Managing Editor

Paul A. Banker, who began his 40-year newspaper career as a police reporter and retired as managing editor of The Sun and Sunday Sun, died last night of cancer at Union Memorial Hospital. He was 77.A laconic man whose shyness was often misread as aloofness, Mr. Banker was a formidable figure in the Calvert Street newsroom, presiding over the content of the newspaper as it came together each day, the final authority on what met The Sun's standards for publication and what did not.His devotion to the integrity of the paper was so complete that after he became city editor in 1954, he decided it would inappropriate for him even to cast a vote in an election.

BOSTON -- Two days after the Boston Globe asked for Mike Barnicle's resignation, the fate of the popular, 25-year Metro columnist apparently remained unresolved after a meeting he had with top Globe officials yesterday.DTC After an hourlong off-site session with Barnicle, Globe publisher Benjamin B. Taylor and Assistant to the Publisher Alfred S. Larkin Jr. issued a short statement saying, "We consider it a private meeting between the parties, and have no further comment on it at this time."

Given fears that Kenneth W. Starr's report to Congress could make for the hottest reading since "Lady Chatterly's Lover," newspapers throughout the United States are faced with a common dilemma today: When it comes to President Clinton and his sex life, how much detail is too much?Although some newspaper editors are inclined to leave out the most prurient details, the consensus is that what will be published could make for some decidedly R-rated reading."People do not want to read an edited version of what Ken Starr has presented to Congress," says Mark Morrow, national editor of the Boston Globe.

PAUL A. BANKER, who died Thursday at 77, was the adopted son of The Baltimore Sun. This newspaper put him through college after his father, an assistant managing editor, drowned in a boating accident. The Sun became his journalistic home for four decades, including 16 years as managing editor.To most readers, Paul Banker was just a name on the masthead. But during his stewardship, the paper reflected his journalistic convictions, his sense of institutional history and his belief that The Sun had earned a place in the first rank of U.S. newspapers.

After decades of dominating the local news ratings, Channel 13 has been locked in a protracted battle with Channel 11, especially at 11 p.m. In what has become not only a byproduct of that battle, but a desperate attempt to try to gain an edge over WBAL, WJZ officials have trotted "Eyewitness News" personnel into the Orioles' television booth throughout the season.The unseemly trend began earlier this year when anchors Vic Carter and Denise Koch made a stop in the announcers' booth at Camden Yards and continued as the station's reporters were VTC spotted in the stands, then identified on air.The latest to make the trek to the booth was weatherman Bob Turk, who made an extended stay during Friday night's Seattle game to yuck it up with Michael Reghi and Jim Palmer during a contest that station officials knew was sure to be viewed in heavy numbers (see ratings below)

Maggie Cousins,91, an author who was managing editor of McCall's and Good Housekeeping magazines during the 1940s and 1950s, died Tuesday in San Antonio.A longtime editor with Hearst Magazines, she became managing editor of Good Housekeeping in 1942 and of McCall's in 1958. She also was a top editor at Doubleday & Co. and at Ladies Home Journal.She wrote several books for young readers, including "Benjamin Franklin of Old Philadelphia" and "The Story of Thomas Edison."She received the J. C. Penney-University of Missouri Award for Excellence in Magazine Writing and the Women in Communications Headliner Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Paul T. Broderick Sr., who spent his entire 50-year newspaper career at The Evening Sun, died Friday of heart failure at Lorien Nursing Home in Columbia. He was 88 and formerly lived in Catonsville.He held various positions at the paper -- sports reporter, city reporter, photo editor, copy editor, news editor, assistant city editor, city editor -- and was an assistant managing editor when he retired in 1975.When he joined the newspaper, the background music in the newsroom was provided by the noisy tapping of typewriter keys.

News that The Evening Sun will publish for the last time Sept. 15 was met yesterday with sadness and tributes, but little surprise."It's a sad day when your paper dies, even when expected," said Ernie Imhoff, who served for several weeks in 1992 as The Evening Sun's last managing editor after a long career on that paper."

A characteristic of The Evening Sun has been the friendly practice of newsroom and editorial staffers and alumni to keep in touch and see one another over the years.A 75th anniversary party drew 700 employees, alumni and guests to Hunt Valley Inn in 1985. Almost 300 alumni and staffers attended a farewell party last Saturday at Center Stage.To give a flavor of current alumni pursuits, here is a somewhat random list of alumni now in other jobs. Our regrets to those not named.Ernie Accorsi: assistant general manager, New York Giants.

William K. Marimow, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, yesterday was named managing editor of The Sun, the No. 2 newsroom post.The position has been vacant since the departure of Kathryn Christensen on Aug. 13, 1993. Mr. Marimow, however, essentially has acted as managing editor since he was named associate managing editor on Aug. 15, 1993."This makes it official," said Editor John S. Carroll."He has helped build a sense of teamwork and journalistic excellence," Mr. Carroll said.Mr. Marimow's newsroom duties will not change immediately or dramatically, Mr. Carroll said.

A 48-year-old newsroom executive at The Baltimore Sun died Monday in a traffic collision in northern Baltimore County that left his 9-year-old daughter in critical condition. Timothy M. Wheatley, former assistant managing editor for sports who since May had been business editor, lived on Corbett Road with his wife, daughter and two teenage sons. Mr. Wheatley was driving his youngest child, Sarah, to school when the accident occurred at York and Corbett roads, two miles from the family's home.

Christian "Chris" Godwin, a veteran newspaper copy editor who earned the sobriquet "Capt. Deadline" from newsroom colleagues during his more-than-30-year career, died Saturday of metastatic cancer at Hospice of Queen Anne's County in Centreville. He was 49 and lived in Dover, Del. Mr. Godwin, a fourth-generation newsman, was born in Miami, and moved with his family to Anchorage, Alaska, where his father was an FBI agent and his mother was an editor on The Anchorage Times. While a 14-year-old student at West Anchorage High School, Mr. Godwin began working as a copyboy for the Associated Press bureau chief in Anchorage.

With his bushy beard and ever-present pipe, Bill Burton looked like the outdoors writer from Central Casting. His basement resembled a tackle shop. His stories were lively and memorable, as you would expect. But truth be told, Bill Burton was a softie, with a heart of gold and a center as squishy as an Easter peep. He loved cats. And beautiful sunrises. And fresh, ripe Maryland peaches just off the tree. And kids, especially his granddaughter Mackenzie Noelle Boughey, whom he called "Grumpy."

JUDI ANN MASON, 54 'Good Times' writer Judi Ann Mason, who wrote for the TV sitcom Good Times and other shows, died July 8 in Los Angeles of a ruptured aorta, the Los Angeles Times reported. The Louisiana native was in college when her first play was produced. She wrote more than two dozen others. Her screenwriting career began after her 1977 graduation with Good Times. She later held executive writing positions on A Different World, I'll Fly Away and Generations. Ms. Mason also co-wrote the 1993 movie Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit.

Robert Blau, The Baltimore Sun's managing editor, the No. 2 position in the newsroom, announced yesterday he is leaving the paper Friday. Blau, 49, said the decision was personal and one that he had been considering for the past several months. "It just seems like a good time and good opportunity to take a step back and take stock," Blau said. "The fact of the matter is, I couldn't have liked a newspaper more than this one despite some of the challenges we all face. It has an enormously talented staff and a very engaged readership.

NEW YORK - Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. named Wall Street Journal publisher Robert Thomson as the newspaper's managing editor yesterday, succeeding Marcus Brauchli. Thomson's appointment was approved by a special committee created to oversee the Journal's editorial integrity, New York- based News Corp. said in a statement. Murdoch is remaking The Wall Street Journal, the second- largest U.S. newspaper based on daily circulation, to emphasize more general news and compete with the New York Times.

One day after arriving in Fort Lauderdale to cover the Baltimore Orioles, I was met by Associated Press photographer Rob Carr, who also made the trip from Baltimore to cover spring training at the team's winter home. I warned Carr that I had had a history of covering big stories that broke during spring training. Carr listened while I rattled off the memories of breaking away from baseball in February 1998 to cover the Kissimmee tornado outbreak that killed dozens near Orlando. Recalling an earlier tragedy in which I followed the story of two Cleveland Indians players, killed when their fishing boat slammed into a pier on Little Lake Nellie in March 1993, I predicted that we would cover a news event on a national or international scale this time around.

Paul M. Moore, a veteran Sun editor who has spent nearly four years as the liaison between readers and the paper's staff, will return to the newsroom effective tomorrow as the deputy managing editor for operations. Publisher Timothy Ryan said in a statement that the paper would not hire another public editor, but will moderate a new interactive blog between readers and Sun journalists for Baltimoresun.com. Moore's Sunday column, which looked at the public's perception of the paper, will be discontinued.

College Park-- It is, in a way, his first Pulitzer. Gene Roberts, a University of Maryland professor and revered journalist, won the Pulitzer Prize for History yesterday. He shares journalism's highest honor with Hank Klibanoff, the managing editor for enterprise at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The men co-wrote The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, an account of how the Southern press covered America's emerging civil rights movement 50 years ago. After the Pulitzer announcements yesterday afternoon, Roberts was honored by students and faculty over cake and champagne in the lobby of the university's Philip Merrill College of Journalism.

Former Sun editor William K. Marimow will return to his native Philadelphia to lead the newspaper where he won two Pulitzer Prizes. Marimow, 59, will become editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, replacing Amanda Bennett, who will step down at the end of the year. The newspaper is not the one Marimow left more than a decade ago. It has gone through several owners, and the group of local investors that now owns it is looking to make newsroom cuts over the next two months. Standing next to publisher Brian P. Tierney, an advertising executive who heads the investor group that owns The Inquirer, Marimow told the Philadelphia newsroom yesterday, "We have to figure out how to thrive in an era of reduced resources," The Inquirer reported.