By Michelle Flanagan, Ashleigh Pierce and Ali Waychoff

513-556-5224

July 10, 2018

About two years ago, a former editor of the University of Cincinnati’s student newspaper, The News Record, published a book recalling her experience working at the paper in the 1960s. After her niece began learning about the history of the ‘60s in college, Judy McCarty Kuhn turned to what came naturally — writing — in order to set the record straight.

Kuhn’s book, “The Other UC and Me: Editing the Sixties,” focuses on her time on The News Record staff, which spanned from 1963-67, and her experience as editor-in-chief from 1966-67. It was a period when local, national and global events – including the Vietnam War— affected the campus.

“I edited The News Record for a year, but The News Record edited my life,” Kuhn wrote in her book.

Inspired by Kuhn’s work, a group of UC journalism students decided to step back in time by interviewing former News Record editors to learn about their experience. Whether The News Record shaped their skills, friendships, career path or even life, it’s clear that working at UC’s student paper had a lasting effect on all of them.

David Altman

TNR Editor-in-Chief: 1967-68
Occupation: Attorney; president of D. David Altman Co. LPA
Residence: Cincinnati

In David Altman’s opinion, the most impactful coverage done by The News Record during his time on the staff was about race.

“(It) was a driving issue of our entire society at the time,” he said.

When he became editor, he recruited African American writers for the staff, believing that “people who grew up in the inner city could really write about some of the things that were happening in the city.”

They weren’t just writing about the stereotypical views of racism, but about “the problems that minority people, Appalachian and black, faced in Cincinnati,” he said.

The staff even went to Atlanta to cover the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights leader who was assassinated in April 1968. In the aftermath of the assassination, Cincinnati, like many U.S. cities, was hit with a wave of rioting. When Altman returned to the city, he sent a News Record photographer to capture the riot scenes, and the newspaper ran a montage of photos.

“We were doing some big-league stuff,” he said. “Our philosophy was if there’s a riot in the city that’s affecting the university, TNR should cover it. It grew out of a theme of being concerned about racism in America.”

Altman recalled a News Record story about an African-American woman who was arrested and sent to jail for a year after the riots for being out past curfew.

“She violated the curfew coming home on the bus from work,” he said. “The judge decided to make an example out of this woman and put her in jail.”

Those who violated curfew received a harsher sentence than people who broke other laws or committed violent acts, Altman said. “She would have been better off throwing a Molotov cocktail than she would have been for violating the curfew.”

The News Record ran a story about her encounter and of the judge that sent her away.

“The Kerner Commission (which investigated the causes of the 1967 race riots) actually noticed what Cincinnati courts did to curfew violators as an example of the racist kind,” Altman said.

The staff took some heat for running the story, Altman said. Some readers asked, “what place does a college newspaper have running that story?” But, Altman asked, who better to publish the story than a student newspaper at a university in the middle of it all?

“If we didn’t give a little bit of truth to the community as we see it, then people couldn’t act on it,” he said.

–Interviewed by Ali Waychoff

Mitchell Shapiro

TNR Editor-in-Chief: 1970-71
Occupation: Managing partner and CEO of Architecting the Future
Residence: Cincinnati

“It was one of the most eerie feelings of my life. It was like a neutron bomb had gone off, and I was the only person on campus,” Mitchell Shapiro said.

It was May 1970. Shapiro had just become editor-in-chief of The News Record. On May 4, four students were killed and nine wounded at Kent State University. Two of the deceased were simply walking to class. More than 100 colleges closed on May 5 — many for the rest of the school year.

After days of demonstrations and sit-ins, the University of Cincinnati closed on May 8 with plans to reopen 10 days later. But that didn’t happen. In the end, UC’s main campus remained closed for the remainder of the term. The campus was absolutely off limits. Shapiro took a campus walk anyway. “I guess nobody else had the guts to violate the order; maybe I meddled with the statute of limitations. I don’t know. I just walked on through just to prove I could do it.”

The student body expressed mixed feelings. For some, “There was a dimension of a bizarre romanticism of, ‘Hey, we don’t have to go to class today!’ Everyone had to leave, and I just thought, ‘Here it is, the campus is shut down. No one is allowed under any circumstances on the campus, period.’ No exceptions at all.

“So what did I do? What were they going to do, throw me off? I had my own parking sticker; I got cigars from the board members and stuff. I decided I was going to walk through the campus,” Shapiro said as he remembered that May afternoon.

For over six years, UC’s campus had experienced anti-war demonstrations and even anti-protester marches. The News Record covered the events, included columns and letters, and handled the “lobbyists” in the office. Individuals and groups from both sides of the war issue scrambled for space in The News Record. Shapiro said, “So much was focused around the Vietnam War. There were times when we’d get phone calls that someone was going to bomb The News Record office. We had to make a decision: Do we evacuate?
 
“Students were this strong political force committed to stopping the war in Vietnam. There was this divisiveness and emotional anger just as there is today. It’s interesting: the world is different but still very similar.
 
“Kent State changed everything. This was potentially serious stuff. I remember phone calls of people choking and coughing from tear gas. In less than 48 hours, the entire campus was shut down. Presumably the motivation of shutting down UC was because of bomb threats, evidence of explosives, or the possible threat that there could be explosives.”
 

Those last days of May not only ended the school year. They impacted the entire summer and the opening in September. And they certainly impacted The News Record. For the first time in history, in an attempt to explain the chaos, The News Record published an extra, and Mitch Shapiro continued to make a stand.

Once the 1970-71 school year began, The News Record staff was back on the job. “There was one faculty meeting at the beginning of the year, in which no members of the media were allowed, in Zimmer lecture hall. The hall hadn’t opened yet — it was not even finished. It was the first time it was ever used. Nobody knew where the projectors were. No one knew where the equipment and the controls and everything were.

“The media wasn’t allowed, and we were a few hours away from putting the paper to bed. I left open a 14-inch hole on the front page; I knew something was going to happen. We started walking around the building, started checking on doors. There was a door open. The door led to an alcove, which then led to the stage. No one could see us, of course, because we were behind the stage, so we heard everything going on in the meeting, and we taped it.
 
“My attitude was ‘I’m not afraid...I’m not afraid of anybody. Let’s get it on.’”
 
Reflecting on his role as a journalist, Shapiro said, “I’m still raising this moral issue of how we as journalists get manipulated by people who have agendas, and how we manipulate others in order to get information, confirm information, and, in many cases, get a scoop. And I thought it was interesting to reflect on what’s happening today in terms of the dynamics between, say, The Washington Post, The New York Times, maybe The Wall Street Journal and CNN... on the one hand they battle each other for scoops. On the other hand, it’s like a high-five celebrating mutual success.”

–Interviewed by Justin Reutter and Elizabeth Mullett

Michael Perry

TNR Editor-in-Chief: 1983-84
Occupation: Senior news director for content at Cincinnati Enquirer; adjunct journalism professor at the University of Cincinnati and editorial adviser to The News Record Residence: Cincinnati

Michael Perry was recently hired as senior news director for content at the Cincinnati Enquirer. He is also an adjunct in UC's journalism program. photo/Joseph Fuqua II

Michael Perry came to UC without a major, but he knew he loved to write. The university did not have a journalism program at the time, but it did have something called “pre-journalism,” so Perry signed up. Then he thought, “Well if I’m going to do that, I should probably see if I can write for the school paper."

He walked into The News Record office the first week of his freshman year and introduced himself to the sports editor, who asked Perry if he knew anything about soccer. Perry responded that he had played in high school, so the editor asked if Perry could cover the game the following day. Of course, Perry said.

“I had no idea what I was doing, but that’s how it started,” he said.

Perry said he had the opportunity to cover several good stories during his time on the staff, including one he broke about the English department head using university money for personal gain.

“Honestly, I remember just being in the office,” he said. “It’s where I lived; it’s where we all hung out. I spent a lot of time there over four years.”

He is still friends with staff members. “The editor before me is still a good friend,” he said. “My sports editor ended up working with me in Indiana. Lots of the people (on his staff) are still my friends decades later.”

Perry said his experience at The News Record catapulted him into internships, his full-time job and his career. “It gave me a chance to learn, grow and make mistakes,” he said. “When I was an intern nobody had to hold my hand because I understood what I was doing. When I graduated, I was pretty confident that I was ready to go.

“Being the editor of The News Record was one of the all-time great jobs... It just set the foundation for everything.”

Looking back, Perry said he wouldn’t change a thing about his experience. “I loved my time at UC. I loved every minute I spent in The News Record. I got exactly what I needed out of my college career. I got a job in a profession I wanted. It prepared me for everything that I wanted to do for the next 25 years.”

Perry earned a spot in UC's Journalism Hall of Fame in 2018.

–Interviewed by Jason Szelest

Beryl Love

TNR Editor-in-Chief: 1987-89
Occupation: Executive editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer; regional editor for USA Today Network's Ohio region
Residence: Cincinnati

Beryl Love said the most significant issues on campus during his tenure included rising tuition and race relations – “probably the same old shit you’re covering now because it doesn’t change very much.

“We covered a lot of student government things,” he said. “It was the end of the Reagan era, the early Bush era, and there was a lot of angst among college students about the country’s swing to the right.”

Love particularly remembered the end of the Cold War. “There was definitely a feeling that we were witnessing history,” he said.

One of Love’s most challenging stories was about Eric Abercrumbie, director of what was then called Minority Programs and Services, who received negative press before Love’s tenure.

“Maybe four years before, there was a News Record story about him claiming he was racist because he was really challenging the prevailing concepts of race, especially through the lens of white America.”

At the time, these comments were seen as fairly radical, and Abercrumbie was misunderstood by students, Love said. “He boycotted The News Record, and a lot of African-American students followed his lead and dismissed The News Record.”

A couple years later, however, the tide changed.

“[Abercrumbie] had gotten some national award, and we wanted to write about him,” he said. “But he was still boycotting The News Record. I told him that it was a different set of students; we wanted to make things right. That required me sitting in his office and letting him first just totally go off on what he perceived, and rightly so in many regards, as unfair treatment. Then he was ready to talk. I ended up doing a feature on him.”

Abercrumbie’s story taught him important lessons: journalists must listen to people, get the story right, represent other views, and be cognizant of the polarizing capabilities of the press.

Serving the UC community was a favorite part of being on staff.

“Telling people’s stories and being a balance to what was happening, whether it be the administration or the student government — we took on some sacred cows from time to time. Whether it was the administration or how things were going in the student senate — issues like having a gay/lesbian alliance on campus — when we actually did something that served the UC community in a good way, that was very rewarding.”

His other favorite part?

“The camaraderie with the fellow staff members, how we learned from each other and supported each other. [Working at The News Record] was a great experience as a student because it kind of gave me a community. I wasn’t in the Greek system the first year. I was commuting, so I didn’t have the dorm community. So I was kind of drifting around a little bit, not feeling that I was home – until I walked into the newsroom and found my people.”  

– Interviewed by Justin Reutter