Fiery Austin Voice Burns Ears and Bridges

By: Johnathon E. BriggsDon’t get Brad Cummings started about the lack of corporate advertising in The Austin Voice. In 1989, as associate editor, he ran a "Hall of Shame" list of corporations that refused to ply their wares in his West Side newspaper.

"Look at who’s not supporting the black press: Walgreen’s, Sears, Jewel and Osco," Cummings said. "That’s important because they’re the ones who are big talkers about how much they support the black movement."

Fiery words from a rabble-rousing editor—who also happens to be white.

And that’s just one of the many contradictions surrounding this 12-year-old free biweekly. While billing itself as an institution dedicated to a stronger, more unified Austin, the Voice instead has become a lightening rod for controversy: three libel lawsuits in the last four years, a barrage of criticism from West Side community leaders and politicians, and a journalistic style that would make more than a few tabloid editors blush.

The Voice, one of five community papers now circulating on the West Side, aggressively pursues advertising money from local businesses and attacks black elected officials, critics say.

The paper claims a circulation of 35,000, second only to the Westside Journal, which boasts 47,000.

"The Voice prints a lot of papers but they just sit because a lot of people don’t want to know what [Brad] is saying," said Mary Denson, black publisher of the Windy City Word, a 10,000 circulation rival weekly.

But the paper also has hit the mark with stories about crime, drugs and police corruption. Supporters say the Voice highlights the accomplishments of West Side youth and fights gangs and drugs by publishing pictures of drug-infested homes and street corners.

"It seems like a paper that we can rely on and get the truth," said 24-year Austin resident Elijah Jordan, a loyal Voice reader since 1986. "That’s what we need in this community."

Residents "can’t wait for the Voice to come out because it speaks their mind," said Mary Volpe, executive director of Northeast Austin Council. "There are times when you need media that’s not afraid to go up against criminals," she added.

In the midst of the controversy stands Cummings, the white editor with the voice of a black militant.

"Community papers tend to be bland," he said. "We’re a lot spicier than that. I got a call from a little old lady...and she said, ‘I never called a paper before, but I just thought I would call and tell you I hope you keep printing your paper because you’re even better than the [National] Enquirer.’"

"I said, ‘I’m so starved for compliments I’ll even take that.’ And that’s the sort of thing that is satisfying. We’re relied upon."

West Side Alderman Sam Burrell (29th), who filed one of the three libel suits, said that if he had placed a campaign ad in the paper he wouldn’t have been attacked. "When I don’t buy ads, I have a problem.

"The more papers the better," Burrell said. "But we don’t need a paper like the Voice."

Libelous Lines
Chicago Police Officer Gerald Waxmonsky can’t hide his anger when he talks about the Voice. He saves his harshest language for Cummings, whom he calls "the most two-faced lying little son-of-a-bitch you ever want to meet in your life."

On Feb. 16, 1993, the Voice reported that an Austin District desk officer was giving local drug dealers the names and addresses of citizens who had reported drug activity in their neighborhoods.

The story, "A Sewer of Bad Cops," never identified Waxmonsky by name, but the 32-year police veteran said his longtime presence at the desk made it obvious. Cummings also identified him at community meetings and in complaints made to the district commander, Waxmonsky said.

The following December, Waxmonsky filed a $100,000 libel suit against Cummings and the Voice, and sought $1 million in punitive damages. In 1996, the two sides settled, and the Voice printed an announcement that the police Internal Affairs Division had concluded that the paper’s stories were "unfounded."

Cummings is unrepentant. "We did in fact print what they requested," he said. "And we printed it in color on the front page because of what a laughing stock [Internal Affairs] is. We’re certain that people saw through that, and indeed they did."

Waxmonsky, who still works the Austin desk, said he agreed to settle after his attorney learned that Megamedia Enterprises Inc., the Voice’s parent company, had no assets. "The paper reminds me of an Enquirer without any money," he said.

In 1996, the Voice was hit with two more libel suits, this time from two elected officials who once supported the paper: Burrell and then-Cook County Commissioner Danny K. Davis.

Davis, who now represents the West Side 7th Congressional District, sued for $10 million last March after the Voice ran a front-page story, "Danny Takes Arab Hush Money, Embraces Gang Support." The article charged that Davis and other black officials had taken money from Libyan Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi by way of Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan.

Davis said the article was an attack on his congressional campaign. "No [paper] should have the ability to play with a whole community and just use it as its playground," he said.

In an accompanying story, the Voice reported that Davis and "his drug-dealing associates" had threatened to expose Burrell’s "personal drug problems" if Burrell challenged Davis for the 29th Ward committeeman’s post. That story prompted Burrell to file his own $10 million lawsuit; both cases are pending.

The Voice should be a "clearinghouse for rumors," Cummings said, adding that no one at the paper has journalistic training. "It’s important for organizations, politicians and police to know what people are saying out here, whether it’s true or not."

Police Scandal
The Voice recently gained citywide attention with its articles on "Operation Broken Star," the ongoing federal investigation into police corruption. Seven Austin district officers have been indicted for taking $65,000 from undercover agents posing as drug dealers. One has pleaded guilty so far.

The Voice had been publishing stories about the police scandal since 1989, when the paper ran a series of articles about drug dealing at Washington Pine Apartments on the 5500 block of West Washington Boulevard, Cummings said. "Now all of a sudden people are noticing us, one of those overnight successes that’s taken 10 years."

While the Voice was running its stories, the U.S. Attorney’s office was also investigating the apartment complex, eventually leading to one of the largest drug busts in Chicago history.

Among those arrested was Mario Lettieri, co-owner of Mario’s Butcher Shop and Liquors, 5817 W. Madison St. The Voice reported that Lettieri was using the business as a cover to deliver narcotics to a large-scale West Side drug ring.

In 1990, Lettieri was convicted and sentenced to nearly 16 years in federal prison.

While under indictment, Lettieri participated in the 29th Ward organization’s annual back-to-school parade. Cummings lambasted then-Alderman Davis for allowing a suspected drug dealer to sponsor a float in a parade with an anti-drug theme.

"In the beginning we thought that getting along with politicians would be a strength for us," he said. "And then we found out...we wanted them right in front of us where we could keep an eye on them."

Sharing Power
Former Austin Weekly News Managing Editor Elaine Richardson recalls how Cummings would never acknowledge her at community events. Once, when she introduced herself, he said, "Oh, you’re from that white paper," said Richardson, who now edits the Wednesday Journal, a weekly serving west suburban Oak Park and River Forest.

"He even started referring to our paper as the evil white-run paper from Oak Park," she said. "And I was like, Brad, do you realize you’re white?"

The Voice is technically a black-owned publication, but Cummings always has been at the center of its operations.

In 1983, Alderman Percy Giles (37th), then-president of the West Side Business Improvement Association, approached Cummings with the idea of starting the Voice.

Cummings recently had left the now-closed St. Anne Hospital, where he had been working as public relations director.

Cummings said he invested about $10,000 of his own money in the paper. His partner, advertising copywriter Thomas Durkin of Elmwood Park, subsidized the first few issues.

On Feb. 5, 1985, the two men founded Megamedia Enterprises and divided 6,000 of the company’s 10,000 shares of common stock between them, state records show.

The paper’s first staff consisted of a "hodge-podge" of former co-workers, friends and acquaintances, Cummings said.

"We were happy to get whatever help we could because we really didn’t know what we were doing," he said. "It looks like chaos now, but back then we were at total loose ends."

Liliana Drechney, a reporter for Leader Papers, Inc., a chain of Northwest and West Side weeklies, asked to become a Voice shareholder and offered to invest in the paper, Cummings said.

After working for the Voice for six months in 1986, she quit and started the Weekly News.

"[Liliana] said it was her job to teach black people, and I said I’m not a teacher," Cummings said. "I’m here to do whatever needs to be done as long as it can be done in a business-like manner and a tasteful manner with some ethics."

Drechney committed suicide in 1995. In an unflattering obituary, Cummings related his former associate’s "repugnant racial views." Community leaders were outraged.

"I thought that was so low," Denson said. "One thing she was not was racist."

"It probably was low," Cummings acknowledged. "But I think you have to call it as it is.… You know, George Wallace is what George Wallace is and I’m sorry if people found that offensive."

In 1989, Cummings distributed Megamedia’s shares among the staff, giving Publisher Isaac Jones and Entertainment Editor Andrew Griffin 53.3 percent ownership of the company, according to documents.

Although the staff is unpaid, "they feel proud that they own a piece of something that they can call their own," Jones said.

"Megamedia Enterprises is just a front for Brad Cummings," said Ira Cohen, director of issues and communications for Rep. Davis. "He is really the owner and the person who runs it. He has a couple of other individuals who he uses crudely for the front."

Jones denies the charge. Regarding his elevation to publisher in 1989, he said, "They figured I was the more level-headed guy of the bunch. Brad can get kind of rowdy at times and drive people crazy."

But the black owners of the Voice appear to have little to do with the paper’s day-to-day operations. Jones spends much of his time raising his three boys and managing a public storage facility at 2101 W. Howard St., where he also lives, he said. Edward Brooks, the paper’s community relations director, works at an Austin Social Security office and lives in West Humboldt Park.

And Griffin, the entertainment editor, often is on tour as the road manager for the rap group Crucial Conflict.

That leaves Cummings holding down the fort at the paper’s offices at 5236 W. North Ave. "I’m the constant presence here," he said.

Smear Campaign
Like his newspaper, Cummings own history is peppered with controversy.

After five years at St. Anne, he was either fired or resigned, depending on who’s telling the story. Cummings said he refused to promote a bed-rationing program that would have made St. Anne a "white hospital by serving white areas." The hospital closed eight years ago, and no officials could be reached for comment.

Cummings, 48, was born in Wisconsin and received an undergraduate history degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He worked as a media and legislative aide for several congressmen before leaving , he said.

He toured the country for three seasons as regional marketing director for the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus. He came to Chicago in 1975 and took several fund-raising and public relations jobs.

As a newspaper editor, he said he has "worked his way down the ladder of success." The paper generates enough income from local advertisers to come out regularly and "break even," Cummings said. While he is reimbursed for "operating expenses," he gets no salary, he said, and lives on personal savings.

Cummings, who has lived in Austin since 1978, is single and rarely takes a vacation.

But his life hasn’t been uneventful. In 1987, a neighbor, Chicago Police Officer James Smith Jr., filed a misdemeanor complaint against him for public indecency and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

The warrant was never served, court records show. Cummings said Smith made up the story to silence the paper’s reports about Mario Lettieri.

"[Smith] worked for Mario and was very upset with our efforts to put Mario in jail," he said.

Smith has since left the police force and could not be reached for comment.

In a 1994 misdemeanor case, John Molden, then-board member of the Austin YMCA, charged Cummings with "harassment by telephone," court records show.

In a letter of apology, Cummings said he had been trying to reach Molden to discuss YMCA residents’ complaints about their living conditions. A Cook County Circuit judge ordered Cummings to have no further contact with Molden or his family.

"I look at Brad with a jaundiced eye sometimes," Molden said. "I’m not his archenemy, but I’m just wary of what he can do and I just keep him at a distance."

Others said Cummings and the Voice are out of control and need to be shut down.

Thom Clark, president of the Community Media Workshop, a group which trains non-profits to use the media, offered another view. The Voice, he said, is "much more of a muckraking, crusader type which we perhaps don’t have enough of in our media mix these days."

And Cummings himself vows to fight on.

"If you can shut down a crusading little newspaper just by suing them, that really does put the freedom of the press at risk," he said. "We can buy newsprint or we can buy libel insurance. If we can’t buy newsprint, we don’t need libel insurance."

Intern Robert P. Musker helped research this article.