Short Takes

> St. Louis found itself without a daily newspaper last week. Teamster Local 610 struck the Post-Dispatch after negotiations between the paper and its truck drivers and delivery men deadlocked. Wages were at issue, but the chief dispute involved the job security of the 32 men who heave bundles of papers on and off the trucks. A new automated delivery system can do much of their work. The Post-Dispatch offered to train the men for other jobs; Teamster negotiators said no, that the men must remain in their present slots. When the Newspaper Guild supported the Teamster action, the rival Globe-Democrat--which uses Post-Dispatch presses--locked its doors. As other metropolitan dailies have learned, strikes over automation can be much more ferocious than pay disputes. Given the Teamsters' wealth, St. Louis newspaper readers and employees may have ample time to learn that no news is really bad news.

> Only 27% of U.S. daily papers and 5% of the radio and TV stations have their own--or a shared--Washington correspondent. As a result, most U.S. voters get reporting on what their own Congressmen are up to only through occasional wire service or network stories or through self-serving news releases issued by the Congressmen themselves. In mid-September, a step will be taken to change all that. Under a six-month grant from Public Citizen, one of Ralph Nader's organizations, the newly formed Capitol Hill News Service will set five reporters on the trails of 40 to 50 preselected Congressmen. The newsmen will do investigative and feature coverage on the legislators, as well as stories on their routine activities and votes. At first their files will be sent free to newspapers and broadcast stations in each Congressman's district; after a trial period, the news service will charge for the stories and hope that local news outlets will be willing to pay.

> The disappearance of a newsman in Italy usually prompts suspicions that he was getting close to Mafia secrets and was accordingly taken out of circulation. Thus when ABC's Jack Begon, 61, turned up missing from Rome last July 22, published rumor blamed the Brotherhood. Begon's glasses were found smashed on the floor of ABC's Rome office, along with press cards and documents belonging to the journalist; the office safe had been opened and $2,000 was missing. Begon's name was on the passenger list of a morning flight to Palermo, Sicily--a Mafia center --and his car was found parked at the airport. There the trail stopped. But Italian police soon grew suspicious. Although Begon had once contributed to an ABC radio broadcast on the Mafia, ABC Mediterranean Bureau Chief Barrie Dunsmore said that "Jack had no assignment having to do with the Mafia or Palermo." The broken glasses turned out to have dated from 1948. Begon surfaced in Rome last week, told skeptical police that he had indeed been kidnaped by the Mafia, spirited to the U.S. and released only after he had promised to steer clear of future Mafia stories. After a brief hospitalization, Begon was hustled off to jail, formally charged with embezzlement and fabricating a crime.

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