Day 39 of Nat'l Emergency: Back in the News

Have you ever talked with a reporter? I mean, for an on the record interview? Your name and all in print, or on the air?

It is among the most ego boosting of experiences, yet also among the most frightful. Will the reporter quote or paraphrase me correctly? Not just the actual words but, more importantly, the correct context in which I said them. Even if you submit written responses to questions context can be combustible. 

During my time as editor and publisher of Chain Store Age reporters often called for comment on the latest news or trends in retailing. I was happy to oblige, though wary they could easily, not purposely, misalign my input with their output (i.e., slant) they hoped to convey. Even the most perfect and beautiful publication, to use descriptors favored by Donald Trump, cannot always guard against opinions or subtle biases drifting into an article, either in the way questions are framed or in the way an answer is revealed. 

Long story short—Monday, I was quoted in Newsweek.com by the Web site’s executive editor, Hank Gilman, in his weekly “On the Street” column (https://www.newsweek.com/street-drugs-stocks-stores-kentucky-face-masks-opinion-1498737). Hank and I have a long history. He served as one of my field and associate editors in the early 1980s. From those “lofty” positions he went onto key posts at Fortune, The Wall Street Journal and the Boston Globe. 

(One of my proudest achievements has been my trade magazine’s role as a springboard for journalists on prestigious business publications. Aside from Hank’s sterling resume, another alumnus, Dan Scheraga, is currently the publishing editor of The Wall Street Journal. Joanne Gordon left Chain Store Age to join Forbes. She is now an author. After serving as my executive editor, Steve Malanga served 14 years as managing editor and executive editor of Crain’s New York Business. He currently is a contributing editor of City Journal. If you watch CNN, perhaps you’ve seen pieces by its technology editor Samantha Murphy Kelly. While she was simply Samantha Murphy she was Chain Store Age’s associate editor and Web editor.)

Back to the present. For those who didn’t bother to click on the earlier link, here’s the segment Hank devoted to the future of in store retailing. To those who read it, skip down to the next paragraph:

“There Will Be Stores: I love speculating about the future, even when I have little to back it up. But I have to admit the ‘how life will be post-COVID-19’ predictions are getting a little tiresome. You know, we’ll never commute to work again. And we’ll just sit at home watching Netflix, President Trump’s daily briefings and ordering Papa John’s pizza online. Then there's in-person shopping, which everyone says is doomed. For you investor/shoppers and such, don’t despair. It will take some time—and a vaccine—but people will still go back to stores and malls. For one thing, cyber-retail is great but it may not be that great. Some are reportedly struggling with distribution, largely because of the pandemic demand. That wasn't supposed to happen. (I still shop in-person at the supermarket, mask on, and get my groceries and disinfectant wipes a lot sooner than my pals who queue up to shop on PeaPod.) To get to the bottom of this, I got in touch with my pal Murray Forseter, who now writes a business/politics/life blog. Murray, in another life covered retail for a living. (He wrote about Walmart when people actually liked Walmart.) His take: The stores and malls that have great service, ambiance, and unique products will still be in demand. Second tier malls and chains, like JCPenney are doomed—just like they were doomed before the pandemic. Furthermore, do you actually think people will be looking to spend more time with computers and smartphones after all this? Says Murray: ‘To believe that anyone can predict that in-store retailing will almost vanish, is to believe in Santa Claus.’ (And, by the way, what will happen to those guys if all the cheesy malls close?)”

I can’t find anything to fault in that tidbit, but to give you a fuller view of the thoughts I provided Hank, here’s what I emailed him: 

“To believe that anyone can predict what will happen to retailing, especially that in store retailing will almost vanish, is to believe in Santa Claus. Or in unicorns, Or that everything Donald Trump says is true (sorry, couldn’t resist that political jab).

“I would suspect that anyone who predicts the demise of in store retailing has an urban orientation. More specifically, an upper middle class to upper class orientation. They also are more focused on apparel and home furnishings than on hardware, convenience store products, drug stores, and other stores that cater to people who need products right away and don’t want to wait for a delivery. Food stores, as well, from bodegas to Aldi-type discounters, to Trader Joe’s to full-fledged supermarkets will still be important though there may be some erosion, again focusing on the affluent shopper. 

“Perhaps most important to the discussion on what will happen to retailing after the pandemic is over or at least controlled is that stores that cannot differentiate themselves from their competitors will fall. They need to differentiate based on price not so much but rather on service, product assortment and selection, location, in stock position (nice way of saying logistics/distribution), staffing, store ambiance—in general what makes a retailer a place you would want to spend some time in, whether it be for a grab and go purchase or a lengthy buying session. 

“By the way, foodservice is another part of retailing. No way home delivery food tastes as good as the in restaurant experience. Of course, in restaurants and other retail formats there will be changes including at times limiting the number of customers/diners in an establishment and retaining shields at cash registers to protect cashiers, and eliminating salad bars and food tastings (much to the regret of Costco customers). 

“There will be lots, lots of empty storefronts, but that was going to happen even before the new coronavirus struck. And lots of empty malls. Consumers will gravitate toward regional shopping centers, leaving B and C malls to go dark. Again, that was already happening. As a country we need to find secondary uses for these centers. I’ve always advocated turning them into senior housing, or low risk penal institutions, or, if high rise apartments can be built above them, mixed use housing complexes with the former mall turned into stores that sell convenience services like hair/nail salons, gyms, doctors’ offices, local theaters. 

“There is much more I could say but this already is pretty long. Keep in mind when you talk about the amount of internet buying that it includes airline ticket purchases which have mostly replaced buying through an agent. Same thing for hotel and car rentals, and cruises if they manage to rebound. Actual old fashioned retailing, if I am still correct, is still 80-85% transacted in stores.”

A Tribute to Gilda on Her 70th Birthday

Half a century. Fifty years ago Gilda and I started our relationship. Actually, she started it by asking me to escort her to a Christmas get-together at the home of one of her political science teachers. That was the one and only time I ever was in a Brooklyn Heights brownstone. 

Gilda is 11 days my junior. She turned 70 Sunday. 

I thought I would tell you how accomplished she is. But I did that a few weeks ago, as far as her professional career, when we celebrated our 46th wedding anniversary (https://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2019/01/my-my-fair-lady-for-46-years.html).

Today, I’ll concentrate on her non professional side. 

Those fortunate to have eaten a meal prepared by Gilda know how good a cook she is. She didn’t start out that way. The first meal she made for me, a lunch before she embarked with friends on a college winter break trip to Montreal, was spaghetti and a chicken pot pie. She served the latter still partially frozen, the spaghetti overcooked and clumped together so firmly it could be picked up in its entirety with one plunge of a fork. 

I love reminding her of her cooking pedigree. She takes it with grace. She is not shy of elaborating to friends how in her first apartment she decided to make beef stroganoff. The recipe called for heavy cream. She had no idea what that meant and, as her apartment lacked a phone because of a telephone worker strike, she was unable to call anyone for advice. So off she trundled to the local grocer where she lifted up containers of different creams. She decided 8 ounces of sour cream weighed more than 8 ounces of any other cream. She apparently had not seen a container marked “heavy cream.” 

The recipe also called for a clove of garlic. She assumed a clove was synonymous with a full head of garlic.  

Gilda remembers the stroganoff didn’t really taste that bad. I couldn’t say. I was up in Syracuse at graduate school.  

Gilda took time off from work as a nurse to spend seven years raising Dan and Ellie. She enjoyed almost all of that time (okay, not when Dan had severe colic) but drew the line at sitting through kiddie films. Thus, I should not have been surprised when as a family we went to see Disney’s animated Oliver and Company and she disappeared midway through the film. I couldn’t leave the kids in a dark movie theater to search for her. She showed up in the lobby later, having ducked into a screening of Working Woman. 

She wouldn’t be normal if she didn’t complain once in a while. Kindness from and to others is her most fervent desire. When it is not proffered or appreciated she is not happy.

Gilda exults in her time outdoors, be it in her garden, in private or public gardens we have walked, or during almost daily constitutionals around our neighborhood. With the aid of fluorescent lights during the winter she turns our basement into a hothouse of geraniums lifted up from her garden before fall’s first frost.

She reads several books at a time, a history or biography along with a novel. She reads three newspapers a day, the online versions of The New York Times, the Boston Globe and the Omaha World Herald, the last two as a way of keeping up with developments where Dan’s and Ellie’s families live. She also reads Internet news sites, especially the US DailyMail.com, a site that she admits has some pretty weird stories but she notes oftentimes has more information on breaking news and current events sooner and in more detail than The Times. 

Family and friends are exceedingly important to her, part of the reason we expanded our home after our children went off to college. A modernized kitchen with a larger dining room and living room meant we could accommodate more guests. For Rosh Hashanah, Passover and Thanksgiving Gilda spends weeks cooking for large groups of friends and family. Many Friday nights she welcomes the Sabbath with friends who get to savor her cooking and her newfound skill, baking challah.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Gilda’s accomplishments is that she is a self-taught success. It is not blasphemy to report that her parents did not provide effective role models. Her father Irving travelled frequently and was not a dominant presence in the family. He died suddenly when she was nine. Her mother Rose offered little by way of comfort or example. She could not cook, so Gilda never learned. She did not welcome any of Gilda’s friends into their household. Rose was a simple woman with little curiosity, gumption or industriousness. She convinced Gilda’s sister to work in an office rather than attend college. She would have liked Gilda to do the same, but Gilda chose her own path. 

Naturally, she would not pay for Gilda’s college education. So Gilda enrolled in Brooklyn College, a commuter school that at the time cost about $100 per semester for tuition and books. Gilda worked to pay her own school costs as well as buying her own clothing and other living expenses. One could say I am indebted to Rose’s penny-pinching ways for enabling Gilda and me to find one another. Fifty years ago. 

Putting a Spotlight on Reporting

Gilda and I saw Spotlight Saturday night. It’s a great movie, perhaps the best of the year. Naturally, as a former newspaper reporter, I am biased. Almost any film about journalistic achievement or chicanery—fact-based or fiction, from All the President’s Men to The Paper to Libeled Lady and Deadline USA to The Front Page and its remake as His Girl Friday—would rate four stars from me.

For those not familiar with Spotlight, the film traces the effort of an investigative unit of the same name at The Boston Globe in 2001 to piece together the child molestation and cover-up scandal within the Roman Catholic church.

Nobody gets shot. There are no sex scenes. There are no chase scenes, though reporters are seen several times scurrying around tracking down leads.

I admired the attention to detail. The almost ragamuffin attire worn by reporters and editors. The total absorption, or rather immersion, or maybe obsession, reporters undergo when nailing down a story.

Reporting can be drudgery. Thankfully, everyday news is not a Watergate break-in or a mass shooting or a plane crash. It is the approval of zoning laws that might alter the character of a neighborhood. The adoption by the Board of Education of new curriculum. The placement of traffic lights that could make a busy thoroughfare pedestrian-safe. Sewer commission meetings are boring to anyone but the families that live along the street where pipes will be laid to replace their dependence on septic tanks.

Yet there may be hidden stories behind these everyday events. Payoffs for building approvals. Or for sewer lines that make it easier to build new subdivisions. Human interest profiles of accident victims on streets unsafe at any speed.

There’s an insightful scene in Spotlight when the new editor of The Globe, Marty Baron, meets Cardinal Bernard Law, archbishop of Boston, the first time. Law suggests the two institutions—the church and paper—would best serve Boston by working together. To which Baron replies he believes newspapers work best if they act independently.

It is a creed I followed. I never got too close to those I wrote about or to those who supported my publication with advertising. Who knows? Perhaps my magazine didn’t garner all the advertising it could because I was too distant from those who paid our bills. Or maybe we missed uncovering some inside dope on a retailer that would have justified banner headlines? 

As I watched the Spotlight story come together I became angry, introspective and more melancholy. Angered by the gall and audacity the church and its allies exhibited toward the victims and unsuspecting parishioners. They thought themselves above the law (pun intended). I was saddened by the realization that none of the stories I did as a newspaper reporter and trade magazine editor, good as they were, had the intensity and life-altering drama Spotlight exposed. I was envious.

Good trade magazines have to tiptoe along a line that separates boosterism from constructive review. One of the first meetings I had with a CEO of a retail chain centered on a complaint over an article that questioned the retail industry’s response to the vast numbers thrown out of work by the failure of W.T. Grant. The CEO of G.C. Murphy saw Chain Store Age as an advocate for the industry. How dare we expose any warts. 

I wondered how our chief editor, John Lightfoot, would respond. He said the magazine was an objective chronicler of the good and the bad.

I agreed with John. So did the president-owner of our company. We had no rug under which we swept inefficiency or bad leadership. It didn’t matter if it was Sears or Kmart, Wal-Mart or American Apparel, or Abercrombie & Fitch. When mistakes of strategy or judgment were made Chain Store Age would not be silent.

It might not have been on the same plane as that of Spotlight at The Globe, but our editorial staff did its best to watch over the best interests of our constituency.