The Snowball_ Warren Buffett and the Business of Life - Alice Schroeder [549]
31. Interviews with Mick Rood, Warren Buffett.
32. The Sun published on Thursdays and worked around its own production schedule while trying to cut off the opportunity for a preemptive response through the Omaha World-Herald.
33. Paul Williams, Investigative Reporting and Editing, and Craig Tomkinson, “The Weekly Editor: Boys Town Finances Revealed,” Editor & Publisher, April 15, 1972.
34. Transcript, Mick Rood interview with Msgr. Nicholas Wegner.
35. The reporters interviewed thirteen of the seventeen board members. Two were too old or ill to be interviewed.
36. Monsignor Schmitt, speaking at a press conference on May 22, 1972. Press conference transcript.
37. Interview with Randy Brown.
38. Paul N. Williams, “Boys Town, An Exposé Without Bad Guys.”
39. Michael D. LaMontia, director of the State Department of Public Institutions, which oversaw Boys Town, called the Sun’s criticisms those of a “vocal minority” that should be ignored in a letter to Wegner, May 25, 1972. The Sun, he said, speaks “from a very low profile and is really not heard by many people. The person being attacked can let it die a natural death….” He referred to the reporters as “scavengers” and “professional losers.” Possibly Mr. LaMontia was merely being empathetic, but his tone seemed a little more charged-up than that.
40. Paul N. Williams, “Boys Town, An Exposé Without Bad Guys.”
41. “Boys Town Bonanza,” Time, April 10, 1972; “Boys Town’s Worth Put at $209 Million,” Los Angeles Times, March 31, 1972; “Money Machine,” Newsweek, April 10, 1972; Tomkinson, “The Weekly Editor.”
42. “Other Boys Homes Affected by Boys Town Story,” Omaha Sun, December 14, 1972.
43. Undated two-page letter from Francis P. Schmitt to Boys Town supporters printed on Boys Town stationery; “Boys Town May Take Legal Steps to Initiate New Programs, Policies,” Omaha Sun, December 14, 1972; correspondence between Paul Williams and the “Irreverent Reverend” Lester Kinsolving of the National Newspaper Syndicate Inc. of America, a muckraking religious columnist widely syndicated through the San Francisco Chronicle. Schmitt was angry because, among other things, Boys Town’s marketing domicile had backfired: Kinsolving wrote a follow-up story in the Washington Evening Star, “Boys Town Money Machine” (November 4, 1972), and datelined it Boys Town, Nebraska. Schmitt (incorrectly) felt that he had no right to do so.
44. Paul Critchlow, “Boys Town Money Isn’t Buying Happiness,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 20, 1973.
45. The Reverend Monsignor Wegner, letter to a man who said he was an employee of the San Francisco Examiner and worked in the composing room, June 1, 1973. The man wrote Lester Kinsolving at the San Francisco Chronicle and asked that his name not be used in a story, probably because he was offering it to a competing paper. Kinsolving apparently forwarded this material to Buffett.
46. Used with permission of the Omaha Press Club Foundation.
47. Warren Buffett letter to Edward Morrow, April 21, 1972.
48. Memo from Paul Williams to Buffett, October 13, 1972, including Buffett’s comments.
49. Mick Rood note to personal files, January 19, 1973. Transcript, Mick Rood interview with Msgr. Nicholas Wegner.
50. The award was to “The Sun Newspapers of Omaha, of The Sun Newspapers of Omaha: For uncovering the large financial resources of Boys Town, Nebraska, leading to reforms in this charitable organization’s solicitation and use of funds contributed by the public.” It was the first time a weekly paper won for Local Investigative Specialized Reporting (although according to Pulitzer Center staff, weeklies had won before in categories other than investigative reporting).
51. However, Monsignor Wegner was described as “frail” and had had several recent surgeries. See Paul Critchlow, “Boys Town Money Isn’t Buying Happiness.”
52. Among the consultants’ findings was that the Boys Town staff morale was now low, with many long-tenured employees having worked for years on church-mouse wages on the impression that Boys Town was barely getting