. To me its the main thing that they do. Selling advertising is ok. Thats what, if we dont have that, we dont have newspapers. But the long haul of that is that this is a fundamental action in our society. Collins: And when you were president, the newspapers had a lot more money at the time? Didnt they? Shaw: Yes. Collins: Can we afford to fight? Can we afford to take these things to lawsuits? Or take them to court? Shaw: Oh they could, yes.

Collins: Today though? Shaw: Sometimes Id go and Id pass the hat. Depends on the issue. Yes. Collins: Can we do that today? Can newspapers do that today? Shaw: Sure they could. Sure they could. If something that cost a million dollars to litigate, youd go around and try to get a million dollars. Collins: Tell me what were your, when you worked in Washington, for instance, what were your relationships like with your source. You know, like the mayor or something. Did he get mad at you when you published something that was not complimentary? Shaw: Oh sometimes, yeah. Depends who the mayor was. But the thing is about being a newspaperman, especially in a small town; you cant really have any friends. Because even your best friend will know that if you get arrested for drunken driving, Im going to print your name in the newspaper. Im going to hurt you. So you look at me as an executioner. A possible executioner. So anybody whos printing facts, and thats what we do, we print facts. Nobody likes that. Collins: But they need it? Shaw: Oh sure, you gotta knowthey read it. Collins: How did the public look at journalists after World War Two. How did the public look at the profession. Shaw: Oh, I dont know. I cant answer that. Collins: Has that even changed? We had Watergate, has that changed over time? Shaw: Well its hard to say, but I think that what were seeing now is a blurring between fact and opinion. Now a good journalist will try to keep those things straight. Try to keep them separate. Cause you gotta cover all sides, even you might believe in this side personally but you got to get the facts on all of them. Now I think where we have something like FOX news, which is screwing everything up, theyre blending both of these. And I think more and more people are confused about what is a fact and what is an opinion. They dont know. Ask em. And you find large organizations like the Huffington Post, theyll take anything. Now theres some editing goes on, Im not real clear on how much but I dont think theres very much fact checking to see that these facts are correct. Well

things like that are going and that introduces a whole new thing into the population. Collins: Throughout the time when you were working with newspapers, we had the 1960s, we had Civil rights, we had other changes, womens changes. We had women coming into newspapers. How did all those changes impact the profession? Civil rights or women coming into work in newspapers as journalists? Shaw: I dont know, I can remember some great women journalists. I dont think there was, as far as I can tell, any prejudice, general prejudice against women. Oh no. They were some of the best we had. I think of some of themDorothy Thompson, for example, springs to mind. Many others. Collins: So it wasnt really B: No big deal, no thats no big deal. Collins: And even the technology, and we talked about this very briefly before. The technology is changing. So instead of newspaper we have computers or phones to read our news. How do you think that will impact? Shaw: Well there are may different kinds of problems coming along with this brave new world, and one of them that I find very pernicious is the anonymous accusation. Somebody can call you a child abuser and you dont know who did it. Nobody knows who did it. It could be your next-door neighbor, it could be somebody that owes you money, it could be somebody in China. And the whole world knows about it. Now, that could be damaging enough to an individual, but lets say that you were running for office. Lets say that you were in a small town and you were running for city council, and somebody, you dont know who it is, put this on the Internet that you were a child abuser. Thats a very serious thing. You dont know who did it; you dont know how to respond. And a lot of people all of a sudden theyre not sure about you. Theres a cloud over your reputation and its from some son of a bitch that didnt like you, or as I say, hated your guts, you disagreed with him, maybe someone in your own family. Thats a very bad situation for our democratic kind of government. Because who wants to be a candidate when you have to face stuff like that. Now thats just one of the problems thats coming along. Collins: Sources, for instance, do you think that there should be names along with the sources, when someone makes an accusation like that? Shaw: Yes, but sometimes a source wont give it to you unless you promise. Thats always a problem. You gotta try to get him to do that but they say, wait a minute, no, if you print my name ill lose my job. So you have to say, this is the source. Its always a problem.

Collins: Its finding a balance. Shaw: But that has to go to the editor. If the reporter made this agreement, were not going to print your name, the editor should question the reporter on this and be damn sure about things before they run it in the paper. It shouldnt be that the reporter said this and in it goes. Collins: When you were head of the MNA, there were a lot of independently owned newspapers. But now there are a lot of chains. What was that like seeing that happen, and whats the implications? Shaw: Well thats another very good question. I dont like it. There are two points. In the first place, a chain newspaper is likely to be more, in some ways, more professional. Chances are it looks better. They might even pay more and so forth. At the same time, theyre not as independent and we have situations where a publisher will dictate like William Randolph Hearst, will dictate this to all of his newspapers. Take this line. Take this editorial line with respect to so forth. Thats very bad. Thats very bad. Because what we have to have in the United States, is the distribution, the dissemination of power. And when you get power thats crystallizing, collecting, in fewer and fewer and fewer hands in any field, journalism or any field, thats a bad thing. Collins: Does that show the power of the publisher? Shaw: Sure. Sure. But hes behind the scenes. Its the editor whos got to face the music. By and large, I think thats a bad development. And the best system for family ownership for the newspaper, in my opinion, was the family. The family owned it, they lived there, they passed it on from father to son to grandson and so on. And they did that for a long time. Collins: Do we need newspapers in every town? Shaw: Well I think we do because we have a school board in every town, and a city council in every town. Whos going to tell them? Is it important that they get this information about their local government? Sure it is! Sure it is. Collins: How has the newspapers, how do they bring the to some sort of understanding, bring the community together? Shaw: Well I dont know what that means. What they are is a forum; theyre the means by which people are informed. The means by which they debate with each other and so forth. If you take away the means, then youre taking away the end of it. Collins: So the forum for debate.

Shaw: Yes, sure. But chiefly the forum for facts. Chiefly facts about government. Thats the main thing. Not the opinions. Opinions are easy, and theyre cheap. Everybodys got opinions. Thats what bloggers do. Theyre not interested in facts, theyre interested in their opinions. Collins: Is there a way to get us back to more fact-based Shaw: I dont know, I dont know. Collins: Thats a big question. Is there anything from your experience that really stands out to you over the years? In your experiences in newspapers as far as colleagues you worked with, or issues you dealt with? Shaw: Very often its too good for the people in it. The people arent good enough for journalism. Not devoted enough. But I would think that its that way with lawyers and doctors and everybody else. I dont think Im alone there. But so often in journalism its an impossible job and you make shortcuts and you get burned out. Theres a good slogan, E.W. Scripps said: Newspaper work will kill you in the end. But until it does it will keep you greatly alive. Thats a good one. Thats a real good one. Well listen, that about it? Collins: Thank you so much for talking to me. Shaw: Sure, youre welcome. Collins: Is there anything else youd ever want to say, I can drive out and talk to you. Shaw: Sure, sure.