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Gil Thelen Named to Florida Newspaper Hall of Fame 9/14/2016

The irrepressible, bomb-lobbing, Wily Old Editor was almost –but not quite– struck dumb by this honor last night. After “Holy Shit,” I made up eight, pretty good paragraphs about newsies, Parkies and churchies—all very big parts of my life, after my family.

Each of you has given me a hand along the way. I doubt the journey, as I know it, would have been possible without you. I am most certainly blessed to have you with me, Thank you.

Wouldn’t you know it, but Wiley Old Editor—wearing one of his ever present Duke caps—bearded victorious Tampa Bay Times Publisher Paul Tash wth two pointed questions in the main and very polite SNPA/FPA conference session—scant hours before the Hall of Fame announcement.

Q1: Why wasn’t the Tribune allowed the customary courtesy of saying good bye to its community with a Final Edition producd with its own hands? A. Short good byes are easier than long ones. (Jim Batten taught us newsies to take the harder fork in the road when it was the right one.)

Q.2: Why did Tash bring armed security guards to his announcement to the Trib staff that their paper was euthanized immediately? A. “People were losing their jobs…It was only prudent to bring security, who helped Trib folks pack and leave.”

The moderator whistled me off the field when I objected to Paul’s assertion hat the Tampa community “did not care” that there was no ”Good Bye” edition. “Wrong!” I rose and said, incurring the moderator’s rebuke.

So that’s how I set the stage for the honor I did not know was coming.

Putting words, but not false sentiments, on Struby’s more decorous lips. “It was just a Full Thelen. Your usual approach these days.”

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Gil Thelen
YEAR INDUCTED:
2016

Charlotte Observer reporter Marion Ellis once said about Gil Thelen that he “sees around corners.” He meant that Gil had a strategic instinct about where readers and newspapers were headed and a practical vision for getting there fast and effectively.

Gil is credited as the first editor to bring teambuilding practices and disciplines to an American newsroom in Charlotte in the 1980s. He chaired ASNE’s Change Committee, which pinpointed the reasons newsrooms were losing touch with readers. He next chaired ASNE’s Interactive Media committee, which issued the urgent call for newsrooms to embrace the internet. All that occurred in the mid-1990s. He became known as the “change guy.”

As executive editor of The Tampa Tribune, Gil spearheaded the internationally recognized and pioneering integration of print, television and online newsrooms. Known then as convergence, it has become the norm now under various names in most newsrooms. Gil urged his colleagues to build a newsroom “where journalists can’t wait to come to work to produce a newspaper readers can’t wait to read.” The newspaper, he said, should always be the community’s “candid friend” and a “committed observer” of the community’s priority issues. That marked him as a leading and controversial leader in the public or civic journalism movement, whose practices are now commonplace and accepted as just plain, good journalism.

It’s hard to find someone with a more interesting and colorful career than Gil’s. A graduate of Duke University, he worked in AP’s Washington bureau as a consumer affairs reporter – a good one. So good in fact that the magazine Consumer Reports recruited him. It was a relatively new field, and he was a pioneer in it.

Gil worked for the Chicago Daily News and The Charlotte Observer before working in Myrtle Beach S.C. as the Vice President for news and operations with the Sun News. He then became vice president and executive editor at The State newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina. Gil next joined The Tampa Tribune where he served as executive editor from 1998 to 2003 and Publisher from 2003 to 2006.

Gil joined the USF faculty in 2007 as the Clendinen Professor of Critical Writing. Among his courses were opinion writing and public affairs reporting. He also served for a time as interim director of the School of Mass Communications at USF. Gil is an inductee to USF’s Journalism Hall of Fame at the School of Mass Communications.

Since 2006, Thelen has also served as executive director of the Florida Society of News Editors. He is credited with bringing high-quality multimedia training to Florida newsrooms.

Gil is one of Florida’s great journalists, having won numerous personal, professional recognitions including two Pulitzer Prize nominations. Also, he was part of the team at the Charlotte Observer that won two Pulitzer Prizes for Public Service. Reid Ashe has this to say about Gil: “I hired Gil as editor while I was the publisher at The Tampa Tribune. He had a vision of a great local newspaper and a deliberate program to create it. He hired outstanding people, coached his staff effectively and inspired them to excellence. “Gil was a great teacher, not only for his staff, but also for me. He taught me that a newsroom, just like any other organization, can set goals and measure progress. Gil had a checklist of about half a dozen things he wanted to accomplish in every edition, and he’d spend five minutes at the start of every planning meeting reviewing how we’d done in the previous edition. “He posted the scores, with illustrative tearsheets, for every staffer to see. As a result, everybody knew what was important and saw how they did or didn’t contribute. “Gil’s newsroom had a unity of purpose that you rarely see. I am very grateful for my years working with Gil. He made it one of the finest experiences in my newspaper career.”

Florida’s candid friend and committed observer – Gil Thelen.

Editor’s note: This important guest post is by Cara Bryan. Bryan is a licensed speech language pathologist and LSVT certified clinician in private practice in Tampa. I know her work first hand. She is very good. More about Bryan is appended to her post. Gil Thelen

Parkinson disease (PD) has one of the highest rates of communication difficulties among progressive neurological diseases.

Bet you didn’t know that. It’s not a conversation staple at support group meetings, much less during visits with your neurologist

It’s treatable with speech therapy services using the LSVT LOUD approach.

Consider the case of the “Professor.”

Professor was the former Dean of a University English Department. He was in his early 50s and had been diagnosed with PD within the past two years.

He was referred by his neurologist for speech therapy. Professor presented with slouched posture, shallow breathing, and vocal strain when speaking.

He spoke quickly and whispered without any inflection. His face appeared flat and expressionless. His conversational loudness measured between 48-56 dB, which is significantly below the normal 65-75 dB level in a quiet room at a 3-ft distance.

Professor explained that he had recently had to step down as dean because he could not meet demands. His true passion was teaching, and he was extremely close to losing that job too.

He explained that he had significant difficulty making himself heard in his classroom. Professor described his previous self as outgoing, garrulous, “never met a stranger” kind of person.

Now students frequently asked for repetition and clarification. At times he had difficulty obtaining and maintaining their attention.

All the desks were moved close to the front of the classroom. He started using amplification but didn’t like it. He tried strategies for more student involvement and less lecture time. But he was exhausted trying to adapt to his communication decline.

Professor’s impaired communication extended beyond the classroom into all aspects of his life: Being heard over the phone, in noisy restaurants, at home with his wife and two teenage children, ordering in the drive-thru line, etc.

He reported withdrawing from conversations, avoiding speaking, and speaking significantly less. He nearly ceased socializing and was becoming more home bound.

Professor admitted to symptoms of depression, feelings of poor self-worth. Professor’s difficulty being heard was affecting his persona, his sense of self, and his livelihood. He was a spectator to life.

Approximately 80-90% of individuals with PD have or will have difficulty communicating. Common symptoms include a quiet voice (nonfunctional loudness), vocal hoarseness, strain and/or breathiness, fast rate of speech, monotone-sounding speech and stammering.

Often stooped posture and shallow breath support further impair the ability to communicate. Word-finding deficits and loss of thought process during conversations can occur in tandem.

Persons with PD are often NOT the first to realize they are speaking differently. This is due to the neurological phenomenon known as sensorimotor misperception, which is a hallmark symptom of PD. Sensorimotor misperception is a mismatch between what a person self-perceives and the corresponding muscle movement.

Shuffled gait, quiet voice, mumbled speech, shallow breath, and small handwriting are examples of common small muscle movements in PD

In other words, if a person with PD perceives his/her voice to be of “normal” loudness, the brain sends corresponding messages for small muscle movement to produce speech/voice.

Often the person with PD reports “my spouse is hearing impaired.” In reality (and regardless of the spouse’s hearing acuity), the voice is measurably soft. Many persons with PD experiencing communication difficulties are able to produce normal loudness levels given clinical guidance, high effort and conscious thought.

Professor’s quiet, nonfunctional communication was treated with a protocol of speech therapy called LSVT LOUD. Designed specifically for people with PD, LSVT LOUD targets sensorimotor misperception by re-calibrating a person’s perception of required physical effort for appropriate loudness. The LSVT LOUD approach strives to elicit best quality voice with controlled loudness on “Ahhh.”

The mechanics of good quality loud vocal production include upright posture, relaxed, deep inhalation, and loud voicing using exhalation without straining the throat muscles.

Professor completed several loud Ah’s with clinician coaching and modeling for good quality voicing. He was instructed to maintain an effort level of 8 out of 10 (10 being the highest possible) during the exercises to assist with his physical awareness and loudness level.

Using this approach, the first time Professor repeated the clinician-modeled loud voice, he echoed the sound perfectly. Moments before the loud “Ah,” Professor’s voice had been whispered. To combat monotone sounding speech, a series of ascending and descending pitches were repeated with loud, good quality “Ahhh.”

The LSVT LOUD approach continues through a hierarchy of speech tasks across a 4-week time period of 16, one-hour sessions. The aggressive treatment protocol serves to reduce the amount of physical effort and ultimately automate “normal” conversational loudness.

Upon completion of speech therapy using LSVT LOUD, Professor improved his vocal loudness and quality to normal. He was acutely aware of the required effort for his “new normal” loudness.

He was immediately successful in the classroom and throughout his daily communication. His mood and outlook improved significantly. His face was expressive when he spoke. He was successfully participating and initiating conversations. He rarely had difficulty making himself heard. He was socializing. Professor reported he had found his voice again, and by doing so regained himself. He taught for many years after.

The LSVT LOUD approach allowed Professor to return to himself and maintain employment. Professor is one example of a common experience of people with PD. Successful communication is directly correlated to one’s personality, the sense of belonging, self-esteem, livelihood, pastime, interpersonal skills, EVERYTHING. People with PD should be aware that with speech therapy services, they can fight to maintain their voice.

 

About Cara Bryan

Cara has lived in Tampa since 2003. Cara is busy with her husband and two children. She sings in the church choir, performs solo work, exercises, enjoys her children’s sports and activities, and is an avid Carolina Tar Heel fan.  

Cara received her master’s degree from the University of Iowa in speech-language pathology and her undergraduate degree from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in music-vocal performance and linguistics. 

Her special interests include vocal rehabilitation of those with Parkinson disease, professional voice users, vocal cord dysfunction, and chronic cough. As a young child, Cara was exposed to Parkinson disease with her paternal grandmother and developed a calling to help those with the disease.

Bryan is in private practice. She can be reached at carabryan@gmail.com and 813-728-6601.