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Murray C. Morgan
Cub reporter scooped them all on Amelia's rescue
The News Tribune
P. FP12
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Copyright, 1960, Murray Morgan
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Cub Reporter Scooped
Them All On Amelia's Rescue
 Yet
another book has been published about the disappearance of Amelia
Earhart over the Pacific in the summer of 1937.
This
one, "Lost Star," contends that Earhart was on a spying
mission for the United States and was captured by the Japanese.
The author theorizes that she still may be puttering around the
U.S., age 96, keeping her secrets for reasons of her own.
Revelations
like these remind me of my biggest scoop in my days as a reporter.
I achieved it when, fresh from the University of Washington School
of Journalism, I was a cub reporter on the Grays Harbor
Washingtonian in Hoquiam.
The
Washie, as everybody called it, was not a great newspaper. It was
not even the best newspaper on the Harbor, that distinction
belonging to the Aberdeen World. We were short on subscribers,
short on advertisers and, consequently, short on staff. But we
were a morning paper and did come out on Sundays, which the World
didn't.
Our
Sunday edition wasn't one of the monstrous ad-wrappers now
burdening carriers. It was lean to the point of emaciation,
sometimes only six pages, with a news hole so small that one man
could handle all the editorial work between 4 p.m. and midnight
press time.
Which
is why I was all alone in the city room on the night my big story
broke.
It
was only the second time I'd played editor of a real paper. I felt
important sitting at the big desk by the door to the backshop, the
linotypes clanking behind me, the Associated Press teletype
clattering out wire copy in the booth to my right. I even put on
City Editor George Sundborg's green eyeshade.
I
was penciling in stories on the dummy for the front page when the
phone rang.
"Washingtonian,"
I answered. The conversation that followed was something like
this:
"I've just picked up
Amelia," the caller said.
The
first woman to fly the Atlantic had disappeared over the Pacific
months before but the Navy was still looking for her.
"You've what?"
"I just picked up a
message from her. She's all right. She's on an island somewhere."
"Who is this?"
"Fred Something,"
he said. "I'm over on Elm street." He gave me an
address. "The signal was weak but I could make it out."
"Just a minute,
Fred." I stuck my head in the backshop.
"Anybody here know a
Fred Something?"
"Yeah. He's some nut
that fools around with radios."
I went back to the phone. Fred had
hung up. I found an address for him on Elm and dialed the number.
Busy.
Then
I remembered The Associated Press. I went into the teletype room.
The wire service was on regional split, sending material for the
state papers. I turned on the sender, tapped the bells for a
break-in, and typed HAM OPERATOR SAYS AMELIA SAFE.
Seattle
cut right in. "HQ - GIVE US FULLEST."
I
typed: HOQUIAM - Fred Something, a local ham operator, reports
picking up a message from Amelia Earhart, saying she is on an
island, and safe. More to come.
The
phone was ringing on my desk. It wasn't Fred, it was AP in
Seattle, asking me to give them all I had. I said that was all my
information. Just then Bill, our Aberdeen reporter, came in. He
had the day off but had been nuzzling the bar at the Elks and
stopped in to pick up his coat.
I
sent him over to Fred's and told him to call in the details as
fast as he could. I went back to the desk and began planning a new
layout for the front page. The Washie had a font of huge woodblock
letters, maybe six inches high: Second Coming type, it was
irreverently called. I decided AMELIA SAFE! would fit.
AP
called and asked if I had more. I said I didn't. They said they
couldn't get through to Fred either. More tine passed.
Bill
finally came back, redder of face than before.
"Where have you
been? Why the hell didn't you call?"
"Aw, no story. False
alarm. The guy's a nut. He just collects old radios. Place full of
Atwater Kents but no wireless at all. He can't send or receive. He
had a case of Rainier though."
I
went back to the teletype, rang for the wire, started to type a
revise:
HOQUIAM
- Fred Somebody, who reported receiving a message from Amelia
Earhart, does not possess wireless equipment. A collector of used
radios, he ..."
The
teletype bells clanged. BUST BUST BUST, Seattle order. Avoid
libel.
Seattle
straightened out the revise. I wadded the AMELIA SAFE! headline
and missed the wastebasket on a push shot. There went my world
scoop. That, I thought, was that.
A
few days later, the AP sent me the front pages of a few West Coast
papers that had been closing their early editions just as I sent
out my bulletin.
For
them, I'd still found Amelia.
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