NOTE: For the record, today’s post is #300.
Occasionally Frank Daniels Jr., the publisher of The News & Observer for most of my time there, would stop me on the back steps of The N&O and ask me about a story I was working, or had worked. A few times, not many, he sent for me to come to his office.
He never gave me instructions, do this, don’t do that, I guess he just wanted in on the news. And, after all, it was his newspaper.
On one occasion, I don’t remember what the story was about but I clearly remember that it involved a rich guy, Frank’s secretary called me on the phone and said he wanted to see me.
I was not raised around money —brother, sister, that’s an understatement — and although I’ve met a few rich people I like, Frank Jr. foremost among them, I’m not comfortable around those kind of people. I prefer the company of “mortgage payers,” the term one multimillionaire I interviewed used to describe me and my kind.
The fact is, I guess, I’m biased against rich people.
Anyway, I went down to the second floor, to Frank’s office. We talked about a story I was working and I told him, “This guy is as rich as Midas and I never saw a rich guy you could trust as far as you could throw him.”
Those words were not out of my mouth before I realize that was not the smartest thing to say to a man whose family owned newspapers worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
But Frank didn’t even blink.
Coming Friday: You May Find This Odd