AJR  Unknown
From AJR,   January/February 1999

The Life and Times of Gartner   

MICHAEL GAY GARTNER Age: 60 Education: BA, Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota; JD, New York University School of Law, 1968       Career:

By Unknown
     

Related reading:
   » The Mentor



MICHAEL GAY GARTNER
Age: 60
Education: BA, Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota; JD, New York University School of Law, 1968

Career:


1993-present:
Editor and co-owner,
Daily Tribune, Ames, Iowa

1988-1993:
President, NBC News

1987-1988:
Mark Lisheron interviews Michael Gartner:
M.L.: What CD is in your player?
M.G.: In Iowa, some cabaret songs by Wesla Whitfield, a great singer. In New York, the only CD ever made by Mabel Mercer, another great singer.

M.L.: Which journalistic writers do you admire?
M.G.: Vermont Royster most of all; Red Smith; Calvin Trillin; Dr. Lewis Thomas (``Lives of the Cell," ``The Medusa and the Snail"); my father; Mary McGrory; Richard Aregood; Peter Kann (the best writer and worst speller ever to write for the news pages of the Wall Street Journal); Gil Cranberg.

M.L.: You spent time in television. Who is the best television journalist?
M.G.: Bryant Gumbel. Second best? Tim Russert. Third best? Maria Shriver. Why are they so good? They believe in reporting, in facts, in fairness.


Michael Gartner interviews Michael Gartner:
M.G.: What did your friend and neighbor, the doctor, tell you in the early 1980s when you were editor of the Des Moines Register and turning over a lot of stones in town?
M.G.: He said, ``You have great genes. You don't smoke. You don't drink. You get up and run a few miles every morning. You'll live to be 125 years old except for one thing. Somebody's going to shoot you."

M.G.: What happened on your first night in New York City, on June 26, 1960, the day before you were to start your job at the Wall Street Journal?
M.G.: I rented a room at 94th and Broadway and decided I wanted to see New York. So I drove my 1953 Plymouth down Fifth Avenue to Greenwich Village and into Washington Square to look around. All of a sudden, there was an incident in the park. Police were everywhere. They were in cars, on horses, on motor scooters and on foot. Then I realized I was the incident. Two police came up to me. ``What are you doing?" they asked. I explained that I had just moved here from Iowa and wanted to see New York and, especially, this Greenwich Village. ``Do you see anything unusual?" they asked. I then pointed to some guitar-playing folks and said yes. ``Do you see anything else unusual?" they asked. I pointed to some men playing chess. ``Do you see any other fucking cars in here?" they asked. No, I acknowledged. ``Why do you suppose that's so?" they asked. Well, I said, because it is 10:30 at night and most people are probably home in bed. ``You don't see any other cars," they said, ``because cars are not allowed in here. You're driving on the fucking sidewalks." I told them that that couldn't be so, that these sidewalks were wider than any streets I'd ever driven on in Iowa. They looked at me in amazement. They regrouped. One came back. ``Look," he said, ``we'll make you a deal. We won't give you a ticket--if you promise to go back to Iowa." I took the deal and, 14 years later, honored my part of it and moved back to Iowa.

M.G.: What did your friend, the chief justice of Iowa, say when he swore you in as a member of the bar after you had refused to join the Iowa bar for several years?
M.G.: I was editor of the Register at the time. After I was sworn in, he walked me over to a window in the beautiful courtroom, a window that looked out on downtown Des Moines and the Des Moines Register building. ``I can't tell you how many times I've stood here and looked at that building and thought, `How can those dumb guys have written such a stupid editorial about the court this morning?' " he said. ``Or, `How can those reporters have been so wrong in reporting that case we decided yesterday?' So I tried to figure out a way to get control of the place. Finally, I figured out a way. It has taken me several years to accomplish, but I did it this morning. For as of today, you son of a bitch, you come under the rules of the Iowa Supreme Court.'

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