Shirley, Bill

1 item: 65-pp. transcript of interview with Bill Shirley, Sports Editor. Notable names and subjects include: description of his typical day (pp. 1 -3) ; description of how sports coverage is organized in the department (pp. 6 - 9) ; his childhood and youth (p. 14 - 18) ; first newspaper job - Arkansas Gazette ; hitch in U.S. Coast Guard (pp. 21) ; employed at The Tennessean ; employed at San Diego Union (pp. 25) ; he played minor league baseball - the Little Rock Travelers ; his first impression of LAT on arrival in 1948 - "it wasn't a very good newspaper (but) extremely successful..." (pp. 29 - 30) ; "separation" of the Sports Dept. from the rest of the editorial sections (pp. 36) ; "this is a good newspaper now..." (pp. 39) ; compares the generations then at work - "these young men in jeans & sneakers ... think they (invented) good journalism... (but) Jim Murray by comparison is an old man and nobody writes better" ; new challenges in covering big names athletes, etc. (pp. 45 - 47) ; "most athletes are not very interesting" (pp. 50) ; "we get a lot of flak" from television and radio commentators (pp. 58 - 63) ; readers upset by Jim Murray columns (pp. 64).