Mary Lou Butcher: Interview #2

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[Tape 74_01 begins]

Blatti: This is an interview held with Mary Lou Butcher at her home in Bloomfield Hills,

Michigan, on July 27th, 1992. The interview was conducted for the Washington Press Club Oral

History Project. The interviewer is Jo Blatti. This is tape one for July 27th, 1992.

When I was reviewing the tape that we made yesterday, July 26th, and I realized there was

something I intended to ask as we were having that conversation, and we kept getting on to

other things. It relates to your memory, or your knowledge that your father had changed the

family name from its Hungarian Mészáros to its English translation, which means butcher. And I

wondered if you were aware of any precipitating reason for that, if there was any family story

attached with that name change?

Butcher: I think it was simply that my parents figured that it would be a lot easier for people to

spell butcher than Mészáros. As witness, I'm even having trouble recalling the exact spelling,

but it translated, and it seemed to make sense to them at that point in time.

Blatti: I have a related question, and in the same set of observations you were noting, we were

talking about, the fact that your parents read and spoke Hungarian among themselves and with

your grandparents, but that none of you really learned Hungarian.

Butcher: … except for my oldest brother.

Blatti: ….except for your oldest brother. And you said that, that your folks had observed what

happened to children who weren't fluent in English when they entered the school system. And I

wondered what they, in fact, had observed, or what the what they saw as the potential

problems?

Butcher: Well, I think that they just felt that they didn't do well in school. They didn't adjust, and

they didn't, obviously, couldn't participate as well. And so they probably had a struggle in their

early school years. And I think that's what they were concerned about and wanted to be sure

that we would not encounter those difficulties.

Blatti: Okay. Well, with those notes on the record, I'd like to, to move to another set of questions

today.

We really spoke yesterday about your early life in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, and about

elementary school experiences and some high school experiences. [clears throat] Excuse me.

We also touched some on your, you know, just in a general way, on college decisions and your

family and educational decisions. And I wondered if we could talk about your…. Could we start

by talking about your college experience more specifically?

You said yesterday that the expectation was that, that your family would help with college, that

your folks hoped that you would get a higher education, but that scholarships and financial aid

were important. And I wondered where exactly you went to school, and how you made the

choice about what school you went to?

Butcher: Okay. Well, I went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and I think I just got a

desire to go there while I was in high school because it had such a fine reputation. And, I think

my contemporaries in school were all contemplating where they would go. And Michigan just

seemed like a high-status, prestigious university, good, good quality, exceptionally good quality.

And I had the academic credentials and grade point to be able to be admitted there. I also had a

friend in my junior and senior year who was the class president, and he was very gung-ho about

Michigan.

And I recall going to football games with him in Ann Arbor and just feeling the excitement in the

air and the enthusiasm of the students. And, you know, certainly the, the campus setting is a, is

a beautiful one. And just being exposed to it, you know, helped create a desire, I think, in me to

go there.

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Also, my oldest brother, Ernie, had graduated from there, and I think my sister Ann had spent a

summer there. So, probably a combination of a lot of different factors.

Blatti: Do you remember? Did you look at several colleges when you were in high school? I

mean, often people go through an application procedure and try out several. Was that part of

your experience, or was it real focused?

Butcher: I think the only other college I probably gave consideration to was Wayne State

University, because it was close to, relatively close to home, and it would have been a, a school

I could commute to. And in fact, several of my brothers did go to Wayne State University, and

drove back and forth there each day. I think I had a real desire to have that away-from-home

college experience. And the, the only thing that was going to be determining which it was, was

whether I could get the financial aid to be able to go away, to afford to be able to go away to

school.

So, I did not apply to a lot of other colleges. I don't, I don't believe I even, ever really applied to

Wayne because I wanted to, to go for my first choice, if at all possible.

Blatti: You mentioned yesterday that, you know, one of the possibilities as you were growing up

was the idea that you might apply for a Ford Motor Company scholarship, and in fact, you'd

never gotten one, but that you had gotten other scholarships. And I wonder if you could describe

the kind of financial aid packages and work that you put together to go through school.

Butcher: Well, I was fortunate enough to be able to get a student loan. The student loan

program was, I think, relatively new at that time. And I was able to get financial aid through the

student loan package, the student loan office, every year.

But I also received Regents scholarships from the University of Michigan, I believe annually,

throughout my whole four years there. And I also received a couple of other scholarships. You

know, you would apply every year, once, once you were in school, it was easier to find out about

some of them.

But I remember receiving one called the Lucille B. Conger Scholarship, and it was offered

through the Women's Alumni Association.

And in general, I guess I was just very fortunate to be able to, be able to get scholarships. I

know when we, when we were contemplating going to Michigan and going to the loan office at

the school with my parents, I did have one disturbing experience, because the only woman loan

officer that we were meeting with was very discouraging.

I mean, she looked at, apparently, she must have looked at my parents’ financial resources,

because of course, parents had to supply that information when you apply for loans. And she

looked at me, and she said, “Have you ever considered going to Wayne State University?” And,

it was one of those things that really stung at the time because it was almost like, you know,

“You, you don't have the, the money to go here, and you should go elsewhere.”

And maybe, maybe it was one of those things that hurt, but it also reinforced my determination

that I was going to go there and. And I, I felt very offended by it, and I, I thought it was a bit cruel

in a way.

Blatti: Was the kind of implication that Wayne State was for, that's where working-class people

went, or that's where at least, that's where the sons and daughters of Ford Motor Company

people went. Is that the implication of her…?

Butcher: I think the implication was just that, it's going to cost a lot more money to go here

than, than you have in your family. And maybe you should go to a less costly, commuter college.

But, you know, I really didn't probe it at the time. I just said, “No, I want to go here.”

And, as I said I think it kind of reinforced my determination to go there.

Blatti: Now, you mentioned that you worked your way through college, and I, as well. And I

wondered what kind of jobs you had during the school year and during the summertime. Or how

you put that together?

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Butcher: Well, I had a variety of, of jobs, I think, through high school and into college. And

some of my high school years in the summers and after school, I worked part-time at, at, Sears,

Sears, Roebuck and Company. I worked in various departments, but mostly in the lingerie

department. And then, I think the summer before I went to school, I was having difficulty finding

a full-time summer job, and I certainly needed the resources, I needed to save whatever I could

for college.

And I got a job working for White Castle, which was at the end of our street.

We lived on White Street in Lincoln Park. And My dad spotted a sign one day that they were

looking for help, and so I applied, and, I kind of laugh about it now, but, you know, you have

among the things that you had to do there, if you had, if it was your time to work the grill, you

had to cook 50 hamburgers at a time, which I did and, you know, you had to do a variety of

tasks.

But I don't know if you've eaten White Castle hamburgers, but they cook them with a lot of

onions and not much meat. [laughter] The meat patties are almost paper-thin, and they have,

like, five little holes in, in the meat. So when the meat cooks, it all cooks together.

But anyway, sometimes I'd walk out of there at night and feel like one big onion. But anyway, it

was a way, it was a way to get money for school, and it was worth doing.

And the other thing about that job, too, is that you had to rotate shifts. So every week you were

going on a different shift; one started at 7 a.m., and I think 7:00 am to 3:00 pm, and then 3:00

pm to 11:00 pm or 11:00 pm to 7:00 am. So, I had to rotate shifts. So that was kind of a strange

summer, because I was always sort of topsy-turvy on my time.

Blatti: So, there were three shifts. It was a 24-hour operation?

Butcher: Yes. So, you just had to rotate every week. All of the employees had to rotate.

But anyway, when I had, when I applied for the job, I didn't want to tell them that I was going

away to college, because I was afraid I wouldn't get the, wouldn't get the job. And as it turned

out, I did well at it, and I even got a raise. I think, at the time, and the, the wages, you know,

were not great. I think at that time there were probably, when I started, I think it was about a

dollar an hour. And I think after a few weeks, I, started earning $1.05, and anyway, when it came

time to, to give my notice when, when school was coming, I was real apprehensive of how they

were going to receive the news. But the other women there were very, very, nice and very

supportive. And I think they were very pleased for me, because some of the women that worked

there were, you know, a bit older, and I don't think they had many alternatives but to be in that

job. And it seemed like they were genuinely pleased for me that I had a chance to do that.

Blatti: So it wasn't a situation in which the other people, there were teenagers necessarily.

Butcher: Not many. Now, most of them were on their older women, 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s, you

know, just, rotated, just varied, I mean.

Blatti: Do you need to get the telephone?

Butcher: Yes, can I do that?

Blatti: Sure.

[Tape pauses]

Blatti: And we were talking about your experience with White Castle right before you went to

school. And I wondered, went away to Ann Arbor, how you, how you put it together financially

during the school years? Did you have on-campus jobs or off-campus jobs? Just how, I know

some people sometimes were able to get jobs through colleges themselves, other times they

worked in surrounding businesses. What, what was your combination for?

Butcher: Well, mostly on campus. When I was living in the dorm, I lived in Jordan Hall, which

was part of Mosher Jordan dormitory.

I worked as a waitress in the, in the dorm cafeteria, and made a lot of good friends, among other

women students who worked there as well. In fact, I had a college reunion within the last couple

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of years with one of my college roommates. Well, a couple of them, actually, and we all worked

in, in the cafeteria, in the kitchen, serving and bussing and cleaning and that sort of thing.

So we all, you know, you develop a rapport with the other gals doing the same, same kind of

tasks. And, so I worked in the, in the dorms, as long as I lived in the dorm, and starting, I think in

my sophomore year, I started to work on the Michigan Daily.

Blatti: Was that a paying job?

Butcher: I was on the staff. Well, initially it wasn't. When you're just starting out as a reporter,

you don't get paid, but as you move along there and you get into a night editor position, you get

paid, you got paid a small amount because you, you had to commit to working one night a

week. And usually, it would be from about 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon until 2:00 in the morning.

Blatti: That’s a long shift.

Butcher: It was. One of the big fringe benefits that was they had, I think, one of the last nickel

Coke machines in the country. So we all drank a lot of nickel Cokes.

I guess I had, I just had a variety of different, different jobs and as I said, I was able to get

different scholarships and loans. So, I just had the sense of, you know, working was part of the,

part of the education process, went along with the education process.

And I think it's a valuable part of it, because it shows you have to work for what you get, and

also, you know, teaches you how to balance your, your time and, you know, I just felt very

fortunate that I was able to get a number of scholarships and I was able to get the, the, the

government loans.

And, of course, when you're taking those loans, it seems like it'll be a long, long way away

before you have to pay them back. But you know, when you graduate, you have, you have

about approximately ten years to pay them back. But every year the payments come due, and

you're still, you know, scrambling to, to find the money. But it is certainly a worthwhile program, I

think.

Blatti: Did you find that there was a distinction between students who worked and those who

didn't? I mean, was that, was there some kind of social or economic distinction that was obvious

to people, or was it just not a big issue?

Butcher: Well, I think, I think certainly. Yeah. There was some obvious distinction.

Many of the students that didn't have to work certainly, you know, had, had fancier wardrobes.

And at the time I went there, this was not the time when everybody was wearing blue jeans and

t-shirts. So, there was a certain amount of status, I think, to the clothing that you were able to

wear.

Blatti: What do you remember the uniforms being in that period?

Butcher: Well, very preppy, very preppy. Nice sweaters, nice skirts, or nice slacks. But very,

almost, you know, fairly dressy clothes compared to, I'd say, the college campus of today. But

also, probably the students that had more money were the ones that were more likely to join

sororities and fraternities, and those of us who didn't, we called ourselves the GDI, as the

goddamn independents. And we had our own club in that sense. You know, that way we were,

we were the non-sorority students.

But I certainly feel that the on-campus living experience is a really wonderful part of the college

education. And it really puts you in touch with so many more people and so many, from so many

different backgrounds, than you can ever get just by probably going to a commuter school.

Blatti: Did you know, were you, did you enter college in the fall of ‘61? Is that the right? And

graduated in the spring of 65.

Butcher: Yes.

Blatti: Is that the right set of dates?

Butcher: Right.

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Blatti: And so it was a, was excuse me, it was a four-year experience in terms of… Did you… I,

I know that you, you know, you were talking yesterday about your identification of yourself as a

reporter in elementary school. Did you go to Ann Arbor and think that you were being educated

to be a reporter? Was that..?

Butcher: Yeah. That was well, that was my aspiration when I entered there, I planned to

become a journalist. And then I didn't get on the school paper, the Michigan Daily, the first year,

because like I said, I'd been counseled by various people that you should really sort of dig in to

the academics and, and master that and see how you did with your, with your grade point before

you try to take on too many extracurricular things.

So, I really, I started as a sophomore on the paper, and then I, I struggled with whether or not to

major in journalism. And I started taking some journalism courses in my sophomore year, and I

guess I wasn't real satisfied with my beginning courses at the time.

Blatti: Do you remember why?

Butcher: Well, we had a particular instructor who would give you certain things to, to cover,

certain speakers would be on campus, for example, and he wanted you to attend their, their

speech and write a story on it.

But he would say, you know, it would have to be three pages, or it’d have to be four pages. And

I felt at that point that not every speaker merited the same amount of space. And so I was, I was

kind of a little disillusioned by his approach, you know, that he was very autocratic, maybe.

[phone rings]

[Tape pause]

Blatti: Now, we were just talking about the journalism professor who assigned a specific length,

and you, you felt that maybe there should be some variation.

Butcher: Yeah. I mean, I think I had probably pretty good instinct, journalistic instincts at the

time that not every speaker deserves the same amount of coverage or says as many quotable

things. So I was a little bit disillusioned. I think about that.

And then, I was working on The Daily part-time as a reporter and talked to some of the upper-

class students, and a lot of them who were very much, you know, anti the journalism

department. Some of them, some of them participated in the department, the journals, and

some of them didn't. And so I had, you know, some mixed opinions, but a lot of them thought

that it would be better to get a general liberal arts education, and then I worked…

I was fortunate enough that summer to get a job as a copy person at the Detroit News. And I

talked to some of the reporters there, and there was kind of a split opinion there, too, but a lot of

them thought, you know, it might be better to, to get a broader education than just taking

journalism courses.

And so, over the course of that summer that I was working at The News, I decided to change

from a journalism major, which I thought I was going to do, to a political science major. Because

I had an interest in politics and thought maybe someday I might cover politics. And, you know,

basically had been encouraged by professionals in the field to consider a subject like that.

Blatti: Now, can you tell me a little bit about your Detroit News job? Was this an internship

through the college, or was this something you got through the newspapers or..?

Butcher: Well, as I mentioned, I had, I had worked as a copy, a copy person, and so, I had

some, I had some connections or contacts at The News. I mean, you know…

Blatti: You worked as a copy paper person in Ann Arbor?

Butcher: No, I'm sorry, I may have misspoke. I worked as a copy person at the Detroit News.

Blatti: Right. And I'm asking how you got that job? I mean, what the…?

Butcher: How did I get to be a copy person? Okay. The managing editor of the Detroit News, a

man named Harvey Patton, was on the board of control of student publications.

Blatti: In Ann Arbor?

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Butcher: Yes, for the University of Michigan. So when he came up for a board meeting one

time, there was another student, a male student who had expressed an interest of working at

The News as a, as a copy boy. And he was going to approach Mr. Patton about it at the

meeting, before or after the meeting. And so, I decided that, that I liked that idea, and I would

ask, also. So we both got hired. You know, I was lucky, I guess, in that the idea of a copy girl

seemed to fascinate this editor, because they hadn't had a copy girl since the war.

And this was, you know, now this was back since World War II. So now this was back into the

early ‘60s, and it seemed to, I don't know, it seemed to intrigue him.

Blatti: What did a copy girl do? What was the job itself?

Butcher: What the, the copy, copy persons did every, any and every task that they needed

done in terms of somebody who was like a clerk or a messenger. We had, we alternated on

what our specific assignments were, but some people had responsibility for checking the wire

service machines at the news. We probably had 15 or 20 different wire machines. All the, all the

wire services and, you know, you would have to trim, trim the copy regularly and take it to the

city desk. A lot of times, you had to get coffee for the editors, the copy editors on the rim.

They had the, the copy desk set up a sort of a horseshoe shape, and there was one guy in the

center who would kind of just disperse, dispense the assignments.

And as people, as reporters were typing their stories, they would do it in takes. They would, they

did it on copy books that were, had three or four carbons. And as they were working the story,

particularly if they were working on a deadline, when they finished a take, sometimes it could be

a whole page, or sometimes it could just be a paragraph or two, depending on how tight the

deadline was. As they finished their, their take, they would yell, “Boy!” And somebody would

have to run up and grab it and race it up to the city desk. And of course, that was all before

computers and all that.

The same thing was true with, with, you know, these editors on the copy desk if they wanted.

Well, after, after the city desk edited it, then you would take it over to the copy desk. So the

same thing with the city editor or the assistant editor would yell, “Boy,” and you take it over to

the, to the copy desk. And as I was saying, if the copy desk wanted, wanted you to sharpen

their pencils, or they wanted you to get coffee, they would yell, you know, “Boy.”

But actually, they actually, after I arrived, they, they quit yelling, “Boy,” so much. They, they did at

first, but then they started calling, “Copy.”

So they, they changed it, but you know, there were lots of little jokes at the beginning,

particularly with some of these editors. And they'd call, “Boy,” and you'd show up, and they’d

say, “You don't look like a boy.” And then after a while, they changed to “Copy.” And then after I

was there, they started hiring many, many copy girls after that.

Blatti: So now, were you aware of yourself as being a big first?

Butcher: Yeah, I think so, I think so. I was, it was a lot of fun in lots of ways because you get a

lot of people were interested in talking to you and very friendly. I felt it was a very rewarding,

exciting summer for me because it gave me exposure to a big city newspaper, and sort of

seeing the inner workings and getting to know some of the editors and some of the reporters

and some of the reporters that you, you really admired, the ones who would get a lot of the

breaking stories, or the or the big stories of the day. I made a lot of friendships there.

Blatti: Now, were there other women working in the newsroom when you were a copy, working

copy?

Butcher: Oh, I was the only copy person, only female copy person, I should say.

I think there was one or two women. One was like a religion writer, and the other was like a, a

longtime columnist.

Blatti: For features or for politics or…?

Butcher: What she wrote about was, I think, sort of the, probably the movers and shakers in

Detroit.

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Blatti: Gossip or..?

Butcher: Not so much. I don't know so much gossip. You know, newspapers weren't as gossipy

then as they are now. It would just sort of be what was happening in the lives of Detroit's rich,

and famous, and powerful. And her name was Jane Schermerhorn. And the religion writer was

Nancy, Nancy Manser. And Jane Sherwood.

BlattI: Mansard as in roof?

Butcher: No, M-A-N-S-E-R.

Blatti: Among the people who were, you know, the, full-time employees when you were there

for your first copy summer, were there people you remember particularly, on the staff who you

formed, you said you formed friendships, and I wondered if there were editors or writers who

really stand out in your recollection as individuals you really enjoyed talking to, or who were the

source of the kind of advice that you followed about getting a general education rather than a

journalism degree?

Butcher: Well, certainly there were, there were a lot of, a lot of people that I enjoyed meeting

and, and getting to know, but one of the star reporters, I guess, was a reporter named Tony

Ripley, who later left the news to write for The New York Times. But he was, he was, an ace

reporter and, very, very good writer and, you know, I had lots of conversations with him and,

there were other reporters. One, I think, named Jim Crellin, who was a very young reporter at

the time. He was very interesting, and he was very encouraging.

It's interesting that both of these two men are now in public relations, which is the field I

ultimately went into.

And then Jim, Jim Crellin’s father, was Jack Crellin, who was a labor, labor reporter and later

became an editor. It's hard to recall the time frame of all these people over the years; a lot of

these people gave me a lot of encouragement. They're the various editors. I'm, I'm seeing their

faces and their names are not always coming to the fore.

It was, well. The guy on the copy desk that was always so friendly and, a lot of, a lot of joking

came about, “Boy,” when he would call, “Boy,” and I would show up. His name was Norm Boris.

He was an excellent copy editor.

And a man named Al Abbott was kind of the overall person responsible for the copy desk and

some of the production assignments. There are other names that will come back later.

Blatti: Okay, we should come back later. Should we go on, and we'll just pick those up as they

occur to you. One thing I wanted to ask was what the Michigan Daily was like.

I know that some college newspapers serve a university like the Minnesota paper serves the

University of Minnesota. The University of Illinois paper is the daily morning paper for

Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. What was the, or was, at least when my parents went to college.

What, what was the situation in Michigan? Was this a daily paper, a weekly paper for the

university? For the community?

Butcher: It was a daily paper for the university population. And I think it was read probably to,

to some degree by the, by the faculty and the administration as well as the students.

But it was, it was, very well read, I think, on campus at that time, and it was by paid subscription.

Blatti: So it wasn't distributed free throughout the school or something?

Butcher: No, I don't, I think it probably was a pretty modest subscription cost. But it's, that's

certainly different now because it is, it is distributed free at the moment, and I don't know if it's

as well read now as it was then. But it is, it's maybe more widely available, but probably not

home delivered like it used to be delivered to the dorms, or sometimes like that.

And now, since I teach on campus, I see it on the days I’m on campus, and it’s usually

distributed within the different school buildings. You know, people just help themselves. But it

was I think it had a very good reputation at the time.

You know, the students, senior editors took it very seriously. There was always, like, a senior

staff of about six or eight, usually about eight seniors, who had different responsibilities for

PAGE 23

different sections on the paper. And then the whole paper was organized in a hierarchy, just like

most daily papers that have daily editors. They’d have a night editor who was really responsible

for everything that was put in the paper the next day. And then, you have, you’d have an

assistant night editor, and then you'd have, like a copy desk with, you know, some of the

younger or newer students would work on these on these different assignments, and they

would, they would help with headlines and, you know, handle whatever the night editor or

assistant editor needed them to do.

But we would actually work in the composing room with the printers as well as on the copy itself.

And we, we would edit the copy, and write the headlines, and send it downstairs. The print

operation was, we're on the second floor. It was in a big, like a, like a big city room. And the

printers would be downstairs and send it down, and then the people on the copy desk would

help do the proofreading.

And, you know, it was, it would get time to, to close the paper. If you were an editor system,

you'd be down in the shop with the printers, you know, working with them on the layout. If

something was too short or if it was too long, you'd make a decision on what to trim. If it was too

short, you’d make a decision on what to put in there to fill. If the headlines didn't look right, or

were too short, you had to, you know, figure out a way to make them longer. So you did a little

bit of everything.

It was, it was, I think, a very good, exciting, training ground for aspiring journalists because you,

you got to see it all, you got to see the whole process of putting a paper together. And then

when the, you know, they'd run the page proofs and, you know, it would be very exhilarating to

go home at 2:00 in the morning, 2:30, and realize that you've been responsible for the next

day's paper.

And, of course, at that time, women had strict curfews in the dorms. And so if you worked on the

paper as I did, and you wanted to be there, you know, for one of these nightly once-a-week

night shifts, you had to get special, special permission to be out late and make special

arrangements to get in the door when you came back.

It was always kind of fun. I mean, there was a certain amount of excitement, and I think glamor

to this idea that you, you were up later than everybody else and you were making these

important decisions about what was going to be the next day's paper.

Blatti: How many people worked on that night shift?

Butcher: I think it probably varied, but you'd probably have about a total of six or eight that had

some specific responsibilities for the next day's paper. You might also, you know, there would

also be all kinds of assorted characters in and out of the newsroom that were maybe working on

a story either for that day or the next day, or there was also an entire sports staff, and that was

separate from the news staff. I mean, they had their own editors and writers and copywriters

and stuff. And so they were in the same room, but they were in their own little area.

Blatti: And you were on the news staff?

Butcher: And I was on the news staff. And, you know, I covered all kinds of assignments when I

first started, you know, from covering student government meetings, interviewing prominent

faculty members, covering a Panhellenic group meeting, you know, whatever it was, you just got

your assignments of the day, an important lecture. I remember writing a story about the first time

Betty Friedan spoke at the campus.

Blatti: I was going to ask you…

Butcher: Yeah.

Blatti: Something that came up in your college. What do you remember about that event?

Butcher: I just remember that, you know, she had had, you know, just written The Feminine

Mystique. She was on the, she was on the lecture circuit, and there was a lot of excitement, I

think, about among women about, about the book, and I guess maybe, at the time, it made, it

PAGE 24

made a real significant impression on me that this might be a historic speaker, a historic book,

as it certainly turned out to be.

Blatti: Do you remember? I was going to ask if you… Was this just another story, or was there

some kind of personal connection? Do you remember, kind of, what you thought at the time

about the book, or what kind of response you made to her personally when you interviewed

her? What did you…?

Butcher: Well, at the time, of course, I hadn't read the book. It was just, it was just new.

Blatti: Let me turn this over and we'll….

[Tape ends]

Page 5

[Tape 75_01 begins]

Blatti: This is an interview held with Mary Lou Butcher at her home in Bloomfield Hills,

Michigan, on July 27th, 1992. The interview was conducted for the Washington Press Club Oral

History Project. The interviewer is Jo Blatti. This is tape two for July 27th,1992.

Now, this morning when we were talking, we kind of came to a stopping place as you were

telling me about your first year or so at The Detroit News when you came in as a women's

department reporter, even though that wasn't what you had expected to come in as. Our tape

really ends as you're describing the kinds of negotiations that sometimes occurred between the

writing staff and the composing room staff. We left off at the point that you explained to me that

the editor at the time that you entered the department, or the women's department editor, didn't

happen to be a woman. I was kind of surprised about that because I thought that was a real,

that was the one female preserve in the newspaper.

Butcher: Yeah. Well, actually, we had quite a good guy for an editor, I think his name was Russ

McCloy. And I think we had a staff of about 20, 23 women, approximately.

So you're right in that image, most of the department was female. But it so happened that we

had a man heading the department at that time.

At a later date, a woman did take over the department.

Blatti: Now, if the women's department was about 20 writers and copy editors. Then how big

was the entire, would it be the editorial staff of the newspaper? Is that the term you use? How

many writers, and reporters, and editors worked on the whole team?

Butcher: You know, it's hard to recall, precisely. I have a sense, perhaps of a couple of

hundred, maybe 200 to 250 writers, editors, copy editors, reporters in different, different

specialties and beats and bureaus, you know, including the newsroom and the feature

department and the various state and city and national bureaus. So, probably let's say in the

neighborhood of, anywhere between 200 and 300, but I think maybe around 200 to 250.

Blatti: How many of those people who did you actually know? I mean, who were the people that

you would encounter? You told me about your colleagues in the society section and the

composing room. Who else would you see on a daily basis at work?

Butcher: Oh we, actually you get to know pretty much the editorial staff. We pretty easily,

maybe more so, once I got into the newsroom staff. But you would see your fellow reporters in

the cafeteria or in the halls. Sometimes you would be working jointly with people on

assignments or working with photographers. So, you know, a big part of the staff was the

photographers’ staff. So we probably had, I don't know, 30, maybe 30, 25, 30 photographers,

and probably some that did inside jobs, too, in terms of developing and things like that.

But you'd work with photographers on a lot of the assignments. You would see people in the

cafeteria. You'd see people coming in. There were four floors in the building, and the women's

department was on the fourth floor, and the newsroom, and the cafeteria, and the payroll

department were on the second floor. And there was also a promotion department on the

second floor.

And on, on the fourth floor, where we were, was the classified ad staff. So you would see people

from other departments and… The library was on the third floor, and the composing room was

there also. So, there was a library staff, as well. So actually, you know, quite a few people you,

you would get to see and encounter. And then once, once I worked in the newsroom, I felt like I,

I knew the majority of the staff.

Whether you ever, you know, had extended conversations with them was another matter. If you

may or may not talk to all of the people on the copy desk, for example, but you probably knew

them by name or by sight.

PAGE 34

Blatti: Now, how did you get to the newsroom? What was the set of, I mean, did you push? Did

they offer? What happened that you found yourself covering more hard news? Is that the right

term to use?

Butcher: Yes. Well, it's, it's kind of a funny story. In retrospect, it wasn't so funny at the time.

I was, I was very anxious to move into general reporting because that had been my, my goal all

along. And I accepted the position in the women's department as, kind of a way of getting a foot

in the door, so to speak. And I figured it would be a lot easier to transfer from on the staff than to

be hired from outside, particularly when I, I had difficulty getting hired directly onto the

newsroom staff. Because it just seemed like they, they, they really didn't hire women without

experience onto that staff.

The woman that I referred to earlier, who was on the staff when I was a copy person, Nancy

Manser, actually, her name was Nancy Gregory at the time, it was before she was married. She

had worked for Newsweek for several years before she came to The News.

Any other women that happened to work in the, in the newsroom probably came from another

department. You know, had worked in another area then, and then were transferred into the

newsroom.

So anyway, I, I had to come up with a strategy to get myself noticed, I guess, is the best way to

say it. And, and, you know, make the editors feel that I could contribute to the general news

staff.

So, I started to cover some stories on my own time, enterprise some stories.

Blatti: What does this mean? Enterprise?

Butcher: I “enterprised” some stories. In other words, I initiated them, and one story was about

a group of renters who were banding together to protest how they were being treated by their

land, landlords. And someone told me about their concerns and their issues, the issues they

were concerned about.

And so I went out and interviewed them, and I wrote a story, and I submitted it to the newsroom,

and they printed the story. So not, most of my stories would appear in the features section, the

women's section. But this was kind of a hard news story, and it got in the paper.

And then another time, I think there was a fire or something, and I went out and I wrote a, I

wrote a sidebar about the fire and submitted it to the city desk, and it got printed.

And then I worked with some people at the, at the police headquarters. I made arrangements to

accompany some women police officers on their rounds. They're like, they're, they were on the

midnight, or even evening, maybe overnight shift. Whatever it was, it may have started at 11:00.

It may have started at 12:00.

But anyway, I went with them on their rounds, and I did a, I did a story about exactly the work of

a policewoman and exactly what they encountered and, and, the situations they dealt with that

night, ranging from a child interviewing somebody, who's who was being interviewed for either

child molestation or rape. I'm not sure which it was at this moment. I just went with them

everywhere they were. They'd have their guns drawn, and all this, and I would be with them.

And I wrote the story, and I submitted it to the city editor in the newsroom, and he liked it a lot. In

fact, his name was Boyd Simmons. He liked the story. He was going to, to run it in the general

news sections, and he wanted to have some special art taken of, of the police women, and I

wrote about in, in the story about the handbags they carried and the, and the guns that they

carried in their handbags. And so, I think they, he particularly was interested, and then I thought,

I’d better tell my boss about this.

And so he, he got the story and I must have given him a copy or he got it from the city room and

he took it to his boss and his boss was furious that I had, I had done this story and submitted to

the, the city room because they liked the story and they wanted to run it on the section, the

Sunday front section, the women's section.

PAGE 35

And so anyway, it did get me noticed, and I ended up having like two departments fighting over

my story. And I, you know, I felt like, well, I wrote this on my own time. I could submit it anyplace

I wanted to. But the feeling was, hey, this was a, this was a good story for the women's pages.

And they wanted it.

So, they got the art taken, the photos taken of the women and their handbags and everything,

and it ran as a big section front on Sunday. It actually probably got more play than it normally

would have in the regular news pages, because it, it might have gotten, not have gotten that

special treatment. But it was rather amusing that I had editors fighting over it. Anyway, I kept

doing this sort of thing so I would get myself noticed by the, by the city editor and get his

attention.

And, and I talked to him a lot about, you know, what I should do? “I really, really want to

transfer.” And then I started talking to the head of the suburban bureau at the time. And, you

know, I was trying to get advice from him also, and he was suggesting he, he, he asked me if I

really wanted to cover the news. Would I be interested in coming, coming to the suburban

bureau? And I said, “Yeah, I would like to if that ultimately meant that I could get in the

newsroom.”

So, I did that for, I got transferred, got his interest established and was about to transfer, ready

to transfer, and then the women’s, the feature editor who was over the women's editor was not

going to let me leave until they got a replacement, and they weren't going to get a replacement

anytime soon from the way things were going.

And I had to do a lot of pressuring to say, “Look, I'm going to lose this opportunity if you don't let

me out of here.” And so finally, they did let me transfer, and they didn't have a replacement for

me at the time.

Blatti: What were the politics of the situation in the women's department? Something that I

wondered was whether they'd like to keep you? I mean, was there a sense that you were, you

were trying to get yourself groomed for hard news, but did they have a sense that you were

talent, that they wanted to hang on to? And if they saw you as a good women's department

person, or was that not…?

Butcher: I think at that point, their feeling about it was that I was doing a, a good job where I

was, and it was just probably more convenient for them if I would just stay and continue to, you

know, to do the variety of things that I was doing because I was, I was good at page layout and

makeup. I knew the routine. I knew all the routine for the society department, and I really, I really

didn't get a crack at a lot of big stories in the women's department. And so I don't, I don't feel

that they, they saw that I had this tremendous writing talent, but they knew by that time that I

could do a competent job.

And, you know, some of my early stories, I'm not sure how crazy they were about, about them,

but they were a lot of light and fluffy type of things. And I think that's what I was trying to move

away from, was I was trying to, you know, dig into something with more meat. And, so I, I think it

was just probably typical of any company or corporation where everybody has their own turf.

And they wanted, they wanted to be able to call the shots. And it was just convenient for them to

have a trained person in the spot I was in, rather than to have to start fresh with somebody new.

But then I think, you know, ultimately when I left, I think they were pleased for me at least, you

know, there was no, seemed to be no hard feelings about it. And my friends were pleased for

me.

Blatti: Did you confide in anybody in the women's department in the same way that you were

consulting the city editor or the suburban bureau chief? About what you, what your goals were,

or …?

Butcher: But the hierarchy was such that it wasn't, it wasn't easy to, you know, go to, go across

the, the aisle, so to speak, and, and make a case for what you were doing. But I don't think it

PAGE 36

was any secret. I mean, I think my boss knew that that's what my goal was. My boss, I'm saying,

the women's editor.

But, you know, there were about three layers there because I, I worked with another woman

reporter who actually became a good friend and was kind of a, a mentor, an inspiration to me

when I started there, because she had gone to the University of Michigan before me. And she

was, I thought, a very good writer, a very, very, talented person. Her name was Barbara Hoover.

And we talked a lot and, you know, she, I think, sort of helped me get the lay of the land about

what was going on around there.

But, you know, above us was the society editor I mentioned, Eleanor Breitmeyer. And then,

sharing the space in this, we were on one side of the hallway, and the rest of the women's

department was on the other side of the hallway.

But sharing our space was a woman named June Hicks, who was the garden editor. And so I'm

sure I talked to Barbara, and I talked to June about some of my, my goals and some ideas.

And then there were other women in the women's department that, you know, we probably

talked a little bit. Going up the levels, then and then over Eleanor would be with this Ruth

Carlton, who I had mentioned earlier, and then Russ McCloy.

And so everybody was, you know, pretty much assigned into their, their tasks. And since my

goal was to get out of the women's department, they really couldn't help me too much. You

know, in terms to achieve that.

But I try, I tried to make, make friends and allies in the newsroom as much as I could and, and

would talk to people down there, and, you know, I kept coming back to this Boyd Simmons. He

would give me little bits of encouragement, and he would… What he wanted me to do was to

save, we had these copy books that I talked about before where he had about three or four

carbons, and we called the, the, the copies the dupes.

So, he wanted us to, he wanted me to save my dupes, my stories, and, you know, give them to

him occasionally, and he would compare those to how the story actually appeared in the paper.

So he wanted to, he wanted to see how heavily edited I was, apparently, to see how I was going

to do.

And then I think one of the, one of the stories that I, I did. I think I was still in the women's

department, or maybe I was in the suburban, suburban bureau.

Somehow I got tapped to, to cover the Miss Michigan Pageant, of all things, in Muskegon. And

lucky for me, there was a labor dispute involving the, involving the pageant, and there was a big

fuss about whether the governor was going to, going to cross the picket line.

So, it became a more interesting story than a typical, typical beauty pageant. And I remember

that it eventually landed on page one. At this moment, I can't remember whether the governor

crossed the picket line or not, but I remember that, becoming a labor issue, made it a more

important story.

And, as I said, I either got, I either got to do that... I think I was still in the women's department,

and I had gotten to be acquainted with some of the editors down there. And I think the state

editor, somehow, had requested me to cover that story.

So it was, it was kind of a process of sort of getting, getting yourself known and sort of getting

yourself known as somebody that would, as I said, enterprise a little bit, be willing to, you know,

do some things outside of regular channels, really to, to get the story.

Blatti: And one thing I'm thinking about as you speak is that, at the time that you were making

these changes, kind of doing hard news was seen as not doing women's news in a certain

sense that it was doing other. And I wondered if there was any kind of sense on the paper

elsewhere, that of some kind of interest in consciously changing what was in the women's

section of the paper? Was that something that people talked about at all, or was that at the time

that you were in that department, or taking a different slant on women's stories or features?

PAGE 37

Butcher: I think at the time I was there might have been sort of a beginning of a process of

change. At that, at the time I was there, they really didn't get into the kinds of nitty-gritty issues

that you will see in today's lifestyle pages. You know, they don't call them women's pages

anymore. They're, they're lifestyle sections. And I think, in many cases, the stories are of equal

interest to men and women. Because, I mean, they may have to do with working mothers or

working fathers or, you know, combinations of fam, family issues, family stories, education, what

have you.

But at that time, they tended to do features on more traditional types of subjects. They would

often profile some of the big names, you know, in the community. You know, some society, some

society figures, for example, you might do stories, whatever cause or issue they might be

involved in.

But, you know, this was an era when women didn't take maternity leave and, and come back to

their jobs. They took maternity leave, they left, you know, when they were expecting a baby, and

they could reapply for their jobs if they liked when they got back. And I think there was, there

was a real sense of injustice about it, but not the consensus, the national consensus we've

come to now that the woman has a right to keep her job and shouldn't lose her job because she

has a child. So there were, you know, they weren't writing about those things at the time, and

they really didn't, it was just, I would, I would think it was just before all these issues sort of

came to the fore, you know. My sense is that most of these things really came along pretty

strong in the early ‘70s, maybe, maybe some of the late ‘60s. But in the early ‘70’s, I think,

women's consciousness was raised and, and at the same time, it began to make, you know,

make a dent in the male and the male traditions, the prevailing attitudes.

But basically going into a newspaper at that time was going into pretty much of a male club to

start with, and, and then little by little, you know, they’d let, let someone pass the threshold. You

could, you could actually get out of the women's department, or you could actually get out of the

feature department, or you could, you could cover the suburbs, or you could cover something

like education, or, as I mentioned, my friend Nancy Manser, she could cover religion. But, you

know, they didn't, they didn't have women covering so many of the breaking stories, until I'd say

probably into the ‘70s.

Blatti: One of the questions in the overall outline for this series is, how well do you think your

education prepared you for your work life? And as I listen to you speak, I’m thinking about, you

know, some observations you made about working on The Michigan Daily, how more or less

evenly it was divided between men and women, writers and reporters. And I wonder what you

think about how well you were prepared for that issue, or if you even saw it coming when you

got out of school and entered the newspaper business as a paid professional?

Butcher: Well, that is good to reflect on. I think I knew that it was somewhat of an uphill battle,

being a woman trying to go into a sort of a traditionally male environment, but I think it was also

very helpful that times were changing, with having had some experience on the college paper,

that would have helped prepare me, qualify me more. And even just being a copy person for the

paper, you know, I felt I had a little bit of entrée, or should have. But I don't, I guess I probably

never really anticipated exactly how much of an effort it was going to take on my part to sort of

change tradition there.

I did find in lots of cases, I, I was breaking new ground as I'm mentioning about doing these

stories in my own time.

Later, after I worked in the suburban bureau for about three years, I was getting a little bit tired

of that because you really worked a beat of several communities, in, in a given area. So you

might have eight or ten communities that you were supposed to be on top of.

And we had a weekly section that was Suburban News, that was targeted to that particular

circulation area.

PAGE 38

And then if you had any breaking stories, you would do those on a daily basis. And so you might

be, you might be covering city council or school board meetings on a Monday night or a

Tuesday night or what have you. And then, if something really important happened at one of

those meetings, you were supposed to call the city desk and, and do the story at 11:00 or 12:00

at night or 1:00 in the morning or whatever it was. And then you were supposed to get up the

next day and, and travel your beat and, and see your contacts and be gathering stories for the

weekly section. And it was, you worked out of your home to a large degree. You were really out

in the field, seeing people, gathering your notes, gathering your story ideas, and then you would

go into the office a couple of days a week and write all your stories for the Thursday section.

And then, as I said, you were kind of on call if there was any breaking news. Say, there was a

major accident, or fire, or something in your area, you might be called at home at any time,

Saturday or Sunday night. And after a while, you know, you get, I got tired of it. I just felt it was a

kind of job where you never, you never left it at the end of the day. Because, for one thing, you

often had night meetings. You were on call, you had gathered your notes, but you hadn't written

stories yet. So, you knew in the back of your mind that you had some pressure to write a lot of

stories when you went into the office. So, I really wanted to get into the newsroom, and I wanted

to get into a more normal schedule.

And that, you know, that wasn't easy, because they didn't have many reporters there. So I

volunteered to work nights in the city room, and they had never had a woman reporter work

nights in the city room. So, they were resisting that idea.

Blatti: On what basis?

Butcher: Well, they didn't think it was safe. I mean, they, they said, “Well, you know, we haven't

had a woman, you know, working nights.”

And I said, “Well, you know, I've been working nights all along for the last three years, you know,

covering all these meetings.”

And they said, “Well, but that's different. That's in the suburbs. That's not in the city.”

But, you know, I persisted, and eventually, they agreed to it. And then …

Blatti: This would have been, if I can interrupt, about 1970, is that right?

Butcher: I'd say about ‘69.

Blatti: So, two years in the women's department, roughly. And then, you know…

Butcher: I'd say about, maybe a year and a quarter, a year and a half in the women's

department, then about two and a half, three years in the suburbs. Okay. So I would say

probably late ‘69 is when I started in the, in the city room.

And the shift was like, I think 4:00 to 12:00, or maybe, maybe, probably 5:00 to 1:00, or

something like that. And when I first got assigned to it, it was, where I had, I worked, I think,

Wednesday through Sunday. So I had like Monday, Monday, and Tuesday nights were my

weekend. And that was awful, because I had to be, you know, I had to be in the, in the

newsroom on Saturday nights and Sunday nights, and so my social life, you know, was awful in

the sense of, you know, you couldn't see your friends at the times that they were available.

But you know, it was, it was a worthwhile experience.

I went to work for the night city editor at the time was named Wally Hushen, and he was a

delightful guy. He, he was an “old timer”, but he was really a mentor to a lot of the young writers

and editors, and he was great. I mean, you had the feeling that he really cared about you and

your development, and, and he, he, he didn't take anything, including himself, too seriously.

And so, it was a real positive experience when I worked for him.

And then later, he retired and had another editor named Phil Comer. And he was also very, very

good to work for, a very bright young guy. In fact, he’s still on the paper now and is in the sports

department right now.

But, you know, I learned a lot, I think, on that night shift. So, it was worth doing. But again, it was

sort of taking a risk, you know, not going the conventional route. They weren't making it easy for

PAGE 39

me to work 9:00 to 5:00 in the newsroom, but I probably did that. I don't know, a year, a year

and a half, or something like that.

And after a few months, I think I did finally start getting some weekend nights off. So I got kind

of a more normal schedule. But, you know, your whole life was flip-flopped around because you

were sleeping when other people were working and things like that.

And we had, we would, there was a very small crew of night reporters, maybe, you know, just a

handful. And of course, they'd had the copy editors and so on. But we would typically go over

and close up the Anchor Bar after we got off work. And, and that was fun. You learned a lot

there, too.

Blatti: Who would you do that with? Who were the people that you were?

Butcher: I would go with, I would go with Wally Hushen, or Phil Corner, or whoever the other

reporters were. They were usually men, of course. And some of the copy editors would be over

there with the state editor. There's a guy named Howard Warren. He was the state editor, state

desk, rather.

Blatti: What do you do when you close up a bar? I mean, this is the kind of thing that, that is

routine for newspaper reporters, but what is it? I mean, you just kind of sit around and tell war

stories or?

Butcher: Yeah, know, you just go over there and, you know, have… drink beer or whatever

you're drinking, and, yeah, tell stories. You probably talk about whatever you worked on that

night and probably get into all the, all the gossip about everybody else at the paper or what is

what's happening with the other people. But you have all kinds of, like, characters coming in

there. But the Anchor Bar was definitely a newspaper bar. It was situated about a block from

The News, downstairs on a lower level, you know, it's like the average person wouldn't wander

in there, you know, you had to kind of, kind of know where it was. And it still exists now in a

different, different location, but now, between The News and The Free Press. But since it was

closer to The News, I think we had more Newsies over there than we had Free Press people.

Blatti: But it was in fact used by both the big papers?

Butcher: Probably, and probably, different media. TV people would come there too. TV and

radio, people.

Blatti: But one thing I wanted to ask…

Butcher: I wanted to add more about the bar, closing up the bar. We would also have

photographers that would be over there, anybody that had been on the night shift, photography

side. And as I was saying earlier, radio and TV people would drop in there also. Cameramen, or

sometimes the anchor, anchors would be there. TV anchors and sometimes politicians would

come by. So lots, lots of people to chit-chat with. Some people would be playing pool there. But

mostly it was, it was drinking your drink of choice, and just trading information, and then, you

know, they'd have a last call at 2:00, and then they throw you out at 2:30. And then you'd go

home and you'd still be kind of, kind of fairly wide awake and, and maybe not get to bed till 4:00

or something.

Blatti: What kind of stories did you cover when you worked the night shift?

Butcher: Well, I covered whatever was happening. A lot of things you could do by phone.

Things I don't know, things that you might have to follow up on from the day. Stories that had

started to develop during the day, but nobody had, had been able to get to it yet, or hadn't been

able to complete it. It might be, you know, on occasion, a murder story.

On one occasion, I had to go out and interview the widow or the family of a doctor who had

been killed in his driveway, and Wally Hushen was, I think, reluctant to let me go out there by

myself. So, he sent another male reporter with me who, actually, I felt was more of a hindrance

than anything because he was so reluctant to intrude on the family. And I felt the same

reluctance, but I also felt that I was here to get a story.

PAGE 40

And he kept saying kind of saying to me, ”Let's go, let's get out of here.” And I kept sort of

persisting, trying to talk to the, to the widow and to the family, ended up, you know, getting a

good story, but no thanks to my companion.

But, you know, you could see there was somewhat of a protective nature there, about some of

the stories.

And other times, there would be a speaker in town, and you would be sent out to cover it. It

might be at some hotel. I do remember one time I was sent out to cover a speech. This is, I

think, this was a later period. I was sent to cover a speech where Vernon Jordan was speaking

to an all-Black group of some kind, an all-Black male group, I think, basically. And it was at a

hotel or a restaurant in the New Center area of Detroit. And I got there, I think, as the program

was underway, and I, you know, I looked into this room, and it was all, you know, Black males in

there. And they saw me, and several of the people were very, very nice. They jumped up. They

invited me in to sit at their table and cover what was happening. And then, before I knew it,

somebody came back in and escorted me out of there.

They, they had some rule that women could not be in their meetings. And so I sat in the hallway,

but the doors were open, and I could hear everything he said, but I just couldn't be in this room.

And I've thought about that many times since, and I, I was very determined to get the story, and

I actually stayed later and interviewed Vernon Jordan a little bit to add to the story. And I've

thought about that many times since then that I probably would have just left. I mean, if I had

more time to think about it, or certainly today, I would feel that this group doesn't want me to sit

in their meeting, and they don't care if the information about their meeting gets to the wider

community.

And so, I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to sit here and be treated like a second-class

citizen. But that was what it was. There was a I think a lot of that kind of thing going on at that

time.

Another time, I covered a story. I think it was when, was when Sigma Delta Chi first

invited women into, into the organization, and I, I can't remember the year now.

Blatti: Is this the journalism sorority or fraternity?

Butcher: Right. And I'm, I'm thinking it was when I worked nights, because I was actually, I had

been invited to join, and..

Blatti: I'm sorry. Had or had not?

Butcher: I was invited to join the group. And at that time, I really didn't know that much about it

or have a lot of interest in it, but it was certainly interesting to, to go and cover the ceremony.

The very first time that women were inducted into this sacred journalism fraternity. And as it

turned out, some of the, some of the male members boycotted the meeting because they were

so upset that, that women were being brought into the tent, so to speak.

And looking back, you know, you see these little moments in history of these sort of little turning

points and how some of the men were so reluctant to give up their, their male club, whether it

was in the newsroom or whether it was in their, in their fraternal organizations or what have you.

Blatti: But, did you ever it did you cover any of the stories that you told me in a way that

included, you know, the boycott or the fact that you sat outside the…?

Butcher: I, I know I, that I did on the, on the Sigma Delta Chi story. I certainly mentioned that

some of the people, or some of the men, were just so upset that they didn't

even want to participate in the meeting. I can't, I can't recall right now whether I, I mentioned

that I sat outside, but I probably didn't. I probably just did the story straight, just conveyed the

essence of, of his speech.

Blatti: I was going to ask if it ever made a difference that you were a woman. And I, you know,

you're giving me two examples in which you’re kind of reflecting on covering stories and how

you might or might not have done it. Did you ever think that it was an advantage or a particular

disadvantage to be a woman in that kind of reporting situation?

PAGE 41

Butcher: Well, I think I was aware that men had an easier time in some circumstances. That it

certainly was an easier time being considered for all assignments, and, you know, like in terms

of, like the personal safety issue didn't seem to be as much of a concern for men as for women,

although I would think it would be important, no matter who was covering a story.

Blatti: I need to turn the tech over. So let's...

[Tape ends]

Page 7

[Tape 76_01 begins]

Blatti: … in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, on July 27th, 1992. The interview was conducted for the

Washington Press Club Oral History Project. The interviewer is Jo Blatti. This is tape three for

July 27th, 1992.

Now, you were just saying, as we were switching tapes, that actually the chronology was… Now

you tell me what the chronology was on this strike.

Butcher: Yeah, I mentioned two strikes. Actually, as I recall now, shortly before I joined the

newspaper, which would have been sometime in, in the mid ‘60s, the newspapers went through

a four-and-a-half-month strike. And I remember hearing about it from my coworkers who had

been there at the time and how, how awful it was, how frustrating it was not to be publishing for

four and a half months.

And then, as it turned out, I was on the scene when we later had a strike that was twice as long.

It was nine months. And there was an awful lot of frustration during that period because, you

know, it didn't matter how important the story that might have occurred. There was nothing you

could do with it there. There was no, no forum, no outlet to communicate the story, and, you

know, the whole purpose of being a journalist is to be able to communicate information to the

outside. And we couldn't do that. We were, we were all captives in a way of the situation. And

we were, we were like firemen, maybe, firefighters at the ready if the strike were to end at any

manner, we could all jump back into our jobs and write stories and produce a paper overnight.

But it was hard to get yourself up for that every day, day in and day out.

And you, always you would go to work and ask if there was any information. How were the

negotiate, negotiations going? What's the status of things?

And we did have some, you know, internal updates that I think they did, like the management

did in a fairly regular Newsletter to let people know what was happening. I can't recall how many

times a week that would happen, but we were updated regularly on what was going on, and

basically nothing was going on. They weren't making a lot of progress for a long time.

Blatti: Now, were both of these strikes over trade issues? And did both of them involve both of

the metropolitan newspapers?

Butcher: Yes. They both involved both newspapers. I, I couldn't speak to what the first one was

about. But I wouldn't be surprised if they were somewhat related. Because during, during,

during my career at the paper, we, we switched from hot type to cold type.

Blatti: I don't know what that means.

[phone rings]

[Tape pause]

Blatti: Now, you were just explaining that the newspaper switched from hot type to cold type.

Butcher: Well, during the, during, during the course of my career at the paper, they were

moving into newer technology, and at the time when I was first working there, and I had

mentioned to you earlier about working in the composing room, everything was done on

Linotype machines. So it was, it was, you know, hot type, meaning each, each, line was, was,

dropped from the Linotype machine, and if there were corrections, you could go back in and,

and just create a new, a new line of hot type.

Over the course of my time there, then the newspaper switched over from typewriters, where we

would, as I mentioned earlier, be writing our stories in takes and having somebody physically

transport it to the city desk, until we switched over to become one of the first, if not the first,

computerized newspapers in the country.

Blatti: Do you remember what year the computers came in?

Butcher: We started training on the computers probably in the early ‘70s, and

PAGE 51

I think The News pioneered, you know, pioneered this in many ways. Because not too many

papers in the country were computerized just yet, and there were a lot of bugs to be worked out

of it. There were a lot of things to be figured out, how to, how to store a story when you hadn't

completed it. What to do when you had a, a technical breakdown, when the computers would

crash, and things like that.

And that would be one thing that would make, could make a grown man cry, is if he had written

a very lengthy story, and he… There were procedures for saving your copy where you would,

you could store it and make a copy of it. But if you forgot to do that, or you were so involved in it

that you, you didn't take time out to save it, and then the system crashed, you could lose

everything and have to start from scratch, and you would have wasted a couple of hours,

perhaps.

So, anyway, we moved to this computerized state, and then, I'm not a total expert, so I can't, I

can't explain cold type exactly, but all this stuff is done more on computers, and, instead of

instead of hot type or, you know, hard type being put into a page form, everything is done where

the copy is printed out I assume by computers, and then it’s pasted on a form. And it's, it's the

layout is done that way. So you're not, you're not dealing with type, but you're, you're typing with

the sort of print, and, and layout the, the, the copy and photos and everything, and, and paste it

up.

Blatti: Like a magazine or some other kind of graphic design. And Linotype, as I understand it,

and you tell me if I'm wrong is, is a form of a printing press technology. Where you have to go in

and correct every word or every letter or something.

Butcher: Right, right.

Blatti: So, so that those were technical issues that really changed. How did it change to work on

a computer for you? What did you think of it?

Butcher: Well, once, once they eliminated, eliminated some of the glitches and things didn't

crash so often, I thought, I thought it was great.

I actually, I, kind of went to an intermediate step. I'm trying to remember the exact chronology

here. But we were, we were getting into computers, but it's also around that period that I was

going over to the city-county bureau. I was assigned over there, and we didn't have computers.

At that time, I don't think they had the capability, or at least they hadn't made the investment to

have computers from remote locations.

So what we had was something between a typewriter and a computer. We had a specialized,

electric or electronic typewriter at the city-county bureau that had some characters coded at the

bottom of the letters. So, we wrote it just as you would on a typewriter, but it was encoded by

this, these symbols. And then we would, we would transmit this by phone or modem somehow.

And that was supposed to go into the computer bank and come out as words on the other end.

And, sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't, but basically it worked all right.

But then, when I came back from the city-county bureau after a couple of years, then I really,

you know, dived into the computers and, I think, I think it was great. It was a great advance for

anybody in the writing field, because it's so much faster to correct, change, or rewrite copy.

And I worked on the computer, both as a reporter and then as an editor. So as an editor, I also

found it, you know, very easy because you could, you can move copy blocks around, and you

can make changes in a hurry when you need to. I think it was a great advance for journalism,

certainly for any, anybody in the writing profession.

Blatti: Why don't we stop today at that note, and we'll pick up in the next session on some more

reflections on the basic experience at The Detroit News. And then we'll go into the lawsuit.

Okay?

Butcher: Okay.

[Tape ends]