I'm doing some academic research and trying to get in touch with Steve Benson, hoping he hung onto some of the documents he's talked about from the 80s.
I tried emailing through his newspaper with no response. Does he hang out here anymore? Anyone got an email address for him?

Thanks in advance

He lost his job at the beginning of the year, unfortunately. Hope all is well with him.

He hasn't posted here in awhile. We hope that all is well with him.

Maybe if you send a message to admin that you'd like to exchange e-mail addresses with him, and *if* he's lurking here, he can send admin the same request to facilitate the exchange between the two of you.

He's been 'off the grid' here since prior to losing his job.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/2019 03:09PM by Amyjo.

He is on Facebook.

Sorry to hear that he lost his job. I wasn't aware of that. I know he comes and goes here, from time to time (as do I).

It seems like someone is trying to get some digs in at him on Wikipedia.

I was curious about why he lost his job, so Googled a bit, and was shocked to read on Wikipedia that he'd been fired. Then I looked at the referenced source and discovered that he wasn't fired at all, but unfortunately caught up in a round of corporate layoffs, which is significantly different re. his reputation.

The above was in the introductory line, where I thought it wasn't appropriate, so I moved it to a more logical spot within the bio, and also corrected the reason.

The intro also awkwardly described him as a "former" Pulitzer Prize winner, so I corrected that too.

I decided to logically restructure the info a bit more (bio/accomplishments/controversy), and while looking at the revision history I noticed a comment about possible vandalism, and that a previous revision had changed "laid off" to "fired."

Someone is clearly and deliberately trying to make the circumstances look worse than they were.

There have been some real pieces of work harassing him a lot of the time. He was an accomplished provocateur and they couldn't handle his opinions or wit. I always got a kick out of his hate mail he occasionally shared.

He was retirement age. If his company was anything like the ones I've worked for, they prepare sweet exit packages when they downsize or restructure at his level. I hope he is off riding his motorcycle or doing something he enjoys.

Thanks for cleaning up his Wiki page, GBS. Along with Dagny, I remember the hate mail that he used to share with us here. I'm not surprised that his Wiki page attracted one such hater.

I hope that he's off doing what he wants to do.

Cool! Thanks for the info.

Good grief. It didn't last 48 hours before some troll edited Steve's wikipedia bio again to say "fired" instead of laid off.
I undid the revision, and have requested that the page be protected from anonymous edits.

Anyone who's curious can see the undo revision details here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Steve_Benson_%28cartoonist%29&type=revision&diff=888440839&oldid=888378306

My thanks to all who provided information for the rest of us.

Likewise, I hope he has found something else he likes to do.

And someone who can reach him, please let him know that we all miss him and his sharp comments.

What sort of documents are you looking for? salamander stuff? sometimes the hoffmann and Martin Harris papers get displayed at the Universities. Have you been up to USU and and the U? There was piles of brighams stuff in Logan hidden away.

He's 65 years old. The line between getting laid off and retiring gets a bit blurry at that age.

Sorry to hear he is not at the AZ Republic anymore. I keep holding my breath afraid Pat Bagley will be cut in SLC. I still miss Cal Grondahl formerly of Ogden Standard Examiner.

My mom and grandmother used to work for the Ogden Standard as copy editors.

AZRepublic is owned by Gannett. At the time of his departure, there was a report how Gannett, Buzzfeed, Huffington Post and other MSMs were bringing in a lot of (cheaper) foreign workers, especially in graphics. Not sure if editorial cartooning is included in the graphics category.

I suspect it is not.

Editorial cartoons require both artistic skill and acute cultural and political sophistication. I doubt the latter is amenable to replication.

"Is that a gun in your pocket or are you amenable to replication?"
--May West, updated.

Admirably done!

I still take the print Republic; although it's getting harder to justify with the monthly subscription going up to $48.67 in April.

I've subscribed for 30+ years. Nowadays I stick with it mostly for the crossword page, to support Laurie Roberts and E.J. Montini, and to be able to spread out the sports page when I eat lunch at work. I do like to have it on the dining table for the fam to sift through also.

Without Benson the editorial cartoon seems to mostly come from Mike Luckovich, with Mike Lester and Lisa Benson (conservative) mixed in.

Haha. My bad. I was trying to reply to Caffiend...

A political editor can simply direct an illustrator (graphic artist) to draw a cartoon, eliminating a full-time editorial cartoonist. Could be an H1-B visa holder, for all we know. I've come up with a few humor gags, and had my son draw and submit them, sometimes successfully.

I was looking at the AZRepublic's website, but could not find a link to cartoons except for "2019 Political Cartoons from the USA TODAY Network." That looks like "Consolidated Cartoon Command Control Central," with content developed by Dr. Evil, I guess.

Perhaps somebody who has access to the AZ Republic print edition can tell us what's appearing on the editorial page.

Gannett is very Machiavellian.

When it downsized at the Arizona Republic, it was only two layoffs. Steve's and someone else's. That wasn't because of budget cuts. It was because of some other rationale.

Gannett is just a well oiled machine like any other corporation that is fueled by its bottom line.

I once worked for a Gannett paper in Boise as an undergraduate. If you didn't walk a certain walk or talk a certain talk, there was no loyalty there between staff. Some of its best workers could be let go in a heartbeat if a higher up decided they could.

Who is Steve Benson?

Shummy gotcha... He's probably spent more time in person with Steve than anyone else on the board.

Honest Lamanite...

I've been a little amazed that someone hasn't taken the position that Steve has been fired, laid off, terminated because he terminated his membership in the LDS church, I.e., he brought all this bad luck on himself.

On the other hand this situation may have opened up new avenues for his personal development and growth.

It'll be interesting, at least to me, what new worlds he will explore, and if we're lucky, he'll be sharing these adventures with us.

Best wishes Steve.

If he'd remained a Mormon his TBM buddies would be lamenting it was a 'test of his faith.'

Plenty of Mormons get fired, laid off, terminated, etc. It's called being human in the 21st century.

I have a cousin who writes for a big city newspaper (I'm being deliberately vague, but you'd know the city and paper).

He used to have a great gig, and his full time job was writing features, two or three a month. He's also written multiple books. Now his time is taken up reporting on mundane things like municipal water hearings. And he's glad to have it.

The newspaper business is tough for everyone nowadays. Readership has plummeted. People get their news and info off the TV or the Internet. Newspaper staffs are shrinking. They buy syndicated content, or share their own across multiple papers under the same ownership.

I don't know how newspapers are able to stay in business competing with Internet. I read the news online or watch cable news.

Very seldom do I actually buy a newspaper. I refuse to pay for an online subscription - there's no need to.

You can choose to pay for online subscriptions as a means of supporting quality old-school journalism in the face of modern news-aggregating and opinion on the internet.

My condo building used to have three subscribers to the local paper, myself included. We are all of a certain age. I had subscribed for many, many years, considering it a civic responsibility. Gradually we all stopped subscribing. The paper got more and more expensive, and at least in my case, the editors dropped features that were important to me. I wrote an email to the editor detailing my concerns, and basically got a shrug in reply. The paper stopped caring about me, so I stopped caring about the paper.

I only buy one issue per week now (the Friday edition which features weekend events.) I may at some point pick up an online subscription. Or, when I'm retired, I might read it at the local library. But I will no longer lay out big bucks to be a daily subscriber.

I read CNN online or NBC news, ABC news, etc.

When I go to online newspapers I can usually read the press releases for free. I seldom visit the websites so I don't exceed the minimum usage requirement when there is one. If there's a paywall, I boycott em.

There's enough free sites online that it seems senseless to me to pay. Most of the major news outlets have paid advertisers carry them so they can bring us the news.

I'm a cheap old curmudgeon. I also harvest cans and bottles. ($tudent neighborhood. Rich little brats can't be bothered to recycle.)

"What sort of documents are you looking for?"

He's talked about his interactions with his grandfather, McConkie, and others about evolution, creationism, and the age of the earth. I'm hoping he still has some of that correspondence, or drafts, letters, etc.

as he does come and go. He really taught me a lot about the lds church and how it runs from someone who saw it up close and personal.

Me too. I miss his unique insights and goofy alliteration.

I just took a peek at Steve's wikipedia page, to see if it had been vanalized again, and had a thought.

It occurred to me that if Steve was already contemplating retirement (given his age, that could very reasonably be the case), then a "layoff" could have actually been in his best interest.

Let me explain: In that Steve was laid off, then he not only gets his pension, but also whatever severance Gannet has to pay to terminate his employment, and those are usually based on years of service, so his would probably be sizable. IOW, he not only gets his pension, but also severance benefits, whereas if he just retired he'd only get the pension.

Believe it or not, there are times when being laid off can be a good thing. Back in 90's, when I was first working in the turbulent software industry, we used to TRY to get laid off. Why? Because we'd usually get 3 or 4 months pay, and could be working somewhere else the next day! Or take a month or two off to travel, or whatever. It was free money.

So, to all the TBM trolls who smugly like to think Steve was "fired," he may not only be laughing about this, but laughing all the way to the bank.

Exactly. Voluntary exit packages for downsizing can be very attractive for both parties.

Some places lay you off or let you go before you retire, so they DON’T have to pay you retirement if you are near the 20 or 30 year mark.( which ever it is with the place of employment)

Just bumping this, in case Steve happens to be around, or someone else sees it with contact info.

Thanks in advance

I had the privilege of being here years ago when Steve was here.

Where ever he is now, and what ever he's doing I hope he's

happy. I learned so much from him that I could never pay

him back. Those were the Golden Days of RFM. The oldtimers

here will agree.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2019 08:44PM by saucie.

Honk if you remember Catholic Girl.

Or Colonel Thomas Kane.

Steve could fill at least a dozen medium length threads on those wild and wooly earliest days as RfM's most celebrated neophyte.

Golden days indeed, Senorita Salsa.

Shummy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Honk if you remember Catholic Girl.
>
> Or Colonel Thomas Kane.
>
> Steve could fill at least a dozen medium length
> threads on those wild and wooly earliest days as
> RfM's most celebrated neophyte.
>
> Golden days indeed, Senorita Salsa.


Shumster... I'm honking like crazy. I miss those days...

we had some crazy fun times here. Remember how we all hated

Colonel Kane??? God what a hateful, crazy guy he was. I still

have friends on facebook that I met here, I'm sure you do too.

Now I'm all nostalgic about it... I wish we could have those

days back again .

I have to smile when I think back on my naïve notions of Steve formed during the Mecham days and his high profile exit from the one true church all played out in my daily newspaper.

I must admit I was pleasantly surprised as I came to know the man behind the byline and was quite relieved to see nary a sign of pretense or vainglory.

Hard to believe I know, but I bear my testimony that Steve is a humble man with very little to be humble about.

I mean if you think about it folks, how vain could he really be to willingly consort with the likes of me?

So true Shummy. I think that was part of his appeal, the fact

he was not pretentious at all, he was just his authentic self

with a great sense of humor and so sharp.

To the best of my knowledge he has no vices other than the demon diet Coke.

A particular anecdote which makes my point happened one night at an Exmo bash held at a lively local watering hole.

As the evening became progressively merry Steve and his motorcycle buddy approached me with queries about which alchoholic choices I might recommend to newbies who might wish to also become merry.

Then things went bad when their better halves surmised the gist of our conversation.

Needless to say they kept their keys in their pockets as they whiled away the rest of the night content with their virgin Cokes.

Good memories... !!!!

I can't resist using a bit of family lore that Ezra is said to have solemnly pronounced before his gathered clan:

"There are some things I've experienced that are so sacred that I cannot possibly share with my own loved ones."

I'll have to say an amen to that sentiment for all my loved ones that dwelleth here.

;)

It's dated 4-18...

https://www.gocomics.com/stevebenson/2019/04/18