Bronze Shoes for "Big Mac"

By William McWhirter

An old-school editor steps down, leaving behind a better paper

There was nothing routine about the retirement at the Miami Herald this month when Executive Editor John McMullan, 62, ended more than 30 years of crusading against crime and exposing the permissive foibles of Miami's hustlers, hoodlums and hoodwinking officeholders. If his retirement was not exactly the end of an era, it was certainly a milestone in Miami's 87-year history.

Under McMullan's one-man rule over both the news and editorial departments, the Herald (circ. 443,000) often managed the difficult feat of remaining fresh and vigorous while dominating its market and growing rich. McMullan also set a rarer standard among U.S. dailies: a newspaper that consistently is crisply written, carefully edited and cleanly organized. The lively news town and the combative editor were made for each other, and McMullan molded the Herald for the town. Says City Manager Howard Gary: "McMullan is the conscience that all cities need." Adds Kurt Luedtke, a former Herald colleague and author of the 1981 film Absence of Malice: "I hope that he is not the last of those morally indignant city editors, but there are few left like him."

McMullan returned few of the compliments. Instead, his last week was mostly business as usual. He worried out loud about why the Herald had not editorialized harder for increases in the state education budget, and felt badly let down by a recent series on zoning concessions. "The trouble was we didn't send anyone to jail," he lamented. "We're proud of explanatory journalism these days, but I think a couple of convictions is a wonderful way to explain the problem." In the final installment of his regular Sunday editorial-page column, McMullan skipped through a few farewell niceties, then unleashed a parting attack on the chaotic overdevelopment of Miami's congested downtown area. Said Bill Long, the Herald's chief of correspondents: "He was tough as nails right up to his last edition."

As most Miamians know, it would be a mistake to dismiss McMullan simply as the town grouch. Renowned though he is for his cantankerousness, McMullan maintains the charm, the manner and the vocabulary of a gentleman, even as now, in retirement, he drives to break 80 on the golf course and master his new IBM Personal Computer, a staff going-away gift. With a similar determination to preserve integrity in private and public, he insisted that the suicide in 1976 of his daughter, a psychiatric nurse, be fully reported in the Herald. Both the paper's staff and knowledgeable professional observers generally credit McMullan with most of the major innovations that have brought the Herald three Pulitzer Prizes in the past four years, including this year's award for its editorial crusade against the Haitian detention camps in Miami.

He expanded the Herald's domestic and foreign bureau system to its present bases in Atlanta, New York City, Washington, Jerusalem, Peking, Santiago, Rio de Janeiro and El Salvador, as well as adding a correspondent on Latin America based in Washington. The Herald's coverage of Central America is generally lauded as alert and thorough. The paper was among the first to launch a weekly business and financial supplement as well as a Sunday magazine, Tropic.

McMullan was also instrumental in expanding the Herald's staff to reflect the strong ethnic diversity of Miami's community: without a single black staffer 15 years ago, the Herald now has 20 black reporters, a black editor and a black columnist. Even greater strides have been made toward the city's Latin population. The Herald is the only large metropolitan newspaper in the country to publish a daily Spanish edition (circ. 66,000). There are two Latin columnists and 40 staff members, including a member of the editorial board, to help cover the city's politically potent Cuban community. Nevertheless, assimilation is hardly complete: top management is still clubby, male and "Anglo."

McMullan seldom produced results from either his community or his own staff by asking politely. Miami Police Chief Kenneth Harms, who has battled with McMullan over the causes of Miami's recurrent racial disturbances, police brutality and civilian review issues, does not regret McMullan's departure. Says he: "It will be like missing a sore tooth." Despite the paper's editorial excellence and its emphasis on local community reporting, many Miamians resent the Herald's power and tone of parental authority, often viewing it as an extension of McMullan's own abrasive personality.

In the city room, his methods, known as "Big Mac attacks," were brusquely confrontational, but at least they were consistent: he was equally hard on everyone. "I have worked for John McMullan and I have worked against John McMullan," roasted David Kraslow, publisher of the Miami News, in a McMullan testimonial last month, "and, believe me, there's not a damn bit of difference."

McMullan has been with the Knight (now Knight-Ridder) newspaper chain ever since 1957. When he was assigned to liven up its Washington bureau, his eagerness produced an uneasy rebuke from the bureau chief: "John, you were sent here to fill a vacuum, not overflow it." In 1970 McMullan left to execute a wholesale purge of the chain's newly acquired Philadelphia Inquirer. In three years, McMullan replaced a third of the paper's reporting staff, including virtually every department head. The overhaul was to turn the Inquirer into one of the strongest newspapers in the U.S.

He retains a keen appreciation of the maverick qualities of his adopted home town, which was only 30 years old when McMullan arrived with his family in 1926 at the age of four. "Miami is still trying to sort out its values," he says. "There was a time when if you had eliminated the ex-cons from the University of Miami's board of trustees, you would have taken off some of the best people in town." The McMullan style will be difficult to emulate. His successor, former Managing Editor Heath Meriwether, 39, will not try. Says he: "My approach is collegial and consensus building. Rather than fill John's shoes, I thought I would just bronze them and hang them on the wall."

--By William McWhirter This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.