The Sept. 4 issue of the Joplin Business Journal offers more salutes to the publication's founder, former Joplin Globe Editor Tom Murray, who died last month.
Associated Press reporter Jim Suhr, who got his start at the Globe under Murray, and Murray's former classmate at St. Peter's Elementary School in Joplin, longtime Springfield News-Leader columnist Mike O'Brien.
Suhr began his remembrance this way:
"His language was salty, his passion for the St. Louis Cardinals and his Irish heritage unmistakable. But as an old-school journalist, Tom Murray made his livelihood often covering characters when he was a big one himself."
O'Brien offered this comment:
"He loved being a reporter and editor, but he wanted the job done right. Hard as he could be on others sometimes, I think he was hardest on himself."
Yes, Tom Murray was editor of the Joplin Business Journal at the time of his death, so naturally, that publication is going to do something more to honor its founder. In past issues, it has featured recollections from current Globe staff members Susan Redden and Wally Kennedy.
That being said, it still points out the pettiness of the way the Globe handled the death of someone who was a fixture there for much of his adult life. The Globe offered only a paid obituary, and the usual death notice. He received no separate story, no recollections from the many people who worked with him, nothing other than the smallest amount it had to do.
Speculation is the decision on how to handle the Murray obituary came from someone higher up the ladder than editor Ed Simpson. Whoever is responsible, the decision reflected poorly on a newspaper that already has a growing public relations problem.
2 comments:
You would swear to god he cured cancer for as much as you can't let this go.
As a matter of fact, the one or two times I dealt with Mr. Murray, I was treated rather rudely. This is not about him; it is about the way the Joplin Globe handles the coverage of the death of prominent people. No matter how you feel about Tom Murray, his death merited better coverage than it was given by the Globe. It is people who "let things go" who allow much of what's wrong in our society to continue. I prefer to challenge what I see as wrong whenever I see it and maybe next time the same mistake won't be repeated.
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