Walter G. Cowan, former States-Item editor, dies at 98 Times Picayune 04-13-2010 Submitted By NOVA ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ Walter G. Cowan, a gentle, meticulous journalist who capped a 43-year career by editing The States-Item, New Orleans' afternoon newspaper, for a decade, died over the weekend. He was 98. He started at The New Orleans Item as a reporter in 1936. After leaving town for four years to work in public relations, Mr. Cowan returned to New Orleans to work on The New Orleans States, first as a reporter, then as city editor. After the two papers merged in 1958, he became managing editor of The States-Item in 1964 and, in 1969, editor. He retired in 1979. Throughout Mr. Cowan's career, co-workers respected the thorough professionalism that made him scrutinize everything, from the spelling of a name to the credibility of a source, to ensure that a story was solid. "Walter was a great editor, a mentor and a friend. He had the toughest of journalistic standards and drives for journalistic excellence, but he was always a gentleman," said Times-Picayune publisher Ashton Phelps Jr. "Walter Cowan nurtured generations of New Orleans journalists," said Jim Amoss, editor of The Times-Picayune. "He loved the newspaper, he loved the city and, as editor, championed the telling of its stories in our pages." "My great love of Walter was based on his always wanting to help the reporter do a better job," said Rosemary James, a former States-Item reporter. "He was one of the best at that. He would take your story and explain why he thought it was weak and give you his suggestions for strengthening the content of the story and the style." "When I think of Walter, I think of the calm at the eye of the hurricane," said Charles A. Ferguson, his successor. Starting off as a paper boy Born in Bond, Miss., to parents who died when he was a teenager, Mr. Cowan earned money as an adolescent by delivering The (Gulfport-Biloxi) Daily Herald. The 100 customers on his six-mile route paid Mr. Cowan 15 cents a week, and the he got to keep half of it: $7.50 a week. By the time he threw the paper each morning, he had already read most of it while he was rolling it up. The paper route and his interest in reading led him to begin submitting sports stories to The Daily Herald and to The Times-Picayune, he wrote in a privately published family history. "To my surprise, the newspapers printed the stories as I sent them," Mr. Cowan wrote. "My friends and teachers were impressed, and I even began entering The Times-Picayune's Biggest News of the Week essay contest." One of his rivals was Hale Boggs, the future congressman from New Orleans, who was submitting winning entries from his home in nearby Long Beach, Miss. With a $10-per-week job as a publicist to pay his expenses, Mr. Cowan entered Perkinston Junior College (now the Perkinston campus of Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College). After finishing the two-year curriculum there, Mr. Cowan stayed out of school for a year to earn money so he could enter the University of Missouri. With $125 in his wallet, Mr. Cowan enrolled; he earned his meals by waiting tables, and he stoked a furnace in return for a room. While working on the copy desk of The Columbia Missourian, Mr. Cowan befriended the seven members of The Reveille staff who had left Louisiana State University rather than submit to Huey P. Long's censorship. A reporter, earning $15 a week One of those contacts paid off. When Mr. Cowan arrived in New Orleans in 1936, looking for work, one of the Reveille Seven, David McGuire, was on The Item staff and helped steer his friend to a job as a reporter for $15 a week. McGuire also introduced Mr. Cowan to Margaret Martinez, whom he would marry in 1940. She died in May 2002. Mr. Cowan became an assistant city editor and helped coordinate coverage of the Louisiana Scandals, the dealings of Long's cronies that came to light after Long's assassination in 1935. As a result, a host of officials wound up serving prison terms, including the governor, LSU's president and members of the Orleans Levee Board. This period provided "the most excitement, and greatest results, of any political upheaval in my career," Mr. Cowan wrote. "The New Orleans newspapers, through the coverage of the Scandals, brought a lot of national attention to the state." But in 1941, he moved to Mobile, Ala., to become a public-relations and advertising representative for the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio Railroad. Meanwhile, World War II was raging. Toward the end of that conflict, The States asked Mr. Cowan to return to New Orleans as a reporter, but he had a more pressing concern: He had been reclassified 1-A and was told to be ready to report for active duty in three weeks. But V-E Day intervened. Because of that factor and the fact that he had a wife and child to support, Mr. Cowan's name was dropped to the bottom of the list. He headed back to New Orleans, where he covered the mayoral campaign in which reform candidate deLesseps S. "Chep" Morrison unseated Robert S. Maestri. After nine months, Mr. Cowan was named city editor, a job he held 18 years. He was named managing editor in 1964. Making changes The States and The Times-Picayune shared the same publisher, the same building and the same editorial board. Part of that changed in 1969, when separate editorial departments were established. Mr. Cowan was named editor. During his years in that job, the newspaper: Moved from an eight-column to a six-column format to make the paper easier to read. Introduced Lagniappe, a Saturday tabloid with entertainment information and television listings, and Every Wednesday, a consumer section. Replaced the female-oriented Society section with a Family section that emphasized stories involving men and women. Changed the delivery time for the Saturday paper from afternoons to mornings. Despite his genteel manner, Mr. Cowan showed he could be tough, as he was when Gov. Edwin W. Edwards complained about the paper's relentless coverage of the cost overruns and delays that beset construction of the Louisiana Superdome in the early 1970s. Mr. Cowan never flinched. "The best way to change the public image of the Dome is to see that it is operated efficiently," he said. "If we had had that from the start, then there would be no problems. "I agree that the Superdome should have a better image, but The States-Item does not intend to forfeit its right to report fully what goes on at the Dome. We do want to cooperate in making the Dome a success, but we will tell the story as it happens." The Jim Garrison investigation The most explosive story of his later years was one that The States-Item helped break: Orleans Parish District Attorney Jim Garrison's free-wheeling investigation of President Kennedy's assassination. It started late in 1966, three years after the slaying, when police reporter Jack Dempsey wrote in his weekly column that Garrison was preparing to launch the inquiry. No other news organization did anything with the story, Mr. Cowan wrote. Three months later, Dempsey suggested follow-up work. A search of City Hall records resulted in evidence of extravagant spending, some for trips out of the country. David Snyder, who had unearthed the City Hall files, and Dempsey gave their information to James, who wound up writing the story and confronting Garrison for a reaction. "Garrison looked at it, threw it on the floor and claimed his probe would be ruined if we published it," Mr. Cowan wrote. "I gave the signal to publish." It became a sensational story around the world. Eventually, Clay Shaw, a New Orleans businessman, was indicted and tried on a charge of conspiring to kill the president. A jury acquitted him in less than an hour. Throughout the story's stormy developments, "I relied on Walter for good common sense," James said. "We had others in the newsroom who were willing to go off half-cocked, but not Walter. Walter kept all of that on an even keel. . . . He never expressed an opinion, which was appropriate for a man in his position." Late career as an author In 1977, Mr. Cowan delivered the commencement address at his alma mater, exhorting Missouri graduates to exercise fully the media's watchdog role, especially in covering corporations, and to fight in courts for the rights of the press. In introducing Mr. Cowan, the dean, Roy M. Fisher, said the speaker "reflects the strongest and most estimable qualities of American journalism." His career, Fisher said, "epitomizes the traditions of strong reporting that digs behind the scenes, yet remains objective and provides the reader a balanced story about which he can make up his own mind." After retiring from journalism, Mr. Cowan turned to writing books. With John Chase, Charles L. "Pie" Dufour, O.K. LeBlanc and John Wilds, he wrote a guidebook, "New Orleans: Yesterday and Today" (1984) and, with Wilds, "Louisiana Yesterday and Today: A Historical Guide to the State" (1996). A former vice president of The Times-Picayune Publishing Corp., he was a former president of the Louisiana-Mississippi Associated Press Association and a recipient of the Monte M. Lemann Award for contributions to the advancement of civil service. Survivors include a son, William Douglas Cowan of Albuquerque, N.M., a daughter-in-law, Nancy Mills Cowan of New Orleans, six grandchildren; and 11 great grandchildren.