Talk:St. Louis Globe-Democrat

Belleville version
Now, I know it is defunct, but I thought it started up again. There is a Belleville version now, right? DaronDierkes (talk) 05:35, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
 * You're thinking of the Belleville News-Democrat, an entirely different newspaper. -- Davidkevin (talk) 06:58, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I stand corrected. Now what of the old headquarters?  Isn't there a big building down on Tucker close to the St. Patrick Center that used to be theirs?  DaronDierkes (talk) 07:17, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes; that information is already in the article. -- Davidkevin (talk) 07:23, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, I'm a complete fool. Thank you.  :o)  I see that now.  I'm going to step away from this topic now.  DaronDierkes (talk) 08:11, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

New website
DISPUTE OVER THIS ARTICLE COVERING THE NEW WEB SITE STARTED UP BY DAN ROSITANO

I submitted the following edits. Pursuant to the page lockdown instructions, I am also submitting these edits for discussion here.

Dear Editor

PROPOSED EDITS

I propose adding the following edit:

Efforts to use St. Louis Globe-Democrat Trade Name (2009)
The St. Louis Globe-Democrat name fell into the public domain. Dan Rositano is now publishing a new daily online newspaper edition that uses the name "the St. Louis Globe-Democrat". However, there is no ownership or other connection between this new online website and the newspaper that published under the same name.

I propose deleting the following:

St. Louis Globe-Democrat Online 2009 On December 8, 2009, The St. Louis Globe-Democrat launched online serving the city with a second daily newspaper online resource. The St. Louis Globe-Democrat returned after a 23 year hiatus launched a new online format serving as a daily online newspaper for the city. Dan Rositano, former director of information and technology at KPLR Channel 11 relaunched the St. Louis Globe-Democrat as a free online newspaper. The St. Louis Globe-Democrat is an independent newspaper, publishing the news impartially, supporting what it believes to be right and opposing what it believes to be wrong without regard to party politics. Continuously published up to the minute - 24 Hours a day, 7 days a week.

NATURE OF EDIT DISPUTE

The St. Louis Globe Democrat was one of two large circulation newspapers in the St. Louis Metropolitan area from its founding in 1852 until it ceased publication and went out of business in 1986. The history of this newspaper and its tradition, along with its conservative politics, is an important part of St. Louis history.

The trade name "St. Louis Globe Democrat" ("Globe") copyright registration expired. The Globe trademark and name is not unprotected and in the public domain. Anyone can now use that trade name.

In 2009, a new company was formed that started a web site using the Globe name. As noted in the StlToday/St. Louis Post Dispatch article referenced above, this new company has no common ownership, affiliation, or any other association with the storied Globe newspaper. This new company is using a tradename in the public domain just as you and I could.

There are no figures available on the amount of traffic the new site attracts but it appears to be very small. For example, its sports forums (a popular feature of newspapers usually attracting thousand of comments) had only generated a total of 25 posts in 8 weeks.

By all indications, the new web site is a small start up attempting to capitalize on the old Globe by its use of an expired tradename. This is of course their right. However, it is misleading to edit the page on this important newspaper with an important and prominent history so as to devote most of the wikipedia to the new web site. This is further compounded in that the disputed edits strongly implies an affiliation with the old Globe with statements such as "relaunched" and no explanation that there is no connection between these two companies, other than a common name.

Furthermore, the long narrative and edits on the new Globe appear to have been drafted by the new Globe staff. Thus for example, you have atement quoted as though it is fact: "The St. Louis Globe-Democrat is an independent newspaper, publishing the news impartially, supporting what it believes to be right and opposing what it believes to be wrong without regard to party politics. Continuously published up to the minute - 24 Hours a day, 7 days a week."

In prior edits since deleted by me, most of the page is devoted to listing the purported staff of the new Globe (most of whom appear to be free lancers). This is not information relevant to the topic--the old storied Globe newspaper and reads like an advertisement.

These type of edits, along with links to the new Globe's website and that prior to my deletions, resulted in most of this article being dedicated to self-serving statements about the new Globe. The article content was hijacked from a historical piece on the old newspaper to one dedicated to a new start. No impartial wikipedia editor would draft such an artcile. That the content was mostly dedicted to the new startup and making it appear that the new start up was affilliated with the old Globe strongly suggests that this portion of the article was originally drafted by a Globe employee. If so, drafting by an employee or owner of the article subject violates Wikipedia's conflict of interest rules.

Most importantly, the new Globe web site by all indications is very lightly trafficed and has no prominence, visibilty or significant readership in St. Louis. It is highly doubtful that this new start up web site would merit a wikipedia article. Its proposed publication would be rejected.

However, by bootstrapping itself onto the historically important old Globe, the new start up web site circumvents the procedure for article approval and misuses wikipedia to market its new company by falsely claiming an affiliation with the old Globe.

None of my edits should be controversial because each edit is based on facts. The edits may be disputed by an anonymous user--who may have an affiliation with the new start up company. That the new start up understandably wants to use Wikipedia to mislead the public into believing it is affiliated with an old long standing newspaper does not make a true factual controversy. Danocooper (talk) 06:14, 23 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Danocooper (talk • contribs) 06:07, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Working at the Globe
Almost 50 years ago I worked for the St Louis Globe Democrat during the summers in college, primarily as a copy boy. My memory is a bit rusty on some names, but I remember getting hired by Rosemary Schoenhoeffer who was the secretary to Mr. Pierson who was the Executive Editor. He had white hair and wore 'cheater glasses'. Mr Amberg was the publisher of the Globe. I came with a recommendation from George Killenberg, who was the City Editor at the time, with a brilliant career at the Globe.

My first assignment was to sit in the lobby of the Post Dispatch Bldg, and receive envelopes of 'marked-up copy' from the Red Arrow Motorcycle Messenger Service boys to deliver to a Mr Van Petton, who was the Chief Makeup Editor. This was the 'Blue Collar' side of the newspaper business. Linotype operators working with molten lead to produce newspapers columns one line at a time. Tables of Locked up Type, each represeting a page of the newspaper, were used to press a 'cardboard' type mat. The mats were used to make the plates that were affixed to the giant print wheels. Huge spools of blank paper was fed through the wheels of the presses to receive the inked images. Then they moved on to cutting and folding, and bundling for delivery.

My later assignments were in the Globe Office Bldg on Tucker. Bill Feustel was an alternate who worked the City Desk back then. Denny Walsh was a hot reporter on staff and so was Margerite Shepherd. They always took off on controversial local assignments along with the staff photographer, whose name escapes me. I remember one day, Denny Walsh & the Photographer came back to the office a little roughed up, with maybe a broken camera, but they got the photos & story they were after.

Martin Duggan was the News Editor at the time in charge of the newspaper Layout, and Ned Chew was the Telegraph Editor. Ray Vodika sat in the News Slot. Other editors completed the circle. Martin Duggan was the best newspaper man at the Globe. He was respected by the entire Staff and had a sixth sense of news story importance. He called the shots. He must have been in the business a long time before that to get the knowledge, confidence and experience required for that position.

Bill Fleischman ran the Sports Desk, Harry Mittauer was the old time Sports reporter. Bob Burnes wrote columns and worked from a private office. Another sportswriter's name was Jack ???? who became quite famous. My first summer there was in a non air-conditioned building. It was very warm. Ceiling fans were everywhere and paperweights were a necessity for everyone's desk to hold all the paper down. Everything was paper, no computers, etc.

That summer Floyd Patterson and Ingemar Johannson fought for the Heavyweight Boxing Title. They had a black and white TV in one of the rooms and the cigarette and cigar smoke was dense. After so many rounds, they would go update the story, then come back for more.

Mr. Duncan Baumann was the Editor of the Editorial Page at the time and had a big corner office. I recall Patrick Buchanan's office when he first started there in the editorial department.

Derry Cone was a manager of some section, and I think Marian O'Brien of the Food Section worked in his area. I remember filing a lot of recipes for her one summer and also checked tons of entry blanks for the Crossword Quizzer Puzzle Contest.

The Globe had a very large and comprehensive Reference Morgue that was under the management of some dedicated man whose name I can't remember. He was smart, highly informed and conscientious. He had photos, plates, and news story clippings thet went back many years. There wasn't much he couldn't find when the News Department needed background info for their stories.

My main job at the Globe was one of numerous Copy Boys. Our job was to answer phones, direct calls, listen to police radios, spellcheck proofs, open mail, make sure everyone had office supplies, and above all, keep them all in fresh hot coffee. They lived on coffee.

I also recall working Saturdays at World Color Printing Co, where the infamous "Green Sheet" was produced, an update to the already printed weekend edition.

I was proud to be a small part of this outstanding Newspaper Staff and operation. These fond memories have stayed with me over the years. I'd like to here from anyone that was at the paper in the late 50's and early 60's.

75.132.27.170 (talk) 21:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)Vern Milonas    vmilonas@gmail.com

St. Louis Globe Democrat page In December 2009, a new online newspaper started under the name of ST. LOUIS GLOBE-DEMOCRAT. It was started by a former employee of KPLR TV in St. Louis. A new company began under the name of St. Louis Globe-Democrat LLC and online at www.globe-democrat.com The new website is a 24 hour news site serving St. Louis - as an online newspaper. The staff is roughly 30 employees and unknown numerous contributors. This page was accurate for the past month. This evening this page was edited several time (see history). It seems to be someone who is not happy with the new] online version. The new newspaper online and company have had a lot of media coverage. There was naming rights / infringment rights to the Globe Democrat name by an individual in St. Louis that publishes a nostalgic Globe-Democrat newspaper a couple times a year throughout the metro - it is advertisement supported. The naming rights were resolved in December. Reference: St. Louis Business Journal article: http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2009/12/14/daily5.html

news on new newspaper online edition: http://www.editorsweblog.org/web_20/2009/10/st_louis_globe-democrat_to_be_relaunched.php http://www.cyberjournalist.net/st-louis-globe-democrat-returning-as-free-online-news-site/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.184.200.34 (talk) 05:25, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Can we get rid of "NOTE: This page should not be changed without permission. Reported to Wikipedia January 2010" which has no business being in the article. -- Neil N   talk to me  05:31, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ CIreland (talk) 10:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I also removed the unsourced potentially controversial information according to WP:BLP. CIreland (talk) 11:01, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Resolving content dispute
I protected the article right before signing off for the night. I will read all of what each of you have written and I can try to mediate this content dispute. It may take a couple of days. Let's keep all discussion on this page. Please keep all discussion civil. Regards, -- Flyguy649 talk 16:13, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Further Reference Pointing Out that Globe-Democrat.com web sit has no affilliation the Globe newspaper published from 1852 to 1986.
http://www.globedemocrat.com/ is a site dedicated to the history of the old Globe newspaper with archival clippings and photos. This site states " Lately I've had a rush of registrations from people who I suspect are confused about this site versus the recently launched Globe-Democrat.com website, which uses the name of the old Globe newspaper but has no actual connection to the newspaper that was shut down in 1985, briefly revived, and shut down again in 1986." (emphasis supplied).

Again further evidence that there is no affilliation between the new web site "Globe-Democrat.com" (note the hypen as "Globedemocrat.com" belongs to the site dedicated to the history of the old Globe) and the old Globe newspaper.

Wikipedia is being used to mislead its readers to believe that this startup is a successor to, or otherwise related to the old Globe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Danocooper (talk • contribs) 22:30, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Tone Article on New Web Site Violate Wikipedia Terms that articles not read like advertisment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NOT#SOAPBOX

As noted the portion of the article on the new startup reads a marketing tool and advertisement. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Danocooper (talk • contribs) 23:03, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

My understanding of the problem
First off, here's how I got involved. I'm an administrator here on Wikipedia and I noticed a number of changes to this article while patrolling article changes. Looking at the article's history, it was clear that there was an edit war occurring and I immediately placed the article under full protection. I then let each of you know that I'd try to help get this resolved. To be clear, I had never before heard of the newspaper or website. I don't have any vested interest in this. Also, since I'm now involved I will not take any administrative actions with respect to this article until we've figured things out; I'll ask another uninvolved admin to help.

This may take a few days. Please be patient! I have a life off of Wikipedia and in my experience resolving content disputes is far from simple. Please also refer to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines page for some guidance.

Ok, I've started to wade my way through this. Please let me know if I have this wrong. The dispute is over which entity -- the historical but now defunct newspaper or the new online site -- the article should be about.
 * 1) The St. Louis Globe-Democrat newspaper was published for many years and ceased publication in 1986. diff of March, 2009 version of article
 * 2) In Dec, 2009 a new online newspaper started Globe-Democrat.com using the same name. A print publication under another name and now the Globe-Democrat name has been published for ~15 years. dif1 dif2 Dec 11 version
 * Tod and perhaps others (editing via IPs) wants to change the content of the article to reflect the current website, while keeping mention of the historical newspaper.
 * argues that this is a hijacking of the existing article by an entity that is not notable enough to have an article of its own.

Assuming my understanding is correct, here are some possibilities. My initial feeling is that suggestions 2 or 3 may be better in this case, but 1 may also work. Remember that any new article requires that the subject be notable, and that the information be referenced. I look forward to your responses. -- Flyguy649 talk 05:50, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Integrate the new with the old, as Tod was trying to do
 * 2) Have two separate articles, with the old paper at St. Louis Globe-Democrat and the new paper/website at St. Louis Globe-Democrat online or something
 * 3) Have St. Louis Globe-Democrat as a disambiguation page with links to separate articles about the newspaper and newpaper/website
 * If there's no clear connection between the two entities (except for the name) then a new article should be created for the website (if it meets notability requirements). This seems pretty clear to me per WP:TOPIC. -- Neil N   talk to me  06:01, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Flyguy you have isolated the issues stated correctly (and much more succinctly than me (lol)).

NeilN however raised the "notability" requirment. But for the common name, it is doubtful that the new Globe would satisfy the notability requirements. The site, based admittedly on sketchy inferential analysis, does not appear to be highly trafficed. Other than two local news stories on the trademark dispute, there appears to be no secondary source material on the new Globe.

In addition to meeting notability criteria, two other issues should be addressed concerning any article content on the new Globe. 1.Whether the contents of any article on the new Globe constitute prohibited "advertising" as set out in the wikipedia guidelines. 2. Who is drafting the new Globe edits and whether that drafter/editor is an employee/owner of the new Globe. I cannot state who is drafting the edits on the new Globe. By inference, it appears that the party drating the edits on the new Globe is affilliated with thar organization. Edits such as listing the entire purported staff, misleading information on the connection with the old Globe, and inclusion of the self-serving mission statement are all suspect. Those edits, along with the two persons disputing my edits, were all done anonymously.

As an aside, you state you have no familiarity with the old Globe. To understand the old Globe, note that one of its famous alumni is Pat Buchanan who got his start as a Nixon speechwriter and old Globe writer. Buchanan's politics are certainly not mine.However,his politics were in representative of the old Globe--a staunchly conservative newspaper. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Danocooper (talk • contribs) 19:18, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Apologies. I have not been ignoring the article, just busy. -- Flyguy649 talk 07:37, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Edit protection ended
The edit protection I added a couple of weeks back has expired. There has been no discussion here about what the article should be about other than the bit above. To me, it looks like it should be about the original paper, with the new publication at a new article (option 2 above). My 2 cents, but I'd be interested to hear from others. Oh, if warring resumes, I will request re-protection. -- Flyguy649 talk 06:18, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I would go with option 2. -- Neil N   talk to me  06:27, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Same old issue
Attempts to link a non-notable entity to the original organization have begun again. please read the discussions above and then comment if you wish. --Neil N  talk to me 14:27, 17 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I was beginning to reinstate some of 's additions, heavily edited, under § Later name usages. But in checking out the content I found that this person is certainly the same as Richard T. Pisani, President and COO of American Marketing Group, Inc., aka AMG, and so his edits clearly fall under WP:COI as well as spam.
 * So I will not reinstate his additions. I am, however, going ahead with subsectioning § Later name usages. (Also inserting an explicit References § to place his single ref properly and make it visible in preview.) --Thnidu (talk) 19:20, 17 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Everything linked by that editor has COI / spam written all over it - the link for the charitable organization says the President is Pisani. No independent secondary sources showing anything for notability.  Agree and support the removal. Ravensfire ( talk ) 19:26, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, good find. And Wikipedia now adds references to the bottom of talk pages unless there's a template in the right section. --Neil N  talk to me 19:29, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, but the automatic add doesn't show in beta mobile preview (or other front ends?), so it can be very startling and confusing when it shows up unexpectedly and with no header, looking like part of one's own comment! That's why I added the subhead and call explicitly. --Thnidu (talk) 19:08, 19 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Dear Mr. Pisani, Please stop trying to advertise your organization here.
 * That's not what Wikipedia is for. Please read What Wikipedia is not.
 * The mere existence of your organization and its use of the name of a bygone much greater and truly notable publication do not warrant its inclusion. Please read  Notability.
 * Even if your organization were notable enough to merit inclusion in Wikipedia, you would not be permitted to write about it. Please read Conflict of interest.
 * Please STOP your juvenile attempts to keep putting your spam into this article or anyplace else on Wikipedia. (Please read Edit warring.) I'm sure you can find plenty of other places to advertise your organization, and if it is any good, it will attract customers/followers. But not through Wikipedia. --Thnidu (talk) 19:01, 19 April 2015 (UTC)(edit)

Alleged Connection to FBI's COINTELPRO
I recently read a article in STL magazine alleging that Globe Democrat reporters were actively working with the FBI during the 1960's and 70's to influence local policy in Saint Louis/Midwest Region. https://www.stlmag.com/The-Plot-to-Kill-a-King/ I will be attempting to verify details with external and primary sources https://www.stlmag.com/The-Plot-to-Kill-a-King/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.163.49.24 (talk) 08:05, 15 January 2019 (UTC)