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Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

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mANN BULL AT SCI 2015?

. I was in the sights now of powerful, well-heeled interests such as the Scaife Foundations and the Koch brothers (Mann, 2012). A Scaife-funded front group known as the Commonwealth Foundation unsuccessfully pressured Penn State University to fire me, while the Scaife-owned Pittsburgh Tribune-Review frequently published attacks upon me personally. I’ve stopped counting the number of attacks by individuals, organizations}:

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AI Overview

Billionaire publisher Richard Mellon Scaife, who owned the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review until his death in 2014, utilized his vast financial resources and media empire to heavily fund the climate change denial movement. Through his charitable foundations and publications, he promoted skepticism of global warming and opposed environmental regulations. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Philanthropic and Media Funding

Legacy and Context

While much of the media attention surrounding opposition to carbon regulation focused on fossil fuel companies, Scaife's foundations represented a major independent financial source for climate denialism. His contributions were part of a larger network of conservative foundations that actively repressed climate science and eased restrictions on power plant pollution. [1, 2]

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0096340214563674

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

The Serengeti strategy: How special interests try to intimidate scientists, and how best to fight back

Michael E. MannView all authors and affiliations

Volume 71, Issue 1

https://doi.org/10.1177/0096340214563674

Contents

PDF/EPUB

Abstract

Much as lions on the Serengeti seek out vulnerable zebras at the edge of a herd, special interests faced with adverse scientific evidence often target individual scientists rather than take on an entire scientific field at once. Part of the reasoning behind this approach is that it is easier to bring down individuals than an entire group of scientists, and it still serves the larger aim: to dismiss, obscure, and misrepresent well-established science and its implications. In addition, such highly visible tactics create an atmosphere of intimidation that discourages other scientists from conveying their research’s implications to the public.

This “Serengeti strategy” is often employed wherever there is a strong and widespread consensus among the world’s scientists about the underlying cold, hard facts of a field, whether the subject be evolution, ozone depletion, the environmental impacts of DDT, the health effects of smoking, or human-caused climate change. The goal is to attack those researchers whose findings are inconvenient, rather than debate the findings themselves. This article draws upon the author’s own experience to examine the “Serengeti strategy,” and offers possible countermeasures to such orchestrated campaigns. It examines what responses by scientists have been most successful, and how to combat the doubt-sowing that industry has done regarding the science behind climate change and other fields.

Critics of science frequently present scientific knowledge as if all our understanding of a given field hinges on the work of just one scientist. Forget the thousands of evolutionary biologists whose work over more than a century has repeatedly confirmed the theory of evolution; to creationists, it is just “Darwinism”—the conclusions of one ostensibly suspect individual named Charles Darwin.

And it is labeled as “just a theory,” as if that somehow diminishes its validity. (For that matter, gravity is “just a theory” as well. Yet no one steps off a tall building to test it.)

This reflects a popular misconception of what a theory is to scientists. While in common parlance the word “theory” conveys something speculative, tentative, or uncertain, in the field of science the word refers to an understanding of an aspect of the natural world that has held up repeatedly to scrutiny and testing over time.

Industry-funded front groups and their hired guns have learned that they can use this confusion over terminology to their benefit. Rather than admit that decades of research has revealed dangerous effects of DDT on our environment, these organizations try to lead the public into believing that concerns about these chemical contaminants are just the hysterical speculations of one scientist named Rachel Carson. For example, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (http://www.cei.org)—an advocacy group funded by fossil fuel and chemical industry concerns and conservative private interests—maintains a website, RachelWasWrong (http://www.rachelwaswrong.org), dedicated to discrediting Carson and her legacy as a way of casting doubt upon all environmental concerns.

This is a classic ad hominem attack, consisting of innuendo and obfuscation, often focusing on irrelevant items, whose net effect is to direct attention away from the merits of an argument and instead to the character of the person making it. This approach appeals to feelings, emotions, and prejudices rather than intellect—exactly the point when the attacker is on the wrong side of the facts. This approach is not held in high regard by those interested in reason and rationalism, based as it is upon tenets that are the opposite of science.

But it is effective, for a number of reasons. By singling out a sole scientist, it is possible for the forces of “anti-science” to bring many more resources to bear on one individual, exerting enormous pressure from multiple directions at once, making defense difficult. It is similar to what happens when a group of lions on the Serengeti seek out a vulnerable individual zebra at the edge of a herd, which is why I call it the “Serengeti strategy” in my book The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars (Mann, 2012).

An additional part of the motivation behind the targeting of individuals: It is difficult to take on an entire group of scientists at once. But bringing down individuals is easier, and it serves the larger effort of dismissing, obscuring, and misrepresenting well-established science and its implications. What’s more, these highly visible tactics create such a negative atmosphere that other scientists are discouraged from conveying their research’s implications to the public.

This strategy falls under the umbrella of a larger, overall conception, which some researchers refer to as the “tobacco strategy” because it characterizes the way that tobacco interests sought to discredit research that linked their products to lung cancer (Oreskes and Conway, 2010). Whatever it is called, it has repeatedly been adopted by the chemical industry, big agriculture, the pharmaceutical industry, and just about any corporate interest that has found itself on a collision course with scientific research—particularly research that reveals specific potential damages or threats caused by their product.

It is educational to see how long the use of these tactics has been around, and how it was applied on a massive, wide-reaching scale to make a meme—a cultural idea or belief system, similar in some ways to a catchphrase—go viral, long before the social media era. And of course, this technique has now been refined and expanded upon, to include a barrage of messages from authoritatively named pseudo-news outlets, an alphabet soup of legitimate-sounding front groups, and a bevy of experts-for-hire with impressive—or at least impressive-sounding—credentials, who together form a “Potemkin Village” (Oreskes and Conway, 2010) of antiscientific disinformation. One can observe this strategy writ large in the current public discourse in the United States over whether or not human-caused climate change exists—a debate that has been largely settled in other parts of the world, such as the European countries whose citizens have overwhelmingly accepted the evidence for it.

Indeed, when overseas Americans encounter the widespread acceptance of anthropogenic climate change, they are often surprised. “After my climate change book came out, I had dinner with a Dutch minister from a right-wing, conservative party—and he sounded like a Greenpeace guy,” commented author Elizabeth Kolbert (The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists*, 2014) about the European reception to her book *The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (Kolbert, 2014).

Climate change: A quick recap

A quick refresher about the present state of the discourse in the United States about climate change: Despite first impressions, only a minority of our populace clings to a wholesale rejection of all the established evidence for anthropogenic climate change. Yet this rejection can be powerful (and backed by powerful interests), as I wrote in The New York Times:

This virulent strain of anti-science infects the halls of Congress, the pages of leading newspapers, and what we see on TV, leading to the appearance of a debate where none should exist. In fact, there is broad agreement among climate scientists not only that climate change is real (a survey and a review of the scientific literature published say about 97 percent agree), but that we must respond to the dangers of a warming planet. If one is looking for real differences among mainstream scientists, they can be found on two fronts: the precise implications of those higher temperatures, and which technologies and policies offer the best solution to reducing, on a global scale, the emission of greenhouse gases. (Mann, 2014a)

Such a high level of agreement among any group of people is extraordinary; just try to get 97 percent of Americans to agree about favorite pizza toppings. Nothing in the field of science ever gets 100 percent agreement—there’s still a Flat Earth Society that holds monthly meetings—but the fact that a few contrarians still exist around the topic of climate change may be one reason why the public gets confused when hearing about the issue. They expect all experts everywhere to be in complete agreement, all the time.

There is no longer any reasonable doubt among mainstream researchers about the fact that climate change is real, caused by human activity, and a potential threat to civilization. That is the conclusion of every major scientific organization that deals in any of the underlying areas of science, including the American Physical Society, the American Meteorological Society, the American Chemical Society, the Geological Society of America, the American Geophysical Union, and several dozen more. Indeed, it is the conclusion of the national academies of every major industrial nation on the planet.1

But faced with this overwhelming scientific consensus about the threat of human-caused climate change—and, by implication, the necessity to reduce global carbon emissions—fossil fuel interests have in many cases chosen not to accept the evidence, nor to engage in good-faith discussion about possible solutions. Instead, they have opted to deny the problem exists.

For more than two decades now, leading fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil, as well as privately held fossil fuel interests like Koch Industries, have been orchestrating attacks on the science of climate change through their various front groups (Mann, 2012; Oreskes and Conway, 2010). As the evidence has grown stronger and the scientific case more firm, they have simply doubled down on the assault.

Many of the attacks have been aimed at undermining one of the scientific community’s great strengths—the trust that the public has in scientists as communicators and messengers. A poll conducted by Yale University and George Mason University indicated that climate scientists are the most trusted source of information about global warming for voting-age Americans (Yale Project, 2012). This is in line with a number of polls regarding science that have been conducted over the years, which consistently show that the public ranks scientists near the top for trustworthiness (Pew Research Center, 2009)—while they put members of Congress, TV reporters, and used-car salesmen near the bottom. (At the very bottom are lobbyists, who have only a 6 percent approval rating for honesty and ethics (Gallup, 2014)).

In their effort to discredit the genuine science behind climate change, fossil fuel interests and their front groups have sought to undermine that trust in science and scientists.

Swiftboating comes to climate science

The earliest attacks on climate scientists were aimed at physicist-turned-climate scientist Stephen Schneider of Stanford University, a particularly effective messenger at communicating climate change risk to the public. Climate change deniers found an opening in Schneider’s use of loosely phrased, off-the-cuff comments that could be taken out of context. For example, 25 years ago Schneider did an interview for Discover magazine in which he stated:

On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but—which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This “double ethical bind” we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both. (Schneider, 1989: 47)

Climate change critics2 have frequently taken this statement completely out of context, editing it down to the snippet “we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.” By cutting out the sentences that follow, and not providing the full context, Schneider’s detractors misrepresented the point Schneider was actually making: that we can, and should, be both effective and honest in communicating the science and its implications to the public.

The critics ratcheted up their campaign in the mid-1990s. In December 1995, just as I was finalizing my dissertation on the topic of natural climate variability—research that had little if anything to do with the topic of human-caused climate change—a group of hundreds of leading climate experts from around the world were assessing the state of the science of climate change. Known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, the group issued a report that concluded that there was now a “discernible human influence on climate” (Mann, 2012). This was the first time such a statement had been made.

Ben Santer, a relatively young scientist at the time, was the lead author of the key chapter on the “detection and attribution” of climate change—which demonstrated that the “signal” of anthropogenic climate change and global warming was now discernible from the background “noise” of natural climate variability. Santer’s own scientific work was critical to that conclusion; as a result, he found himself at the center of a campaign in which his integrity was impugned by industry affiliates, along with charges of “scientific cleansing” similar to ethnic cleansing in Wall Street Journal op-eds. His job and even his life were threatened (Mann, 2012). The assaults against Santer were just a sign of what was to come.

The hockey stick and the Serengeti strategy

From the late 1980s through the mid-1990s, scientists like Schneider and Santer were subject to “swiftboat”-like3 attacks, owing to the prominence of their work in raising awareness of the threat of climate change. I was the involuntary next member in this lineage.

My work as a postdoctoral researcher in the late 1990s reconstructing past temperature changes led my colleagues and me to publish the now well-known “hockey stick”4 curve depicting temperature changes over the past thousand years. Looking much like a hockey stick lying on its side—which is why it got its name—this curve graphically illustrated in easy-to-understand terms the past century’s warming spike (the “blade”), as it rose above the range of natural variation over the past millennium (the “handle”). As it sloped downward from left to right, the lengthy handle indicated that there were only relatively modest changes in Northern Hemisphere temperatures for almost 1,000 years—as far back as our data went at the time of publication. (In its September 2013 report, the IPCC extended the stick farther back in time, reflecting their conclusion that the recent warming was unprecedented for at least 1,400 years.) In contrast, the short and abruptly upturned blade, at the extreme right of the graph, indicated the abrupt rise in temperatures since the mid-1800s—which roughly corresponded to the arrival of the Industrial Revolution in the Northern Hemisphere and the emission of much more carbon into the atmosphere (see Figure 1).

...

The hockey stick was featured in the summary for policy makers of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report of 2001. It emerged as an iconic image of human-caused climate change, conveying a simple, straightforward message about the reality of global warming. To mix metaphors, this graph became a lightning rod of debate—and its publication turned me into a reluctant public figure. Some years after his own experiences, Ben Santer stated: “There are people who believe that if they bring down Mike Mann, they can bring down the IPCC” (Pearce, 2006).

I recount my experiences in full in my book The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars (Mann, 2012), but include a brief summary of a few highlights here. I was vilified in the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal and on Fox News. I was in the sights now of powerful, well-heeled interests such as the Scaife Foundations and the Koch brothers (Mann, 2012). A Scaife-funded front group known as the Commonwealth Foundation unsuccessfully pressured Penn State University to fire me, while the Scaife-owned Pittsburgh Tribune-Review frequently published attacks upon me personally. I’ve stopped counting the number of attacks by individuals, organizations, and front groups connected to the Koch brothers—conservative activists who are heavily invested in fossil fuel extraction and transportation (see, e.g., Mayer, 2010).

I was subject to what The Washington Post and The New York Times denounced as an “inquisition” and a “witch hunt”5 by politicians in the pay of fossil fuel interests (Mann, 2012), looking to discredit my work.6

The former chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Texas Republican Joe Barton, attempted in 2005 to subpoena all of my personal records and those of my two “hockey stick” co-authors, even though the vast majority of what he was demanding was already in the public domain. (Among the fiercest critics of Barton’s behavior were two powerful senior members of his own party—the chair of the House Science Committee, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert of New York, and Sen. John McCain of Arizona.)

Subsequently, Ken Cuccinelli, the newly minted attorney general of Virginia, who’d received significant Koch brothers support (see Blumenthal, 2013; Cramer, 2013; and Vogel, 2011), attempted to obtain all of my personal e-mails with more than 30 scientists around the world from the 1999 to 2005 time period, during which I was a professor at the University of Virginia, under the aegis of a civil subpoena designed to root out state Medicare fraud. After Cuccinelli was repeatedly rebuffed by the courts all the way to the state Supreme Court, a Koch-funded group called the American Tradition Institute (ATI) sought to demand the same e-mails through misuse of state open-records laws. The ATI too was rebuffed all the way to the state Supreme Court, which ultimately demanded that they pay both the University of Virginia and me damages for their frivolous petitioning of the court (Sturgis, 2014).

Many of the attacks claimed that the hockey stick was simply wrong, or bad science, or that it was debunked or discredited, despite all evidence to the contrary—such as the reaffirmation of our findings by the National Academy of Sciences,7 the subsequent reports of the IPCC,8 and the most recent peer-reviewed research.9

Others were challenges to my integrity and honesty. Most worrisome were thinly veiled threats leveled against my family and me. (And some not so veiled, such as letters and e-mails threatening my life and my family’s lives, including an envelope sent in the mail that contained a white powder, subsequently investigated by the FBI (Mann, 2012: Chapter 14.))

Then came the manufactured, so-called “climategate” controversy (Mann, 2012: Chapter 14), in which climate change deniers stole thousands of e-mails and mined them for words and phrases that could be taken out of context and made to sound as if scientists had been doctoring data or otherwise engaged in misbehavior. Nine investigations later,10 we know that the only wrongdoing was the criminal theft of the e-mails in the first place. much more]

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AI Overview

+7

These entities are linked through a network of right-wing media and political advocacy, specifically tied to the billionaire-funded conservative echo chamber of the 1990s and 2000s. [1]

The connections and historical contexts include:

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AI Overview GGL 6 26

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (TribLIVE) frequently publishes climate-skeptic content, primarily through its opinion pages. The publication has faced criticism for providing space for columns and letters to the editor that dispute the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Key Aspects of the Coverage

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2 22 morano quoted in ltr to ed on trib live:

https://mediakit.triblive.com/about/who-we-are/

Trib Total Media delivers news, information and advertising to portions of Allegheny, Westmoreland, Armstrong and Butler counties in Southwestern Pennsylvania. We strive to meet the ever-changing needs of our subscribers, advertisers, and partners by delivering the news where, when, and how our readers would like to receive it.

By offering a multimedia suite of products and services including daily and weekly newspapers and weekly shoppers along with websites, digital advertising, direct mail, commercial printing and media planning, we are the single source solution for all of your advertising and marketing needs.

MISSION STATEMENT

Trib Total Media seeks to run a successful, sustainable business that improves lives across western Pennsylvania while remaining honest, accountable and transparent.

Our employees work together, with mutual respect and cooperation, to serve readers and advertisers while strengthening our communities.

We will remain relevant by applying the knowledge from the past, meeting the urgency of today and following a clear purpose into the future.

OUR STORY

Richard Scaife purchased the Tribune-Review Publishing Company (TRPC) and the Greensburg-based Tribune-Review in 1970. But it wasn’t until May 19, 1974 that the first Sunday edition was published. Within 10 years, circulation grew to over 80,000 subscribers.A Pittsburgh edition of the Tribune-Review was born nearly 20 years later, on December 17, 1992 following a divisive strike that ultimately killed the Pittsburgh Press.

The Trib launched Western PA’s first online news resource – Tributaries – in 1995. It relaunched in 1998 as PittsburghLIVE.com and later was renamed TribLIVE.com. Today, TribLIVE is one of the area’s leading online resources for news, information, entertainment, sports, classifieds and more.

In 1997 TRPC acquired four of the region’s other daily newspapers – Valley News Dispatch, Leader Times, Daily Courier and The Valley Independent.

TRPC’s sister corporation, Westminster Holdings, Inc. (WHI), acquired Gateway Press, Inc. in December 2003, then publisher of 22 weekly community newspapers, along with the Pennysaver, a full-service commercial print facility and direct-mail house. Two years later, the news, advertising, circulation and management teams of TRPC and WHI began using the name Trib Total Media to describe their newspaper and media properties.

In early 2008, TRPC purchased The Daily News, a six-day newspaper in McKeesport, and The Laurel Group, the publisher of six weekly newspapers in Westmoreland and Fayette counties. It later expanded its holdings once again by acquiring a chain of weekly newspapers serving the Kiski Valley collectively known as the Buttermilk Falls publications.

WHI officially changed its name to Trib Total Media, Inc. in December 2008 and TRPC transferred all of its newspaper and media assets to Trib Total Media, Inc., in essence merging the newspaper and media properties of WHI and TRPC.

After primarily focusing on print and digital content, Trib Total Media took a new direction and launched Total Promotional Solutions, a promotional products division, in March 2010 providing advertisers with even more marketing and branding solutions. Then, in January 2011 TribLIVE Radio, Pittsburgh’s only online radio station, was born, broadcasting live daily from studios on Pittsburgh’s North Shore.

Continuing on a track of diversification, PrintSource was established as a sub-division of Trib Total Media’s commercial print division in March 2013. Recently PrintSource was renamed Three Rivers Print Source and was established as a subsidiary of Trib Total Media. In addition to the traditional services of a commercial printing firm, Three Rivers Print Source provides daily and weekly newspapers with a comprehensive set of services including printing, packaging and delivery, all from one source and one location.

In January 2016, the first of two waves of strategic changes was implemented when Trib Total Media closed The Daily News and The Valley Independent, sold the Leader Times and Daily Courier and consolidated the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Tribune-Review and Valley News Dispatch into one newspaper with 3 distinct editions.Later that year, Trib Total Media ceased publication of the Pittsburgh edition of the Tribune-Review and launched a fully digital edition of the newspaper named PghTrib.com.

In October of 2017 Trib Total Media announced a deal to purchase MSA Sports Network. The network was renamed the TribLIVE High School Sports Network and today broadcasts more than 2000 live sporting events each year covering over 15 sports at more than 140 schools.

SewickleyHerald.com was launched in May 2018 as a companion website to the popular Sewickley Herald weekly newspaper and the first site in Trib Total Media’s Neighborhood News Network. SewickleyHerald.com delivers the news and information that the readers have come to expect from the print edition but it also relies on individuals and community organizations to post and share news to the site as well.

Similar sites were launched over the next 2 years in communities covered by Trib Total Media’s weekly community newspapers. In June 2020 15 more sites were launched without print components and today the Neighborhood News Network encompasses 31 local news sites.

While continuing to stay at the forefront of innovation in content development and distribution, Trib Total Media has returned to its roots as a family of community newspapers, focusing efforts in 3 key markets within Southwestern Pennsylvania – Westmoreland County, the Alle-Kiski Valley and Allegheny County. By delivering daily and weekly newspapers, a weekly shopper, promotional products, direct mail, and digital services, Trib Total Media can efficiently and cost-effectively address the advertising needs of advertisers big and small. And, it can provide news and information to readers when and where they want to receive it, in the format best suited to their lifestyle.

CORE VALUES

Integrity

INTEGRITY

Integrity is the cornerstone of our organization.

We strive to uphold the highest standards of integrity in our reporting, business practices and customer service by acting with honesty and transparency.

Collaboration

COLLABORATION

Collaboration, both internally and externally, is the key to our continued growth and success. Communication across departments and mutually beneficial partnerships with those outside of our organization are necessary to better serve our readers, advertisers and communities.

Accountability

ACCOUNTABILITY

We are accountable to each other as well as to our customers and communities to always act in a way that fosters these core values. We aim to make decisions that keep our organization fiscally sound and socially responsible and make every effort to produce work of which we can all be proud.

Respect

RESPECT

Our vast and diverse audience is entitled to the respect of our entire organization.

In turn, we constantly work to earn and maintain the respect of the communities that we serve.

The history of our organization, our customers and the institution of journalism is to be honored by our actions and decisions

Evolution

EVOLUTION

Evolution is a constant that we embrace.

We challenge old ways of thinking and continually seek out innovative ideas and opportunities for development and growth.

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Letter to the editor: Facts on 'global warming'

Tribune-ReviewTRIBUNE-REVIEW | Monday, Feb. 14, 2022 5:00 a.m.Support Local Journalism

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In 2015, scholar Walter Williams stated that during the Ordovician period (460 million years ago), carbon dioxide concentrations were 4,400 PPM (parts per million), and temperatures were about the same as today. (This is over 10 times the level, 415 PPM, recorded Nov. 18, 2021, by the Global Monitoring Laboratory.)

A May 12, 2013, Valley News Dispatch editorial titled “The CO2 Scare” included this comment from climatedepot.com’s Marc Morano:“Peer-reviewed studies have shown that ice ages occurred when CO2 levels ranged from 2,000 PPM all the way up to 8,000 PPM; that temperatures comparable to today’s prevailed even with CO2 levels 20 times higher; and that CO2 rose as high as 425 PPM nearly 13,000 years ago when humanity couldn’t possibly have influenced climate.”

A chart in the book “Lukewarming” compares temperature projections by global warming scientists (charlatans, in my opinion) to actual recorded temperatures from 1977-2015. The projected estimates were four times greater than those actually recorded.

Before self-proclaimed “experts” such as Al Gore and John Kerry lead the global warming lemmings over the proverbial cliff, the heat dissipation of CO2 must be understood. It is explained in the book “The Weaponization of Weather in the Phony Climate War,” which includes this quote from Gregory Wrightstone, author and geologist: “The warming effect of each molecule of (CO2) decreases logarithmically with increasing concentration, and that is why there was no runaway global warming in the past when CO2 exceeded 5,000 PPM.” (This is over 10 times the current level of 415 PPM.)

Jack Bologna

Parks

Support Local Journalism and help us continue covering the stories that matter to you and your community.

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Categories: Letters to the Editor | Opinion

MORE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR STORIES

Letter to the editor: Where's coverage of Clinton investigation?

Letter to the editor: False narrative on voting

Letter to the editor: Gun owners targeted by Democrats?

Letter to the editor: Biden hypocritical

Letter to the editor: Casey, Toomey must protect our right to vote

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aha wa examiner // WT?  not a real paper but key in escalator, cross-over from soc med to mainstream? fox?

what happ to pittsburg-X? are local papers failing faster b/c of covid? something else? makes space for fake/online like WT/WE?

escalator, activ meas

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/how-trump-is-once-again-colluding-with-russia/

no lnx twt

how  Trump is once again colluding with Russia

Written by Nancy LeTourneau / Washington Monthly August 14, 2020

Almost two weeks ago, a story circulated that Portland protesters were burning Bibles and American flags. It spread via social media and was picked up by conservative outlets, such as the Washington Examiner. Of course, several Republican leaders joined the bandwagon.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_Tribune-Review

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, also known as "the Trib," is the second largest daily newspaper serving metropolitan Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the United States. Although it transitioned to an all-digital format on December 1, 2016, it remains the second largest daily in the state, amassing nearly one million unique page views a month. Founded on August 22, 1811, as the Greensburg Gazette and in 1889 consolidated with several papers into the Greensburg Tribune-Review,[2][3] the paper circulated only in the eastern suburban counties of Westmoreland and parts of Indiana and Fayette until May 1992, when it began serving all of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area after a strike at the two Pittsburgh dailies, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Pittsburgh Press, deprived the city of a newspaper for several months.

The Tribune-Review Publishing Company was owned by Richard Mellon Scaife, an heir to the Mellon banking, oil, and aluminum fortune, until his death in July 2014. Scaife was a major funder of conservative organizations, including the Arkansas Project. Accordingly, the Tribune-Review has maintained a conservative editorial stance, contrasting with the more liberal Post-Gazette.[4][5] In addition to its flagship paper, the company publishes 17 weekly community newspapers,[6] the Pittsburgh Pennysaver, as well as TribLive.com and TribTotalMedia.com.

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History

Origin

The paper began as the Gazette on August 22, 1811. After a series of name changes and mergers it became the Greensburg Daily Tribune in 1889. In 1924, it and the Greensburg Morning Review, launched by David J. Berry in 1903,[7][8] consolidated their interests under a single ownership.[9] Both papers continued separate publication until 1955, when they merged to form the Greensburg Tribune-Review.[9] Scaife bought the Tribune-Review in 1970. Scaife was a decade early in trying to unarm the Post-Gazette. In 1981–82, he started a short-lived eastern suburbs paper, The Daily-Sunday Tribune.[10]

Kent State and the Pulitzer

The Tribune-Review owns several "satellite" papers that insert or surround the regional publication with neighborhood specific stories. The Valley News Dispatch, of Pittsburgh suburbs Tarentum and New Kensington is one suchsatellite. Local journalism student John Filo worked for the publication while attending nearby Kent State University and served as the Valley News Dispatch's correspondent of the Kent State shootings. His photography that day has ascended to iconic status and won the paper its only Pulitzer Prize.

1990s expansion, and North Hills News Record

Pittsburgh newspaper consolidation timeline

During a newspaper strike that temporarily shut down the *Post-Gazette* and ultimately closed the *Pittsburgh Press*, Scaife launched the *Pittsburgh Tribune-Review*, an edition of the Greensburg-based *Tribune-Review* coveringAllegheny County and Pittsburgh.[10] Over time, it became a stand-alone newspaper headquartered on Pittsburgh's North Side. In 1997, Scaife added to his small collection of newspapers by purchasing The Daily Courier of Connellsville, the Leader Times of Kittanning and The Valley Independent of Monessen from Thomson Newspapers.[11]

In late 1997, Scaife's NewsWorks facility opened in the North Hills.[12] In December 1997, the Tribune-Review company purchased the North Hills News Record, even though four months earlier, then-Trib president Ed Harrell told the Pittsburgh Business Times that the company was not interested in the News Record.[12]

Nine months after purchasing the North Hills News Record from Gannett Company, Tribune-Review Publishing Co. announced the paper would be merged with the Pittsburgh Trib. The News Record was most successful during the newspaper strike of the early 1990s.[13][14] At its demise, the North Hills News Record had a daily circulation of more than 16,000, nearly 1,000 less than its circulation before the Trib bought it.[13] In early 2000, the Trib announced the "News Record" name would retire after more than two years of a combined "Tribune-Review/North Hills News Record" banner. North Hills coverage would be wrapped into the Trib's neighborhoods section.[15]

2000s mergers and consolidations

In 2000, the Trib announced it would convert its Irwin-based paper, the daily (except Sunday) Standard Observer, into a twice-weekly regional section of the Greensburg Tribune-Review.[16] Citing a "sagging economy", the Trib laid off more than four percent of its workforce in 2003, including freelance writers.[17] More shakeups continued in 2005 as circulation numbers dropped and a top official left. An online message board featured back and forth fights between Pittsburgh and Greensburg employees.[17]

Edward Harrell, then-president of the Tribune Review Publishing Company, announced in January 2005 that most of the regional editions of the paper would have their newsroom, management and circulation departments merged and staff reductions would follow.The merged papers include the Tribune-Review of Greensburg, the Valley News Dispatch of Tarentum, The Leader-Times of Kittanning, The Daily Courier of Connellsville and the Blairsville Dispatch. The Valley Independent, the only paper with a unionized newsroom and contract, was not affected.[18]

The company incorporated as Trib Total Media in the summer of 2005, and purchased Gateway Newspapers, a community publication group servicing approximately 22 communities, at the time, in and around Pittsburgh's Allegheny County. Two managers were immediately laid off. The exact number of proposed redundancies was not announced.[19] In September 2005, Harrell announced his retirement as president of Tribune-Review Publishing Company, effective December 31, 2005. He had served as president since 1989.[20] Several staff writers were laid off in December 2005 as two of Gateway's newspapers were discontinued.

In May 2008, the Post-Gazette and the Trib reached a deal for one company to deliver both papers. The Post-Gazette would begin delivering the Trib to most of the area with some exceptions. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.[21] On June 20, 2008, Trib Total Media publicly announced it was closing several weekly newspapers in the Gateway Newspapers chain. The papers affected include: Bridgeville Area News, North Journal, McKnight Journal, Woodland Progress, Penn Hills Progress, Coraopolis-Moon Record and the Advance Leader. Many of those papers were several decades old.[22] The company also announced major changes to the remaining Gateway publications including a revamp of the Pennysaver in the communities that have Gateway newspapers.[23] Several published reports say the remaining community newspapers would expand coverage to include areas no longer serviced by Gateway publications. The communities served by those titles will now be served by other Gateway newspapers.[24]

2015 restructuring

In November, 2015, Trib Total Media announced that they would be cutting back on home delivery of printed newspapers and emphasize digital delivery.[25] The restructuring included the sale of two dailies and six weeklies to West Penn Media.[26] Two papers were closed,[27] The Daily News in McKeesport,[28] and The Valley Independent in Monessen.[29]

The remaining papers, in Pittsburgh, Greensburg and Tarentum, became regional editions of a single title, the Tribune-Review.[30] Home delivery was reduced in some parts of Allegheny and Westmoreland counties.[27] Trib Total Media laid off 153 full and part-time workers from its staff of approximately 1,100, another 68 had accepted buyouts in October.[25]

The Pittsburgh edition of the Tribune-Review went "all-digital" after it published its last print edition on November 30, 2016. The Greensburg-based Westmoreland edition and the Tarentum-based Valley News Dispatch edition remained in print.[31]

Investigations, national attention

:{Carl Prine, an investigative reporter for the newspaper, conducted a probe with the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes that highlighted the lack of security at the nation's most dangerous chemical plants following the September 11, 2001 attack:(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}:s:{.}:[32]

The reporters, and a CBS camera operator, were charged with trespassing at a Neville Island plant during their investigation.[33] They were later acquitted when the judge accepted that the story had been in the public interest.[34]

In 2007, Prine's further investigation into the subject was featured in the PBS documentary series Exposé: America's Investigative Reports, in a two-part episode titled "Think Like A Terrorist."

One Tribune-Review flap went national when Colin McNickle, then editor of the newspaper's editorial page, attended a July 26, 2004 speech at the Massachusetts State House given by Teresa Heinz Kerry, who had been the subject of two negative articles in the Tribune-Review's opinion pages.After the speech, there was a dispute between McNickle and Heinz Kerry over her use of the term "un-American activity."

Circulation

The daily Tribune-Review is published in three geographic editions: Pittsburgh, Westmoreland and Valley News Dispatch.

The Tribune-Review claimed to show the highest gains in readership over the past five years of any newspaper in America's top 48 markets, which were dominated by sinking readership. The growth can be attributed to purchases of other newspapers which were then reclassified as editions of the Tribune Review.

According to surveys by International Demographics Inc., an independent media research firm in Houston, the number of Tribune-Review readers jumped 17.8 percent from 2007 to 2012.[35]

As part of the Trib Total Media conglomerate, the Tribune-Review has a news exchange partnerships with WPXI, Pittsburgh's NBC affiliate and until 2013, it was a sister publication to Pittsburgh's second-largest news radio station, KQV. Trib Total Media is the Official Newspaper of the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Pittsburgh Penguins (the latter of which Scaife was a co-founder in 1967) and has strong partnerships with many nonprofit and community businesses and organizations throughout Western Pennsylvania.

See also

Notes and references

  1.  "United States Circulation averages for the six months ended: 9/30/2011". Audit Bureau of Circulations. 2011-09-30. Archived from the original on 2012-10-27. Retrieved 2012-03-19.
  2.  Dominic. "Westmoreland County Newspapers". noel.mcn.org. Archived from the original on 10 March 2017. Retrieved 18 March 2018.
  3.  "Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Help Desk - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review". pittsburghlive.com. Archived from the original on 31 March 2010. Retrieved 18 March 2018.
  4.  Halllock, Steven M (2007). Editorial and Opinion. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 135. ISBN 978-0-275-99330-6. Retrieved March 3, 2014.
  5.  Phillips, Jenn; Loriann Hoff Oberlin; Evan M. Pattak (March 1, 2005). Insiders' Guide to Pittsburgh (Third ed.). p. 441. ISBN 9780762735075. Retrieved March 3,2014.
  6.  "Weekly Community Newspaper". Trib Total Media. Archived from the originalon 13 March 2016. Retrieved 19 January 2016.
  7.  Walkinshaw, Lewis Clark (1939). Annals of Southwestern Pennsylvania. 3. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, Inc. p. 435. Archived from the original on 2014-04-27.
  8.  "Morning review (Greensburg, Pa.)". ACLCP Union List of Periodicals. 3. p. 1710. Began in Apr. 1903
  9. ^ ^Jump up to:^a^ ^b^ "To Our Readers". Greensburg Daily Tribune (City ed.). Greensburg, PA. 29 September 1955. p. 1 – via Google News Archive.
  10. ^ ^Jump up to:^a^ ^b^ Tascarella, Patty (August 25, 1997). "War of words". Archived from the original on June 30, 2015.
  11.  Fitzpatrick, Dan (October 20, 1998). "Thomson to sell New Castle News". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Archived from the original on May 22, 2011.
  12. ^ ^Jump up to:^a^ ^b^ Tascarella, Patty (September 22, 1997). "North Hills News Record apparently on the block". Archived from the original on August 10, 2009.
  13. ^ ^Jump up to:^a^ ^b^ Fitzpatrick, Dan (September 11, 1998). "Tribune plans to merge papers". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Archived from the original on May 22, 2011.
  14.  Tascarella, Patty (November 2, 1998). "Trib pushes North Hills daily inside". Archived from the original on February 4, 2006.
  15.  "Business Briefs, 2/11/2000". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. February 12, 2000. Archived from the original on May 22, 2011.
  16.  "Newspaper Cutting Back to Twice a Week". The Indiana Gazette. Indiana, PA. January 29, 2000. p. 4.
  17. ^ ^Jump up to:^a^ ^b^ "Westmoreland Briefs, 11/06/03". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. November 6, 2003. Archived from the original on May 22, 2011.
  18.  "Tribune-Review to reorganize papers - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review". pittsburghlive.com. Archived from the original on 4 April 2005. Retrieved 18 March2018.
  19.  Roddy, Dennis B. (January 20, 2005). "Shakeup at the Tribune-Review; layoffs expected at all newspapers". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Archived from the original on December 3, 2005.
  20.  "Page not found – Editor & Publisher". editorandpublisher.com. Retrieved 18 March 2018.[permanent ^dead ^link]
  21.  "Post-Gazette reaches deal to distribute Trib". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. May 29, 2008. Archived from the original on June 1, 2008.
  22.  "Tribune-Review closing 7 weekly papers". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. June 20, 2008. Archived from the original on May 22, 2011.
  23.  "Trib to cease publication of 7 weekly newspapers - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review". pittsburghlive.com. Archived from the original on 3 February 2009. Retrieved 18 March 2018.
  24.  Schooley, Tim (June 23, 2008). "Communities notified that seven Pittsburgh-area weekly newspapers will close". Archived from the original on May 26, 2011.
  25. ^ ^Jump up to:^a^ ^b^ The Tribune-Review (November 10, 2015). "Trib Total Media announces restructuring to emphasize digital future". Trib Total Media, Inc. Archived from the original on November 12, 2015. Retrieved January 6, 2015.
  26.  The Tribune-Review (October 16, 2015). "Trib Total Media finds Pa. buyer for daily newspapers in Kittanning, Connellsville, 6 weeklies". Trib Total Media, Inc. Archived from the original on January 1, 2016. Retrieved January 6, 2016.
  27. ^ ^Jump up to:^a^ ^b^ Gannon, Joyce (December 16, 2015). "Trib Total Media says it will close McKeesport, Monessen newspapers". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. PG Publishing Co., Inc. Archived from the original on December 19, 2015. Retrieved January 6,2016.
  28.  Frazier, Carol Waterloo; Sisk, Jeffrey (December 31, 2015). "Daily News thanks Mon Valley, publishes final edition after 131 years". Trib Total Media, Inc. Archived from the original on January 6, 2016. Retrieved January 6, 2016.
  29.  Paglia, Ron. "After 113 years, The Valley Independent prints final edition". Trib Total Media, Inc. Archived from the original on January 6, 2016. Retrieved January 6, 2016.
  30.  Gannon, Joyce (September 28, 2016). "Trib Total Media to drop print edition in Pittsburgh". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Archived from the original on October 5, 2017. Retrieved October 3, 2017.
  31.  "Pittsburgh Tribune-Review prints last paper; over 100 laid off". WTAE.com. Associated Press. November 30, 2016. Archived from the original on October 5, 2017. Retrieved October 3, 2017.
  32.  "U.S. Plants: Open To Terrorists". CBS News. November 13, 2003. Archivedfrom the original on February 16, 2005.
  33.  "Journalists cited for trespassing at Neville Island chemical plant". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. October 2, 2003. Archived from the original on June 28, 2011.
  34. http://www.pittsburghlive.com/pages/pdf/gtr030404.pdf#search='Carl%20Prine%20Gallo' Archived 2005-11-04 at the Wayback Machine
  35.  Olson, Thomas. "Trib shows most readership gains in U.S." TribLIVE.com. Archived from the original on 19 March 2018. Retrieved 18 March 2018.

External links

newspapers published in Pennsylvania

Categories: 

==

ntbcw?

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/award-winning-cartoonist-was-just-fired-after-25-years-because-political-cartoons

==

Behind the News — October 23, 2007 01:16 PM

Richard Mellon Scaife

and his lawsuit of treasures

By Clint Hendler

Yesterday The Washington Post ran a long article detailing the marital and legal troubles of Richard Mellon Scaife, publisher of the conservative Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and funder of many right wing causes and media outlets.

The seventy five-year-old Scaife is caught in a messy divorce—with no pre-nup and an estimated $1.3 billion to divvy up, how could it be anything else?—involving an assault charge, a private eye, a prostitution arrest, a mysterious property purchase, dog-napping, and six $300 asparagus tongs.

Not typical CJR fodder. But luckily, our crack team has found not one, not two, but three excuses to bring this sordid tale to your attention!

First off, the story’s gritty details only came to light after someone accidentally posted a slew of relevant documents on a court Web site. A reporter at the Trib-Review’s far-larger rival paper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, downloaded the documents and wrote a front page, 2,347 word piece. Scaife sued the competition, asking a court to treat the documents as stolen. Less than a week later, the judge ruled against Scaife. (A Post-Gazette write-up of the suit noted that the move was “unusual for the head of a news organization”, especially one that had so recently sought to unseal the estate records of Teresa Heinz-Kerry, who during the 2004 Democratic convention famously told a Trib-Review writer to “shove it.”)

Second, the lawsuit has revealed embarrassing, although not entirely unexpected, financial and circulation numbers at the Tribune-Review. While the Post-Gazette claims 212,075 weekday readers, documents in the case peg the Trib-Review at 52,453. That’s grim. But not as grim as the ledger books, which look so bad that “Ritchie” Scaife, Richard’s soon to be ex-wife, and her lawyers are arguing that the paper looses so much that under tax law, it should be classified as a hobby.

The Washington Post explains:

[T]heTribune-Reviewhas been a gurgling sinkhole from Day One; Scaife’s lawyers say their client has pumped as much as $312 million into it over the years. And he’s going to have to keep on pumping. TheTribune-Review’s CEO has predicted an annual shortfall of $20 million for years to come.

These figures matter in the divorce because Scaife is arguing that the funds he forwards to theTribune-Reviewshould be deducted from his aggregate income, putting his annual haul closer to $17 million a year, a long way from the $45 million a year cited by Ritchie’s lawyers. If true, that would of course reduce the monthly alimony check he could owe his wife once there’s a permanent settlement.

Not surprisingly, Ritchie Scaife’s attorneys have a different view. They say that Richard Scaife operates the Tribune-Review with so little concern for profit and loss that it’s more a hobby than a business.

And third, The Washington Post briefly mentioned an old, testy sidewalk-encounter between Scaife and a reporter he’d been trying to avoid. The Post, a family newspaper, wrote that he’d told her “she was ugly and that her mother was ugly, too.” Well, as blogger Jonathan Schwartz (who, it should be said, has admirable knowledge of the CJR archives) points out, that reporter was Karen Rothmyer writing for this magazine in 1981. And there’s a fuller, more colorful version:

At the bottom of the stairs, the following exchange occurred:

“Mr. Scaife, could you explain why you give so much money to the New Right?”

“You fucking Communist cunt, get out of here.”

Well. The rest of the five-minute interview was conducted at a rapid trot down Park Street, during which Scaife tried to hail a taxi. Scaife volunteered two statements of opinion regarding his questioner’s personal appearance - he said she was ugly and that her teeth were “terrible” - and also the comment that she was engaged in “hatchet journalism.” His questioner thanked Scaife for his time. “Don’t look behind you,” Scaife offered by way of a goodbye.

Not quite sure what this remark meant, the reporter suggested that if someone were approaching it was probably her mother, whom she had arranged to meet nearby. “She’s ugly, too,” Scaife said, and strode off.

Classy.

===

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/02/scaife200802

February 2008

Scandal

A Vast Right-Wing Hypocrisy

Richard Mellon Scaife, billionaire bankroller of conservative crusades, spent heavily to expose Bill Clinton’s “Troopergate” misbehavior. Now Scaife’s divorce from his second wife, Ritchie, is providing another unsavory saga—adultery! addiction! assault! dognapping!?!—as both parties let loose to V.F.

by Michael Joseph Gross

Over many years, in the five households the couple shared, the wife hired scores of servants to help take care of her rich husband. Then, in 2005, she hired someone to tail him. Margaret Ritchie Rhea Battle Scaife (whose friends call her Ritchie) suspected Richard Mellon Scaife (whose friends call him Dick) of committing adultery, so she enlisted the services of an investigator. It was a private act that would have very public consequences. Richard Mellon Scaife is the best-known living member of Pittsburgh’s storied Mellon clan, whose eponymous bank made the family a 19th-century fortune, which grew steadily with diversified investments, including major coal, steel, and real-estate interests, and Gulf Oil Corporation. Scaife, who owns several newspapers, is a major backer of conservative causes; his political donations fueled the rise of the New Right and its moral crusade against Bill Clinton, making Scaife the central figure in Hillary Clinton’s “vast right-wing conspiracy.” In the 1990s, his gift of $1.8 million to The American Spectator funded investigations into Whitewater and Bill Clinton’s personal life, including David Brock’s notorious “Troopergate” exposé, which led to Paula Jones’s sexual-harassment suit against the president.

Ritchie and Richard Mellon Scaife’s 2005 Christmas card. Even as the holiday greetings went out, a private detective was confirming Ritchie’s suspicions.

In December of 2005, the private detective proved Ritchie’s fears to have been well founded: he took pictures showing the reclusive 75-year-old billionaire with a woman named Tammy Vasco, a tall, blonde 43-year-old whose criminal history includes two arrests for prostitution. The pair was photographed at Doug’s Motel, a roadside establishment near Pittsburgh, where rooms rent for $49 a night, or $31 for three hours.

Dick and Ritchie’s relationship, which began when they were married to other people, was always unconventional. During their decade-long courtship, Dick bought Ritchie a house in Pittsburgh’s wealthy Shadyside neighborhood, a few blocks from his own—a domestic arrangement that didn’t change when they were married, in 1991. Yet they moved easily back and forth between the homes until, the week after Ritchie discovered Dick’s betrayal, a servant refused to let Ritchie enter her husband’s Georgian mansion—and Ritchie saw Vasco’s Jeep parked in the garage. Ritchie demanded to be let in, banging on windows and doors. Dick called the police, who told Ritchie she was trespassing and had to leave.

She got in her car, drove to a neighbor’s driveway, then crept back to Dick’s dining-room window (inside, the table was set with candelabras for a “romantic dinner”), hoping to document her husband’s dalliance by using the camera on her cell phone. But when she set off the security lights in the yard, the police handcuffed her and charged her with “defiant trespass.” The 60-year-old socialite spent that night—three days before Christmas—in a holding cell at the Allegheny County Jail, where her fellow prisoners passed the time by petting the fur collar of her coat.

Ritchie was released the next morning, and the defiant-trespass charge was eventually dismissed. But as her lawyer announced several months later in a divorce filing, “The marriage was over!”

:{Some details of the Scaifes’ split were reported in local newspapers (the first account appeared in Richard Scaife’s own paper the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review), but the legal filings were sealed by the court. Then, last August, owing to an apparent clerical error, the filings were posted on a court Web page.

Poring over them, Dennis Roddy, of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette—the city’s oldest newspaper, and the liberal rival to Scaife’s conservative Tribune-Review—disclosed previously unknown financial details about Richard Scaife’s $1.4 billion fortune and about Ritchie’s jaw-dropping, court-ordered interim support payments of $725,000 a month. (This stream of income, Scaife’s lawyers noted, “produces an amount so large that just the income from it, invested at 5%, is greater each year than the salary of the President of the United States.” Unconfirmed reports suggest that Ritchie’s interim monthly payments have since increased, to more than $1 million.) The Post-Gazette posted the court documents on its own Web site; locals took rooting interest in the story’s many subplots (alleged hair-pulling fights with the help, dognapping, and battles royal over a 94-page itemized list of art and objets, from a million-dollar Magritte to an $1,800 set of asparagus tongs), which almost make one pray for Aaron Spelling’s resurrection from the dead.}:

What, exactly, is at stake in the war of Scaife versus Scaife? Money, to be sure. Astonishingly, the Scaifes were married without a pre-nuptial agreement, so Pennsylvania statutes automatically entitle Ritchie to 40 percent of Dick’s net monthly income, but only until the divorce is final. Ritchie won’t have any legal claim on the core of Dick’s inherited wealth—but she is entitled to claim part of the appreciation in value of most of the assets he held during their marriage. According to Pennsylvania law, “marital misconduct” does not affect the equitable division of property in a divorce. Instead, settlements are determined by factors such as length of marriage, income disparity between spouses, employability, and “liabilities and needs of each of the parties.” Ritchie, who spent the better part of 14 years running Dick’s households, has a comparatively minuscule income of her own (and, as a 60-year-old, has less than stellar employment prospects), which might incline a judge to give her a hefty settlement. State guidelines for distribution of assets in a divorce are so broad, though, as to make it impossible to predict such decisions. Albert Momjian, a leading Philadelphia divorce lawyer, says that out-of-court settlements are usually preferable where fortunes are in play. In a case like Dick and Ritchie’s, he says, “so much depends on the reasonableness of the parties.”

Reputations are also at stake, and Ritchie, Dick, and their respective defenders are squaring off with rival narratives. In the first interviews he has given in eight years, Richard Scaife spoke with Vanity Fair about the divorce saga, depicting his estranged wife as conniving, greedy, and abusive. Through one of her attorneys, William Pietragallo II, Ritchie Scaife at first declined to be interviewed. On her behalf the lawyer told a simple story of “a woman scorned,” a “very supportive and caring” wife who saved a husband from his “demons,” only to be thrown over for a harlot.

Later, Ritchie changed her mind and agreed to what turned out to be a long and highly animated interview. Seated between Pietragallo and another of her attorneys, Eddie Hayes (the model for the scrappy defense lawyer in Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities), Ritchie described a marriage that swung between emotional extremes, from the days when “I always called him ‘my snuggle bunny’ … and he called me his ‘precious’ ” to the public embarrassments brought on by their breakup, which she compares to “the tortures of the damned.”

The estranged couple and their intimates aren’t the only ones with an interest in this divorce. Richard Mellon Scaife is the man who funded the movement that made “family values” a watchword of the right and badly damaged the Clinton presidency. Many would now dearly love to hang him in the gallery of hypocrites whose Dickensian comeuppance exposes the moral bankruptcy of the culture wars.

The Angora Sweater

Richard Mellon Scaife is an uncommonly boyish 75-year-old, with riveting pale-blue eyes and a sharp, lopsided grin that brings to mind Jack Nicholson’s wily poise and Paul Lynde’s smirking bitterness. An enthusiastic conversationalist, he comes across as more intuitive than intellectual, and he can be candid about his own blind spots. Asked whether a book has ever changed his life, he thinks a moment, shrugs, and, with a disarming smile, answers, “I guess the quick answer to that question is ‘No!’ ”

Two hours later, in the course of the same interview, without a hint of guile or self-awareness, he abruptly names John O’Hara as his favorite writer, and Appointment in Samarra as his favorite book. Appointment in Samarra is the story of a rich young man who yields to the temptation of his most self-sabotaging urges—but whose private fear of judgment and retribution for his rashness drives him to a self-destruction that neither he nor anyone who knows him ever fully understands. (And the rich young man is from Pennsylvania.)

Scaife’s charm has an odd sweetness to it (he recalls a period of unhappiness when his favorite TV show, The Simpsons, began running at the same time as Lou Dobbs, who took precedence), but he also takes petty swipes (his favorite characters on The Simpsons, he says, are Marge’s cynical and trashy sisters, Patty and Selma, “because they remind me of Ritchie”). A curvature of the spine gives Scaife a shuffling gait, and since undergoing cochlear-implant surgery he has worn two bulky, high-tech hearing aids. But he remains a courtly presence in bespoke suits and with impeccably groomed snow-white hair.