ASJA PACIFIC NORTHWEST NEWSLETTER
For ASJA members in
Alaska, British Columbia, Idaho, Oregon and Washington
September 2025
https://asjapnw.org
In This Issue
From the Prez, Is Anybody Out There?, Carolyn Miller, ASJA PNW President
Serendipitous Superman, Bruce Miller
AI’s Guessing Game, Bruce Miller
Member News and Announcements
Our September chapter meeting at 11 am:
Carolyn Miller is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Time: Wednesday, September 17, 2025
11:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87898612924
Meeting ID: 878 9861 2924
This newsletter publishes the first day of each month and welcomes article submissions and photos. Please email the ASJA PNW Newsletter Editor, Maxine Cass, at maxinecass@gmail.com .
From the President
by M. Carolyn Miller
ASJA PNW Chapter President
Is Anybody Out There?
I recently read Timothy Snyder’s book On Tyranny. I found it by accident at a local coffee shop. Snyder is a historian and until recently was associated with Yale. He’s since taken a post with the University of Toronto.
In On Tyranny, Snyder lays out the lessons we have learned from history about how democracies are destroyed and what individual citizens can do to uphold democracy.
What I liked about Snyder’s book was its simplicity. It gave me a to-do list for my own life as a citizen at a time when I often feel powerless. I can subscribe to a print media that invites me to think deeply about an issue. I can support the groups I care about by putting even a small monthly payment on autopay.
One of those groups is the PNW chapter of ASJA. I started the chapter nearly nine years ago when I moved to Portland and could not find other business writers. Over the years, our chapter has grown geographically but not in membership. In fact, we are losing members. So perhaps, like democracy itself that is constantly evolving as Russian journalist Masha Geeson noted, it is time for our chapter to do the same.
I’d like to personally invite you to join our September meeting, even if you are no longer a member, or have never come to a meeting or only read the newsletter. We need ideas, we need to know what’s working and what’s not, and we mostly need your help with imagining our future course.
Carolyn Miller, MA, spent her career designing narrative- and game-based learning. Today, she consults and writes about narrative in our lives and world, the inextricable link between the two, and the critical role of self-awareness in transforming both. www.cultureshape.com
Grey Fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus), Jackson County, Oregon.
© Maxine Cass
by Bruce Miller
Serendipitous Superman
Any research project can lead to serendipitous discoveries. One such discovery for me was how Superman is related somewhat closely to the Society of Magazine Writers that became the American Society of Journalists and Authors.
This discovery came from a multi-year project to compile (including the programming of) a database of awards initiated by Society of Magazine Writers and the American Society of Journalists and Authors. During this research I saw a name that also appears in the Superman TV series credits: “Story Editor……Mort Weisinger.” Weisinger was an influential editor of the separate Superman and Batman comics beginning in 1941 when the characters were under National Periodicals. But that role was interrupted with military service until 1946, when he returned to National Periodicals to edit Superman and Batman. This led to work in California as story editor for the Superman TV Series with George Reeves. His editing began to focus entirely on Superman titles in 1958 and into 1970, when he retired as the editor.
In his own words from an article in the October 1977 issue of Parade Magazine: [1]
“For thirty years of my life I chased around the universe with that flashing figure in red and blue, the mighty Superman, linked to him like a Siamese twin. . . If you think all these trips and treats were LSD activated, give yourself points for having ESP. Because for three decades — 1940 to 1970 — as editor of the Superman comic books and story editor of the TV series — LSD was my way of life. Lord of Superman’s Domain. It was my job to plot the adventures of the action ace, invent startling super-feats, create new villains, manipulate his romantic life and involve him in missions with celebrities like Johnny Carson, Bob Hope, Pat Boone, the Beatles and many others.” [2]
Aside from Weisinger’s immersion into Superman, he was also a non-fiction magazine writer. His magazine credits include Reader’s Digest, Collier’s, Parade, and The Saturday Evening Post. He was also the book author of 1001 Valuable Things You Can Get for Free.
Given his freelance work, it is not surprising that he was one of the early members of the Society of Magazine Writers in 1948. In several early Society newsletters, he is considered one of the founding members of SMW. He also served as it’s treasurer in 1961 and 1962 and as president in 1976 and 1977.
Mort Weisinger was held in high esteem by his colleagues. After his death in 1978 an annual writing award was established: Mort Weisinger Award for Magazine Writing. The first recipient of the award was Betty Friedan in 1979 for her article “ERA: Will It Play in Peoria” published in The New York Times Magazine in 1978.
The origins of the American Society of Journalists and Authors included some very serious, very productive, and very influential people. Mort Weisinger was one of them. Digging into history can unearth some interesting tidbits.
1. https://ahcwyo.org/2024/08/19/mort-weisinger-the-man-behind-superman-in-comics-silver-age/
2. From the typewritten manuscript that became an article in Parade Magazine, October 1977 (in the Mort Weisinger Archive, University of Wyoming).
Seattle resident Bruce Miller watched the Superman TV series as a kid, not knowing that he would have a distant association with Superman through ASJA.
AI’s Guessing Game
While researching awards given by the Society of Magazine Writers that later became the American Society of Journalists and Authors, I sometimes ask an AI platform to see if it can come up with some information I might have missed. What I’ve learned from a few of these requests is that you can’t trust AI for accuracy. The following exchange illustrates AI’s willingness to guess at the expense of accuracy.
My question to Copilot AI:
Ted J. Rakstis won the Mort Weisinger award for magazine writing in what year and for what article that appeared in Reader’s Digest?
Answer:
Ted J. Rakstis won the Mort Weisinger Award for Magazine Writing in 1982 for his article titled “The Man Who Loved Deer”, which appeared in Reader’s Digest.
This piece was widely praised for its vivid storytelling and environmental insight, capturing the emotional and ecological complexity of wildlife conservation through the lens of one man’s relationship with deer.
Question:
How did you determine that the award was given in 1982?
Answer:
Great question, Bruce—and I appreciate your precision.
I initially stated 1982 based on a combination of contextual clues and historical indexing of Reader’s Digest articles and award timelines. However, after reviewing available sources more closely, I should clarify: there is no definitive public record confirming that Ted J. Rakstis won the Mort Weisinger Award in 1982 for “The Man Who Loved Deer.” That date was inferred from archival mentions of the article appearing in Reader’s Digest around that time and from general award listings from the early 1980s.
Unfortunately, the Mort Weisinger Award itself isn’t consistently documented in public databases, and Rakstis’s recognition isn’t listed in the American Society of Journalists and Authors’ award archives, which cover many major magazine writing honors from that era.
My comment:
A fairly thorough search does not reveal that Rakstis ever wrote an article entitled “The Man Who Loved Deer.” An examination of the Reader’s Digest Index for 1982 does not show an article about Michigan and only one article about deer: “My First Deer”.
Ted J. Rakstis is listed on ASJA.org with the correct article title in Reader’s Digest for the year 1980. However, Mort Weisinger is not mentioned. Copilot simply assembled pieces of information from various places and provided a best guess. In AI jargon, Copilot created an “hallucination”.
The definitive, factual information comes from ASJA newsletters where it is clear that Ted J. Rakstis received the Mort Weisinger Award for Magazine Writing in 1980 for his article “The Poisoning of Michigan” that had appeared in Reader’s Digest September 1979. The article itself was about a ton of toxic chemicals accidentally mixed with cattle feed and sent to dairy farms across Michigan in 1973. The article garnered attention not only in Michigan, but a mention in the May 5, 1980 edition of The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, WA.
Seattle resident Bruce Miller thinks AI is great, but only when accurate.
Grey Fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus), Jackson County, Oregon.
© Maxine Cass
Member News and Announcements
Joanna Nesbit (joannanesbit@comcast.net) is seeking ideas and contacts for future ASJA PNW meeting speakers.
NEWSLETTER PRODUCED BY
EDITOR: Maxine Cass
PROOFREADER: Catherine Kolonko
TECHNICAL EXPERTISE: Bruce Miller
*All stories are copyright by their respective writers.
*All photographs and illustrations are copyright by their creative makers.
*All rights are reserved to each of them for their own material.