Writing about Local History and the Sonoma County Museum, with Gaye LeBaron

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Cable. Now stay tuned for Sonoma County in the eighties with rich McGlinchey coming up next. Ah, Now the Sonoma County Public Information Office presents Cinema County in the eighties with your host, rich McGlinchy. Good evening, gentlemen. Welcome to another edition of cinema chatting. Louise and I

sincerely hope you enjoy the next half hour as much as I intend to, because I'm going to be talking to my special guest, who is a longtime friend. I'm happy to say my special guest Internet. We has pressed Democrat, columnist, historian, author, Gala Baron and Gay

was with us Tom McEwen, the past. And we've always had a great response from you out there. And I'm sure we will again High power Courage. Thank you. Nice to be here. Steal you away from that paper down. Everyone here, down here. Paraders gay For those

who did not CS When we run the air a time or two in the past. Have a little background about yourself. Were you bored? Educated? I would get married. You know, I was born and negotiate. In fact, I wrote about that just a week or so

ago. Is born in Humboldt County on Guy lived there until I was in high school, about 14 and then my parents moved to the Sonoma Valley and I graduated him. Sit on the high school and Santa Rosa Junior College and the University of California at Berkeley.

And I actually started working at the Press Democrat during Summers when I was still going to college. Do you make a dashing fellow had a dashing fellows who have a sports sports car, a cap for its right, and we were married the year after I graduated

from college Course. We're speaking of John John. We went to John with you. Yeah, and then there's a family. There's some family grown up daughter. Suzanne will be 24 years old tomorrow because she's married lives here in Santa Rosa, and her name's Pellegrini now, and she

works the press Democrat. She's an editorial assistant on the news side. She graduated from Mills and worked a little bit in television in San Francisco. But she you know, these people come back back to print Rich and our Santoni is going to be 21 years old

on Sunday and he's he's living here, too. That's great. That's really great. Um, okay, One of the things I wanted to do was Teoh Plug, something you've just done and plug it simply because I think it's a beautiful thing. I was. I have not got my

copy yet. I'm looking through it, though, Over books incorporated the other day. I was really impressed with it. You have just completed a book, and if I remember, you're telling us one time it was about 10 years in the making. It seems like now tell us

about the book, what it's about and then also your co authors. Yes, indeed. The book is called Santa Rosa 19th Century Town, and it is a history of the 1st 100 years or so of Santa Rosa's exist. It's not quite that many. The 1st 75 it

ends this volume ends in 19 6 With the earthquake, we sort of knocked the town down, and then the next volume will build it back up again. It was 10 years in the making, but that's that's deceiving because it wasn't like we sat and worked every

day for 10 years. We all had other fish to fry, but it was It's kind of funny when we talk about it now. We were so naive. We started this in 1974 it was gonna be a bicentennial project. We were just gonna whip that book together

and have it out in 1976. And of course, we had no idea what we were getting into. And the more we got into it, the more we knew we had to do it right. And to do it right. You took some time, and we really feel

that we did do it right. And we're real proud of it And what we is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The physical product. A beautiful book, those shape and, uh, photography, the reproduction. It's a work of art. Well, John gets a lot of credit for the reproduction. The

photo reproduction and the design credit goes to a young man named Bradley caught, uh, who worked for clarity publishing service, which was the production company that did it. It's a basketful. Bagis did a fine job. We laughed and Brad when the book's arrived and we opened

the first carton and we looked at them and somebody said, Well, Brad, this is gonna look good on your resume And he said, What do you mean? This is my resume. But he really did a fine job of designing it. And the we part of this

is there were four of us who were actually involved in in the in the construction of this book of putting it together myself and D. Blackman, Joanne Mitchell and Harvey Hanson from Santa Rosa. Jaycee, who died last February. And that's kind of our sad note, because

Harvey would have been very proud of this book and he didn't. He knew what it said, but he didn't live to see it to see a physical product. Um de Blackman did the major research for the kind of the skeletal research for this book on the

political history of political and economic history off the 19th century, and Harvey did some of the early pioneer research. Joan's work is still still ahead of her, because although she's done her research will be mostly in the second volume. The second volume will take you from

Window with approx 1960 1954. And we actually picked that cut off date arbitrarily because it's 100 years from the first map. The first plat map of the town of Santa Rosa was 18 54 and it's also the year that the population went from 17,000 to 31,000

and one day with the annexation of Montgomery Village and kind of the first, it stepped into urban herb vanity and away from being a cow town. And we thought that was just a very good place to stop, because history gets really sticky. You know, the closer

you get to it and you don't want toe. I think that's far enough for us to go, will you? Then will you then, uh, put together 1/3 volume? No, I don't think so. Our intentions are that, you know. Well, let me ask you rich. Have you

figured out the 19 sixties yet? No. Okay, neither have I. And I think it is going to take or the 70 year, especially 70. So I think it's going to take someone of some future historian who will have the chance to have the perspective to do

that. Get up to 54. You took it up. Show colorful period. Yeah, right. Okay. That is 1/19 century Santa Rosa 19th century town. And in the plug department, it's available. Probably only available at all the local bookstores. And we're doing signings that have done or will

do signings that most of the new fan hitting a copy. And I want you to put the group together and get a signed copy. You have been ah, starch booster of the county Historical Museum. I know you've supported it, and you supported the post office being

moved. Um, I'd like you to kind of comment on this. What's been happening during the infancy of this new Countywide museum? Oh, I think that people are are, um, you know, it wasn't It wasn't an explosion of interest when it opened, obviously, except among the people

who had been interested in promoting it. It takes a while for people in the community to realize what kind of facility they have, and I think that they're becoming very much aware of it. And one of the reasons is because Dayton Lummis, who is the director,

that museum, has done a a very good job and is doing a continuing job off of getting people from the community into the museum. And I've been there on several occasions lately where I heard people say, Well, I've never been in here before and look at

this all the back and it's It's a It's a lovely space It really is. As the artists say about galleries, it's it's elegant, and Dayton does a remarkable job with what small budget he has. And obviously, like all other museums, it needs help. Well, I'm just

going to summon a site or comment on one thing. Recently, I had the pleasure of working with the bicentennial committee that the county appointed, and they threw their good. Your efforts publicity's wise and some of the Bay Area TV stations we had decorator showcases for several

years, in a matter of fact were able to take some seed money from the county of I don't know something like $20,000 run it up to about 90,000 and were able to present that to the historical Museum earlier this year. Now that's not a great deal

of money. It may sound like it, but it's not a great deal of money. Realize all the things they trying to accomplish with that. But it was a pleasure to be able to do that. Now I agree with the Dayton. Lummis is doing a splendid job,

and another thing that he likes to do is get out into the county that most people don't know about and find out things for himself in that every lap. Ham, who has also been a member of this, just loves that about he's always getting into the

car, taking some place well, and now he sees he's, uh, come up with a show for January, which is really exciting. He's going to do ah, show on the works of Bernard Zakheim, who the Sebastopol sculptor and a little bit controversial. And there's a lot of

people you think I think probably even some of Dayton's board, who kind of raised their eyebrows and said, Is this really history? That's right. But it's definitely it's going to be It's going to be important and I think it's going to attract some attention out of

the area on off. A lot of people spend enough a lot of time, and a lot of their effort put a lot of their heart into the museum in its formative period. There's a lot of heartache. When they thought you were going to get the post

office ability, they thought they weren't going to get it. And now we're gonna go and looked at all these other sites, and I think that in the end result, it just worked out beautifully. And it is an impressive structure, just amazing. And, you know, I have

to eat a little crow on this Rich because I was one who thought it was just preposterous to try to move that building. I mean, we all you kidding me, you know? And when I saw it moving or thought you didn't see it moving, I had

some doubts, too. But what's called a right, that's right. But it turned out to be just really a very, very nice Such a nice study for things and even even the parking garage across the street works out well because it's, um okay, if I remember correctly

Jews, when you first, we're working with the PD you actually covered the county government beat? I have a little bit of everything. I know you did. In fact, I think most of the reporters did. Um, How'd you like that? No, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it.

I think. First of all, I what work I did on the County beat was under the tutelage of Fred Fletcher, who was the dean of county reporters in Northern California and a fine reporter. And I learned a great deal. So it was good training ground. And

of course, that was an interesting time. That was sort of the last of the good old boy days on the board with Nen, Guidotti and General. Well, Jim Little was just a little bit before I came. He was at the fair when I That's right. You

have men and ever lamps in the ever Lamps and and Lee Shoemaker and Guy King and Carson Mitchell. It was It was the last, you know, and then ran that boy. There's absolutely no question about it. And he ran it with the ah, great deal of

Western Sonoma County, Italian style, a man wherever you are men. And, uh, I hope you're watching listening to the teacher compliments. Believe me, we talked about your family. Everybody's doing violin. That deal right? I always like to ask about that. What? Uh, here's something. I think

that there's certainly enough comment on it. We get up in the Love County level. They think it's bad somebody else thinks it's great, in your opinion, gay, what is good journalism and then give us the opposite Know what's bad journalism in Europe in? Well, in my

opinion, good journalism is simply representing the public. Um, you know the public's right to know the public's we say the news you need, which is kind of ah, maybe not the way to put it. But journalism reporters air simply an arm of public interest. If it's

a public meeting, a reporter is there because, realistically speaking, most of the public is not. But their interests and their curiosity and their attentions are being served by that reporter, who is then going to tell them what happened as he saw it, or she saw it.

And I think the good journalism, it is simply that it's not attempting to color an event. We're talking about news reporting now, not column riding or editorial writing but news reporting, they're not attempting to color and to sway people in any particular direction, but simply to

as objectively as possible. And we all know that pure objectivity is probably impossible to present to the public what is happening with their tax dollars with their there. Their franchises were, uh do you feel? And I know that you are a columnist and as a columnist,

I know that you have a great deal more groups don't from a mike out a great deal more leeway. And as does the editorial writer who is actually trying to persuade the public to a particular way of thinking, Do you feel that that in general, good

journalism is being practiced by most of the publication? Most publications? Yeah, I would say that, Yeah, I got a pinpoint of war. I think that most of the publications that we see here, if you're talking about daily newspapers, we see the San Francisco Papers, Oakland, USA

Today in ours and the center field paper. Yes, I think that that basic good journalistic practices air followed. I think that there are newspapers that are bad newspapers, where they're run by people who attempt to sway the news through new stories. But I don't think any

of those you know, that great newspapers are different. Great newspapers, global newspapers like The Washington Post, The New York Times I should say that in reverse order, The New York Times, the Washington Post, even the Los Angeles Times. They're a little bit different, but I think

that that in the San Francisco in this papers, none of them are great. But I don't think that they're that they're reporting is bad. Okay, I think I would I think I would tend to agree with What do you feel is bad journalism? Well, bad general

elements of water, which is the opposite of what I've said did an attempt to two for the publisher to put his opinions through, um, in new stories. I think some of our weeklies, even here in the county, some of our weeklies are guilty of that, um,

that they take a certain slant and you set out to write a new story in order to show that what? Your preconceived idea. Uh, you know, I think that's a point of trying to make that it seems that there and I certainly do not make this

Ah, a widespread carte lunch in the indictment. But some of our papers do exactly that. They take a preconceived idea. Now, get now, get enough backs to just fact what I thought originally that that that's unfortunate. But I think overall on, I wanted to get your

comment on but over. Overall, I feel honestly that the newspapers of this country in general do a good job of representing the public interest. We have to take a break. We're going to have the station bring the audience a public service announcement, after which Gala Baron

and I will return. And we'll talk a little bit more about her and the county and the things we all do here first. These messages, excessive drinking and alcoholism are problems of major magnitude throughout our country, state, nation and the world. Yet if you a member

of your family or someone you know and care about has a drinking problem, help is his near as your telephone. Theoren Dah Center is a comprehensive programme, providing services for persons with alcoholism and alcohol related problems and their families. Services include outpatient counseling, inpatient residential treatment,

detoxification and educational programs that are open to the public at no charge. For further information, contact Horrendous center at 5 to 84141 That's my frozen smile, All right, we have a very special program today. We have a very special guest, mainly because it's a very special

friend. Jay LeBaron. She's a columnist historian, is an author, she and her three co authors and that the young gentleman's name I've forgotten. And that's just cardinals in that did the make up. What was your mother? Designer Brad got. Brad, right? Have have just published a

book. Santa Rosa. 19th Century Town. It goes from 18 54 1906 and there will be another book at some point in the future from 1906 to 1954. She told us all that the last year. And what for lack of better phraseology, I'd call a classic Last

protection You and I and Karen, Stag, Hourigan and rest. Bowden and his miracle workers all did it taping of the Rose Parade, and incidentally, I've never failed to hear from people telling us that they enjoyed the fact that we were able to do that at the

last minute and bring it to people in many of those people, people who couldn't get to the free. So how about 1986? Well, if if it's at all possible, I will certainly do what I want to have Suzanne to. How about your daughter's, I think should

enjoy that. She's a good she's TV personally. She's better at that than I am, she said. On training, nobody's better, however, listening that'll be fun. You if you do it next to your older. Now that that's a deal, you keep offering me these wonderful deal, you.

I'll do it if I can, all right, and we get Susanna, Karen and lessen the gang and away we'll go. OK, now another local entity, Channel 22 has been really struggling into existence or in the past few years, not just the past year. They first of

all, had to compete to get the franchise up here and a lot of difficulty there. They have worked like the devil. I know that they seem determined to 60 despite most of the obstacles. What do you forsee for this group in the future? Well, I'm just

I'm impressed. Lately Channel 22. I think they have. They're beginning to be understood a little bit in the community by the people that need to understand them. I, uh, and you know, they've hung in there. At first, I wasn't sure neither. But now they're doing the

symphony and and the people who have seen the tapes of that first, it won't be broadcast till December 8th. But the ones the people who have seen the tapes that they did of that First Symphony concert say that it's just very, very good work. And every

person who on the press Democrat finance that. And I think he's pleased with with what came of it. And I noticed that the press Democrat, now the new Press Democrat, is financing the The MacNeil Lehrer Report. And gradually, I think organisations and individuals who will spell

the difference between success or failure for Channel 22 are beginning to take notice of them and realize that what they're doing is indeed a public service. And I don't stick that Senator Garbage. Dixon and Barbara J. Have certainly been putting their dinner last ounce of effort

into these things. You know that and that's he's got a very good background. I mean, dealing with political figures and critical campaigns. And Barbara has just been, uh, don't tell Barbara Schardt she's a bulldog. Each year is, and she has done a tremendous amount of things

for that for that station down there. And one thing I did kind of step over here, and I meant to talk about a little bit more. We all know that we won't spend the date exactly. But we all know that recently the press Democrat changed its

style. But I want to ask you basically, other than that, how is the PD change? Since The New York Times became its publisher in your Europe, what you're referring to is a change of type paper and the like. Whenever there's a major change of a of

an organization that existed drawn time and its purchase beside by an organization nationwide changes, changes. What are some of the changes? Well, of course, the one that that that people are referring to lately is the change in the headline type, which it's amazing. How people are

inhabited was out going around Spring Lake this morning that I was running, somebody passed me and they yelled back, Give me two or three more days and I'll get used to that. You know, it's hard for people that they and of course, we know that. But

in two or three more to three more weeks, they probably won't even notice. I think the major changes have been in management, which is obvious. We buy it, Somebody buys a paper, they get to rent it themselves, and this is essentially what's happening. We have new

personnel, and when you bring someone in from the outside to reorganize the department, it's kind of like the chips are flying for a while. I think basically, it's good. I think that that all of us here who kind of looked at this and wonder what's going

to happen, I think, Hey, yes, this is a fresh approach, a new idea. It's gonna be all right. And it's there, there, great people to work for. Uh huh, Yeah, And, uh, Emily, I have already accepted this new this deal. I I you I looked at

it and held it up, Put it on the wall. I looked at the that I like it and they'll be more, you know, it's type stuff. When we get a new when we get our new press next next summer, the whole paper will be redesigned for

the offset process. And we'll have probably color on the front page every day and this kind of thing be classic. A. We've got about five minutes left to three questions on Ask it How and when do you write your columns really daily incessantly on a word

processor? That's that's true. And I write, um, in the generally the afternoon of the day before they just play. The computer doesn't need it. Well, yeah, listen, while the computer does but gets getting, it's getting more sophisticated to were getting, so we can pretty much handle

it. Um, and, uh, I find that I write late afternoon. Usually I spend the day on the phones getting information, doing research, calling people, and then sit down to write about 3 to 3 o'clock. This sequence in any Do you figure we put most important here?

There? Yeah, sure, I consciously particularly first item are what I call the front. We'll try to be. It's a grabber. This morning I was Pat Paulsen because I figured that he probably And that was a very funny, you know, he was funny. And, um, may I

consciously put things trailing one another for either For because they go together or because it's an abrupt change, sometimes gender that attract Okay. No, you have sources that final information to you? Yes. Not not organized. I mean, I have no organized network, but but people that

I hear from frequently and a lot of people that I hear from once and don't hear from again little Collins with just one thing that they think may be of interest. Sometimes people with an axe to grind, sometimes just interest Very modest folks like myself. How

you joined computerized journalists. No, I love it. Oh, sure. You have your glitches. You know, everybody has their bad days. I want the system. Once, eight, two full rose parade columns from, You know, I wrote it again and it ate it again. But you told us

last time you're here. That's the most frustrating road. Never put it back. That's right. But basically it's cut my actual writing time. Once I have all the information, I know what I'm going to say. It's all there. It's cut my writing time from 3 to 4

hours to to two hours. Two or three hours? Yeah, that's getting you some extra time to work quickly. One thing you know, we were talking about the giants of the day when you covered the board. In your opinion, how the local government they compare with the

years when we had those local political giants were down to about a minute. Well, I think first of all, the situation is different and you need we don't have an acknowledged board leader. Now we don't have someone who's running the show. And in some ways, that

could be frustrating for the taxpayers, because the benevolent dictator is a great thing. And what we have are lots of people pulling in different directions. But the situation is different. We have the deep pockets threat of a lawsuit We have government has to play things much,

much closer to the vest than they did in those good old boy days, and it would be very difficult to be his free wheeling. And I think that we have to understand that in judging against the quote good old days. Okay. That's, uh okay. You passed

your test. Uh, thank your engine today. Uh, you come back and visit us insurance sometime soon. Next year, ladies and gentlemen, we've been talking to Gala Baron. She's the press Democrat columnist. She's also historian, and she and her tree cohorts have written a book. Santa Rosa,

19th Century Town. It's in the book stores all over. Santa Rosa is a beautiful book. It really is. If you are a person who is interested in your county, you certainly want to look at this. And I'm not huckster here, but I really think that you

should see it. I have and I'm getting a copy and I wanted autographs, and I think you'll enjoy it to my name is rich McGlinchey the program cinema can in the eighties. I'll be back next week with a member of the county government, family or a

nice personality. Such a gala Vera. So long a lot of that love to each and every one of you. Sonoma County in the eighties is a production of the Sonoma County Public Information Office. This program is being produced as a public service by Total Television of

Santa Rosa. Four. Channel 22. Be sure to join us next week. Same time, same channel for another edition of Sonoma County in the eighties