By Mark Lagerkvist
Over the decades, I interviewed thousands of cops, crooks, saints, scoundrels, public officials and private figures. But my favorite on-camera conversation never reached the light of day.
That changes now. This post features the first public release of a long-lost interview with the late Bob Greene. It’s a true artifact in the annals of investigative journalism.
Greene, the legendary Newsday editor who won two Pulitzer Prizes, was a gamechanger. He was a charismatic figure, a beacon who inspired generations of reporters to do their best work.
He was a founding father of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), a non-profit group that now boasts 5,000 members. Greene famously led the Arizona Project, an investigation triggered by the murder of Phoenix newspaper reporter Don Bolles.
Bolles was killed by a car bomb while covering mob-related corruption in 1976.
To continue Bolles’ work, Greene assembled a team of 37 volunteer journalists from competing news organizations. The six-month cooperative effort resulted in a 23-part investigative series – 80,000 words long – published in newspapers across the country.
“You don’t kill a reporter and get away with it,” Greene told me. “If you kill him or her, we will band together. We will multiply his or her work so that killing them is meaningless. In a sense, it was to buy an insurance policy for all of you who work in this field.”
# # #
In 2007, I received a call from IRE headquarters in Missouri. At age 78, Greene was unable to travel from New York to Phoenix to address the IRE conference commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Arizona Project.
IRE wanted a video greeting from Bob to be shown to 1,000 attendees at the conference’s main event at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel. But there was more to be done.
Surprisingly, Bob’s firsthand history of the organization had not been captured on video. With his health in decline, this could be a last opportunity to preserve his eyewitness account.
There was no budget for this pro bono mission. I turned to Patrick Dolan, my former boss at News 12, for assistance. Pat graciously lent me photographer David Leibowitz to shoot the interview in the backyard of Bob’s home on Long Island.
I had first met Bob 31 years earlier at IRE’s inaugural conference in Indianapolis. As a longtime member who had served on its board of directors, I welcomed this opportunity.
The video begins with Bob’s three-minute welcome for IRE members at the upcoming Phoenix conference. The 50-minute interview follows. Greene recalls the origins of IRE. the Arizona project and the reporting team known as the “Desert Rats.”
In the second part of the interview, Bob reveals about his role in helping authorities obtain the confession of John Adamson, who admitted planting the bomb on Bolles’ car. Adamson implicated businessman Kemper Marley for ordering the hit on Bolles. Marley was never charged in the crime.
Greene also discusses the affect the Arizona Project had on statewide politics. Quoting state attorney general Bruce Bobbitt, Greene recalls: “We dragged Arizona kicking and screaming into the 20th Century.” Bobbitt later served as governor, then as U.S. Secretary of the Interior in the Clinton Administration.
In the wake of the Arizona Project, IRE’s future was jeopardized by libel suits seeking millions of dollars in damages.
The pivotal case was brought by Marley, who offered to settle for $50,000 and an apology before the trial began. Greene and IRE rejected the deal.
“There was no way I would sign an apology to a man I believe was responsible for the murder of Don Bolles,” recalls Greene.
A Phoenix jury dismissed the counts of libel and invasion of privacy against IRE, but awarded millionaire Marley a mere $15,000 as compensation for his “emotional distress” from the stories. For IRE, the outcome ensured its survival.
Since the Arizona Project, IRE has grown into a movement dedicated to training and educating thousands of journalists in the craft of investigative journalism.
“It created a culture of cooperation among reporters,” Greene reflects.
The interview concludes with Greene’s outlook, circa 2007, for the future of investigative reporting – an expensive and time-consuming endeavor challenged in an era of belt-tightening and downsizing in the news business.
“It’s in our nature to want to expose wrongdoing, to want to level the playing field so that politicians don’t oppress the ordinary person,” says Greene. “I think it’s going to continue, but we’re going through perilous times right now. It’s got to bubble up from within.”
Bob offers timeless advice on how to convince editors and managers to pursue investigative stories. He wants to share his knowledge and experience with his fellow journalists.
# # #
That was the last time I saw Bob Greene. He died from heart failure in April 2008.
Soon after his death, I urged IRE to make the full interview available to its members and the public at large.
“There are plans to use it, and it is not just sitting and collecting dust,” IRE’s president assured me in an email response. “So don’t worry.”
Yet to my best knowledge, it was never released – with the exception of a brief, uncredited 12-second clip used in this promotional video on IRE history.
Twelve years later, I stumbled across a copy of my interview while rummaging through a storage bin, gathering stories and videos for Lagerkvist Online.
Bob Greene is gone. Yet through this rare interview, a guiding spirit of investigative journalism continues to live.
Thanks again, Bob!
MORE BLASTS FROM THE PAST
Investigative journalism is a craft that demands training, preferably with the help of experienced reporters and editors willing to share their expertise, knowledge and know-how. While some colleges offer classes on investigative reporting, that’s only a first step in such an education.
I was lucky to learn from some of the best – especially my colleagues in Investigative Reporters & Editors (IRE). In turn, I’ve attempted to pay it forward by speaking at numerous conferences and seminars held by IRE, Radio-Television News Directors Association and other non-profit groups.
As part of that effort, I’ve written articles for professional journals that focus on the nuts and bolts of successful investigations. As part of a virtual library on Lagerkvist Online, here are I’m pleased to some of those articles from past years:
“Gee I knocked the Ayatollah Khomeini off the front page,” said Milwaukee Circuit Judge Christ T. Seraphim. “I must be a pretty important guy.”
That was Seraphim’s reaction when the Wisconsin Judicial Commission charged him with more than 90 violations of court rules. The commission’s unprecedented action was prompted by my investigation.
CLICK HERE TO READ “THE VERY BEST JUSTICE,” PUBLISHED BY THE IRE JOURNAL IN ITS SPRING 1980 ISSUE
This is a story of Robin Hood in reverse. The rich — through fraud and corporate intrigue — shamelessly steal millions of dollars from a program designed to help the needy with medical expenses. The money is used to build a luxurious complex for business expenses
This is not a fairy tale. This story details an investigation that led to 142 felony counts of Medicaid fraud filed by the attorneys general of Michigan and Wisconsin.
WZZM-TV in Grand Rapids was once a success story that could warm a newsman’s heart. This is a tale of how the station’s journalistic soul was sold for a price — Robert Price and his namesake Price Communications Corp.
Note: Washington Journalism Review, later renamed American Journalism Review, ceased publication in 2015.
This is a story about secret deals, hidden conflicts of interest and legal “kickbacks.” Many HMOs pay doctors large sums of money for NOT referring their patients to specialists, hospitals and other medical providers.
And finally…
We all know the five W’s of journalism – Who, What, Where and How. But do you know the five I’s of investigative reporting?
This tipsheet has made the rounds since I compiled it nearly 25 years for an IRE conference. It was resurrected it for a panel at the 2016 IRE gathering at New Orleans.
