Knock, knock, New York Times. Hello?

Trying to get America's Paper of Record to cover a historic undercover journalism mission into the 1948 Jim Crow South shouldn't be so hard, especially when the Times has never written a word about it

In the last six years I've tried at least a dozen times to get the NY Times' book section and/or its Race/Related section an excuse to write something about the subject of my eternally timely and tragically under-publicized 2017 book '30 Days a Black Man,' which retells the mostly forgotten story of Pittsburgh reporter Ray Sprigle's undercover journalism mission into the Jim Crow South of 1948 disguised as a black man.

The people at the Times' Race/Related newsletter, which says it focuses on "race, identity and culture," will send you a nice, slightly hopeful but not very sincere automatic reply when you send them an email/suggestion/pitch/tip:

Thank you for your note. Please stay in touch and let us know what you think — whether it’s about this newsletter, the way The Times covers race, our Instagram or what you’re reading. We read and think about all of it. We even write back, albeit belatedly! You can reach us at racerelated@nytimes.com. 
—Race/Related Team

But since 2018 I have never received any response from a NYT human employee, and to this day the Times of NY, the paper of record, has never written a word about Ray Sprigle's historic trip, the series he wrote that shocked the country or anything about the brave black American who helped Sprigle, the great John Wesley Dobbs of Atlanta. 

For the record, as we say, this is what I sent Race/Related this morning (Aug.27, 2023):

Come on, NYT -- 

75 years ago this month Ray Sprigle's 21-part nationally syndicated series recounting the month he spent in the Jim Crow South disguised as a black man was shocking the white North, angering the white South and pleasing millions of black Americans and the NAACP's Walter White.

The NY Times, as far as I can tell, never wrote a word about Sprigle's trip in 1948 or the prime time radio debate he held in Nov. 1948 at Town Hall in NYC.

Now's a good time for you to make amends -- to Sprigle, his brave guide John Wesley Dobbs and to your readers.

Thanks

Bill s

This is an article that the Post-Gazette printed on August 13 about Sprigle’s trip and his newspaper series, which ran in 14 papers in August of 1948.

Ex-newspaperman Bill Steigerwald is the author of 30 Days a Black Man, which retells the true story of Pittsburgh Post-Gazette star reporter Ray Sprigle's undercover mission through the Jim Crow South in 1948. Sprigle's original series is in Undercover in the Land of Jim Crow. Steigerwald also wrote Dogging Steinbeck, which exposed the truth about the fictions and fibs in Travels With Charley and celebrated Flyover America and its people. And in 2022 he published Grandpa Bear Goes to Washington, a satirical kids book for all ages that all polar bears and lovers of freedom will like.