So many confessions I have made, ‘cause truth got in the way. (With apologies to Joni Mitchell and Judy Collins — “Both Sides Now”)
I’ve had an unpleasant history w
ith the United Way in my somewhat checkered career in community journalism. I thought about that earlier this week when I published the story about the Allegan County United Way now having to hire its third executive director since the retirement of Mimi Gabriel of Hopkins. I know not the reasons for the high turnover, and I suspect officials on the board would give me a classic public relations dance if I asked:
“She stepped down to spend more time with her family.”
I’ve actually had a positive history with the United Way in the past because of quality people such as Mimi Gabriel, Jeff McElwee, Jeff Salisbury and Millard Coleman. But my running afoul of the organization cost me my editor’s job at J-Ad Graphics in September 2007.
I had the temerity in my own ill-advised on-line blog to tell the true story of a United Way executive director who practiced extortion to get added and undeserved publicity in the early 1990s.
It unfolded when I received a phone call from the director of the Barry County Red Cross, who begged me to always add a brief paragraph at the end of any story of a blood drive or Red Cross activity, stating that, “The Barry County Red Cross is funded by the United Way of Barry County.” The Red Cross official told me she had been threatened by withdrawal of financial support if that paragraph wasn’t added to all stories about the agency.
I told the Red Cross director her agency should not be penalized by my editorial decision. I added that the Red Cross received support from other organizations and agencies, and I argued that routine financial aid to the Red Cross has nothing to do with an upcoming blood drive, where getting people to donate the precious fluid was far more important.
I was horribly naïve in not understanding the president of the United Way Board of Directors was the wife of J-Ad Graphics Vice President John Jacobs, who shortly afterward ordered me to include said paragraph at the end of all Red Cross stories. My protests, invoking the sacred rules of journalism, were fruitless.
That same United Way director several years later became a candidate for state representative after Bob Bender was forced to retire because of term limits. She even received the endorsement of the Grand Rapids Press, which absolutely disgusted me because I thought the Press would do a more thorough job of examining the candidates.
When I wrote the story about the seven candidates who filed by the deadline on a Tuesday afternoon, I had only about 24 hours to put it all together for a weekly newspaper that went to press Wednesday evening. I was unable to reach this former United Way director, but pieced together information I knew about her and ran an old photo.
Though she received just about as much ink as the other six candidates, she raised hell the next day in a phone call to John Jacobs. I was ordered subsequently to run a complete story about her alone the following week with a new picture.
Once again, I protested, but to no avail.
Happily, this woman, whom to this day I believe is a “rhymes with rich,” lost in the primary that was won by Terry Geiger of Lake Odessa, with whom I developed a reasonable relationship. Interestingly, Geiger served six years, but lost to Patty Birkholz in the State Senate race of 2000 because he was picked up for drunken driving and Birkholz seized on the political opportunity relentlessly.
State Rep. Bob Genetski committed the same crime a dozen years later, but paid no political price.
But I digress.
I started an on-line blog over Labor Day weekend of 2007 in which I told this story about the United Way. Two weeks later I was fired at J-Ad Graphics and I was told by “friends” they would have fired me, too.
A sadder man, but wiser now, I understand there are several morals to this story:
- Do not be surprised if you are punished and vilified for telling the truth.
- Don’t mess with “do-gooder” organizations like the United Way, who have powerful champions.
- Don’t start an on-line bog just because you’re frustrated that you’re not permitted or authorized to tell the truth to the masses, who actually don’t care.
- In the wise words of George Bernard Shaw: “If you tell the people the truth, you’d better be funny. Otherwise, they’ll kill you.”
And so it was for Bill Hicks, George Carlin and Lenny Bruce. And so it was for unfunny me.
PHOTO” Andy Dominiani speaks at a United Way Kickoff event at the Wayland High School Fine Arts Center in 2012. At the lower right is retired teacher Jeff Salisbury.
