The recent passing of longtime Hartford Courant reporter William Cockerham,one of the paper's most fearless and memorable reporters for nearly a quarter of a century, raises the question of what readers want in a news organization.

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The recent passing of longtime Hartford Courant reporter William Cockerham, one of the paper's most fearless and memorable reporters for nearly a quarter of a century, raises the question of what readers want in a news organization.

Cockerham died from a heart attack July 26 after a high-impact career extending from 1968 until 1992. Beginning in the 1980s, he was the paper's roving New England reporter. His work was widely reprinted in other newspapers around the country because of his entertaining style and nose for news. He is portrayed above in a family photo at Cape Cod.

"Not only was Bill a great reporter," recalls Owen McNally, who retired after an illustrious 40-year career as a Courant editor and jazz critic, "but he was also a consummately gifted writer blessed with a wonderful, natural voice all his own, always clear and fluent, compelling -- and with a definite point of view advocating justice and fairness for all."

But does the public really demand that Mainstream Media (MSM) news managers retain reporters who care about "fairness for all?" Or is it better for them to keep reporters who know that it's not their place to have opinions affecting the news, except in narrowly circumscribed ways?

Readers here at this site appreciate, of course, that good government depends on an independent media, both on the streets and in corridors of power. Yet, like it or not, the hard-working but often time-pressured voting majority cannot be expected to know precisely how corporate titans have reshaped the MSM, much like well-funded groups have reorganized the federal judiciary and other watchdog institutions. And elected politicians of stature care most about the MSM because of its reach. That's the way it is, as Cronkite used to say.

But reformers and regular voters alike can understand through such examples as Cockerham and his newspaper why it is increasingly hard to find MSM reporters with time and space to publish a hard-hitting news story. It's not impossible, of course, but it's a lot harder than it should be given the scope of easily documented problems either locally or nationally.

Dan Rather's Lesson

Before Dan Rather's MSM career demise in 2004, I saw the CBS anchor and managing editor give a speech at the National Press Club in which he said "fear" was the biggest factor in broadcast news. More precisely, he said broadcasters feared that they would lose their job if they tackled a tough story.

He said he was not especially worried about his own security after his long career but he noted he still picked his stories carefully. Events proved him wrong when his staff relied on a cooked-up document it received about President Bush's military career that was easily shown after publication to have errors in its print fonts. Far more important than Rather's own job, the continued insults directed against him by critics for all these years after the Bush story serve as a dire warning for other reporters across the country to play it safe.

Let's examine how such factors play out at an important regional newspaper and the career of one of its star reporters. To be clear, this is about corporate-owned news organizations of substantial size (and debt), not web-based periodicals. Ironically, the Courant's early coverage of the Revolutionary War was by Constitution-shaping printer-publishers on broadsheets that resembled blogs far more than today's newspapers.

Like most modern metro daily reporters, Cockerham's focus was more local than the great issues normally addressed on OpEd News. But the journalistic spirit and pressures for newspaper reporters are similar in world and state capitals.  

Zell-ous Ownership

The Courant, the second largest newspaper in New England and the paper where I began my career in 1970, is now run by a top executive of Connecticut's Fox News TV affiliates in joint management arrangement with the state's Fox stations and three major "alternative" weekly newspapers in the state's largest cities.

A 3-2 party-line vote in December 2008 by Republicans on the outgoing Bush Federal Communications Commission waived TV-newspaper cross-ownership restrictions so that the neo-con real estate mogul Sam Zell could acquire the nationwide Tribune Co. chain of newspapers and broadcast outlets and work out their local management structures with such properties. 

Under its new Tribune ownership, the Courant in 2009 soon fired George Gombossy, its high-profile consumer reporter. He had worked at the paper four decades, including as its business editor. His firing came after he tried to report that then-State Attorney Gen. Dick Blumenthal (now a Democratic U.S. Senator) was investigating complaints the paper's largest advertiser, Sleepy's, Inc., was selling used mattresses as new. One complaint alleged bedbugs in a "new" mattress.

The Courant disputes the reason for his dismissal, saying finances forced it to continue downsizing those like Gombossy. As disclosure, I sometimes publish on the CT Watchdog consumer news website that he founded to keep reporting.

Also, the paper retains outstanding journalists with high personal standards, including several I regard as among the best in the country at what they do. So we're painting with a broad brush here. Nonetheless, the pressures at such papers are enormous. The Courant outsourced much of its copy editing to the Tribune's Chicago HQ in 2009, for example, to cut costs and Connecticut staff.

Want to hear more about why you're reading OpEd News? The gist is that timid, debt-burdened corporate-controlled newspapers and broadcasting stations across the nation have scant space or institutional memory to report on their localities, much less national news. Five newspaper chains closed their Washington bureaus in 2009 and 2010. The Courant couldn't even muster space for an obituary for Cockerham, one of its best-known writers and one who had risked his safety repeatedly to get a story in potentially life-threatening situations. Instead, his widow paid for a death notice.

'Potterville'

If this sounds too much like "Potterville" in It's a Wonderful Life for you to enjoy let's turn to scenes from an earlier Courant era -- even though every period has its stresses and setbacks, just like in the movie.

Cockerham wrote his own script as much as one reasonably could and still hold a job. Upon joining the Courant's city staff in 1968 after Army service, he persuaded editors to let him infiltrate a group trying to revive the Ku Klux Klan in Connecticut. He attended weekly meetings with robe-clad bigots burning crosses in the woods, and then exposed the operation so thoroughly that the group disbanded and its leaders left the state.

I worked in the same newsroom with him from 1970 to 1984. Editors occasionally paired us on stories, and so I saw him in action first-hand. For one organized crime story, we went to a Wethersfield residence to find a man who had been ducking our inquiries.  

"He's not home," said a hostile-sounding woman who came to the door. "What do you want to see him about?"

Cockerham replied with one word, "Counterfeiting," in a no-nonsense style that was right out of the movies. He then handed her his card and we walked away. His brevity in that situation underscored his message that he had the story, and so ducking us wasn't going to kill it.

But he used the full reporter's tool kit in the mid-1970s to break the story of how organized crime had infiltrated local "Las Vegas Night" fund-raisers across Connecticut soon after the legislature legalized such gambling. The General Assembly's goal had been to enable local charities to raise funds in small-time events. Instead, smooth-talking hoodlums were infiltrating the games, leaving some local organizations in financial ruin.

Cockerham schmoozed far into many nights with high-rollers (including some who were well-known in Connecticut public life), charity leaders, dealers and suspected mobsters and their groupies to get documentation for the theme of the series: Con men and crooks may introduce themselves as nice guys, but don't change their ways just because they're supposed to be helping local charities.

"Virtually everything Bill wrote was well-worth reading, including, of course, his delightful classics as a roving reporter on the road," McNally continued.

The former editor was one of many former Courant colleagues, including several former top-ranking editors, who volunteered glowing comments about Cockerham to me after the Justice Integrity Project I lead published a column last week about the reporter's passing. The column, a profile with different material than this article, prompted more reader comments than any other topic for our Project since our 2009 investigation showing how the Bush administration framed former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman on corruption charges.

The interest, in my view, is because readers want a fighter on their behalf, even if the battles were in the past.   

Mad and Bad

But work like Cockerham's can take its toll. Connecticut public radio host and Courant blogger Colin McEnroe provided context on why the most daring of reporters can be a threat to themselves, their employers and other powers-that-be.

"He was, as was said of Byron, mad, bad and dangerous to know," said the Yale-educated McEnroe of his late colleague. "He was a type of reporter who doesn't really exist anymore, and, on his best days, he was as good as anybody you ever saw."

Authors Website: http://www.justice-integrity.org

Authors Bio:

Andrew Kreig is an investigative reporter, attorney, author, business strategist, radio host, and longtime non-profit executive based in Washington, DC.

His most recent book is "Presidential Puppetry: Obama, Romney and Their Masters," the first book about the Obama administration's second term. The book grew out of his work leading the Justice Integrity Project, a non-partisan legal reform group that investigates official misconduct.

In a diverse career, he has advocated for the powerful, and investigated Mafia chiefs, Karl Rove, and top Obama administration officials. The major "Who's Who" reference books have listed him since the mid-1990s.

He holds law degrees from Yale and the University of Chicago, and a b.a. in history from Cornell. His experience includes work as law clerk to a federal judge, as an attorney at a national law firm, and as president/CEO of a worldwide high-tech trade association.

The contact for interviews, lectures, and review copies is Mary Byers at Eagle View Books. The author has lectured on five continents, held research fellowships at three major universities, and appeared on more than 100 radio, television and cable news shows as an expert commentator.