In writing recently about some strange adventures involved in a Chicago Tribune public relations program suddenly dumped in my lap as the 1980s were winding down, I promised additional commentary about the guy who played dumper to my dumpee.
Dickey was one of three executives brought to theTribune in 1984 from the Orlando Sentinel, a sister publication where highly favorable marketing conditions made it almost impossible to do anything other than succeed. Suddenly, publisher Charles Brumbach, editor-in-chief Jim Squires and Dickey were calling the shots.
It was shortly after my wife, Mickey, began chemotherapy treatments that I became aware my employment at the Trib was on shaky ground. In retrospect, it still seems bizarre that my bosses could criticize my not coming to work for three days after Mickey's funeral services. True, I had achieved bad paper status by leaving work at 2 p.m. each Thursday to take her home following treatments. On the other hand, I always made up the time. My work at the Trib was probably the best of my career and I won a number of major national awards including one for the White Sox send-up detailed earlier in "Pale Hose Humbuggery."
Because of my editorial background and news sense, I enjoyed excellent working relations with reporters and editors. They trusted me thanks to word first put out by managing editor Bill Jones and others. I doubt that any marketing employee at a major newspaper in this country at that time had my accessibility. It was highly unusual and, in truth, I took a great deal of pride in being more a part of the editorial department than marketing. Such a setup can invite problems.
A clue to my uneasy employment occurred about the time I won a national award from the American Newspaper Marketing Association for effectively positioning the Tribune in the White Sox craziness that included a threatened team move to Tampa-St. Petersburg. I bailed Dickey out of a mess by giving focus and structure to his germ of a badly mounted idea. Ironically, the project was deemed good enough for second prize in a monthly Tribune marketing department competition run by Dickey. I had just turned 62, an event that prompted the usual birthday cake and singing of "Happy Birthday" followed by Dickey's comment that I was the oldest person in the department and almost 20 years senior to his marketing eminence. His comment was a textbook lesson in how not to handle what might be proved as age discrimination.
In all honesty, I probably committed one of the biggest no no's of the workplace: killing the job. Brought aboard to, among other things, give prominence to Tribune reporters and editors, I had booked a total of 1,500 broadcast appearances the first year eventually hitting 5,000 the last years of a highly effective run. Obviously, I didn't have time to make all those bookings; rather, a snowball effect evolved with the paper gaining a tremendous lead over the Sun-Times whose circulation was concentrated in the city. The Trib had become an even more significant regional newspaper with stories and editorial personnel appearing on those radio and TV stations whose signals helped enlarge the paper's circulation area. Bureaus were created in the hinterlands, a sharp contrast to today's continuing pullback. Like my work at Playboy whose circulation peaked during my tenure, so it was at theTribune during, as today's developments suggest, what was arguably the last golden yeaers of print journalism.
Giving a lot of thought to hiring a lawyer and suing the paper for age discrimination, I decided I didn't want to go through 10 or 15 years of legal hell that dominates such pursuit, then took retirement in January, 1989. Having married elegant and fun-loving Jan Quinn the prior year, we had discovered the San Juan Islands during a four-week look at some of this country's national parks. The Pacific Northwest move would not have been possible had I been working for the Tribune. Jan and I took up residence on the island in Washington State where we moved in January, 1990 having bought a home in a very elevated spot with glorious views of water plus the Olympic and Cascade mountain ranges. Being corporate toast, however, rankled. Something very wrong had happened and I knew a second shoe had to drop; when it did, I was astonished at what a thud it made in addition to a lot of sense.
Six months after moving to the island, the mail started bringing us clippings about Dickey. The stories told of his being charged with bilking the Tribune out of about $890,000 over the course of three years. Early published pieces, obviously controlled by the Tribune, about the executive's scam were somewhat lacking in detail although one report did mention his having been arrested in 1986 for stealing fishing lures from a shop in suburban Skokie. Dickey pleaded he was a kleptomaniac, a problem described by his attorney as "diminished mental capacity." One theory about the fishing lure theft suggested he had created an excuse in the event he was caught at his much grander larceny. Cooperating with the newspaper, Dickey made restitution of $720,000--some of it realized from the sale of a home in swanky Kenilworth.
In its June 22, 1991 issue, Advertising Age reported Dickey's biggest misappropriation was a false billing for a total of $748,352 in American Eagle gold coins. Federal prosecutors said Dickey altered several of the invoices for the coins so that the "AE" appearing on the bill from a "Waukegan, Illlinois coin dealer suggested references to a Tribune employee rewards program know as "Advertising Excellence." Dickey later sold the coins for cash and there is no record of any marketing department staffers (or anyone else, for that matter) winning the gold. Perhaps one of those coins was "earmarked" for your faithful scribe's contest excellence although my second place finish probably wouldn't have qualified me.
Those American Eagle coins, hawked enthusiastically on Fox News and Fox Financial Channels, must remind Dickey of what might have been--particularly considering the price of gold ($1,765.50) as this is written. Averaging around $400 an ounce during those halcyon years of thievery, Dickey's take would now be worth more than $3 million. Had he not been caught, Dickey would likely be a fervent follower of Glenn Beck whose messages of fear helped drive the price of gold up to a record $1,917.90 early in August.
During Dickey's profligate pilfering, he had the authority to approve payment of any promotional expense up to $50,000, according to charges. About $140,000 in fraudulent goods and services invoices enabled him to convert to his personal use. Included was $31,493 for landscaping, $7,844 for carpentry work and $2,071 for painting at his home. Hey, living the good life isn't cheap. Another payment went to a furniture business indicating the purchases would be used on the USS Chicago anchored at Navy Pier.
Whatever budgetary linkage there was between the purchase of coins and the costs of my work, salary and expenses (a yearly total of around $225,000 including staff appearances at $35 a pop) is anyone's guess. I was not replaced. Ah, irreplaceable me.
A rather odd series of visits to San Juan Island by Tribune staffers occurred during those early years of my retirement. Two were by editorial department personnel and one from marketing. Only one of the three, foreign news editor Michael McGuire, was anyone I had spent any time with while the other two hardly qualified as pals with the marketing department emloyee someone I had spoken to less than a half dozen times during about five years of her employment. I'm certain all three took back stories that I was happy in my retirement and fully aware of how the Dickey drama had played out.
The greatest satirical writers could not possibly come up with what happened to Tribune Company during the past four years. The highly toxic Zell, who bought the firm in 2007, has done what corporate monsters do so effectively: mess up a good thing by not understanding, in this case the communications industry, and by making stupid decisions. Among them: turning the firm over to Randy Michaels, a former shock jock (think Howard Stern) whose only media experience was with radio giant Clear Channel Communications. Possessing no knowledge of print journalism, he was in vivid contrast to Col. Robert R. McCormick, the highly conservative and controversial editor/publisher who ran his fiefdom (1910-1955) much as an army battalion. In a very short time, Michaels turned Tribune Tower into what one observer called a "sexist frat house atmosphere" where sexual behavior after hours became commonplace. Some of the shenanigans took place in McCormick's old office. In a deep financial hole, Michaels and his playmates managed to give themselves $57.3 million in bonuses while slashing 4,200 jobs in a wicked display of American greed.
Tribune Company is so screwed up that a guy I knew when he was working on the Trib's sports desk, Owen Youngman, is being sued for $328,049. The money, received in the form of a check, was stock-based compensation he had accululated during 37 years at the newspapee. Now a professor at Northwest University's Medill School of Journalism, he is one of 200 former excutives who find themselves targets of legal action in a Delaware bankruptcy court dealing with the company' s disastrous leveraged buyout. Youngman didn't even work directly for Tribune Company. All his 37 years were with Chicago Tribune, a fact being dismissed by a committee of unsecured creditors who want to claw back about $180 million in compensation.
I took a satisfactory chunk of money with me upon retirement in 1989 thanks to the then soaring value of company stock I accumulated and matched by the newspaper. My selling of the stock couldn't have been better timed.
Sometimes, while meandering down life's not always merry yellow brick road, we incur problems suggesting unfortunate consequences. Thoes situations often turn out to be lucky breaks, but we don't know it at the time. Every once in a while, Jan and I hoist a toast to Bob Dickey, 44, at the time of his arrest and a year older when releasd from prison. We never would have wound up in the Fourth Corner for what has been nearly 22 terrific years had it not been for the thievery of Bob Dickey.
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Nice to come across your blog, Bob. Hope you are well. What amazing things have happened. For me, as you might imagine, it's good to be at Northwestern.
Owen
Owen Youngman
Knight Professor of Digital Media Strategy
Medill / Northwestern
http://owenyoungman.com
http://twitter.com/YoungOwen
Posted by: young Owen | 11/04/2011 at 12:28 PM
Great to hear from you, Owen.
I have such fond memories of Northwestern where, during World War II, I was invited to scrimmage against the basketball varsity. The invitation came from "Dutch" Lonborg, then the Wildcats coach, later athletic director at the University of Kansas. Hell of a nice guy.
During Christmas of 1944, I played briefly with Otto Graham, on leave from North Carolina Pre-Flight. Graham may have been a better basketball player than football, as difficult as that is to believe.
Two of the Northwestern players I played against were Max Morris (also an end on the football team) and Ben Schadler.
Again, thanks for the note. My health is excellent--particularly for a guy who will be 86 in May.
Bob
Posted by: Bob Sanders | 11/04/2011 at 01:14 PM
wicked blog, it is going on my twitter.
Posted by: sdeson | 08/15/2012 at 08:46 PM
wicked blog, it is going on my twitter.
Posted by: GArarn | 08/15/2012 at 08:50 PM