My life as a Newspaperman (Part 1):

What it was like to be with Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Rupert Murdoch and more…

By Richard M. Sherwin

It’s right after New Year’s, 1984, and I have been doing two jobs at the NY Daily News-Chicago Tribune Syndicate. I’ve been a sports writer since 1967, working nights and, for a few hours a week, trying out as a business and technology writer on a different floor. This Irish, family-owned, newspaper conglomerate doesn’t move too fast with promotions or changes. This tryout has lasted since 1981.
During my time in sports, PR people pitch me interviews with a Giants running back phenomenon or a new goalie the Rangers have signed. When I’m in the business section, PR people pitch me stories on subjects I know nothing about.

No one at The News knows anything about technology. So, while I’m still in Sports as well as Business, I am chosen to learn, then teach writers, columnists, editors, and executives how to use a word processor as the company is going through its first automation.
I am now chosen to write about the newest word processors, stereos, and telephones… a full-time day job in the business department. At this point, I went from a mediocre career working nights to a high-pressure day time position trying to beat the NY Times and Wall Street Journal. And, most distressing to me, I have to wear a suit! Luckily, I’m married to Susan Davis, an award winning advertising, marketing, and feature writer, who helps me dress for success.

On my first day in the business department, I get to The News at about 7 am and walk up the block to Tudor City. It’s a cold, grey New York City winter’s day with snow coming down and a brisk wind blowing off the East River. I go to my favorite food truck and scarf down a cruller and a milkshake (I still don’t drink coffee). All I can think of is trying to get some Giants football tickets and/or meeting my wife at Madison Square Garden for the Rangers-Bruins game.
I call Susan from a payphone (remember those?) near the legendary Churchill Apartments, where more important writers were living than anywhere else in the city. This is always a favorite hangout for us newbies and talking to myself before the call to my wife, I am worried about this new job. Susan answers the phone and says, “Who cares what you are writing about, it’s a day job.”

I didn’t own a suit

My only computer experience is with a Radio Shack TRX 80 laptop so I bring it to my cubicle on the 10th floor. On my way upstairs I kiss the famed globe in the lobby at 220 East 42d Street (the same way superman did in the movie) and pray that none of these business writers will realize I know nothing about mutual funds, subordinated debentures, the Dow or Standard and Poor’s.

TRX 80

Immediately, one insistent PR lady from the state of Washington is literally calling ten times to ask me if I want to do a story about a guy who invented a computer operating system. His name was Bill Gates and he had just made his first billion dollars. She keeps calling me Seamus as the phones originally belonged to a long-time business writer named Seamus O’Herlihy who had retired and they hadn’t changed his phone.
I tell the PR lady the truth – that when I learn what’s expected of me in my new position, I’ll call her back. She threatens that she’s going to call The Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. I’m freaking out. I am overwhelmed and scared. I actually call the sports editor back and plead for my old job back… even if it’s nights.
The legendary sports editor, Bob Decker, reminds me that I know how to use the new computers that The News is using to save money on printers (people). My only friend in the new department, Bob Plunkett, says to start using this talent and find stories before anyone else does.

Bob Plunkett

Bob is also working two jobs moonlighting as an early morning business anchorman on Channel 5 in New York and a business reporter.
Two major life-changing things happen in my first month in the new job. The government has mandated the divestiture of AT&T. It’s breaking up one of the biggest and most influential and cherished monopolies ever.
Because I was the new guy in the business, I read everything that came off the Telex. One thing caught my eye. It was an FCC press release on new rules and regulations, due to be released at the 9 a.m. opening of the stock market. Within the 30 or so pages of the release is a tiny two-paragraph ruling detailing how the breakup will occur. I am not that dumb. I show it to Bob to see how we should play it…our business editor was nowhere to be found.

Gil Spencer
We go to the editor in chief, Pulitzer Prize-winning Gil Spencer, and managing editor Jim Wilse, who had just come from the legendary tech-savvy San Francisco Chronicle. They have no idea that I am new and don’t care. “Let’s put out a special edition and get quotes from everyone before The Times and Journal have the story.” Bob Plunkett and I do this and, for at least a few hours, we scoop the world.
Bob has me as a guest on his TV show the next morning (wearing my only suit) where I explain the vicissitudes of divestiture since I managed to read some of the PR releases. Then I call Microsoft lady back and ask if she’s given the story to the other papers. She hasn’t.
Bill Gates and Pam Edstrom the PR lady, are still trying to impress her client but also need my help in finding the right place for what will turn out to be a historic interview.

Jim Wilse

Since I still had lots of regular stories to write the day Gates is coming in, I realize that the best place to meet is Louie’s East, a dirty, smelly, but authentic newspaperman’s bar and grill. One of the big bosses, Jim Wilse, of The News thought otherwise and said he’ll spring for me to take Gates to the new Helmsley Hotel next door to the News.
I call Microsoft’s PR lady and ask them to meet me there the next day at noon and explain the best way to get there from Kennedy Airport.

Since I don’t really understand the importance of Gates or his company, I am not really as nervous as I was when I interviewed DiMaggio, Mantle, Frank Gifford or Willis Reed.
A youngish (maybe my age), nerdy-looking gentle-looking man meets me at the hotel and we chat for a half-hour as he and the PR lady explain how Microsoft created the MSDOS operating system. I explain that newspapers use a very basic OS with word processing, rudimentary picture editing built-in.

Bill Gates
We get to this fancy bistro in the Helmsley Hotel and we order. Bill orders two large steak burgers (no buns) and a few orders of French fries. He eats like he hasn’t eaten in weeks and keeps ordering. He orders wine that costs more than a whole meal. I keep thinking of how the notoriously cheap NY Daily News will cringe at the bill. The PR lady has a salad.
But then as they say in casinos, the Big Tell Comes!
While I get my story of this new gazillionaire and how he is expanding into consumer products, he asks me what I use at home for computing. I explain that AT&T has kindly lent me a new 2600 (with the Microsoft operating system) but that every reporter I know uses the bestselling Word Perfect for word processing. He frowns and says why don’t you use Microsoft Word. I explain the difference between the almost unusable un-user friendly Word vs. easy to use Word Perfect. Gates also asks me what I use to keep my family’s financial records. I say Andrew Tobias’ Managing Your Money.

Andrew Tobias

Gates jumps up and calls (from what I can hear) the Microsoft Labs on the nearest hotel phone. The PR lady is stunned by this rude departure but explains to me that Gates takes the consumer side of computing so seriously that whenever Bill sees or hears people not liking his products, he calls this lab and gives them what he learns.
Bill comes back from the phone call, apologizes, and then gives me a payback scoop. Microsoft is going to spend whatever it takes to become a player and win in the consumer computing business.
It’s a huge scoop! The other papers had to quote The Daily News!!!
Two years later Microsoft Office basically put Word Perfect out of business and, while he can’t buy Managing Your Money, Gates’ complete knockoff of it takes over from Managing your Money as the leading consumer home banking product.

MURDOCH GROUP TO BUY METROMEDIA

Only six months later I catch another break. I find, in a small FCC and FTC filing, that Rupert Murdoch and Fox will buy the existing TVs stations (slightly illegally) from Metromedia for $2 billion, giving him the footprint he wanted in the U.S. With the help of PR great Howard Rubenstein, I get Murdoch’s home phone number which his wife answers. She says her husband is going to Washington. Again, The Daily News (new management) sends me to Washington to track down Rupert. I find him in the offices of New York’s and New Jersey’s senators where they’ve created a special rule allowing him to own a TV station and newspaper in the same city. The News breaks this story and all of a sudden this less than terrific sportswriter is the king of business writers and soon thereafter one of the most widely-read tech writers in the country.
Next Bezos, Jobs, Intel Corp, and more