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Showing posts from August, 2014

Journalism memories: The acid-pen editor

To show just how different Ernest V. Joiner was as a newsman, I only have to detail the way in which I was hired. Ernie was flying from eastern Oregon to San Francisco to complete his purchase of the Sebastopol Times, a weekly newspaper in Sonoma County. He had a stopover at Portland International Airport, which was about 12 miles from where I lived at the time. I met him at the airport and handed him my book of clips from an internship I had while still at the University of Oregon. He looked it over while we both had our shoes shined. By the time he walked to the gate to catch his flight to SFO, he offered me a job, and I accepted. Ernie once told me that he loved nothing better than "twisting the tail of the tiger." Oh, how Ernie could twist tails. His columns often crossed the line between being exceptionally tough and downright vicious. He took on governmental entities and law enforcement organizations, but he saved his most potent attacks for Democratic politicians and