At a Christmas party several years ago, Steve Crews sat down beside me and asked me what I thought about Tajikistan. I had no thoughts (I bet you don’t either). It’s one of the Soviet Socialist Republics that got away from Moscow, Crews explained, and it’s one of the poorest, most backward, and repressive places on earth.
Crews had been a Tribune reporter before joining the dark side—PR—and he was the poet laureate of these annual Christmas parties, where reporters abounded. When the hour got late, we’d gather round and Crews, by demand, would recite for us the latest misadventures of his alter ego, Frederick J. Auerbach. That’s the “existentially challenged Frederick J. Auerbach,” as I described him in a 1992 column introducing both Steve and Fred. (I think “existentially challenged” describes most of us journalists, our job being to identify reality and describe it, without lifting a finger to even muss its hair.)
“I left journalism,” Crews once told me, “because I was always wanting to raise my hand. When I was covering things, I kept thinking, ‘These assholes don’t know how to do things. Let me take over.’ I’d be at a block club, and they’d be talking about fixing the curbs, which is why the club existed. And then all of a sudden their debate would be over what should be their position on the war in Vietnam, and they’d all start shouting and their group would break up. I saw that happen 80 times. Nobody asks the reporter’s opinion. You offer it, but nobody asks for it.”
