News Flash (For The Tribune-Review, At Least): Musick, Best Writer In Trib History, Still Dead

Phil Musick, whose brilliantly crafted words improved both of Pittsburgh's newspapers (Press and Post-Gazette) and local broadcasts (WTAE radio, KDKA television) for many years, died recently. More recently, he was mourned. Even more recently, he was buried.

Those who rely exclusively on the Tribune-Review for news are (among other obvious and severe deficiencies) unaware of Mr. Musick's passing, because the Trib still has not published an obituary. This oversight intentional slight is curious, for several reasons.

First, it has been a slow news period at the Trib. Today's website edition, for example, leads with this banner: "Fanfare's Fabulous Fetes of 2009." Second, as any junior high school news editor would know, Phil Musick's life and death were newsworthy.

I'm not suggesting the Trib should have put its best writer on the Musick obituary -- come to think of it, that would have been difficult. No, make that impossible . . . because the best writer in the entire substandard history of the Tribune-Review was in that casket.*

Before Phil Musick caught on with newspapers, he was sports editor of the Trib. It appears his decision to leave Greensburg for Pittsburgh created a grudge that survives four decades, overcomes common decency and was enforced over his dead body.

As Ron Burgundy said (with one notable exception, which seems especially apt but shall go unstated here): You stay classy, Greensburg.

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* This is no slur toward the reporters at the Trib -- goodness knows those people take enough kicks every time they remember where they work -- but instead a recognition of Phil Musick's genius. There was none better at the Press or Post-Gazette, either.