14

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Friday, April 26, 1985

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

A
E W
SHALL
GO FORTH
FROM ZIO

idney Zion doesn't pull any
punches. In person or in his -
writing.
The 51-year-old journalist
looks and sounds like a
cross between a modern-
day Jeremiah and Damon
Runyan. He is The Front Page come back
to life in the 1980s, complete with a tough
New York accent, drink in hand, his lan-
guage lurching from lyrical to obscene.
Zion has style: his personality and his
writing grab you by the collar, and he com-
plains bitterly that young journalists to-
day look bland, "like Harvard-educated in-
surance salesmen, for Chrissake. They
probably go into journalism for the secur-
ity of it rather than the excitement," he
says. "Can you imagine that?"
Sidney Zion clearly chose journalism for
the excitement, giving up a solid law
career and visions of becoming a great trial
lawyer for the "pursuit of the Goddess"
of journalism. Over the last 20 years he's
taken his lumps — at one point he was
blacklisted by the press for identifying

Sidney Zion is no
prophet, but this brash and
colorful maverick reporter,
called "the guerilla warrior
of journalism," has an
instinct for the truth and
a soft spot for underdogs,-
from Menachem Begin
to Meyer Lansky.

BY GARY ROSENBLATT
Editor