The Georgetown Voice helped prepare me for a career in media, and my experiences at the paper taught me great lessons in teamwork, friendship, humility and gratitude. But even more important, the paper helped me find my voice and learn how to help others find theirs. These are lessons that have lasted a lifetime.
Marty Yant was managing editor of The Voice in 1970, and he wanted to feature liberal and conservative columns on a single page, called “To the Left” and “To the Right.” He was having trouble finding anyone to fill the conservative slot. I’m not sure if he recruited me or I volunteered, but either way, I loved it. I was as opposed to socialism then as I am now, so this was a labor of love. Socialism was chic in the ’60s, just as it is now.
But writing a column every couple of weeks was not enough for me. I wanted to help put the paper out, and Steve Pisinski, The Voice’s first editor-in-chief, was looking for all the help he could get. I remember one night when Steve and I were the only two at the office, writing headlines and photo captions, and he impressed me so much—his kindness, intelligence and charm. I remember other nights when there were a dozen of us, working together as teammates, relishing our role as underdogs, knowing that we were launching this new campus paper. I don’t think any of us realized how historically significant this was.
After graduating, Steve and I both wound up in California, and we both worked in the communications and media business. When we talked by phone in 2002, we agreed to get together the next time he was visiting Los Angeles, where I lived, or I was visiting San Francisco, where he lived. Steve was a successful executive in public relations, and I was running Creators Syndicate. About a month after that conversation, I heard of his sudden death at age 52. It felt like a punch in the gut. He was such a great man, taken way too early.
When Steve and I would talk and I would refer to him as the original founder of The Voice, he always deflected the praise, saying that if it hadn’t been for Tony Kawas and Marty Yant keeping the paper going in year two, and Al Di Sciullo and me (and many others) keeping the paper going in year three, The Voice would have died long ago.
Al and I decided to make The Voice a weekly publication, and within a relatively short period of time we overtook The Hoya in readership and circulation.
We worked out of an old white two-story house called the O’Grady building. It was torn down in 1984 to make room for new dormitories.
We looked for stories that would generate controversy and conversations all over campus. We ran fantastic photographs, thanks primarily to John Baldoni, and we would print between 16 and 20 pages every week. In hindsight, going from biweekly to weekly was a herculean task.
The big news at the time was the Vietnam War, which nearly everyone on campus opposed, and we ran dozens of articles about the protests that came regularly to the nation’s capitol. We ran stories about health care, abortion, heroin, methadone, crime on campus, Scientology, prison reform, D.C.’s “gay subculture,” health and fitness, women’s rights and economic privilege—addressed in a Voice magazine supplement with the headline “The Affluent Student.” In other words, the hot topics then remain timely today.
A group of us would drive to Silver Spring late at night every week to watch the press run, to make sure the printing was clean and clear. Then we’d stop for a late dinner or early breakfast—I can’t remember which. By five in the morning, the newsstands on campus would have anywhere from 4,000 (our early circulation) to 10,000 copies of The Voice. I spent every Tuesday in those years monitoring the students' reading habits, making notes about which issues were grabbed the fastest.
I remember feeling such a letdown after I graduated in 1972. My days were spent making copies of reports for senior executives, getting coffee and running errands. But gradually, I found my footing, working in sales; as a copywriter in advertising; then as a reporter and editor at UPI; then in management at the Los Angeles Times Syndicate; and, finally, as president of Rupert Murdoch’s News America Syndicate.
In 1987, almost 15 years to the day that I had completed my year as editor-in-chief of The Voice, I founded Creators Syndicate, which has become one of the most successful content syndicates in the world. We started as a newspaper syndication company and are now a major digital content distributor and book publisher. My son, Jack, C’04, is president of the company.
Our goal is to find compelling voices (sound familiar?) and distribute them to as many readers as possible throughout the world. Our pool of talent has won 17 Pulitzer prizes and many other prestigious awards.
Our first editorial cartoonist was the legendary Herblock of The Washington Post, whose work is now featured in a wing at the Library of Congress. Herb and I were close, and one of the great honors of my life was to have served as a pallbearer at his funeral, at his request.
Following Marty Yant’s model of having opinions from the left and right, Creators represents some of the most influential columnists in the world. Over the years, I have worked with and gotten to know Robert Novak, Hunter Thompson, Thomas Sowell, Mark Shields, Bill O’Reilly, Ann Landers, Arianna Huffington, Connie Schultz, Patrick Buchanan (a Hoya), Hillary Clinton (wife of a Hoya), Chuck Norris and Ben Shapiro.
The Voice’s editor-in-chief in 1993 was Anthony Zurcher, and he joined Creators right out of college. He became senior editor and worked with us for 19 years before joining the BBC News, where he is now a North America reporter based in Washington, D.C. Anthony developed a close relationship with Molly Ivins, one of our most successful liberal columnists, and he wrote a tribute to Molly after her death in 2007 that was reprinted in hundreds of newspapers nationwide.
This formula of offering a wide variety of voices worked well 50 years ago at The Georgetown Voice and still works well at Creators today. It is hard to believe that The Voice has survived a full half-century as a Georgetown institution.
I commend the hundreds of talented student editors, writers, photographers, artists and critics who have continued to publish a first-rate student newspaper year after year. Each staff member of The Voice did an outstanding job and cumulatively has made it possible for us to celebrate this anniversary. Also, I feel gratitude to the university itself for allowing The Voice to thrive and prosper.
Finally, and probably most importantly, I want to thank the current staff of The Voice, especially because they recognized the significance of this celebration of a half-century of success. Without their vision and hustle—typical of such a strong student newspaper—we would not even be having this conversation.
