Urban Legend

Walt Shepperd has been fired twice and left once of his own accord during his 28-year association with the Syracuse New Times. No writer in the 40-year history of the paper has put his idiosyncratic hand on the shape of New Times
reporting and commentary quite as much as the lanky, aging radical who
served from 1970 through 2006 (with some hiatuses) as columnist and
eventual senior editor of the paper. He outlasted three owners, at
least five editors and three different office locations. Shepperd’s
name has sat atop or beneath thousands stories of since 1970, and he
has won Writer of the Year honors from the New York State Press
Association three times.

With his tightly clipped Fu Manchu mustache, his
trademark black Porkpie hat, and a trio of colorful buttons on his
vest, it is not hard to see how he stood out in the Syracuse press
corps for all those years.

Born in Montclair, N.J., Shepperd grew up in the New
York City area; his father was a vice president for Nestle. “My family
moved eight times in 13 years,” he says. “Life was centered around
Manhattan.” Possessed from an early age with a keen eye for racial
injustice, he traveled to Mississippi to be part of the Freedom Summer
voter registration effort in 1964, and later became a foot soldier in
the War on Poverty, serving Syracuse as a community organizer, middle
school teacher and dedicated rabble-rouser for many years before
returning to writing.

Before coming to The New Times, Shepperd, 68, wrote for a paper known as The Nickel Review,
one of dozens of underground papers that popped up around the country
in the 1960s, led by journalist comrades of the anti-war, racial and
gender equality movements that defined the times. When The Nickel Review
chose to publish a compendium of essays written by various leftist
scholars commemorating the 100th birthday of Vladimir Lenin, it marked
the beginning of the end. 

After that May 8, 1970, edition the Syracuse Herald-Journal
(yes, folks, Syracuse actually had an afternoon paper) published an
editorial, which Shepperd can quote verbatim: “Their shrill voice has a
fragile right to exist, but no one should be duped into advertising in
their pages.” The public bought it, ad revenue dropped 75 percent and
the paper couldn’t last. The New Times eventually scooped up Shepperd, and a three-decade-long association began. 

That relationship ended in 2006, when
Shepperd decided to move his cast of characters (Samadee, the African,
the Has Been and the Wanna Be) across town to Eagle Newspapers,
publishers of City Eagle. The move gave Shepperd one thing he had been missing at The New Times: a weekly column.

The Mayor of the Westcott Nation: Walt in repose in his Nickel Review days, in

this Sept. 6, 1973 photo.

We spoke while sitting in the studio of
The Media Unit, 327 Montgomery St., an organization that trains youth
for work in the entertainment industry, which Shepperd considers one of
his proudest achievements, on a par with quitting smoking 15 years ago.
The other pride of his life is his daughter, Lorca Shepperd, a New York
City-based television producer; with her husband Cabot Philbrick, Lorca
created an award-winning 2004 documentary, Other People’s Pictures,
about snapshot collectors. He consented to have the tables turned on
him: For just this one time, we got to be the Q, and Shepperd the big
A. Peace!

Pride and joy: Walt Shepperd holds a photo of
himself and his daughter Lorca, who is now an award-winning filmmaker
living in New York City. She was named for the Spanish poet Federico
Garcia Lorca. MICHAEL DAVIS PHOTO

{mospagebreak} 

Q: Who are your readers? 

A: I write for myself.

Q: Is that good enough?

A: I’m my most severe critic.

Q: How did you first come to Syracuse?

A: On my first day at Colgate I met my best friend, Mel
Watkins. He’s still my best friend today. I learned a lot from that
experience. One of the things that I learned was that at Colgate in
those days if you had a black friend you weren’t going to have any
white friends. 

We came to party in Syracuse in the fall of 1958. A
young lady grabbed us on Marshall Street; she turned out to be Sylvia
Cole, who later married John Mackey {Syracuse University double
letterman and Baltimore Colts tight end. Hall of Famer Mackey later
caught a Johnny Unitas touchdown in Super Bowl V and Shepperd married
Cole’s best friend, his first of three marriages}.

They had a network of about 30 black students. The male
head of the group was known as the Chancellor. The female head was
known as the Keeper of the List. The list meant that you were notified
of all the parties, which were pretty much every weekend. “Members”
referred to the African-American students. “Grays” were tolerable
whites.

Media partners: Walt Shepperd counts among his friends Urban CNY publisher Ken Jackson. Both have helped each other out over the years, sharing content,
Syracuse Press Club board duties and experiences. MICHAEL DAVIS PHOTO

Q: How does an organizer make the transition to journalism?

A: Syracuse had the largest single program in the War on
Poverty. We had every housing project in this city organized. Bill
Walsh, who was mayor in 1967, went to a meeting of the National
Conference of Mayors and gave a speech. He warned the mayors that if
this continued, traditional politics would lose control. The mayors got
Washington to shut it down. They closed the program. I went to work for
Chris Powell, who had a paper called Home Town News. He believed that you can use a weekly newspaper to organize a community. A newspaper can be an organizing tool.

Q: Has the Syracuse New Times ever been an organizing tool?

A: Yes. Culturally for sure. 

Q: Politically? 

A: The 1985 Alexander campaign. {The New Times
mounted the famous We for Lee campaign, in which the paper asked
readers to send the cover of the Oct. 30 issue to Alexander and to
write in his name on the Election Day ballot. Alexander had decided not
to run for re-election for the first time since 1969, when the paper
was founded; in 1987, he was looking at a federal indictment and
pleaded guilty a year later to racketeering and tax evasion charges.}

Q: How would you describe your politics?

A: That’s a tough one. I would say “radical” would be adequate, in the context of those days. 

When Nickel Review went under, Ken Simon picked up all my columnists. I became the first full-time writer for the SNT in 1971.

Q: What did it pay?

A: One hundred dollars per week. I lived upstairs from
Phoebe’s, which was called Café Society in those days. It rocked. You
had Nancy Kelly, Mark Copani, people like that playing. I had a stool
at the bar. I got a lot of stories there and quite often I wrote them
there. When it was deadline night I’d make myself a really good dinner,
stay up all night writing, then bring it in in the morning.

Q: You are legendary among bus riders. You gave up driving?

A: I gave up owning a car...

Q: You’ve been fired twice, but never by {current publisher} Art Zimmer.

A: Oh, no. 

Q: Even though you somehow managed to lose his car?

A: {Shepperd’s eyes roll up, his laced fingers twitter,
relace themselves and finally he claps them together as he laughs.}
Well, yeah. 

Q: Was it a Zimmer?

A: Oh, no. It was a beat-up old Pinto. It was missing for a few days. We found it a few blocks up from Phoebe’s.

Q: How has The New Times evolved?

A: While we were on the {SU} Hill the editorial board was
six white guys who smoked dope and played ball together, went to
rock’n’roll concerts and put out a newspaper. They brought me in as a
way of trying to get the paper into city politics. 

Q: How did you come to get fired?

A: There was a place downtown near City Hall called the
Firebarn. They put an ad in the paper with a picture of one of the
waitstaff, a woman with rather large breasts, and the ad said, “Two
good reasons to come to the Firebarn.” The female staff of the paper
were upset, and they couldn’t complain or they were afraid they would
get fired, so they asked me to complain to the editors. Which I did.
And they fired me.

Q: That was the first time?

A: Yeah. The other time they had an opening, and I said,
“An alternative paper should have a woman or a black person.” They
said, “Could you find somebody qualified?” Jeez. So I got two qualified
people to apply. Bill Francis was a writer who had front-page credits
in the Kansas City Star. Jane Amster had front-page credits in the Village Voice.

They said they weren’t qualified. “Qualified?” Front-page credits in the Village Voice!
I went to Bill and to Jane and asked them to go to the State Human
Rights Commission. I offered to do all the work if they would file the
complaint, but they wanted a job, not to make a point. So I wrote about
the whole process. The whole thing. They published it. Then they fired
me.

Q: So how did you make your way back onto the pages of The New Times?

A: When Art Zimmer bought the paper {in 1984}, Roland Sweet
came and got me. All the crazy stuff happened before Art. {Shepperd
later called back to recount a story.} Susann Panek, running for Common
Council president in 1985, came in screaming that I was in collusion
with her opponent, Edward Nowakowski. Art said to her, “Come in, we can
talk about it, but you should know that I’m backing Walt up 100
percent.” 

Since Art came in things have been pretty businesslike,
or as businesslike as crazy people can be, including me. They wanted me
to do political stuff, so they said, “If we got you a suit, do you
think you could get into City Hall?” I said, “Sure.” There were three
ladies selling ads, and they took me to China Towne, in Solvay, and
they got me two suits. The deal was in trade for advertising. We didn’t
even have to pay for them! 

At that time Joe Nicoletti was thinking it was his
legacy to be mayor. He was brought up as a protegee of Lee Alexander;
Alexander was his mentor. Bernie Mahoney was challenging from the
conservative side. At the last minute Tom Young jumped in the race.
Nicoletti had introduced term limits, which pissed off Alexander, and
at the last minute Alexander threw his mailing list and his support
behind Tom Young, and that was it. But we had two primaries going
on—and I had a suit! We asked good questions. We made a difference.

My politics were still considered radical. But that
didn’t matter. People looked at me and saw that I was fair. We had the
tape recorder there. The most important thing was to get them down in
their own words, and to ask questions that others weren’t asking. They
trusted me: 75 percent of what I knew was off the record, and I never
gave it up!

Q: What was your toughest interview?

A: Nancy Larraine {Hoffmann, one-time councilor-at-large
and state senator}, no question. She’s a tough lady. She’s very
specific in her definitions and her perceptions and she will fight you
to establish the proper context for her position and statements. She’s
constantly on guard, which I can understand because she has been
misrepresented so many times. She doesn’t get much credit, but she has
gotten out there and stumped for many positive things.

Q: What about Lee Alexander?

A: Very slick, very knowledgeable. One of the funniest
people you would ever want to meet. It was hard work. When we did the
interview I positioned him so that the clock was right over behind his
head. When I set it up they asked how much time I needed and I said,
“45 minutes,” and for 44 minutes and 30 seconds we had eye contact. He
was intense. The tape recorder was there, and we kept eye contact that
whole time and at 44 minutes 30 seconds I said, “Thank you for your
time.”

Q: Did you see him after he came back from prison?

A: I was there at the party when he got out. {Former Common
Council President} Susann Panek cooked the big shrimp that he always
had at his campaign functions. It was at her house. He had asked them
to let me know that he’d like to see me, not to come as press, just
come as me. And then the Post-Standard found out about the
party, and they had these guys going out like they do, copying down the
license plates of all the cars. And since I had stopped owning a car,
they didn’t know I was there. They published the names of everyone who
was at the party except me, because they traced the license plates. 

Birthday boy: In October 2000, we invited two
dignitaries to write a proclamation in honor of Walt’s 60th birthday.
Well, then-County Executive Nick Pirro and Syracuse Mayor Roy Bernardi
did one-better: they composed a joint proclamation. Walt was surprised,
amused and, above all, honored. MICHAEL DAVIS PHOTO

Q: What is it like to be a reporter without a car?

A: I got in touch with the streets. I’d get on a bus and people would start talking to me. Back then I was on TV every week on Reporter’s Roundtable
{a panel discussion among Syracuse media types of the week’s events; it
used to air on Time Warner Cable’s pubic access channel} and people
would recognize me and start talking. I got a lot of stories that way. 

Q: Who were your heroes?

A: Bobby Thompson {who beat the Brooklyn Dodgers with a ninth-inning home run in 1951, giving the New York Giants the National League pennant and inspiring the Don DeLillo novel Underworld}.

Q: I meant journalistic heroes.

A: Writers of historical fiction. Howard Fast. Robert Penn Warren.

{mospagebreak}

Q: Any local heroes?

A: Nancy Duffy. And Hart Seely {who writes for the Post-Standard}.
Hart Seely is something very special, a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.
And {former Channel 9 broadcaster} Andy Brigham. Anyone who can wear
those pants on TV has got to be kicking butt.

Q: What were some of your best interviews?

A: Angel the Exotic Dancer, August 1992,
when she ran for mayor. That was really good. I had found that the
stereotype of the dancer was not anywhere near true. Many of these
dancers had children. Many had been waiting tables but realized that
you could make a lot more money in fewer hours, and they looked at
their customers as, well, kind of stupid. We talked about dance, we
talked about careers. 

Q: Any time you got it wrong?

A: That’s a great question. I wrote a
column about people not curbing their dogs. It went on about people not
obeying the leash law, and then I found out that Syracuse did not have
a leash law. I really thought that Syracuse had a leash law. I don’t
know how I got that impression. Now they do.

Q: What made you write that?

A: I guess I was just walking around seeing a lot of dog poop on the street.

Q: What’s it like to not be at the New Times?

A: (Big smile.) I got a weekly column. (Fist in the air.)

Q: Your column at The New Times wasn’t always weekly?

A: There’s a famous story about that. I
got all excited when Karen DeCrow {former National Organization for
Women national president} got dumped by the Post-Standard. I
told the six white boys that we could get Karen DeCrow. They were
all—duh, duh, duh— well, we don’t know. Finally they came to me and
said, “Well, we got a space problem. The only way we can do it is if
you alternate.”

The weekly column is sort of the height
of being in the newspaper business. A weekly column gives a rhythm to
your life. You finish one, and you read it, and you decide if you like
it or not, and then you cogitate for a few days, and start on a new
one, and there’s a rhythm to it. There is nothing natural that occurs
every two weeks. Things happen daily. You have monthly, or weekly, or
annual occurrences. Nothing happens every two weeks.

So they said that thinking I would never do it. I said, “Sure. It’s Karen DeCrow!” Later that day in the parking lot I was told that if we let Karen in, I would never have a weekly column again.

Q: Did Karen appreciate what you gave up for her?

A: I didn’t give up a thing. We got Karen DeCrow! {Her
biweekly column ran from March 1985 to December 2007.} To spring her
into print—that was a point of pride.

Q: But you’re saying that it introduced a lot of angst into your life.

A: You want to play ball, you have to take some elbows.

Q: What do you miss about The New Times?

A: I miss working with {photographer} Mike Davis.

Q: What do you see as the future of the alternative press?

A: Alternative is not what it was back then; you don’t have
that role to play. The papers that are still publishing are soul
searching, trying to find their role. The issues we covered are on the
front pages now—for God’s sake, Al Gore won an Oscar for global warming. 

These people saying newspapers are dead are being silly.
There will be restructuring, but there will always be newspapers. Some
of them will come out Thursday through Sunday. Newspapers are always
changing. Look at The New York Times, they have color pictures now! I was a paper boy for The New York Times. It’s a different day. 

Journalism will get more personal. We are beginning to
see the impossibility of objectivity. Your point of view is shaped by
what you see when you wake up in the morning and look out the window.

Q: What about alternative journalism in this city?

A: One reason I went to Eagle is that I had a vision of
urban journalism. I think an urban weekly can serve to bring people
together. Somebody reading the paper in Central Village can read it and
see that someone in Tipp Hill may be having the same problem. They
might think, “Hey, I better call them.”

You asked me who I write for. I write for myself and hope somebody will pick up on it. 

Even more pictures of the illustrious Walt can be found in this photo gallery: The Many Faces of Walt Shepperd