Fenwick's Frolic

In its salute to National Newspaper Week, whose annual rituals of rededication are confined in most communities to lukewarm chicken luncheons and canned editorials, Maryland's Union News, Baltimore County's biggest weekly (circ. 12,000), decided this year to give readers a more piquant refresher course in press freedom. In a Page One editorial. Editor-Publisher W. Fen wick Keyser (Yale '35) confided that he put together a "front page which is by way of being a big joke to all of us fortunate people who enjoy the privileges of a free press." The joke: every news story on the page was bogus.

Having thus forewarned his readers, wealthy, fun-loving Fenwick Keyser, 45, a onetime Baltimore Sun reporter, gave the Page One play to a straight-faced report that County Executive Officer Michael J. Birmingham had been jailed "on charges of treason and sabotage." Listing other so-called "deviationists" and "disloyal leaders," the Union News ran pictures of two county officials under the caption WANTED. In an adjoining column Editor Keyser reported solemnly that a well-known Baltimore County contractor had "committed suicide by jumping into one of his own cement mixers" and had become "an integral part of the new wing on the County Court House." Said another story: LOCAL

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The only drawback to Editor Keyser's big joke was that the subjects of his phony stories failed to see it. Democrat Mike Birmingham promptly sued Republican Keyser--a longtime critic of his administration--for $1,000,000 damages. A second suit (for $500,000) was filed by Chairman of the County Property Review Board Christian H. Kahl, whom Keyser had playfully reported to be "hiding out in the sand dunes near Ocean City." County State's Attorney Frank H. Newell has summoned a grand jury to consider criminal proceedings against the editor. Last week, as other victims of his refresher course threatened defamation suits, frolicsome Fenwick was off on a long-planned trip to Alaska.

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