We also offered a place where brilliant Michigan writers could find an outlet. Many, such as Ben Hamper, Alex Kotlowitz, James Hynes, and the cartoonist Lloyd Dangle would go on to become best-selling authors and syndicated journalists. We never missed an opportunity to go after the Flint Journal and, in 1985, I wrote an investigative piece on this miserable daily paper for the Columbia Journalism Review.
Other than the plan by General Motors to destroy Flint (a story that only we would cover in the late ’70s and early ’80s), nothing consumed our attention more than the mayor of Flint, James P. Rutherford. He was also the ex–police chief of Flint. He left behind a number of disgruntled officers who were more than happy to slip us documents and evidence of his controversial activities. One of our first front-page stories on him was entitled, “Did Mayor Rutherford Receive $30,000 ‘Gift’ from Convicted Gambler?” We scooped the Journal time after time (not that that was hard), but one day they got tired of us beating them to the story, so one of their columnists simply lifted our investigative piece and ran it as if they had done the legwork themselves. When things like this happened, we had ways of dealing with it. As we were not educated and did not run in the circles of polite society, we didn’t tolerate the actions of thieves very well, especially if the thief was the Flint Journal. The day after their plagiarism, we paid a visit to their newsroom. We brought with us a pie to give to the editor. No, we were not pie throwers, we were more like re-gifters. The pie tin was filled entirely with dog shit. On top of the pile of steaming poo was a big copyright insignia made from Reddi-wip.
The editor wasn’t in, so we hung around for a while waiting for him to come back. Someone must have tipped him off ’cause he never showed up, so we eventually got bored waiting and just placed it on his desk and left. The next day they ran a correction/acknowledgment that the story that they had published was originally ours.
We did not let up on the mayor and his dealings with developers, General Motors, the Chamber of Commerce, or the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. In September 1979 we ran a front-page story outlining how public employees had contributed to his reelection campaign and done door-to-door canvassing for him on city time.
The mayor was furious and threatened to sue us for libel. He didn’t. We kept at it. He was not happy.
The city ombudsman took our findings and did his own investigation of the mayor. The city charter required him to present his findings to the mayor four days before he could release it to the public. Our sources got a copy of the confidential report—which found 100 percent of our accusations against the mayor to be correct—and we published a story in the Flint Voice saying the ombudsman had backed up our story.
The mayor accused the ombudsman of violating the city charter and asked the police department to investigate how we at the Voice got ahold of the report. We refused to cooperate and continued publishing stories about them as we entered the new year of 1980.
In May 1978, the United States Supreme Court had ruled that it was OK for police to raid a newsroom and take materials from that newsroom, with certain restrictions. Zurcher v. Stanford Daily involved a student newspaper, the Stanford Daily, and the photographs it had taken at a student demonstration where nine police officers were injured while the students occupied the campus hospital. The police wanted to see all the photos the Daily had taken in order to help them identify the students involved in the fracas. The students sued, claiming their constitutional rights were violated. The Supreme Court disagreed and said the police had the right to conduct such a search, just as long as they weren’t going on a fishing expedition.
The court’s ruling was hailed by both law enforcement and haters of the media everywhere. Journalists were appalled by it and warned that there would be abuses. They pointed out that sources would be afraid to trust newspapers if they knew that the cops could just waltz in and scoop up file cabinets full of confidential information.
Two years passed and there had been no further police raids of newsrooms anywhere across America.
Until the morning of May 15, 1980.
At 9:05 a.m., the Flint police, having obtained a search warrant from Judge Michael Dionise, raided the newspaper offices where the Flint Voice was printed and seized all materials relating to the November 1979 issue that contained the critical report of the mayor’s alleged lawbreaking—including the very printing plates used on the presses to print the Voice.
The Flint Voice was printed at the Lapeer County Press (a weekly paper in the county that was settled, in part, by my family in the 1830s). This was not the first visit by the Flint police to our printer. They had called back in November asking to be given anything the County Press had on us. The publisher, citing the First Amendment, refused. Six months later, the police showed up in person. The publisher asked if they had a search warrant. No, said the cops. Then you can’t come in, said the publisher.
A few days later they were back with the warrant in hand and took everything Flint Voice–related. They told the publisher not to disclose that they were there. The publisher complied.
Five days later, on May 20, my phone rang at the Voice office.
“Mr. Moore, this is the Flint police department,” the voice on the phone said.
The officer who called did not tell me—and I did not know—that five days prior they had raided my printer’s offices. He did tell me that they knew “exactly” the time and day that I received the ombudsman’s report—and that it appeared a crime may have been committed. He asked if the ombudsman was the leaker. I told him that was none of his business. He suggested that I tell him the truth, as he was going to find out sooner or later—and things would just be easier if I cooperated.
I thanked him for his time and hung up. Four hours later, I got a call from the Lapeer County Press who felt “obligated” to tell me that the search had taken place there and all things regarding the Flint Voice were removed by the Flint police. This sent a chill down me. Were the police already on their way over here to do the same thing at our editorial offices?
I called the Flint police department back. I told them I had just heard about the raid. Were they planning to do the same thing here?
Oh, no, we’re not going to raid you! The officer on the other end of the line said that would probably cause too much grief for him—and for me. Why for me?
I told the officer that if he were to come out here I would have the TV stations on their way within minutes.
“Listen,” he said bluntly, “if we wanted to search you, do you think we’d tell you? You wouldn’t even know, just as you didn’t know about our search of your printing office in Lapeer.”
I called a source of mine in the Flint police department and asked him to find out what he knew. He called me back within the hour.
“Oh yeah, they’re planning to search your place. They already have the affidavit for the judge drawn up.”
I immediately called the local news stations and the Associated Press. “I need your help,” I said to each of them. “The cops are going to raid our newspaper. They’ve already conducted one raid at the newspaper office where the Voice is printed. Can you come out here soon?”
To their credit, they were at our office on the corner of Lapeer and Genesee roads within minutes. Everyone but the Flint Journal.
Stories were filed. The police denied they were planning a search and seizure at our office. But they couldn’t explain why they seized all of our materials from the newspaper that was our printer. Was the raid meant to intimidate us? I spent the night removing all of our files and documents from our building and storing them safely where the police couldn’t find them.
Within twenty-four hours CBS had flown a crew in from Chicago, and the New York Times was covering it. This was, after all, the first newspaper search since the Supreme Court decision allowing them. More reporters arrived from Detroit and Chicago. The ACLU called, as did the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Its director, Jack Landau, offered whatever legal assistan
ce we needed. “You’re the first,” he said, “but you won’t be the last. We need to nip it right here.”
We filed suit in circuit court to get an injunction to prohibit the police from raiding our offices. The judge granted a temporary order and got the police to promise not to take any action until he could hear the case.
Newspapers across the state, from Detroit to Battle Creek, ran editorials chastising the Flint police for their actions and encouraging the judge to take a stand for the First and Fourth Amendments. Media around the country covered the case, and the spotlight on Flint was not a pleasant one. I did not get much sleep and was worried about what else the police might be up to. I encouraged everyone at the paper to not bring anything to the office that made them suspiciously happy and over-hungry.
Two weeks later, we were back in court. After hearing the arguments, the judge ruled in our favor, telling the police that if they later decided they had grounds for a raid, they had to go through him first. A cheer went up from our supporters in the courtroom. It was a rare victory against this mayor and his police force.
The incident revived a dormant bill in Congress (introduced right after the Supreme Court’s Stanford decision) to prevent police searches of newsrooms. Within a week of the judge’s verdict in Flint, the United States Senate Judiciary Committee called for hearings on the legislation. Jack Landau, the man from the Reporters Committee, rang me back and asked if I could come to Washington, D.C.
“We think the timing is perfect after what happened to you in Flint to get this bill passed. Could you come down to D.C. and help us?”
“I was once asked this question, when I was seventeen, to come down to D.C. and testify,” I told him, which sounded too weird to explain, so I didn’t. “I just don’t think I’m good for that sort of thing. Plus, the Republicans are coming here in a few weeks for the Republican National Convention. I need to be on top of that. Reagan’s going to ask Jerry Ford to be his vice president.” (Just hours before the convention vote, the former president from Michigan started insisting that Reagan also promise to bring back Henry Kissinger. Reagan then changed his mind at the last minute and went with the surprise pick of George Bush. The future of America’s descent unfolded from that one decision. I don’t have time to get into what happened over the next thirty years. There are other books in libraries where you can read about it.)
On June 20, 1980, the Senate committee voted in favor of the Privacy Protection Act, otherwise known as the “Newsroom Shield Law,” a bill that would prohibit police from ever entering a newsroom unless an actual crime like a robbery or a murder was taking place on the premises. But then the bill was stalled and was not scheduled for a vote of the full Congress. First Amendment groups wondered if it would ever be passed.
One month later, the local police in Boise, Idaho, raided the newsroom of the CBS affiliate in Boise and seized videotapes of a protest so they could find out the identities of those who had participated. The TV station sued and got their own injunction against the Idaho cops. The media around the country covered the story, and politicians in D.C. demanded again that action be taken on the proposed bill. I wrote letters to members of Congress and I did interviews.
And then one day I answered the phone.
“Hello,” the voice with the British (or Irish?) accent said. “I’m looking for Michael Moore.”
“This is Michael Moore,” I said.
“This is John Lennon.”
As I was known by now as a skilled prankster, I was also repeatedly the victim of others’ pranks who were seeking revenge.
“OK, Gary, really funny,” I said. And then I hung up.
Twenty minutes later, the phone rang again. It was the Flint City ombudsman, Joe Dupcza.
“You just hung up on John Lennon!” he said sternly. “Why the fuck did you do that?”
“C’mon, Joe,” I said, “are you in on this, too?”
“I’m not in on anything,” he said, getting pissed. “Lennon called me a couple hours ago. I didn’t believe it at first, either. So I don’t blame you. We’re all a little jumpy after this shit.”
“Uh—yeah,” I said. “Thanks for stating the obvious. But how do you know for sure that this was John Lennon?”
“I took his number and told him I’d call him back. Then I ran it.”
“Ran it” is police-speak for taking a phone number or license plate number and running it through a central law enforcement computer to check it out. Joe Dupcza was a Flint cop before he was the ombudsman. John Lennon’s phone number was no doubt well known at the FBI and in their computer. The agency had spent the better part of a decade building a file on him and trying to have him deported.
“I ran it—and it checked out! I mean, holy shit—it was the real fucking John Lennon!”
I felt instantly sick that I had hung up the phone on a Beatle. Jesus, I thought, I’m so discombobulated by what’s been going on, I don’t trust anyone now. Not good.
“We talked for some time,” Dupcza continued. “He read about our case in the paper and has followed it and thought it was awful and wanted to know what he could do to help. Then he asked me for your number.”
Dupcza gave me Lennon’s number so I could call him back in New York, but as soon as I hung up, the phone rang again. This time I could identify the accent. Liverpool.
“Hi, this is John Lennon again,” he said, trying to reassure me.
“I know, I know!” I said apologetically. “I just spoke to the ombudsman. I am soooooo sorry. Please forgive me. It’s just been a little hairy here.”
“No, no, I understand,” he said, still trying to calm me. “I know a little bit about police surveillance making your life a bloody hell.”
I laughed. “Yes. You do.”
“Well,” he continued, “I’ve been following what you’ve been going through, and with this possible law in Congress, and I was really just calling to see if there was any way I could help. Maybe I could do a benefit or something for your legal fund or for your paper.”
“Really? Um, wow, I don’t know what to say.”
“Well, you don’t have to say anything right now. I’m a little busy working on a new album, so I won’t have time ’til the new year.”
“Wow, that’s great news!” I interrupted, my voice going up half an octave to fainting-schoolgirl level. “A new album!”
“Well, I’ve been sorta quiet for a while, being a dad and all. But I’m ready to get at it again, and now that I’m legally a resident of your fine country I plan to be more involved and [going into the accent of an American] exercise my constitutional rights. And so if there’s something you need, I can give you my number and you can give me a call if you want.”
Listening to this amazing offer, from the voice of the man who had meant so much to so many of us, I just didn’t know what to say. So I tried.
“Can you get Shea Stadium again?”
He laughed. “God, bloody no! Once there was enough! Hey, I did do that concert in Ann Arbor…”
“For John Sinclair. I was there. ‘Ten for Two!’ He went to my high school.”
“You don’t say. Small world. Well, I have to get going…”
“John, I, uh, um—thank you so much! It’s been a crazy few months here. I will definitely call. Thank you so much. This will mean a lot to everyone here.”
“Keep your spirits up, mate,” he concluded. “I’ll be around.”
On September 29, the Senate passed the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 by a voice vote. Two days later the House passed it 357–2. On October 13, 1980, the president signed it into law. That’s how things worked back then, both parties unanimously coming to the defense of their citizens’ privacy and First Amendment rights. And to support the need for a press to function without threat or intimidation.
And all that needed to happen to kick-start Public Act 96-440 into becoming the law of the land was for two cops to raid the printing office of a small underground paper in an out-of-the-way place cal
led Flint, Michigan. Check. And then do it again in Boise. Mate.
I never got to make that return call to John Lennon. Eight weeks later he was gone. And the month after that, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush took the reins of the country for the next twelve years. A Dark Age had begun. Few noticed at first.
Bitburg
GARY BOREN DIDN’T really have an issue with the Germans, at least not with the live ones. In the 1970s, while in high school, he had been an exchange student in Bremen, West Germany, living for a year with a German family. So Gary was familiar with the younger, post-war generation of Germans, and he knew that they were not at all like their parents.
It was May Day, 1985. My conversation with Gary went something like this:
GARY: “Bitburg.”
ME: “Pittsburgh?”
GARY: “Bitburg.”
ME: “Why do you want to go to Pittsburgh?”
GARY: “I don’t ever want to go to Pittsburgh. I wanna go to BITburg.”
ME: “Oh.”
Gary grew up in Flint. I did not know him when I was younger, but now as an adult he was, among other things, the pro bono attorney for my newspaper (and for me personally whenever I needed to get out of a traffic ticket or a landlord dispute).
Here Comes Trouble Page 26