{"id":922,"date":"2013-01-21T20:00:25","date_gmt":"2013-01-22T03:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/?p=922"},"modified":"2013-11-19T21:43:33","modified_gmt":"2013-11-20T04:43:33","slug":"to-comfort-the-afflicted-and-afflict-the-comfortable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/?p=922","title":{"rendered":"To comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"To%20comfort%20the%20afflicted%20and%20afflict%20the%20comfortable...\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p><a href=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/P.L.-R.F.-shot.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-973\" title=\"P.L. R.F. shot\" src=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/P.L.-R.F.-shot.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"210\" height=\"232\" srcset=\"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/P.L.-R.F.-shot.png 327w, https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/P.L.-R.F.-shot-270x300.png 270w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 210px) 100vw, 210px\" \/><\/a>Finley Peter Dunne, a reporter who cut a wide path during the golden age of \u201cmuckraker journalism\u201d coined that phrase and my favorite variation of it was uttered by Gene Kelly in Stanley Kramer\u2019s film on the Scopes Monkey trial, <em>Inherit The Wind<\/em>: \u201cIt\u2019s the job of the newspaper to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.\u201d Over the years I had a plaque with that dictum hanging over my desk in various newsrooms starting with the Newport Daily News, in Newport, R.I. It was my hometown paper and I learned the trade there as a cub reporter working for $50.00 a week.<\/p>\n<p>Years later, somewhat tarnished by age, the plaque was gaffer\u2019s tapped to the wall in my office at ABC News where I\u2019d graduated to telling stories on video. But whatever the medium, that phrase, as I see it, is a pretty concise description of the press\u2019s duty. Like many journalists, who came up when newspapers were printed with real galleys and hot type, I\u2019ve harbored the secret desire to own my own broadside &#8212; to be able to cover events without having to get my copy cleared through the slot desk. Somebody \u2013 maybe it was Ben Franklin himself &#8212; wrote that the only true freedom of the press belongs to those who own their own newspaper. But that dream was forever out of reach for me until now.<\/p>\n<p>Today marks my first ever blog and the launch of my new website. My own &#8220;paper&#8221; with delivery to the world. Until now I\u2019ve cut and pasted together something resembling a web presence via Apple\u2019s now defunct program iWeb.\u00a0But as I embark on new challenges as an investigative reporter, screenwriter, book publisher and non-fiction book author, I\u2019ve finally moved into the New Millennium with a splendid new site (designed by Tom Morine of the sba.com). It has the look and feel of a newspaper without the overhead. I can remake the front page in a couple of key strokes. Anybody who wants to read it can subscribe for free and not a single tree will fall to the newsprint monster. It\u2019s my hope that in the days ahead \u2013 not every day for God\u2019s sake \u2013 but a few times a week &#8212; to weigh in on my thoughts about the human condition.\u00a0To do some reporting. To discuss the topics that have made up the body of my work in the last third of my career: the FBI\u2019s counter-terrorism performance, the al Qaeda threat, organized crime, police corruption, presidential politics and whatever else feels like grist for the mill.<\/p>\n<p><strong>BURYING MY LEAD<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/M.-Inc-front-small-for-website1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-974\" title=\"M. Inc front small for website\" src=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/M.-Inc-front-small-for-website1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"164\" height=\"246\" srcset=\"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/M.-Inc-front-small-for-website1.jpg 234w, https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/M.-Inc-front-small-for-website1-200x300.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 164px) 100vw, 164px\" \/><\/a>The news that I should have led with as I backed into this, is that today, my new company, Tenacity Media Books, is publishing in ebook (Kindle) and trade paperback, two beautiful new editions of the iconic true crime classic: <strong>Murder, Inc. The Story of The Syndicate by Burton B. Turkus and Sid Feder.<\/strong>\u00a0 <a title=\"Murder Inc. Foreward\" href=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/?p=450\" target=\"_blank\">CLICK HERE<\/a> for a link to the new Foreward I wrote for the book and <a title=\"Murder Inc. mug shots etc.\" href=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/?p=660\" target=\"_blank\">CLICK HERE<\/a> to examine some of the new \u201cfront matter\u201d added by designer Walton Mendelson, including mug shots of the Murder, Inc. principals from \u201cLucky\u201d Luciano to Bugsy Siegel, crime scene photos of some of the 1,000 Murder, Inc. victims and maps of Brooklyn to locate the axis of this \u201ckilling machine\u201d that spanned the 1930\u2019s and 1940\u2019s. It was interdicted only by the courageous work of Assistant Brooklyn D.A. Burt Turkus.<\/p>\n<p>The beautiful new cover is by Wells Moore, an extraordinary graphic designer whom I\u2019m known since the 1970&#8217;s. <a title=\"Murder Inc. amazon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B008C3QG9Q\" target=\"_blank\">CLICK HERE<\/a> to buy it. As you\u2019ll see from the forward, <strong>Deal With The Devil,<\/strong>\u00a0due out next year from HarperCollins, picks up where <strong>Murder Inc<\/strong>. left off,. It documents the FBI\u2019s 32 year association with Colombo family capo Gregory Scarpa Sr. who was himself known as \u201cThe Killing Machine\u201d as well as \u201cThe Grim Reaper\u201d and \u201cHannibal Lecter.\u201d With more than 1,150 heretofore secret files from the Bureau documenting the FBI\u2019s three decade run with Scarpa Sr., my hope is that <strong>Deal With The Devil<\/strong>\u00a0will do for the half century from 1950 through the 1990\u2019s what <strong>Murder Inc<\/strong>. did for the post Prohibition and War years \u2013rip the covers off the secret world of organized crime.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Deal-small-title.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-1662\" title=\"Deal small title\" src=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Deal-small-title.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"178\" height=\"268\" srcset=\"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Deal-small-title.png 223w, https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Deal-small-title-199x300.png 199w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 178px) 100vw, 178px\" \/><\/a>The manuscript runs to more than 210,000 words and contains no less than 1,900 end notes of documentary annotation. The pub date is nearly a year from now: July 2nd, 2013. In the meantime, enjoy my little cyber newspaper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"To%20comfort%20the%20afflicted%20and%20afflict%20the%20comfortable...\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p>Finley Peter Dunne, a reporter who cut a wide path during the golden age of \u201cmuckraker journalism\u201d coined that phrase and my favorite variation of it was uttered by Gene Kelly in Stanley Kramer\u2019s film on the Scopes Monkey trial, Inherit The Wind: \u201cIt\u2019s the job of the newspaper to comfort the afflicted and afflict [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[125,330,155,467,122,134,479,1223,400,478,151,391,132,137,483,372,383,114,172,1211,139,388,160,454,387,109,380,110,495,136,119,401,395,382,113,386,252,496,106,485,128,108,393,470,305,133,481,375,390,311,472,142,377,373,392,379,249,135,402,130,111,115,381,116,374,486,462,484,131,397,399,406,118,105,141,129,167,384,385,107,376,126,140,291,1219,1220,480,468,469,138,317,473,121,461,127,471,398,396,251,250,112,1214,1222,463,389,117,394,477,371,378,494,120],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=922"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":980,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922\/revisions\/980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}