Sulzberger didn't back down in Narragansett confrontation (original) (raw)

Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, just named publisher of The New York Times, took part in an internship program at The Providence Journal from 2004 to 2006, and he made an impression.

Especially in Narragansett.

Working in the news bureau the paper then maintained in Wakefield, he set out in the spring of 2005 to write a story about the Narraganset Lions Club. The club, fourth-largest Lions Club in the United States, raised over $100,000 a year for charity and was, he wrote, "a Who's Who of the town's elite" -- except that women were not allowed to join.

In the course of the story, he described a visit to the bureau from Gene Wills, a former club president and then the chairman of the Democratic Town Committee. Wills, Sulzberger wrote, came "to warn a reporter not to mention the club's all-male membership. The last reporter -- from a local weekly -- to cross the Narragansett Lions was fired under pressure from the club, he said. He said he had just spoken to some influential club members, who threatened to pull advertising from The Journal if a story was written."

Sulzberger, then in his mid-20s, wasn't intimidated. Neither was The Journal, which published the story and included Wills' threat.

The following January, the Lions at last admitted women to their ranks.

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