My Journalist Pals in Sandusky
From James Donahue’s Journal
John Savage
When I moved into the Sandusky office I filled the shoes of John Savage, a man who was destined to be my immediate competitor. John had operated the bureau much differently than I was about to do. His filing system was sporadic if done at all. I was told that he spent much of his time on the road in the company car, keeping in touch with things with a company provided car telephone. When offered my own car phone I declined. I was not going to need it. Instead I asked for, and got a radio monitor for police and fire calls for the office.
Savage was being financed by a few key businessmen in Sandusky to start a new weekly newspaper, the Sanilac County News. It was a major undertaking, but Savage actually got this paper off the ground and made a decent publication out of it. The difference was that he published once a week while the Times Herald hit the community heavily every afternoon. Because he had well established contacts, Savage succeeded in scooping me on good stories with nearly all of his first editions. After I got my bearings, started generating contacts, and sniffing out those good news stories, the County News stopped getting the drop on me as often, but we maintained a fierce competition none-the-less.
For a while, before he could hire a reporter to help get those news stories, Savage got so involved in the job of operating the business that he began copying my stories, sometimes word-for-word. When I brought this problem to my editor, the Times Herald went to the expense of copyrighting every edition and publishing a copyright warning on the front page. This did not deter John from copying my stories anyway. One day I met Savage on the street and confronted him. I looked him in the eye and said: “John, you are copying my stories and I want it to stop. If you don’t stop I am going to punch you in the nose.” He and another local businessman who was with him looked shocked. I passed them by and nothing more was said. After that, John stopped copying my stories.
Over the years, John and I developed a better relationship. He turned out to be a good newspaper publisher and you could almost say that we became friends. He and his wife lived in a small house on a street one block behind where my office was. When Doris and I wrote and published a cookbook some years later, John was our publisher. He was selling property insurance on the side and I bought a premium on one of the homes we owned. And after I retired from the Times Herald, I even free lanced a few articles for the County News.
Eric Levine
Eric Levine was the news director at the Sandusky radio station. I don’t think I even knew he existed until the day of the Snover Bank robbery.
I had just filed my news for the day when a message came over the police radio that a bank robbery was in progress in Snover. I was so new to the area I had to pause a moment and figure out where Snover was located and how to get there from Sandusky. I called my editor, told him I might have another story on deadline, then grabbed my camera and headed for the crime scene.
There was no need to have hurried. When I arrived I found the bank surrounded by police cars, all of the officers inside the bank, and the press was not allowed inside. Also no officers were coming out to tell us anything about what had happened.
Levine also was at the scene, trying as I was to get something to report for the day’s news. My morning deadline arrived and I had to call my editor to report what I knew, which was nothing more than that there was a report of a bank robbery when the bank opened its doors at nine o’clock, the bank was surrounded by police cars, the police were all inside the bank, and nobody was talking to the press. The paper had a very brief story that day and I was under a lot of pressure to get the rest of the story filed for the next day’s edition.
It was a long wait. Levine and I discovered a little restaurant in the village and we sat around there, slurping coffee and waiting for some activity in and around the bank. During the long wait, we got to know each other and became good friends.
In the end, there was not much more to learn about the robbery. Some guy walked in the bank when the doors opened, pulled what was either a real or toy gun, forced the tellers to give him quite a bit of money, then he disappeared. Nobody even got a description of a vehicle he might have used to make his get-away. It was assumed that he parked his vehicle out of sight of the bank so it went unnoticed. Snover is such a small and quiet little town, that little bank was a natural target for a professional thief. As far as I know, the robbery was never really solved. Some years later a man involved in a robbery in the Detroit area was killed in a police shoot-out. For some reason they thought he might have been the guy that robbed the Snover bank, but could never prove it.
Eric was a competitive guy who enjoyed getting the scoop on me whenever he could. Since I rarely, if ever, listened to the radio, I never knew when he did it. But when I got stories on him, I always knew it. He was sure to either call or stop by the office and ask me flat out how or where I got a particular story.
In later years, Levine moved over to the County News and started working for John Savage. By the time I retired, Savage also was retired and Levine was the editor of the paper.
From James Donahue’s Journal
John Savage
When I moved into the Sandusky office I filled the shoes of John Savage, a man who was destined to be my immediate competitor. John had operated the bureau much differently than I was about to do. His filing system was sporadic if done at all. I was told that he spent much of his time on the road in the company car, keeping in touch with things with a company provided car telephone. When offered my own car phone I declined. I was not going to need it. Instead I asked for, and got a radio monitor for police and fire calls for the office.
Savage was being financed by a few key businessmen in Sandusky to start a new weekly newspaper, the Sanilac County News. It was a major undertaking, but Savage actually got this paper off the ground and made a decent publication out of it. The difference was that he published once a week while the Times Herald hit the community heavily every afternoon. Because he had well established contacts, Savage succeeded in scooping me on good stories with nearly all of his first editions. After I got my bearings, started generating contacts, and sniffing out those good news stories, the County News stopped getting the drop on me as often, but we maintained a fierce competition none-the-less.
For a while, before he could hire a reporter to help get those news stories, Savage got so involved in the job of operating the business that he began copying my stories, sometimes word-for-word. When I brought this problem to my editor, the Times Herald went to the expense of copyrighting every edition and publishing a copyright warning on the front page. This did not deter John from copying my stories anyway. One day I met Savage on the street and confronted him. I looked him in the eye and said: “John, you are copying my stories and I want it to stop. If you don’t stop I am going to punch you in the nose.” He and another local businessman who was with him looked shocked. I passed them by and nothing more was said. After that, John stopped copying my stories.
Over the years, John and I developed a better relationship. He turned out to be a good newspaper publisher and you could almost say that we became friends. He and his wife lived in a small house on a street one block behind where my office was. When Doris and I wrote and published a cookbook some years later, John was our publisher. He was selling property insurance on the side and I bought a premium on one of the homes we owned. And after I retired from the Times Herald, I even free lanced a few articles for the County News.
Eric Levine
Eric Levine was the news director at the Sandusky radio station. I don’t think I even knew he existed until the day of the Snover Bank robbery.
I had just filed my news for the day when a message came over the police radio that a bank robbery was in progress in Snover. I was so new to the area I had to pause a moment and figure out where Snover was located and how to get there from Sandusky. I called my editor, told him I might have another story on deadline, then grabbed my camera and headed for the crime scene.
There was no need to have hurried. When I arrived I found the bank surrounded by police cars, all of the officers inside the bank, and the press was not allowed inside. Also no officers were coming out to tell us anything about what had happened.
Levine also was at the scene, trying as I was to get something to report for the day’s news. My morning deadline arrived and I had to call my editor to report what I knew, which was nothing more than that there was a report of a bank robbery when the bank opened its doors at nine o’clock, the bank was surrounded by police cars, the police were all inside the bank, and nobody was talking to the press. The paper had a very brief story that day and I was under a lot of pressure to get the rest of the story filed for the next day’s edition.
It was a long wait. Levine and I discovered a little restaurant in the village and we sat around there, slurping coffee and waiting for some activity in and around the bank. During the long wait, we got to know each other and became good friends.
In the end, there was not much more to learn about the robbery. Some guy walked in the bank when the doors opened, pulled what was either a real or toy gun, forced the tellers to give him quite a bit of money, then he disappeared. Nobody even got a description of a vehicle he might have used to make his get-away. It was assumed that he parked his vehicle out of sight of the bank so it went unnoticed. Snover is such a small and quiet little town, that little bank was a natural target for a professional thief. As far as I know, the robbery was never really solved. Some years later a man involved in a robbery in the Detroit area was killed in a police shoot-out. For some reason they thought he might have been the guy that robbed the Snover bank, but could never prove it.
Eric was a competitive guy who enjoyed getting the scoop on me whenever he could. Since I rarely, if ever, listened to the radio, I never knew when he did it. But when I got stories on him, I always knew it. He was sure to either call or stop by the office and ask me flat out how or where I got a particular story.
In later years, Levine moved over to the County News and started working for John Savage. By the time I retired, Savage also was retired and Levine was the editor of the paper.