Prince of the city
Lowell Sun publisher Kendall Wallace has used political muscle to revitalize
his hometown. But his style raises questions about a newspaper's proper role.
Lowell Sun reporters Kay Lazar and Mark Arsenault thought they had a
hell of a story. Last September, the Lowell City Council handed a 10-year,
$570,000 tax break to a developer who planned to build an office complex near
the heart of the downtown. After weeks of reporting, Lazar and Arsenault
concluded that the city had gotten a raw deal. The tax break was supposed to
spur new economic activity. Instead, the building -- dubbed the Gateway -- drew
most of its tenants from other parts of Lowell.
But the story never saw the light of day.
It was killed by publisher Kendall M. Wallace, who reportedly feared the
report would damage the city's efforts to obtain state approval for more such
tax breaks -- including one that was pending at that very moment. Lazar, who's
now at the Boston Herald, and Arsenault, who's still at the Sun,
declined to comment when contacted by the Phoenix. But Wallace himself
says he nixed the article because he had wanted them to produce an "overview"
of such tax breaks, not a negative piece on one particular example. And he
makes it clear that if he thinks a story would be bad for Lowell, then it's not
going to appear in the Sun -- period.
The Gateway incident says much about Wallace and the Sun, a
52,000-circulation daily (56,000 on Sundays) that's notorious for the way it
mixes journalism, politics, and personal interests. And other media are
beginning to take notice. On Wednesday the Boston Globe, in its lead
editorial, criticized a Sun-backed proposal to demolish a housing
project in Lowell -- and noted that the Wall Street Journal recently
found that top Sun executives stood to benefit financially from the
plan. The Pilot, published by the Archdiocese of Boston, and the Bay
State Banner, which covers the state's African-American community, have
weighed in with critical pieces as well.
This scrutiny comes in the midst of the most wrenching transition in the
Sun's 120-year history. Last August, the paper was sold for a reported
$60 million to Media News Group, best known for revitalizing its flagship, the
Denver Post. Upon arriving in Lowell, Media News's flamboyant president,
William Dean Singleton, cut jobs and benefits, landing him in a battle with the
Sun's union that's now before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
But Wallace actually came out of the deal with his powers enhanced: Singleton
promoted him from general manager to publisher, giving him a title to match his
already formidable reputation as his hometown's most influential power
broker.
Wallace plays a unique role at a unique institution. At a time when most
midsize dailies are bland, inoffensive affairs produced at faceless suburban
office parks, the Sun remains a proudly urban, in-your-face political
player. The paper dominates the city's civic life the way its giant SUN sign,
high above Kearney Square, dominates the skyline. The Sun provides
advice -- both in print and behind the scenes -- and, more often than not, gets
consent. And it works: Lowell, an aging mill town of 100,000 on the banks of
the Merrimack River, is in notably better shape, economically and socially,
than urban wastelands such as Lawrence and Brockton, and many observers say the
Sun's relentless politicking is a big part of the reason. Indeed, such
amenities as the national historic district, the vibrant riverfront, and
facilities for the city's new minor-league baseball and hockey teams are all
the result of this Sun-city partnership.
"Paul Tsongas [the late US senator and a Lowell native] is probably the major
reason that city is as good as it is today, but the other major reason is the
Lowell Sun," says Boston Globe State House bureau chief
Frank Phillips, who worked for the Sun in the 1970s. "Kendall is a
Lowell boy through and through. He loves that city." The Sun's sense of
mission has long attracted bright young people on the way up. Phillips, for
one. And Chris Black, now with the Globe's Washington bureau. And Ray
Howell, a political and business consultant close to Acting Governor Paul
Cellucci.
But the Sun's activism has a serious downside that raises tough
questions about conflicts of interest and journalistic ethics. Wallace's wife,
Esther Wallace, serves on the board of health; a son works for the Lowell
Housing Authority. Wallace himself is on the board of Lowell General Hospital,
and previously served as head of the regional tourism agency. And he's not
alone. Editor Jack Costello, whose family owned the paper until last year,
chairs the Tsongas Arena Commission and serves on the Lowell Memorial
Auditorium board. Moreover, Wallace is on intimate terms with a plethora of
city officials, sitting down with them one-on-one and at Saturday breakfasts at
the downtown Sheraton, where politicians, business leaders, and wanna-bes come
to schmooze Wallace and top Sun editors and reporters, hoping for a plug
in the ultra-insidery Sunday political column.
"The Lowell Sun -- the Costellos and Kendall Wallace -- view Lowell as
having a leadership vacuum," says Philip Nussel, the Sun's former
suburban editor, now managing editor of Crain's Detroit Business. "There
is a very thin line between them running the city and them covering the city.
You could argue that it's the responsible thing to do, that somebody has to do
it. But they're so paternalistic about the city that it clouds their judgment
journalistically."
Wallace, 57, has worked at the Sun his entire career, starting as an
18-year-old copy boy. A soft-spoken, courtly man with thinning white hair and a
tendency to look down when he's talking, Wallace expresses some mystification
at the notion that he's Lowell's leading political figure. "It's not a title I
seek. It's not a title I want. It may be just because of my longevity," he
says. "But I wouldn't argue that the newspaper is a force and player in the
community. I think you have to be a leader in the community for quality-of-life
issues."
Republican political consultant Kevin Sowyrda, a former Sun columnist
who counts Wallace as a friend, offers a blunter assessment. "He is the prince
of Lowell, and I'm not saying that in a derogatory way," Sowyrda says. "He is
the most politically powerful person in that city, bar none."
Sun readers who picked up the Wall Street Journal on February 25
gained a rare bit of insight into how their hometown paper plays politics. The
Journal's New England edition that day reported on a proposal to
demolish the Julian D. Steele project, home to some 800 desperately poor
people. The proposal, now pending before the state legislature, calls for the
project to be replaced with homes for low- and moderate-income families. Among
the chief cheerleaders for the plan: the Sun.
Journal staffer Carol Gentry reported that Kendall Wallace serves on
the Lowell Housing Authority's unofficial "leadership committee," and that his
son, Gary, is associate director of the authority. She also reported that the
Costello family (which also includes the Sun's editorial-page editor,
Alexander Costello, and director of operations, Thomas Costello) owns 1400
Motors, an auto dealership next to the housing project, whose property value
would almost certainly rise if the demolition moved forward. None of these
ties, she noted, had been disclosed in the Sun.
"That was the best piece of investigative reporting I have seen in I don't
remember when," says Father John Cox, a Lowell housing activist with the Oblate
Office for Peace and Justice. "The Lowell Sun represents wealth, the
interests of white people, of middle-income or higher. And all others are not
served well."
Dan Leahy, the lone city councilor to oppose the demolition (and a frequent
target of the Sun), who also praises the Journal piece, blasts
the proposal as an attack on poor people, and says the existing project could
be rehabilitated for less than the cost of knocking it down.
The Journal story created an instant buzz among Sun staffers,
past and present. "I got a real kick out of it," says a Sun reporter.
Several alumni who had only heard about the article eagerly asked the
Phoenix for faxes of it.
Kendall Wallace and Jack Costello, though, can't understand what all the fuss
is about. The idea that they'd put their personal interests ahead of their
city's is absurd, they say. Besides, they add, the housing authority has
promised to find housing elsewhere -- possibly in some of the surrounding
suburbs -- for anyone who is too poor to buy into the new development. How,
they ask, could anyone oppose demolishing a project that's been a breeding
ground for prostitution, drug abuse, and other urban ills, and that has
blighted the lives of the very people who live there? It's a reasonable
argument -- but one they would be in a better position to make if they had at
least disclosed their potential conflicts of interest to their readers.
Then again, Kendall Wallace and Jack Costello have been mixing politics and
journalism for so long it's almost understandable that they're perplexed when
others question their ethics. Besides, their contention that they only want
what's best for Lowell is true, even if their vision of what's best consists of
clearing poor people off of what is potentially a prime piece of real estate.
Wallace, in particular, has been pushing his agenda for more than a quarter of
a century: first as a reporter and later as the managing editor, he began a
single-minded effort to lift Lowell into a prosperity few others could
envision. Wallace formed an alliance with a reformist young county commissioner
from Lowell, Paul Tsongas, who later rose to Congress and, in 1978, to the
Senate. Tsongas and Wallace formed a bond. Together they conceived a program to
revive Lowell, and Tsongas -- as well as a succession of Sun-sponsored
elected officials -- came through with the funds to make it happen.
But the success story started to unravel in 1986, when city manager Joe Tully,
with whom Wallace had been close, resigned amid charges of corruption related
to a real-estate deal involving city land. He eventually served a federal
prison term. In the wake of Tully's downfall, Wallace was made general manager,
a less visible business-side position, although Wallace says the two events
were not related. Certainly the Tully experience did not stop him -- and
Costello -- from playing politics.
For instance, Andrew Galarneau, a reporter now at the Buffalo News,
recalls running into difficulty with a 1996 investigation of Middlesex County
patronage. At one point, then-sheriff Brad Bailey, a Republican who's now
running for attorney general, was spotted holding a discussion with Wallace at
Shaw's, a Lowell coffee shop downstairs from the Sun, even though Bailey
was refusing to return Galarneau's calls. Bailey was (and is) a Wallace
favorite, and one of Wallace's daughters was working for Bailey at the time.
Eventually the series ran. But when Galarneau wrote a tough follow-up on
problems with Bailey's attempts to reform the civil-process office, the story
was killed. "They gave it the soft death," Galarneau says. "No one ever had the
balls to tell me, `This isn't a story.' " Wallace responds that Galarneau
had been "abusive" toward Bailey in an earlier interview ("fairly
confrontational but respectful" is how Galarneau puts it). Wallace adds that he
doesn't recall the story Galarneau claims was killed.
Then there was the incident that took place in February 1997, when, according
to sources, Jack Costello -- upset that the Tsongas Arena Commission, which he
chairs, hadn't agreed to hire a friend of his as its manager -- sat down and
wrote part of a story under one of his reporter's bylines, even typing in
quotes from himself. One detail the story omitted: Costello's role at the
Sun. The reporter in question declines to comment, but Costello freely
admits that the story is true.
"Whether I generate that on the computer or tell it to a reporter, it's
irrelevant, isn't it? I am the chairman, and you would logically go to the
chairman of the arena commission to get a quote," he says. "You know what I'm
saying?"
A watershed event took place in 1987, when John Costello, Jack's father, led a
successful effort to buy out his brother, Clement Costello, an eccentric
right-winger who held the title of editor. Within a few years, both John and
Clement were dead. But the power struggle had saddled the paper with a $28.5
million debt. That, along with the prospect of some 20 or 30 young Costellos
coming of age and having a say in the operation of the Sun, led to the
inevitable: the sale of the paper last year to MediaNews Group, the
eighth-largest chain the US.
Some staffers were hopeful that Singleton would bring in his own editorial
team and erase the Sun's reputation for being Lowell's unofficial city
hall. After all, even the blandest chain newspaper has professional standards
that would result in more ethical, even-handed reportage.
Singleton's approach, though, was precisely the opposite. Not only was Wallace
promoted and Jack Costello retained, but executive editor Jonathan Kellogg,
respected for doing his best to keep his bosses' fingers out the editorial pie,
was let go. (Now an editor at the Waterbury Republican-American, in
Connecticut, Kellogg declines to discuss his tenure at the Sun.) And
Singleton started slashing, cutting about 20 of 350 jobs, trimming vacation and
health benefits, eliminating sick days for editorial staff and others falling
under union jurisdiction, and dumping night and weekend differentials.
"They had come in all sweetness and light. Then they whacked us," says night
editor Jim Chiavelli, the former union chairman.
Thus, even though Wallace's and Costello's powers were left intact, they are
presiding over an uneasy newsroom where shaky morale has led to a spate of
resignations. The union filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations
Board, demanding some $600,000 in severance pay and the reinstatement of two
union officials who had been fired. (Joe Kane, a supervisory examiner for the
NLRB, says the complaint is "still under investigation.") Meanwhile, many
staffers charge that the union itself is the problem: 81 percent of employees
under union jurisdiction have signed a petition to go non-union, reasoning that
the NLRB dispute is holding Singleton back from reaching an agreement on sick
leave and other issues.
"The union is pathetic," says Sun columnist Paul Sullivan, who's
leading the effort to decertify the union, and who notes that no more than 20
or 30 percent of eligible employees had ever even bothered to join. Union
officials retort that employees, mindful of Sullivan's close relationship with
Wallace, don't dare withhold their signatures. "I've talked to people who are
so afraid that they won't even tell me their name," says Tom Hiltz,
administrative officer for the Newspaper Guild of Greater Boston, to which the
Sun union belongs.
But given that 81 percent say they want the union gone, it appears inevitable
that the Sun will eventually go non-union. The current top reporting
salary of around $40,000 has enabled the Sun to attract -- and hold --
experienced journalists, many of them with ties to Lowell. Getting rid of the
union may have little effect in the short term. In the long term, though, the
road is being paved for the Sun to evolve into the sort of low-pay
stopping ground for young reporters that is typical of chain journalism.
Dean Singleton, though,
insists that he runs a different kind of newspaper chain -- one that believes
in local autonomy, and that encourages its papers to have a strong community
presence. "We agree with the concept that the newspaper plays in the field and
doesn't just watch from the sidelines," Singleton says. And he is effusive in
his praise of Kendall Wallace and Jack Costello. Though admitting he had not
seen the Wall Street Journal article on the Julian Steele proposal, he
calls Wallace and Costello "two of the most ethical people I've ever known in
my life." The best guess is that Wallace's style of journalism is safe -- as
long as Singleton doesn't see it as a threat to the bottom line.
On a drizzly Monday morning recently, Kendall Wallace walks to the Sheraton.
Along the way, he offers historical tidbits about the Sun building (the
paper moved to its present location in 1941; the tower with the SUN sign, on
the other side of the street, is now an apartment building) and the Sheraton's
woes (it was built to service a Wang training facility that was canceled when
the computer company collapsed). Wallace is a creature of habit. He rises at
5:30 a.m. every day, works out at the local Boys Club, and is at his desk by
6:50.
"I wouldn't live anywhere else," says Wallace of the city that allowed a
working-class kid without the benefit of a college education to rise to the
pinnacle of success. Fastidious in muted colors and a crisp white shirt, he
takes a seat by a window overlooking the Merrimack River and proceeds to work
his way through a breakfast of English muffins and undercooked bacon.
Wallace is still stewing -- mildly -- about the Journal story, and he's
anticipating that his visitor is going to whack the Sun, too. "I don't
know why we beat each other up," he says. "I guess when we write about each
other, all we think is scandal. We've worked so hard to make this a better
place, and for that we get attacked."
No doubt there will come a time when the Lowell Sun will become more
like other newspapers: more professional, more dispassionate, more ethical. In
many respects, the result will be a better newspaper. It will also be a less
important newspaper, less quirky, less engaged, less rooted in the community.
And it's far from clear whether the end of "media-controlled government," as
one Sun staffer disparagingly puts it, will be good for the city that
Kendall Wallace has labored so diligently to save.
Articles from July 24, 1997 & before can be accessed here