A TRIBUTE TO BILL TANNER
by Brent Larkin
Walking
into the Cleveland Press newsroom during the afternoon paper’s glory
years was to venture onto hallowed journalistic ground.
It
was a newsroom awash with living legends. No fewer than 24 of them are
now enshrined in the Press Club Hall of Fame, proof alone Time Magazine
was right in the 1960s to name the Press one of the nation’s 10 greatest
newspapers.
Bill
Tanner, one of the last of those larger than life journalists, died
June 29 in Ft. Myers, Florida, where he and his wife, former Press
reporter Rusty Brown Tanner, had lived since Tanner retired as editor of
the Albuquerque Tribune about 30 years ago. He was 97.
Hired
at the Press in 1943, Tanner covered a wide variety of beats, all of
them with distinction. When Bay Village doctor Sam Sheppard went on
trial for the 1954 murder of his wife, Marilyn, Tanner was the obvious
choice to cover Cleveland’s version of the “trial of the century.” The
Press’ coverage of the case cemented Louie Seltzer’s role as an icon of
American journalism and made Tanner one of the paper’s growing number of
superstars.
When
another Press legend, city editor Louis Clifford, died in 1968, Tanner
was the obvious choice. In 1980, when the Press, like all afternoon
newspapers, was struggling to retain advertisers and readers, the Press’
parent company promoted him to the top job in Albuquerque.
On
a personal level, Bill was my mentor and my dear friend for 52 years.
He was kind, wise, perceptive and blessed with world class journalistic
instincts that rarely failed him. In the spring of 1971, Tanner promoted
a 23-year-old immature kid with an atrocious college transcript and
above-average work ethic to the prestigious Cleveland City Hall beat.
Carl
Stokes was mayor. Dennis Kucinich was a first term councilman. I was in
over my head. That I survived was largely because Bill Tanner wouldn’t
let me fail.