Westchester | Former theater critic le Sourd dies

Jacques le Sourd, the longtime theater critic of The Journal News, has died after collapsing Feb. 5, outside the home of friends in Preston, Lancashire, England, where he had been living for more than a year. He was 64.

Le Sourd left the paper in June 2009 when the Journal News eliminated the Broadway critic’s position, the newspaper reported yesterday. But for 34 years, "le Sourd covered Broadway, Off-Broadway and local theater with a pen that flowed equally well whether crafting a pick or a pan."

As Freedom Forum posted another $48M deficit, non-profit paid retired CEO Overby nearly $1M; new documents disclose a comical money trail

A just-opened Newsroom exhibit tied to a new comedy stretches the free press mission.

Four months ago, Freedom Forum CEO James Duff raised hope for long-needed financial reform at the troubled charitable foundation after years of overspending on construction and sky-high salaries under predecessor Charles "Peanut" Overby, the chief executive for more than two decades.

Duff

There were ample reasons to move quickly. Freedom Forum's money-losing Newseum about news history in Washington had gnawed away at the foundation's crucial income-generating endowment. That spurred deep program cuts -- and an occasionally antic search for more revenue, like the museum's just-opened exhibit promoting Paramount's sequel to Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy.

Duff was named CEO two years ago -- only the second in the non-profit's history after Overby eased into retirement (or so it seemed) at age 65. He and Al Neuharth had turned the original Gannett Foundation into a refashioned Freedom Forum when the legendary jet-setting chairman retired from the Gannett Co. media giant in 1989. The move has cost Gannett communities nationwide hundreds of millions in lost charitable support, however.

In July, after another round of job cuts, Duff told the Associated Press: "We’ve certainly worked on tightening up on expenditures. I think we’re making good progress. And certainly our numbers are very, very encouraging."

But now, newly released public documents show foundation finances grew even more precarious last year after Overby got a 55% pay raise and Neuharth's compensation hit a record high, jaw-dropping expenditures even for Freedom Forum.

For the seventh consecutive year, Freedom Forum racked up another, enormous deficit: $48 million, according to its annual Internal Revenue Service tax return. Total overspending has now reached $410 million during 2006-2012 alone, the period when the museum moved to new quarters costing nearly twice initial estimates.

By the end of last year, the endowment's value dropped to $351 million, a record low, according to an examination of hundreds of pages of tax returns. In 2000, before the museum buildup, it topped $914 million -- $1.2 billion in today's dollars.

Overby

A contributing factor comes as a surprise. Although Overby ostensibly retired in 2011, the foundation paid him $987,000 in 2012 as chairman of the namesake Overby Center for Southern Journalism & Politics at his Ole Miss University alma mater -- a position previously undisclosed in tax returns. Last year's pay was way up from $638,000 in 2011.

Overby's pay, which included $480,000 in deferred retirement benefits and a $207,000 expense account, was his third highest on record, exceeded only in 2005, when the foundation paid him $1.3 million, and just barely in 2008, when he got $991,000, according to tax returns.

By contrast, the Knight journalism foundation's highest-paid employee in 2012 was CEO Alberto Ibarguen, who got $742,000. With $2.1 billion in assets, Knight is three times bigger than Freedom Forum, even when real estate is included. The Miami-based charity donated $25 million to help open the museum's new home. Ibarguen is a former museum trustee. Knight is now represented on the board by former Gannett executive Michael Maness.

Overby's total: $9.2M
Last year, Overby was once more Freedom Forum's highest-paid employee, bringing to $9.2 million his total compensation since 2000, tax returns show. But he certainly wasn't the only Freedom Forum employee pulling down big bucks in 2012:

Neuharth was paid $602,000 as founder, the most he's ever received in a single year. It included a record $303,000 expense account. Neuharth died last spring at age 89.

Ken Paulson, former CEO of the foundation's First Amendment Center, also got $602,000 -- a record for him, too. That included a $367,000 salary plus $186,000 for his retirement account. In July, he became dean at the College of Mass Communications at Middle Tennessee State University. A former top USA Today editor, Paulson had once been a sure bet to replace Overby.

Finally, Duff earned $514,000, most of which was his $445,000 salary. To be sure, that was far less than in 2011, when he got $1.6 million, almost entirely in deferred retirement pay.

Those fat paydays were followed by another round of cost-cutting early this year. Duff slashed dozens of foundation and museum jobs, sources told me, hitting the First Amendment Center and Diversity Institute in Nashville especially hard. Freedom Forum also canceled the Crazy Horse Journalism Workshop, an annual event encouraging young Native Americans to enter the profession.

Whether Duff has made more progress stabilizing the foundation this year likely won't become clear until late 2014, when the foundation files its next tax return. I obtained a copy of the most recent one on Friday under open records law. They're the only comprehensive source of financial information non-profits are required to make public.

Neuharth

Neuharth's compensation and duties remain a mystery. Freedom Forum has repeatedly refused to detail his job responsibilities whenever I've asked. The tax return only says the late octogenarian media mogul averaged 40 hours a week in his role as founder -- an average $289 an hour.

His $303,000 expense account suggests he traveled a lot, two years after double knee replacement surgery left him riding an adult-sized tricycle near his seaside estate in Cocoa Beach, Fla. He died in April after sustaining injuries following a fall at home.

His 12-page will signed in 2009 included detailed plans for three memorial services, but no bequests to Freedom Forum or the museum. However, he did order their names chiseled on his headstone. And the Neuharth family is listed among donors of $100,000 or more to the museum.

Meet the boss: his daughter
Freedom Forum's latest deficit came during Neuharth daughter Jan Neuharth's first full year chairing the 11-member board of trustees. She replaced Overby. The foundation paid her $50,000 last year.

Jan Neuharth

There is considerable overlap between Freedom Forum's trustees and the museum's, which is a legally separate entity. Many are long-time close associates of Al Neuharth.

Duff is on both boards. So is Neuharth's Cocoa Beach attorney, Malcolm Kirschenbaum, and the former Gannett newspaper publisher Mike Coleman. One of the more high-profile trustees is PBS NewsHour co-anchor Judy Woodruff.

Over the years, Freedom Forum and the museum have become a popular way station to retirement for many other top Gannett executives, including Peter Prichard, chairman of the museum board and another editor of the paper Neuharth founded, USA Today. As a Freedom Forum trustee, Prichard was paid $44,000 last year.

That the foundation and museum have been run by former newspaper editors, rather than trained professionals with experience in the field, suggests a major reason why both entities have become such financial boondoggles.

Duff, 60, is an attorney who came to his job without any discernible experience in museum or foundation work. He was chief administrator of the sprawling U.S. court system, with 35,000 employees and a $7 billion budget. Before that, he was managing partner of the Washington office of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz.

The office, which did legal work for the foundation, was founded by Howard Baker Jr., former majority leader of the U.S. Senate for Tennessee. Freedom Forum's tax return says he's a trustee and secretary, but the foundation's website says only that he's trustee emeritus. Overby, Paulson and the foundation also have deep Tennessee ties.

Overby lives in upscale Franklin, Tenn., which draws country music stars from nearby Nashville. In addition to his Freedom Forum pay last year, he also earned $200,000 as a director at for-profit prison operator Corrections Corp. of America in Nashville. He's been on the board 12 years, piling up 89,000 CCA shares, mostly options, with a gross value of $3.2 million, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Screenshot from retirement video.

(In court, CCA is at odds with Freedom Forum's free press and free speech mission. It has unsuccessfully opposed Tennessee open-records laws, arguing it shouldn't be required to disclose public documents about lawsuits against the company. CCA is a major government contractor. Overby has contributed $25,000 to its political action committee since 2009, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.)

From Franklin, it's a four-hour drive to the Ole Miss campus' Overby journalism center. The center got its name after Freedom Forum donated $5 million to the school, one of a slew of eyebrow-raising grants. It's unclear whether it will continue paying him a six-figure salary as the center's chairman. On his retirement as foundation CEO, the university hosted a testimonial dinner that included a breathtakingly hagiographic video called Charles Overby: A Journey of Courage. It describes the $450 million museum as his "bold idea."

$27 million for museum
Whatever Duff accomplishes in belt-tightening, he won't immediately escape Freedom Forum's biggest ongoing obligation: the museum, which had 374 employees and a $68 million budget last year. The foundation gave the museum $27 million vs. $30 million in 2011. Freedom Forum's total 2012 spending last year was $56 million vs. $55 million. It generated only $8 million in revenue, producing the enormous deficit. The largest operating expenditures were employee pensions, salaries and wages.

The museum has fought for a Washington audience where many must-see attractions are free. It charges $22 for adults, although tickets are sometimes discounted. Admission revenue has barely budged since it opened in 2008. Last year's $7 million was virtually unchanged from 2011.

Newseum's Washington exterior.

As with many cultural institutions, it derives most of its revenue from contributions, facilities rental and concessions: $13 million in 2012, according to the tax return.

Its collection is eclectic, reflecting the breadth of its First Amendment mission: three-ton chunks of the Berlin Wall, newspaper comics and cartoons, and perhaps its most visible exhibit, an online collection of newspaper front pages from around the world.

But as the news industry grows more diffuse in the Twitter age, the museum has stretched the bounds of what might advance the foundation's free press ideals. The newest display -- Anchorman: The Exhibit -- is as much a promotion for Paramount's latest comedy as it is about journalism. The museum says the exhibit explores sexism in 1970s newsrooms. Its perhaps unintentionally arch Twitter hashtag: #stayclassynewseum.

Presley got star treatment in 2010.

The exhibit includes props, costumes and footage from 2004's Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, starring Will Ferrell. Organized with Paramount, it opened Thursday, ahead of Dec. 20's debut of the sequel Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. The foundation's website features a trailer for the movie. Paramount didn't make any payments to the museum, according to The New York Times.

To be sure, the exhibit isn't the first devoted to an entertainer; in 2010 the subject was Tennessee's adopted son, Elvis Presley.

A $650 million start
Neuharth, after retiring as Gannett's controversial CEO and chairman, held onto the company's philanthropic arm and installed Overby as chief executive. Founder Frank E. Gannett originally established the Gannett Foundation in 1935 for the benefit of Red Cross chapters and other needy causes in communities where the newspaper publisher did business.

Frank Gannett

Neuharth pressured Gannett to buy back $650 million in company stock that was the entirety of the foundation's endowment, then gave it a new name and mission, transforming it into a global journalism charity.

But in 2000, he and Overby shifted gears, focusing the foundation's money on one project: the museum. A promoter of the First Amendment, the museum also was to be a lasting physical legacy of Neuharth's life and career. Housed in a mammoth 643,000-square foot complex on a $100 million Pennsylvania Avenue parcel in Washington, it also is home to Freedom Forum's headquarters.

Opened years late for a whopping $450 million -- nearly twice initial estimates -- the museum now accounts for virtually all the foundation's annual gifts to non-profits. It wasn't Freedom Forum's first experience with runaway construction spending, however.

In 1994, Overby negotiated a 17-page settlement with New York's attorney general when the foundation was still incorporated in New York. Overby and Neuharth agreed to curtail what the attorney general called excessive spending on Freedom Forum's first headquarters, such as a $40,000 desk for Neuharth's office. Its provisions effectively remained in force only three years, however.

Neuharth and the other trustees paid $175,000 in restitution to the foundation. He later called the payments "utter nonsense," made simply to avoid a costly court case, according to Editor & Publisher. "Darts and arrows like this go with the territory for any action-oriented organization," he said.

A "font-tastic" t-shirt.

Under the settlement, Neuharth gave the Gannett Foundation name back to the company, which launched a new one under the same name. It has never returned to its former financial clout. Its most recently released tax return, for 2011, says it made $5.4 million in grants. Administrative overhead totaled only $194,000, however.

Where the original Gannett foundation supported untold numbers of community groups, Freedom Forum is spending down its endowment while the museum's gift shop sells $20 gag t-shirts and bangle bracelets. The foundation's administrative costs hit $28 million last year -- not including another $28 million for the museum.

But what about Elmira?
The museum's website features a by-the-numbers breakdown of its operations, such as the weight in pounds of the artifacts moved in for the 2008 reopening (145,460), the height in feet of the building's tallest point (137) and the number of TV studios (2).

Here are some numbers for last year that didn't get mentioned:

• The museum's operating expenses: $185,850 per day.
• Admissions revenue: $19,672 per day.
• Foundation grants to the U.S. Equestrian Team (Jan Neuharth is a horse enthusiast): $1,000.
• Overby's compensation: $475 per hour.
• Grants to non-profit groups in Elmira, N.Y., where in 1906 Frank Gannett started his company: $0.

Related: Read and download Freedom Forum's 2012 tax return and the Newseum's. Plus: See this spreadsheet showing foundation financial data for 2000-2012. And: Can Ron Burgandy save the Newseum?

Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.

Reno | Devastating obit disappears from the Web

"This brutal obituary is a reminder to be good to your children," warns Gawker, and the editors aren't kidding.

Unfortunately, it appears the Reno Gazette-Journal has removed the obit in question from its website. But Gawker has preserved the full text, including this opening line:

"Marianne Theresa Johnson-Reddick born Jan 4, 1935 and died alone on Aug. 30, 2013. She is survived by her 6 of 8 children whom she spent her lifetime torturing in every way possible."

Ouch.

16 ways to consolidate Gannett into oblivion

In an e-mail, a reader writes the following:

The future job losses are easy to predict across Gannett. Connect all of the following and you can see what your continued employment prospects might be.

1. Classified employees will be laid off and class call centers will be created at one or two central sites.
2. All delivery functions will be outsourced to rack companies and contractors. Gannett Publishing Services will be able to cut employees and the associated costs and pass them to vendors.
3. Digital functions will be performed at central studios, just like the Design Centers. The company has learned that it can't build digital teams at each site and is finally realizing there is no one to create content when four-people-per-site are devoted to pure web functions. Folks who have made the successful jump to digital will find themselves either moving to hubs (like copy editors two years ago) or leaving employment.
4. With a modem, finance/accounting can be done from anywhere. Racks are gradually being removed and one person can now count all of the quarters in one morning (this will go to contractors anyway). Accounting and human resources are already heavily consolidated; they will be consolidated more. Sarbanes-Oxley be damned: There will be no accounting needs at sites. Also, numbers calculated at hubs can't be washed courtesy of the local publisher and controller.
5. Offices are largely unnecessary. Salespeople can do everything remotely -- reporters too. There is no longer walk-in traffic at the offices; the people who used to "drop off" things at a newspaper don't exist. Obits are done by the funeral homes, weddings have gone to social media, celebrations are now paid content (no one is paying), yard sales go to shoppers or CraigsList. Once classified leaves the building, you won't need a building.
6. No building means no local IT. Vendors can be contracted to trouble-shoot all equipment, because it will be all-mobile hardware -- easier to replace than fix.
7. With no circulation, production, accounting, classified, building/grounds and IT oversight required, publishers won't be needed. We see the trend of the general manager-ad director and GM-editor. That will become the norm.
8. When the publisher becomes the ad director, the ad director is done. When the publisher is the editor, the editor is done. With everything viewable on SalesForce.com, ad managers at hubs can monitor all performance. There won't be a need for on-site ad management.
9. Local governments have had it with the legals publishing rates. This content-advertising is headed to government websites. The local laws are going to change. Legals are the only remaining monopoly-like revenue source for local sites. Loss of this revenue stream will be disastrous (yet, I'm not aware that the company even has this on their threat list).
10. Deal Chicken is essentially dead. Gannett Client Solutions barely works. Is anyone still selling Yahoo? Do any of your advertising clients really understand digital marketing solutions and reputation protection? Enough to hand you a check for the service? There are no new or unique digital initiatives with any promise of producing dollars.
11. Photographers are no longer necessary. Stringers can do it all. All you need is a photo editor to assign them and a clerk to shepherd their photos. Reporters can take all of the needed photos and the Design Centers can jazz them up via presentation. There is no need for photography that has an artistic quality, mostly because the readers don't appreciate it in print and it ends up being poorly displayed on the website. Mugshots will rule.
12. Videos either need to get a lot better fast or be scaled back. Someone will figure out that the public has no patience to watch a video made by a reporter with a Sprint iPhone 4, but it's not worth spending the time and cash to make better videos. Some of these embarrassing efforts will occasionally go viral and drive some web attention, which will be mistaken as success.
13. Any press that can be closed, will be closed. If there's a printer within 100 miles that can print your newspaper, they'll be paid to do it, then haul it to the contractor-distributor.
14. Marketing? There is no more local site marketing. At sites where it does exist, it, too, can be outsourced and corporate managed.
15. Weeklies are little more than glorified TMCs. Their production effort is seldom worth the revenue. Advertisers only spend with them because the core product costs too much. Their expenses are hidden in the core product. If and when they have to stand on their own, their profit margins will collapse. About TMCs: Everyone hates them -- they are little more than First Amendment-protected litter bundles. Insert customers are gradually realizing this.
16. Calendar listings will be outsourced, as will court listings, real estate transactions and local business briefs (the Rotary and chamber can write them).

Okay, I've depressed myself into a coma in writing this down.

My hope is that everyone else out here in Gannett Land already knows all of this and is making decisions about their future career options accordingly.

Big Al | In death, he really did have it his way

The plan wasn't nearly as over-the-top as "Operation Serenade," the code name President Ronald Reagan's advance men used when they orchestrated his seven-day state funeral in 2004.

Still, Al Neuharth left nothing to chance for his own sendoff last month. Well before he died at 89 on April 19, following a fall at his seaside estate in Cocoa Beach, Fla., the retired Gannett chairman and CEO drafted the blueprint for his last hurrah, according to public documents released today.

First and foremost, there was to be no traditional funeral. "Instead," he directed in his Last Will and Testament, "I request three memorial celebrations of my life."

One was to be in Brevard County, Fla., preferably at Florida Today facilities. A second, at the headquarters of the Freedom Forum foundation and Newseum he launched in Washington. And the third at the University of South Dakota south of tiny Eureka, and the family plot where he asked to be buried under a headstone adorned with the logos of USA Today and other media companies he founded.

"Invitations, the program and all other aspects of the celebration shall be carried out as I have previously discussed in person and in writing," Neuharth said -- duties handed to associates including his long-time consigliere Charles "Peanut" Overby.

'I used to be Al Neuharth'
That program ultimately included a seven-minute video starring Neuharth himself. (Dressed in two of his signature colors, gray and orange, and pointing at the camera, he says: "Hi. In case you've already forgotten, I used to be Al Neuharth.")

Neuharth

And true to his gold-plated philosophy that "first class costs only a few dollars more," Neuharth said the sky was the limit in how much those three celebrations could cost.

Those wishes are perhaps the most interesting details -- save one other -- in the 12-page will, a copy of which I obtained this morning from the Brevard County clerk under Florida's open-records law. The document is a testament to a life and career that made him one of the last modern-day media moguls -- and a man with an obsessive attention to detail.

Signed Dec. 30, 2009, the will doesn't reveal dollar amounts of any specific bequests from an estate almost surely valued in the multimillions of dollars, amassed during his 26 years as a jet-setting GCI executive, ending with his retirement in 1989.

Instead, all his assets were folded into the Allen H. Neuharth Revocable Living Trust when he signed his will. He named his daughter Jan Neuharth and his long-time friend Malcolm Kirschembaum, a Cocoa Beach attorney, as personal representatives to handle his estate.

Echoes of Sinatra
The service at Freedom Forum was held May 15 before 500 friends, family members and other guests. Musical accompaniment, also presumably at his request, included the Frank Sinatra classic My Way. That song selection was hardly surprising: He and his buddies were Gannett's version of the rat pack, with Neuharth dressed in sharkskin suits in the Sinatra role.

His signature on the will.

During his heyday as GCI's chief executive, USA Today reported in his obituary, Neuharth "maintained sprawling suites at the Waldorf Towers in New York City and the Capital Hilton in Washington, and he traveled on a corporate jet with its own shower."

A Newseum report called the May 15 event "a unique send-off that ranked with the memorial services of Ford Motor Co. founder Henry Ford II and Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist Art Buchwald, two celebrations that Neuharth admired and cited as 'full of felicity.'" (Indeed, Buchwald announced his own death in a New York Times video.)

Burial followed three days later at South Dakota's Eureka Cemetery, alongside his parents, brother and sister-in-law. (In fact, the will indicates he was cremated.)

In all, his final passage at the top was a long, long way from his very modest childhood. Born March 22, 1924, Neuharth grew up in a German-speaking household in rural Eureka and Alpena. When Neuharth was only 2, his father died, leaving his mother Christina to raise him and his older brother Walter by washing dishes and taking in laundry. Her story would reverberate across GCI decades later in Neuharth's management style.

A missing name

Neuharth-Ozgo

The one other interesting detail I noticed in the will forms a sad coda to his life. In identifying his family members, he lists his third wife, Rachel Fornes, and their six adopted children; two grandchildren; and his first wife, Loretta Neuharth, and their two adult children: Jan and Dan.

But conspicuously absent is any reference to Rosamunda Neuharth-Ozgo, almost certainly ending her long quest for Neuharth to publicly recognize her as his daughter from a year-long affair she says he had in the early 1960s.

In that matter, Neuharth seems to have had his way, too.

Related: from Princess Diana to Michael Jackson, other wills of the rich and famous.

Big Al | In death, a businessman to the very end

[Neuharth's gravestone, which he erected prior to his death]

Former Gannett Chairman and CEO Al Neuharth, who died April 19 at age 89, will be buried in a public ceremony in his hometown on May 18 at South Dakota's Eureka Cemetery, alongside his parents, brother and sister-in-law.

His gravestone, which he bought and had placed alongside his family's graves, lists as his accomplishments the businesses he founded: USA Today, the Freedom Forum foundation, Florida Today in Brevard and the Newseum in Washington, according to the Aberdeen American News. He poked fun at himself by also engraving "SoDak Sports 1952 (failed 1954)," for his first media venture.

Neuharth was born in Eureka March 24, 1924, the youngest of two brothers.

Arrangements were made with Lien-Straub Funeral Chapel of Eureka.

[Photo: American News]

In Neuharth obituaries, a name hardly mentioned

Neuharth-Ozgo vs. Neuharth

It is Rosamunda Neuharth-Ozgo, and she told me her story late one spring afternoon in 2009, over coffee in a Washington-area restaurant. (Read the version she wrote herself.)

Today, of all days, her name and claim deserve to be mentioned prominently.

Bulletin: Neuharth is dead at 89, after fall at home

The newspaper Al Neuharth famously launched 30 years ago is now reporting that he died today as a result of injuries following a fall at his home in Cocoa Beach, Fla.

"Newsroom smart and board room savvy," USA Today reports, "Neuharth was audacious, flamboyant and a self-described 'dreamer and schemer.' He used all those talents, and a dose of Midwest charm and common sense, to help build Gannett into one of America's largest media companies."

Cincy | Reporter dies after collapsing in newsroom

[Updated at 2:18 p.m. ET with confirmation from paper.]

Cincinnati Enquirer reporter Barry Horstman, 60, whose career spanned nearly four decades in and out of the southern Ohio city, died today after collapsing in the newsroom; the cause of death is unknown, the paper is now reporting.

Horstman

Horstman spent half his journalism career in Cincinnati, including a stint at since-shuttered Cincinnati Post, where he helped veteran reporters transition to computers from typewriters.

“He was a wonderful man, wonderful citizen and wonderful newspaperman,” former Ohio Gov. John “Jack” Gilligan told the paper. “He will be sorely missed in all of those roles in this town.”

My original post: A reporter collapsed this morning in The Cincinnati Enquirer's newsroom, according to one of my readers, and later died. On Twitter, multiple posters are saying the reporter is Barry Horstman.

"He was very well known around town, and he had been complaining for sometime about the stress and the workload at the paper," my reader says. "There are lots of tears in the newsroom."

I'm ill. Cincy Enquirer reporter @barryhorstman, friend and colleague at Cincy Post, died suddenly this AM. One of the best. -- 30 --
— Randy Ludlow (@RandyLudlow) February 25, 2013

Related: Here's Horstman's Twitter feed, and his Facebook page.

Dear Abby: How do you write a good obituary?

Answer: try this.

Marlene Dietrich said hello: How to write an obit

From The New York Times' obituary for Gray Foy, the artist, tastemaker, bon vivant, salonnier, partygoer, party-giver, genteel accumulator and perennial fixture of New York cultural life:

For decades, Mr. Foy was a quiet if supremely capable avatar of the city’s gracious, aesthetically minded, boldface-named social milieu, a latter-day Gilded Age that flourished in New York in the years before the Stonewall uprising and for some time after, of which Truman Capote was perhaps the best-known embodiment.

Cincy | Former editor Beaupre is dead at 68

The Times-Tribune of Scranton, Pa., where Larry Beaupre was the top editor, did not give a cause of death in a news story today.

[Updated at 11:36 a.m. ET Nov. 12: Beaupre had suffered from cancer for four years, the paper said in a longer follow-up story today.]

Beaupre

Beaupre had announced plans to retire last summer after a half-century in print journalism. He said he would keep working through March to help his successor and then planned to work as a consultant for another year or so.

Beaupre was The Cincinnati Enquirer's editor during the infamous Chiquita Banana project scandal that ultimately cost him his job in Gannett, where he'd been a long-time and highly regarded news executive.

He is survived by his wife, Laurie; four children, Becky, Peter, Alexandra and Laura, and four grandchildren. 

Sioux Falls | Paper falsely reports McGovern death

It was a technical snafu, the Argus Leader told readers this afternoon. But questions remain over how the South Dakota daily mistakenly reported that critically ill former Sen. George McGovern had died.

McGovern

The paper said a software company that searches the content of Gannett websites had "detected an unpublished story in the Argus Leader content management system and created a link to the McGovern story without permission."

What's to prevent this from happening at another GCI paper?

McGovern, 90, was admitted Monday to a Sioux Falls hospice suffering from a combination of medical conditions due to age that have worsened in recent months.

KTHV | Just-hired news anchor killed in car crash

Turner

Matt Turner joined the CBS affiliate in Little Rock only last month, the station said, in announcing his Saturday night death after a crash in Benton, southwest of the city. He was 32.

State police said his vehicle ran off Interstate 30 and hit a highway sign, according to the station.

Ex-USAT/Gannett columnist Dorfman has died

Dorfman

A pioneer in writing about the stock market for the masses, Dan Dorfman's many reporting stints included USA Today starting in 1986, where he wrote two columns a week for the paper and a third syndicated by Gannett.

He died Saturday in New York at 80.

His influence peaked in the 1990s, according to Bloomberg News, when he appeared daily on the CNBC cable network and earned at least $800,000 annually for his TV and print reporting. He paved the way for TV pundits such as Jim Cramer, the former hedge-fund manager who hosts CNBC’s “Mad Money” program.

Still, Dorfman's reputation was tarnished amid accusations by securities regulators of improper relationships with investors.

In an interview four years ago, he said: “On my tombstone, I would like it to read, ‘Here lies Dan Dorfman, a reporter who cared.’ All that I’ve tried to do is to give to the masses what was known to a chosen few. That was my contribution.”

Phoenix | Intern ID'd who died in apparent suicide

Funeral services were held yesterday for Daniel Kemp, an Arizona State University journalism student and news intern at The Arizona Republic who killed himself Dec. 23 by jumping from the newspaper's parking garage.

Kemp

Born Dec. 8, 1991 at Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., Kemp "died much too young, at age 20, in downtown Phoenix,'' says his Republic obituary.

"During college," the obituary continues, "he served three internships with local newspapers, most recently with the Republic doing breaking news."

In its news story last week about Kemp's suicide, the paper didn't disclose he was one of the paper's interns, leading readers to wonder why he chose the downtown garage.

A comment posted on his obituary's guestbook says Kemp worked in the nearby Mesa bureau: "He read 100s of incident reports in Chandler, and managed to cull some wonderful stories, using his own news judgement, which later turned out to be some of the most read items on azcentral.com."

[Photo: Legacy]

Phoenix | Reports: Intern dies in suicide jump

An Arizona State University journalism student jumped off the ninth-floor roof of The Arizona Republic's downtown parking garage Wednesday night in an apparent suicide attempt, and was later pronounced dead at a local hospital, published reports say.

The student was a Republic intern, according to Phoenix New Times, which notes that the Republic did not identify him as such in its story about the incident.

The student was taken to a hospital in extremely serious condition, New Times said, but was pronounced dead at 11 p.m. local time, according to the Republic.

The newspaper and New Times did not identify the student by name. He was one of the Republic's breaking-news interns, New Times said, citing a source it did not identify.

[Hat tip, Jim Romenesko]

Des Moines | Former circulation VP Bell has died

Rick Bell started his career carrying newspapers for The Olympian in Washington at the age of 10 and worked his way up to vice president over circulation at The Des Moines Register.

Bell, 49, died yesterday at Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines, the Register is now reporting; his obituary doesn't include a cause of death.

A memorial service is scheduled for 4 p.m. Wednesday at the First Assembly of God Church, 1700 W. Second Ave., Indianola, Iowa, according to the newspaper.

Related: read Overton Funeral Home's online memorial guest book.

Wilmington | Former publisher Donnelly is dead

Brian Donnelly, twice president and publisher of The News Journal in Wilmington and a co-founder of the Delaware Community Foundation, died yesterday at his Florida home. Donnelly, 78, had been ill for some time, the Delaware daily said today.

USAT | With Steve Jobs, what's old is news again

On USA Today's YourLife web vertical about health, relationships and beauty, the newspaper is republishing a story that first appeared Aug. 24, about Steve Jobs' decision to step down as Apple's CEO amid his battle against pancreatic cancer.

Today's version appears to be word-for-word the same as the original. "While no one can say how Jobs will fare," it says, 'I suspect we will not be talking about years' of additional survival,' says Zev Wainberg, a gastrointestinal oncologist with UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center with no personal knowledge of the case."

To be sure, a prominent editor's note alerts readers to the story's history.

That's certainly an efficient way of producing a timely story. More typically, however, papers produce new articles in situations like this. What do you think?

Earlier: How you learned about Jobs' death. 

Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.