Update To 2009 Story: World President's Application For Expensive Country Club Membership Approved 18 Months Later

[Note: This story first appeared on January 11th, 2009. A list of new Southern Hills Country Club members as of June 30th, 2010, lists John R. Bair as a new member.]

While executives at the Tulsa World were deciding which 28 employees would be fired in a cost-saving move to help the company deal with reduced advertising revenue, the president of the company, John R. Bair, was being processed for a $90,000 "proprietary membership" in the ritzy Southern Hills Country Club.

A list of those proposed for membership in the exclusive club was obtained by The McCarville Report Online following the newspaper's announcement that 26 newsroom employees and two other staff members were being fired immediately a week ago. Bair's is the first name listed on the December 29th document, prepared by the 650-member club's office on behalf of its board of governors.

The $90,000 figure for a proprietary membership in the club is an estimate; no one would discuss the precise fee, which apparently includes state sales tax.

Word of Bair's expensive membership has reached at least one of the fired reporters, a longtime, well-known World employee, and apparently also has reached several present news staffers.

One of the fired reporters said it doesn't matter to him if Bair is paying the fee personally, or if the company is paying it for him: "It just doesn't look very good, does it?" he asked.

Bair, World president since 2007, is no stranger to controversy. In 2005, then the company vice president, Bair began an attempt to prevent Michael Bates at Batesline.com in Tulsa from reproducing, quoting, or linking to articles in the World. That created a blogger firestorm that raged for almost a year and prompted an attorney for the Media Bloggers Association to return fire and resulted in a number of national media news articles about the First Amendment and the blogosphere.

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Tulsa World: Obama's Nobel 'Devalues the award'

Editorial In The Tulsa World ~ Even among many of his friends and supporters, the reaction to Barack Obama winning the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize was one of stunned disbelief Friday.

Obama is a likable man and has done many good things, but what has he done to merit the premier international award for furthering peace?

He is, after all, the commander in chief of a nation that is at war in two different nations.

"So soon? Too early," said Lech Walesa, winner of the 1983 peace prize. "He has no contribution so far. He is still at an early stage. He is only beginning to act."

We agree. In making the award, the peace prize committee said it was designed to encourage his initiatives to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and stress diplomacy and cooperation rather than unilateralism.

"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," said Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the Nobel Committee.

We suspect there were other motivations. The international community has always been in love with Obama, and — American elections being restricted to U.S. citizens — this was the only time the committee members got a chance to vote for him.

It's also clearly a slap at Obama's predecessor: He got the award because he isn't George W. Bush.

Neither those reasons, nor the ones stated by the committee are sufficient to substantiate the decision. It devalues the award and, frankly, condescends to Obama.

Every balanced person on Earth hopes that Barrack Obama someday accomplishes enough to merit being included in the same breath with Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Schweitzer, George Marshall, Desmond Tutu and Mother Teresa.

There's plenty of peace out there for a U.S. president to achieve, but it would have been a good idea if the Nobel committee had waited for him to achieve some before they started throwing laurels his way.

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Tulsa World: Whither Kathy Taylor?

Mayor Kathy Taylor has revealed her immediate plans, but it doesn't do much to clear up the mystery of what lies ahead for her.

Editorial In The Tulsa World

When she leaves the mayor's office on Dec. 7, Taylor will become Gov. Brad Henry's top education adviser, targeting innovation and higher achievement.

That sounds like a good fit to us.

Taylor has insisted for weeks that her ambition when she leaves municipal government is to find a place where she can help children. Working within the state bureaucracy — as she did as Henry's commerce and tourism secretary before she was elected mayor — is probably Taylor's most comfortable role. She is decisive and effective in that environment. It's when she is forced into the political end of government — dealing with the legislative process, debate and public second-guessing — that Taylor's worst moments occur.

We congratulate Taylor for taking on a position where she can make a positive change for the state and thank her once again for offering her talents without charge to the taxpayers. She is an effective public servant and we're lucky to have her.

But none of this really resolves the question, "Whither Kathy Taylor?" Henry's term in office — and therefore, presumably, Taylor's term in this new role — will have 13 months to go when Taylor starts her new job. Inevitably, questions about her political future will continue, despite the fact that she said straightforwardly that she is not a candidate for public office in 2010.

Taylor is a strong candidate with a record of accomplishment and substantial personal wealth to fund a political campaign at any time she decides. Republican strategists have privately expressed anxiety that she is one of the most formidable candidates Democrats could put forward for any office in the state.

So, even if she isn't running for anything, Taylor should get used to the question.

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Dutcher Asks, 'LWV To Support Voter ID?'

Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs executive and blogger Brandon Dutcher asks today if the League of Women Voters now will support voter ID legislation in light of the Tulsa World's discovery of the dead casting ballots last year.

"One has to assume the answer is yes," Dutcher blogs. "After all, League spokesman Gloria Caldwell said last month that 'if there were any evidence of voter impersonation in Oklahoma elections, the League of Women Voters would be first in line supporting this kind of [voter ID] legislation, but proponents cannot identify one single case.'

"Now that the Tulsa World has found that as many as 429 dead Oklahomans are still registered to vote, and that as many as 10 have voted postmortem since 2004, surely a League press release is imminent."

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Problem: Tulsa World Finds Dead Voters

Louise Marie Chitwood, a Bennington woman born in 1922, voted on Nov. 4 of last year, according to records.

Perhaps it was no surprise to some. Chitwood voted 15 times since 2000, Oklahoma State Election Board data show. And she had volunteered at Bennington’s voting booths for about 20 years, said Harold Chitwood, Chitwood’s husband.

But Chitwood died in 2006, two years before the election board showed her final ballot was cast. Since 2004, as many as 10 Oklahomans apparently voted after their death, a Tulsa World investigation found. Half of those votes were cast during last year’s elections.

None were made in Tulsa County.

The World also found as many as 429 dead Oklahomans are still registered as voters throughout the state.

Typically, state and county boards of elections remove the deceased from voter rolls as soon as possible.

Read the complete story in Sunday's Tulsa World.

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World: Watts More Interested In Texas?

From The Tulsa World Editorial Page ~ Former U.S. Rep. J.C. Watts may be thinking about running for governor of Oklahoma, but some of his recent activities suggest he's more interested in representing Texas interests.

It came to light recently that Watts' Washington-based lobbying firm has been representing the Tarrant Regional Water District since late 2007.

The Tarrant group, recently joined by the city of Dallas, has sued the state of Oklahoma, seeking to overturn a moratorium blocking out-of-state water sales.

A spokesman for Watts' firm said its staff isn't involved in the Oklahoma water dispute, but a spokesman for the water district said Watts' firm has "helped us understand the dynamics of water resource issues in Oklahoma."

Watts' involvement on behalf of the Texans isn't the only curious wrinkle in this long-running battle over what happens to Oklahoma's water resources. This week, legislative leaders have been engaging in intense and increasingly frantic talks in an effort to come up with legislation addressing out-of-state water requests.

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World: Coffee Late With Ethics Reports

The Tulsa World reports today that Senate President Pro Tem Glenn Coffee has been late in filing some reports with the Ethics Commission.

Read the story at http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=12&articleid=20090408_16_A11_OKLAHO718322.

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World: ODOT Employees Get Huge Raises

Nearly 90 percent of the Oklahoma Department of Transportation's 2,400 employees received pay hikes in recent months, including more than 50 who received pay increases of at least $10,000, according to a published report.

The Tulsa World analysis of Office of State Finance Data shows 51 ODOT employees received a pay boost of at least $10,000 since June, and nearly 600 workers got raises of at least $5,000.

Read the entire story, with more details, at http://www.tulsaworld.com/ or www.newsok.com.

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Noted Quote: Ivan Holmes

"There is no democracy going on at the Capitol in Oklahoma City," Holmes said. "Our House and Senate people are getting so beaten down, the Republicans are almost dictatorial. They're blatant about it and they don't care." ~ Democratic State Chairman Ivan Holmes, as quoted by Randy Krehbiel in the Tulsa World.

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World Examines Senate GOP Staff Salaries

The Tulsa World's Barbara Hoberock has a Sunday piece about the salaries paid members of Senate President Pro Tem Glenn Coffee's staff. Read the story at http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20090215_16_A13_OKLAHO913769.

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Oklahoman, World Make It Official: Largest Newspapers Will Share News Content, Staff

In a joint announcement today, the state's two largest newspapers made it official: Economic conditions have forced them to consolidate some operations, including news gathering and reporting. The joint announcement, anticipated in The McCarville Report Online's story last Tuesday:

"Oklahoma's two largest news organizations, the Tulsa World and The Oklahoman, announced they will share selected stories, photos and other news content to better serve their audiences throughout the state.

"The agreement means some content produced by the Tulsa World staff will appear in The Oklahoman and on NewsOK.com, and content produced by The Oklahoman staff will appear in the Tulsa World and on tulsaworld.com. Stories and photos produced by one organization and published by the other will carry attribution to the contributing newspaper or Web site.

"We are excited at the quality and breadth of journalism that can be done by combining the two largest news-gathering operations in the state," said Joe Worley, executive editor of the Tulsa World.

"Ed Kelley, The Oklahoman's editor, said the collaboration provides more coverage of news in Oklahoma for the organizations' audiences at an uncertain time for the news industry.

"Both The Oklahoman and the World have terminated newsroom positions in the past four months as part of cost-cutting measures. Over time the two organizations will focus on reducing some areas of duplication, such as sending reporters from both The Oklahoman and the World to cover routine news events.

"We want to try to make sure the level of coverage doesn't drop even as our staffs are smaller," Kelley said. "Partnering with the World and their professionals makes a lot of sense for both of us."

"Both Kelley and Worley said the two organizations will maintain their separate voices on their editorial and opinion pages, as well as their individual approaches to gathering news.

"The agreement between the papers is historic in that each paper is independently owned, and together they represent more than 200 years of reporting in the state of Oklahoma. The Tulsa World and The Oklahoman are each family owned, representing two of the largest such newspapers in the country.

"We each have independent spirits going back to our beginnings," said Worley. "And while we plan to share some of our talent, I think readers will see that we will also maintain our independence from each other."

"The agreement in Oklahoma follows a number of news-sharing agreements that have been announced by newspapers in Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Texas and the Washington, D.C., area."

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World Sues Blogger Bates, Newspaper

The Tulsa World sued one of its regular critics on Thursday, alleging that the newspaper Urban Tulsa Weekly and columnist/blogger Michael Bates libeled the newspaper for alleged false claims that the World misled advertisers about its paid circulation.

"When a firm purportedly in the news business makes a claim that we have misled our advertisers, they call into question our integrity, and we cannot and will not let that stand," said World Publisher Robert E. Lorton III.

He said the World objects to Bates' claim in the January 15th issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly that the World concealed circulation declines from 1997 to 2007. Bates specifically alleges that a 2006 report by the Audit Bureau of Circulation "suggests the World was inflating its circulation by as much as 20 percent."

The World said the ABC audit showed drops of 6 percent in daily circulation and 5 percent in Sunday circulation for the period in question.

The lawsuit does not dispute that the newspaper's print editions have lost circulation over the past decade, but it does dispute Bates' claim that the losses were concealed or might have been greater than reported.

The lawsuit also contends that Bates and Urban Tulsa Weekly Publisher Keith Skrzypcak knowingly published the false information in an attempt to "gain commercial advantage."

Lorton said he does not object to criticism of himself or the World but will not stand for the organization's honesty being impugned.

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The Incredible Shrinking Capitol Press Corps

By Arnold Hamilton/The Oklahoma Observer ~ The Tulsa World’s layoffs are bad news for Oklahoma journalism - and even worse news for civic discourse and understanding.

Among the 26 newsroom personnel getting pink slips were two of the World’s three Capitol bureau reporters: Mick Hinton and Tom Lindley. Only Bureau Chief Barbara Hoberock survived Bloody Tuesday.

Hinton had been with the World four years [after a long career with The Daily Oklahoman]. Lindley came aboard in August, when Angel Riggs decided to pursue her PhD.

Both were providing excellent coverage at a time when Oklahoma faces enormous challenges: There’s a looming $309.6 million budget shortfall. Prisons are overcrowded and crumbling. State roads and bridges need at least $1 billion in improvements. Six-hundred-thousand residents don’t have health insurance.

Need I continue?

More context: Hinton’s and Lindley’s departures from the Capitol Press Room come just months after The Oklahoman pushed one of the state’s finest political journalists, John Greiner, into retirement.

At a time when Oklahomans’ need-to-know has never been greater, they won’t have the benefit of turning to these three excellent political journalists.

What a shame.

Reprinted with permission.

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Report: World Reneges On Capitol Dome

Batesline quotes The Oklahoma Observer as reporting that the Tulsa World reneged on its pledge to donate $100,000 toward the cost of the State Capitol dome, and may do the same on a second pledge in an equal amount.

The World recently fired 28 employees, including 26 reporters with two State Capitol correspondents being the most prominent. The paper's executives cited a decline in advertising revenue for the action.

That action came at the same time a $90,000 membership in Southern Hills Country Club for World President John R. Bair was being processed.

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Tulsa World Cuts Capitol Bureau Staffers, 26 Others In Economic Downturn Shakeout

The Tulsa World today terminated 28 employees citing deteriorating economic conditions nationwide and in media business.

The terminations included 26 news staff members and two in other departments. Those laid off were informed at a meeting Tuesday morning. Cuts in the newsroom included two Capitol Bureau reporters, a police reporter, photographers and employees in the graphics department, among others.

"The unprecedented economic catastrophe has been swift, and it has directly affected the bottom line of most American businesses and our newspaper. The terminations though painful will ultimately strengthen our company as a whole," Robert E. Lorton III, Tulsa World publisher, said.

The media industry has seen dramatic changes resulting in smaller audiences for television, radio, magazines and newspapers, Lorton said. "We have worked diligently for several years to shape the Tulsa World and tulsaworld.com as the best and most authoritative, trusted news outlet in Tulsa. We have through attrition and some restructuring reduced our personnel and other operational expenses throughout World Publishing Company, while expanding our local news coverage and our online presence tremendously," Lorton said.

"Unfortunately, in recent months we have seen the local advertising market weakened as Tulsa businesses struggle with greatly reduced sales. Most advertisers' budgets are based on a percentage of sales, so when our partners are hurting, we feel their pain in a very real way. The media business is not immune from economic realities, as evidenced by recent layoffs at other state newspapers and our local television and radio stations," Lorton said. "Just because this is the prudent business decision, it is not any less difficult. These co-workers have been part of our team and we will miss their contributions. Nothing is more painful than saying goodbye to our friends and colleagues. It's a story that has been played out across the city and country as businesses are faced with the unpleasant responsibility of adjusting their payrolls in this harsh economic downturn," Lorton said.

Joe Worley, executive editor, said, "The remaining newsroom staff will be challenged to continue to produce a quality product. We still have the largest news staff of any news organization in northeast Oklahoma and we will continue to produce the best possible newspaper and web site in Oklahoma."

The news staff was informed today that the terminations were effective immediately.

Details of severance pay and benefits were not disclosed by officials.

The terminations follow a difficult 2008 for newspapers and media companies across the country. Both KOTV and KTUL television stations in Tulsa terminated 13 staff members each in late 2008. The television stations cited economic conditions in making the cuts. In the fall of 2008, The Oklahoman in Oklahoma City terminated 150 employees and cut operational expenses by shrinking the area where home delivered newspapers were sent.

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Tulsa World Endorses Jim Inhofe For Reelection

The Tulsa World endorsed Republican U. S. Senator Jim Inhofe for reelection today. Read the editorial at www.tulsaworld.com in the "Opinion" section.

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NAACP Rips Tulsa World's Use Of Student Name

Members of the Tulsa chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People criticized the Tulsa World for publishing the name of a teenager who was recently arrested on complaints of bringing a gun to a high school.

"The Tulsa World didn't violate any juvenile protection laws, but they violated moral laws," said Twan Jones, the chairman of the chapter's legal redress committee, during a news conference Sunday.

The chapter took exception with an Oct. 2 Tulsa World story in which Booker T. Washington High School was temporarily placed on lockdown after three handguns were found on the school's grounds.

Four male students — two age 14, one age 15, and one age 16 — were arrested on complaints of possession of a gun on school property.

Officials did not identify the students, but sources told the Tulsa World that one of them was Rico Yarbrough.

Jones said the Tulsa World was the only news media outlet in the city to name Yarbrough in the incident.

Yarbrough is the son of a former Tulsa police officer, also named Rico Yarbrough, who is awaiting sentencing on federal convictions of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and giving unlawful notice of a search warrant in a drug case in which he admitted to shielding a suspected cocaine trafficker from authorities.

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Tulsa World Named Best Newspaper, Best Website

The Tulsa World was named the best newspaper and www.tulsaworld.com was chosen best Website Saturday at the Oklahoma chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists annual awards banquet. The event was held at the Skirvin Hilton Hotel in downtown Oklahoma City. More than 1,200 entries were received in the newspaper, television, radio, magazine, public relations and Web categories.

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Fire Halts Printing Of Sunday Tulsa World

A major electrical fire early Sunday morning halted production of the Sunday Tulsa World.
More than 60,000 complete Sunday Tulsa Worlds were produced and delivered to outlying portions of the newspaper's circulation area.

The remaining customers are being delivered two Classified sections, the TV World and advertising inserts.

Sunday Tulsa World stories are posted on tulsaworld.com.

Tulsa World Publisher Robert E. Lorton III said electrical repairs were being made. Plans are being made to deliver the main sections of the Sunday Tulsa World with the Monday Tulsa World.

"The electrical fire in the newspaper's downtown pressroom thankfully did not injure any of our press personnel. We are working as fast as we can to make the necessary repairs to publish the Sunday newspaper and get it delivered to our customers," Lorton said.

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Hinton Examines Benge's First Days As Speaker

By Mick Hinton In The Tulsa World ~ Two days after Republican Rep. Chris Benge of Tulsa took over as House speaker, he invited Democratic minority leader Danny Morgan to meet with him.

Morgan said he had only one face-to-face meeting with Benge’s predecessor. Time will tell whether there is a new spirit of bipartisanship in the Legislature.

Read Hinton's entire article at www.tulsaworld.com.

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