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Meet the Press (COVER STORY)In our attempt to help the media better appreciate the job of correctional peace oficers, we learn a thing or two about the newspaper business.by Lance Corcoran, CCPOA Chief of Communications 
I've said it here before: It's foolish to pick a fight with folks who buy ink by the barrel. So, rather than store up our own barrels for whatever future battles we may have with the media, I thought it might be smarter to take another route.
Like death and taxes, some things in life are certain. Corrections is a news maker. Corrections Department officials are news makers, as are inmates and correctional officers. And anything that happens on any day in any of our institutions is a potential news story. It just goes with the territory.And when any news story concerning Corrections occurs, CCPOA can count on getting a phone call or two from reporters looking for a quote. And therein lies the problem. Historically, the media's been rough on CCPOA and its membership. For years we've been clamoring for the same respect the media easily gives to other law enforcement officers. Though we've seen some improvement, it may be a fight that never ends. But taking a bit of the mystery out of both professions may ease that frustration. That said, how much do you know about the job of a news writer? Not much? I offered a local reporter a chance to sit down in our offices here in West Sacramento to get to know some of the details of his job, and to share his words with our members. At the very least, it's a step in the right direction. I'd like to begin by thanking Sacramento Bee staff writer Andy Furillo for granting us this opportunity to get a little bit inside the head of a newspaper reporter. While Andy and I are not strangers, and have known each other on a professional level for many years, it is my hope that our conversation here will enlighten our members about the duties of a news writer, while giving the longtime reporter greater insight to the work and lives of California's correctional peace officers. LANCE CORCORAN: Andy, how long have you been in the newspaper business and what motivated you to become a news reporter? ANDY FURILO: I've been in the newspaper business since 1972 when I got out of high school. My dad was a newspaper guy and the whole time growing up, he was a sports writer and sports editor at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. Growing up, the whole business just fascinated me. He was having a blast and a half, so I figured OK, that's what I want to do, because it looks like fun. When we were little kids, he'd take us to the paper and just the whole complete chaos of the scene in those days, we're talking the 1950s, was kind of like out of old movies. From the time I was a little kid I was always around the newspaper business and I just really liked what I saw. It looked like a lot of fun, I know my dad was having fun, he loved it. I wasn't particularly motivated coming out of high school, and my dad told me I could get a job as a copy boy at the L.A. Herald, so I did that. I eventually ended up going to college, and there was a time when, as a poly-sci (political science) major, I was wondering, "Do I want to go into the politics business or do I want to go into the newspaper business?" And I had to make a choice. LC: How long have you been covering the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation news, and did you have an interest in corrections or was this like any other assignment? AF: Well, the first prison story that I ever did was at the Herald Examiner in 1981, or '82. I was on the city desk in the morning, and I used to do my reporting and writing from the city desk until about 9 a.m. or something like that because I worked the overnight, or the 5 a.m. beat. Early in the morning one day, I got a phone call from one of your people, a CCPOA person at Chino who told me about this great story where the warden had been taking a guy who was a lifer, a convicted murderer, on shopping trips to Beverly Hills. I just thought that was the funniest thing ever, so I did a story on that and it was a page one story. So I kept calling him back for more stories. Give me more, you know, that's pretty good stuff, and he gave me a few over the years. That was how I first got into it. Then I did some stories in 1983 on overcrowding–it was a huge issue then. I was still at the LA Herald and I came up to do a story out of Folsom, which I guess was very different then than it is now. LC: Oh, yes. AF: It was a much harder place. I went out on the yard and here I'm a newspaper reporter doing a story and the next thing you know I'm just surrounded, it was just me and there was I think the PIO and maybe about 25 inmates standing around us, yelling their story. It just struck me as being kind of exciting. It was an exciting beat, and so I do a prison story here or there, you know, some corrections-related type stories, but I didn't really start doing it as a beat until maybe '93 or '94 at The Sacramento Bee. The paper wanted everyone who was in Metro to establish a mini beat on some state governmental agency. So I was already doing cops, and I was doing general assignment stuff, and I was doing criminal stuff, and I just said, "Hey, I'll do Corrections." I just picked it up from there, and that was right about when things really started to get cracking on this beat, about '93, '94. LC: And that sort of segues into my next question...What other areas are you generally assigned to cover? AF: Right now, Corrections is the main thing. I'm working out of the Capitol Bureau, so I will get assigned to do other kinds of government and politicsrelated stories. But since late 2006 I'd say probably 90 percent of what I've done, maybe 95 percent, has been Corrections. LC: You've had an opportunity to tour a number of California correctional facilities; what are your general impressions? AF: Of the prisons? LC: Well, how many have you toured? AF: Oh, let me see, I'd say probably half of them. LC: Half of them? AF: Pelican Bay, San Quentin, High Desert, all the prisons around here. Pleasant Valley, Salinas Valley, Chino, a couple of southern San Joaquin ones. LC: Your general impression? AF: I think they're all kind of different. Like, I was in San Quentin Saturday and I'd been there a couple of times in the last few weeks, and my impression is if I'm going to do time, that's where I want to do it. LC: Really? AF: Yeah, I mean they've got a baseball team, they have a tennis court and people are playing tennis and they seem to have a lot of citizen volunteers come in from the Bay Area who are doing all these different types of classes in the prison university project. There's just a lot of non-inmate, non-sworn volunteer kind of people. So they're seeing kind of more of a cross-section of society. Like when these outside baseball teams come in, they're seeing "normal" people. LC: I see. AF: You know, non-institutional people and so they seem less institutionalized. Now I could be wrong on that, but that's just my general impression. LC: Have you had an opportunity to tour prisons in other states? AF: No. LC: Never? AF: No, I've never been in a prison in another state. LC: Wow. Don't you think it would be nice to see a contrast some time? AF: Yeah, one of these days I have to get out to one of these private prisons that work with the state of California. LC: Are there any prisons you've toured that you dreaded going into? AF: Well, there was a time where I found it to be very depressing going into prisons. And I'd be very depressed coming out of them. LC: So there wasn't one individual prison? AF: No. No, it was like I found myself becoming very depressed over just the...oh, I don't know...it's like you've said a million times, it's just such a negative environment. Negative interactions and the numbers of people that are in it, and that people can allow themselves to fall to that level of the human condition. You know, through their own behavior and that's all they're going to get out of life is just to be in prison. It's a depressing thing, so there was a time when it just kind of bummed me out to go to them. For a long time, I'd say maybe three or four years, I didn't go to any, plus I was doing other kinds of stories. LC: I see. AF: But now it's kind of a job when I go, but some of them are definitely different than others. Like the Level 4s. You get a much different reaction from the inmates there than you do at places like San Quentin or even Old Folsom. LC: Do you find that geographical areas will sometimes affect that as well? You talked about the level of volunteers at San Quentin, do you see that change geographically? AF: Yeah. It seems to me Pleasant Valley is a bleak place. It just struck me as being a very bleak place to do time or to work. I haven't been to all the southern San Joaquin Valley prisons, but places like Corcoran and Pleasant Valley just struck me as being bleak places. High Desert–bleak. LC: I worked in Susanville, I loved Susanville. AF: Yeah, well... LC: Let's talk about the newspaper business. How are you assigned articles? AF: ...those are just my impressions, I'm not saying that's the bottom line... LC: (Laughter) AF: ...Because it's just my impression. LC: No, I understand. Now, how are you assigned articles for reporting? I mean, do you receive assignments from editors or is it based on tips and then you present ideas that may be of interest? AF: Since I've focused almost exclusively on prisons for the last few years, I would say I rarely get assigned anything. They want me to tell them what's going on. So the way that happens is I'm monitoring all the federal court cases, and that's enough to keep you going on itself. I get a lot of tips from a lot of different sources–from CCPOA, from legislative people, from inmates' families, from inmates themselves, from lawmakers, from lawyers, and so I'm getting tips all the time. There's a huge public record on all this stuff in terms of monitoring, that needs to be monitored. I talk to governmental people. I'm talking to the DPA pretty regular about your contract, I'm talking to Mike Jimenez, I'm talking to you, I'm talking to just as many people as I can in this multi, multifaceted story. LC: That sort of knocked out my next question, I was going to ask where your tips generally come from. But, really, how many calls...I have to ask... how many calls on a daily basis do you get regarding Corrections, on average? AF: I'd say it varies. When I have a big story in the paper I'll get maybe 30 or 40 emails on a big story. LC: Really? AF: Sometimes more. LC: Do you find that you receive more calls or complaints when you write about Corrections than when you write about other areas of assignment? AF: Uh...I don't know. For the last two years that's pretty much all I've been doing. LC: OK. I'm just saying that when I watch the blogs, when I watch the comments section after an article, which I know you don't read, I mean, you've told me that you don't read that stuff... AF: Yeah, I read. I read Paco Villa. LC: You read the Paco Villa website? AF: But I don't read the responses to the story. LC: The Sacramento Bee can do an article on Obama and Clinton and you'll get 30 responses. AF: Yeah. Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3  Print This PageBack to Volume 25, Issue 5 Back to PEACEKeeper Main Page |
