Judges' comments: McClatchy Community President's Awards

Here is the list of award winners and judges’ comments.

News – Judged by The State (Columbia, S.C.)

First Place: Fort Mill Times, Fort Mill, S.C.
“Main Street Marred”
Reporters Mac Banks, Jenny Overman, Jonathan Allen, Michael Harrison

Kudos to staffers at the FMT for pulling together a clear, compelling, high-energy
package on a fire that destroyed a downtown landmark eatery and wiped out a festival.

What better role for a community newspaper than to provide soup-to-nuts
coverage of a news event that touched the lives of so many. The FMT staff addressed the
impact and anticipated readers' questions by providing a deluxe, multimedia report.
Credit to the reporters for their roundup of voices and perspectives. This news package
demonstrated authority and local knowledge by putting forward sidebars that truly are
sidebars – they complement the main story with different and interesting angles.

Special credit to Jonathan Allen for the first-person account of dinner – for the
last time – at Tony's. This is a marvelous example of authentic, local color storytelling.

Second Place: Sierra Star, Oakhurst, Calif.
“Local Attorney, Sons Killed in Oregon Crash”
Editor David Richards

Here's a great example of clear reporting and writing – as well as effective news
packaging – against a breaking news deadline.

The story is not terribly long, but is chock-full of detail and information. The
newswriting is logical and precise, while nicely handling personal sentiments from
relatives and friends.

The presentation is just right, with a photo of the three subjects in their golf attire,
a locator map, and an accident photo. The jump headline advances the information by
providing the funeral date.

There's nothing fancy or overdone here: Just good, solid, understandable news
reporting. It's the foundation of what we do.

Honorable Mention: The Southlake Journal, Southlake, Texas
Two-Part Series: “Cops Question Handling of Cases by DPS” and “Police Question
Department’s Leadership”
Reporters Katy Bynum-Clark, Alice Murray, Jean Weaver, Charles D. Young

Fundamental to responsible newspapering is a heightened sense of curiosity when
those with access to power derive special benefits. Our job is to help level the playing
field by providing information and facts to expose and clarify matters of public concern.

It is laudable, then, that reporters for the Journal followed the scent after
receiving tips of preferential treatment by the Southlake police department. Stories in the
Journal led to disclosures and, ultimately, to a grand jury investigation.

The Journal's reporting brought to light dissension inside the police department
over the investigation of a dust-up between affluent teens and Southlake police. Were it
not for the Journal's work, an apparent climate of preferential treatment may have
continued without review.

The Journal's stories were triggered by tips from unidentified sources. That is
cause for some concern. But events that transpired – including follow-up stories in other
publications reviewed by this judge – affirm the Journal's decision to raise public
awareness.

There are some areas to shore up: Articles talk about a climate of favoritism and
poor morale. The articles would be strengthened by shoring up these allegations. Giving
more voice to the police chief – in the face of his anonymous accusers – would have
provided more balance.

In the end, the Journal is to be commended for taking on a tough situation and
telling it without fear or favor.

Honorable Mention: The Chapel Hill News, Chapel Hill, N.C.
“Votes Key to Town’s Future”
Staff Writers Jesse James DeConto, Lisa Hoppenjans

This is smart work. The issue is presented with authority and clarity. But what
really sets this work apart is the higher-end thinking about the larger question: Will
Chapel Hill become a city or remain a town? It's all about what a community is to be and
what it has been. This package neatly pulls together what certainly must be a central
quality of life question for readers. Well done.

Features – Judged by The Wichita Eagle

First Place: Sierra Star, Oakhurst, Calif.
“Up in the Air”
Editor David Richards

David Richards’ winning piece on the uncertain future of the Harry H. Baker
Boys and Girls Club recounts the club’s beginnings, then follows its winding path since
1998 and the lives it has touched along the way. Richards’ story is crisply written,
engaging and built on very strong records reporting. The story puts a face on the young
people who need the club and count on its resources to keep them off the streets after
school hours. It then underpins those personal moments with a thorough accounting of
the club’s finances – and future financial needs that threaten its continued existence. This
story is a great example of feature writing that combines the craft of storytelling with
fact-based reporting. Most importantly, this is a “make a difference” story that draws
attention to an important need in the community.

Second Place: Lee’s Summit Journal, Lee’s Summit, Mo.
“Escaping the Killing Fields”
Reporter Brett Dalton

Chouen and Mary Dean’s story of imprisonment and escape from Cambodia and
the Khmer Rouge is impossible to put down. They fled their home, were separated and
eventually reunited – very much by accident – in Thailand. Along the way, each was
imprisoned, and Mary Dean witnessed the deaths of their three children. Now living in
Lee’s Summit, they are witnesses to a painful period in history that most of us know only
through textbooks or news accounts. Brett Dalton does a wonderful job of putting us in
the moment as we relive the couple’s terror and loss during their escape from the Khmer
Rouge and the path that brought them to America’s heartland.

Photo – Judged by the Idaho Statesman

First Place: Lee’s Summit Journal, Lee’s Summit, Mo.
“A Big Wet Kiss”
Photo Editor Jeff Kirchhoff

The image was a great moment, with wonderful texture and a nice tight crop. It
really grabs your attention and draws you into the page quickly.

Jeff Kirchhoff’s other entry “Stars in His Eyes” with the collection of the
community portraits were really well done as well. Great display and nice use of space.
Many had compelling composition – good application of the rule of thirds. There were
several really wonderful moments. The package portrayed a nice sense of community.

Second Place: The Cary News, Cary, N.C.
“Caught Up in the Magic”
Director of Photography and Multimedia Grant Halverson

Nice seeing! You don’t even have to read anything to know what is going on. A
refreshing way to document a Harry Potter party without the predictable photo of
someone dressed like Harry Potter.

It transcends Harry Potter and captures the pure joy and anticipation of the book.



4
Honorable Mention: The Clovis Independent, Clovis, Calif.
“Cartwheel Cowboy”
Photographer Dean Slagel

Nice image. Pushed the shutter at precisely the right time! Photo could have
benefited from a tighter, slightly more creative crop to really enhance the repetition and
pattern of legs and hoofs in chaos. As it is now the white fence in the background is
distracting.

Dean Slagel’s other image of the football player loosing his helmet was also
really good seeing. Slagel is obviously a talented sports photographer and should be
proud of both images.

Honorable Mention: Vida en el Valle, Fresno, Calif.
“Mexican Independence Day”
Photographer Hector Navejas

A couple of really nice moments – great space allowed for display. A combination
of more variety in lens focal length and a tighter edit would have made this package
stronger. Photo of woman waving the flag weakened the package as you can’t see the flag
and her expression is a little off. But overall some nice photos that captured the
excitement and emotion of the event.

Honorable Mention: The Cass County Democrat Missourian, Harrisonville, Mo.
“Home Sweet Home”
Adam Droegemueller

A couple of really nice moments that captured the joy of a community welcoming
home their Marines. A couple of the photos suffered from weak and cluttered
composition.

Sports – Judged by the Lexington Herald-Leader

First Place: The Cary News, Cary, N.C.
“One on One”
Sports Editor Tim Candon and Director of Photography and Multimedia Grant Halverson

It is an original way to spotlight local high school athletes and showcase their
skills in both print and video.

I picked The Cary News piece because it was an original way to showcase the
talents of local high school athletes in both print and video. The sports editor, a la George
Plimpton, tried to play the sports of the athletes he covers with amusing results. It was an
engaging way to get more local high school athletes into the paper and online, talking
about what makes them good at the game they play.
5
Special Projects – Judged by Howard Weaver, The McClatchy Company

First Place: The Cary News, Cary, N.C.
“Cary Band Day”
Director of Photography and Multimedia Grant Halverson
and Reporter Valerie Marino

The Cary Band Day presentation produced by The Cary News is an outstanding
example of journalism that combines wide community reach with vigorous, multifaceted
coverage. As a result, readers leave this special presentation with a powerful sense of
what a central event this marching band competition is for the community of Cary.

Some 28 different bands (and supporters) from North Carolina and Virginia
converged on Cary for this annual event, and The Cary News had something for them all.
Multimedia presentations complemented traditional newspaper coverage to provide the
sights and sounds of the festivities in a lasting format.

Second Place: The Cass County Democrat Missourian, Harrisonville, Mo. and The
Star-Herald, Belton, Mo.
“The Cass County Sports Awards”
Newsrooms Staffs

Newspapers in many communities sponsor prep sports awards and host events –
but few do so with the depth and range of The Cass County Democrat Missourian and
The Star-Herald in this joint effort. Their special section recognizes a huge range of
student athletes from eight different schools in the region in a variety of sports from
tennis to football. Also honored are top scholar athletes and the coach of the year. This
event must truly be a centerpiece of sports life in Cass County.


###

About McClatchy:
The McClatchy Company is the third-largest newspaper company in the United
States, with 31 daily newspapers, approximately 50 non-dailies and direct marketing and
direct mail operations. McClatchy also operates leading local websites in each of its
markets which complement its newspapers and extend its audience reach in each market.
Together with its newspapers and direct marketing products, these operations make
McClatchy the leading local media company in each of its premium high growth markets.
McClatchy-owned newspapers include The Miami Herald, The Sacramento Bee, the Fort
Worth Star-Telegram, The Kansas City Star, The Charlotte Observer, and The (Raleigh)
News & Observer.

McClatchy also has a portfolio of premium digital assets. Its leading local
websites offer users information, comprehensive news, advertising, e-commerce and
other services. The company owns and operates McClatchy Interactive, an interactive
operation that provides websites with content, publishing tools and software
development. McClatchy operates Real Cities (http://www.RealCities.com), the largest
national advertising network of local news websites and owns 14.4% of CareerBuilder,
the nation's largest online job site. McClatchy also owns 25.6% of Classified Ventures, a
newspaper industry partnership that offers classified websites such as the nation's number
two online auto website, cars.com, and the number one rental site, apartments.com.
McClatchy is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MNI.

Doing What Matters

This article is reproduced from Crain's Creativity magazine, with permission:

© Copyright 2007 Crain Communications Inc.

Published: 05/01/2007
Section: POV
Page: 4
Story type: opinion

Doing What Matters
Byline: Brian Collins

In 1941, the Bulova Watch Co. broadcast the first TV commercial during a Brooklyn Dodgers game, on WNBT. They paid only $9, but advertising changed overnight. By the 1950s, David Ogilvy's genius was to put some science into that mix: If you understand people well enough, you can project what you've learned into the future. Assuming, of course, that the future was simply an extension of the past. And for 50 years, it almost was. But everything changed. Again. And judging Creativity's first awards has given me great heart that imagination and courage is alive and not only thriving in advertising but in amazing new products and experiences. Here are some random thoughts that came to mind as I reviewed this year's best work.

The One Big Idea model is dead. The last half of the 20th century was the only time when there has ever been a model. Since the dawn of commerce, niche products and shifting micro-segments have always been the! rule. TV created massive markets for mediocre, ``good enough'' stuff. That was the exception. Now we're back to chaos again, and we're not going back. This has undone some marketing organizations that are used to placing the bulk of their efforts in one broad, top-down, agency-controlled idea. Single-minded communication--The Big Idea--makes life easy for communicators. But people aren't single-minded. We're too busy living our lives to pay attention. We know what we love, and it's not brands spread like jam across every piece of media in our face. It's lots and lots of small, weird, new ideas and products--in lots of different places-so amazing that people will seek them out. Axe's ``Gamekillers'' is a smart example of making something so remarkable, people will do just that.

The answer isn't more advertising. Three generations of agency creative leaders grew up with media that interrupted what people really wanted to see. By definition, advertising marginalized it! self; it was stuck between things that people cared about more. So age ncies learned the power of rapid-fire storytelling. And the best ones raised their stories to the flashpoint. Apple's ``1984'' commercial created a myth in 60 seconds. Twenty years later, new-media shops proclaimed the irrelevance of narrative in interactive. ``It's the all about utility!'' Well, sure. But as long as there are humans, it's never ``all about utility.'' As utility becomes commodity, utility with stories will be what people seek. The Nike+iPod product and companion website is a perfect example of this future.

You can't buy passion. Why create things people will like when you can create what people love? Regardless of discipline, we're all now in the business of inciting contagious passion. Mass deadens, and corporate leaders are figuring this out faster than I could have hoped. ``We're all just one step away from commodity hell,'' says GE's Geoffrey Immelt. Doing something breathtaking is the only safe spec. But to make things people love means you will,! inevitably, make things some people will hate. I've judged the Skittles campaign twice this year, and each time it floors me. Monty Python in their heyday were this good. But some people on one of the juries despised this work. It completely wigged them out. Thank God. Seeing Skittles renewed my faith in almost everything I love about working in this business.

``Oops'' happens. With the iceberg dead ahead, the crew tried to steer the Titanic instead of just stopping it. The Titanic would still have hit the iceberg, but the ship would have stayed afloat. A lot of branding work gets going in the wrong direction and the people on the bridge make the same mistake--trying to steer through a disaster instead of just saying ``Stop!'' Unilever stopped a big campaign halfway through, scrapped everything and started all over. Dove's ``Campaign for Real Beauty'' was the result. The ``Evolution'' film is that campaign's most remarkable idea to date. Even Tara, my 11-year-old ni! ece, now knows what the beauty industry kept secret for so long.
It's changing, but television is still the world's campfire. On a brand scale, TV can still create phenomena. Whatever you think of American Idol, it's a weekly event that incites people in astonishing numbers to engage. Sometimes, even ads will still engage on that scale. When I was 10, I saw Coke's ``Hilltop'' commercial. It was the height of the Vietnam war, and here were kids from all over the world who wanted to teach the world to sing. And they did. Millions of kids like me bought the 45 single. We all wanted to be the people on that hill. Coca-Cola appears to be hitting such a solid creative stride again. The violence of a popular game like Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto was magically twisted by Coke into a giddy, over-the-top all-singing, all-dancing musical number that would embarrass Busby Berkeley. It's a daring act of optimism. The spot isn't cool, and that's cool. It showed that the ``Coke Side of Life'' may be a campaign that lasts longer than their rotating mar! keting chiefs.

War is the wrong metaphor for marketing. How can we think we'll inspire hearts and minds when we drive ``penetration'' by launching ``campaigns'' against ``target demographics''? When I go around agencies and see conference rooms rebranded as War Rooms, it makes my teeth hurt. Selling isn't about conquest. It's about what marketers and their customers have and can do in common. Still, you love battle metaphors? Fine. Then ask: What's worth marching for together? Hey, I know. That amazing $100 laptop computer to get into the hands of children around the world. Let's go.

A storm is coming. Are you going to hunker down? Or are you going out to meet it? Walt Disney was his own storm. Cartoon shorts were only the beginning of his career. When you think about it, he started off doing what many agency people still aspire to today--making mini-movies. The difference is that Disney didn't stay with what he knew. He was at the forefront of every new techn! ology. He changed every five years, always asking, What's the next thi ng? And the next thing after that. What's weird to me is how so many agency people still believe that the height of creative achievement is getting a spot on the Super Bowl. I mean, after 50 years, is that all we've really got?

Put down the camera. Please. Pick up some other tools and try to build something that's inherently inspiring, on its own. David Ogilvy came to advertising from a research organization. In the early years, he preached that success could be codified, and should be replicated. Later on, he saw that the future was no longer the lengthened shadow of the past. ``Change,'' he said, ``is our lifeblood.'' And that's exactly what I saw throughout this work. And it's about time.

Judge Brian Collins of Ogilvy's Brand Integration Group (who announced his departure from Ogilvy this month) was inspired by the first Creativity Awards winners.

McClatchy's national website

[exerpts from remarks by Howard Weaver at the McClatchy Washington Bureau, 31 May 2007]

... Let’s lay one tired issue to rest right away. We don’t have to debate and worry any more about the future of the news business. While there are a lot of fundamental variables still much in play, we know enough to assert a great deal right now. We will occupy a distinctly hybrid, multiplatform, multimedia future in which we exercise far less control but enjoy far greater reach and opportunity. We will touch more people in more interesting ways. We will collaborate with our readers and audiences, we will operate more transparently, and we’ll find ourselves adjusting and recalibrating constantly as we do.

Here’s the really good news: we get do all of that on the most solid possible foundation, this bureau’s unequalled capacity for producing significant, exclusive, public service journalism that sustains our unchanging mission as a company. We’ll talk a lot more about that in a few moments.

There are three big themes emerging simultaneously in our world right now. The first involves the revenue reset that’s under way – and it truly sucks – but the other two are both positive for us: an unprecedented public appetite for news and information, and a splendid set of new tools that let us serve that appetite better than ever before.

You know how tough operating conditions are right now. Throughout the industry, McClatchy included, [reported] revenues continue to decline ... let it suffice to say that we haven’t seen a bottom yet ... We believe part of that is based on structural changes and part on cyclical patterns, that some but not all of the lost revenue will come back, and that things [may] get worse for a while before they start getting better. As a result we have to significantly reengineer our cost structures, and that’s underway – reducing employees through attrition; looking for ways to use technology and contracting relationships to accomplish things more efficiently; sharing more; negotiating harder; refining our focus.

You know how McClatchy operates: through this process we will try to sustain our “athletic company” profile, working to be as trim and fit as possible while preserving the muscles – meaning feet-on-the-street resources aimed at producing quality journalism and selling advertising.

Because of that appetite for news I mentioned and our growing ability to serve it in new ways, we do have a powerful story to tell about where we plan to end up. The “hybrid” future I forecast means one based on many different delivery systems, built on an enduring print foundation and rapidly expanding into all kinds of digital, multimedia platforms. We’re already doing this well enough that the audience for what we produce continues to grow.

You know the catechism by now: add our newspaper readership – still one of every two adults in the country – to the unduplicated reach of our online audiences and we’re growing. More people want what we produce today than wanted it yesterday. This is the fundamental truth upon which our future success depends.

Print readership is going to continue its decline – more slowly in the future, we believe, once the current purge of unwanted peripheral readership [bonus days, NIE, advertiser-sponsored copies and the like] is shed. Still, in a world of constantly proliferating choices, every individual medium will lose share. It’s important to recognize that modest, managed decline is not failure in that environment – it is the foundation of success.

But the growth imperative means we have to increase audience everywhere else, principally online. Growing online audience is not optional. It’s at the heart of both our revenue results and our public service mission. It’s how we remain a relevant mass medium with a real chance to do good and serve the public.

You have a rare chance to contribute to that success. You’re not a newspaper and you have more options about how and where to allocate your resources. What’s more, our imperative for audience growth coincides perfectly with your need for reach and impact. Everybody here recognizes how the absence of a Knight Ridder presence in Washington and New York stunted the impact of pre-war reporting. We’re going to fix that once and for all by building a front page they can’t miss and fueling it with enough traffic that they can’t ignore it.

This is obviously built on the foundation of your high quality journalism. Far from abandoning that effort, we need you to step it up. We’re at a crucial point in a very big game here, and we need our best players on the field. Your productivity, your energy and your talent need to be hitting on a high cycle right now. This is no time to pull up for a breather.

We also have to adapt to the new landscape. Some of this is as easy as my old story about the circuit-riding preacher who explains his choir and piano player by reminding people “I can’t convert ‘em till I get ‘em in the tent.” We’re going to play a little music to attract people, too.

Much of that will be ancillary to your daily work, but not all of it. We’ll explore video with freelancers and audience participation, we’ll look for alternative story forms from outside contributors with different voices, we’ll test the waters of participative or distributed reporting through alliances.

But we will also need alacrity and enthusiasm from you. Some of you will be extending almost immediately into the blogosphere – in a few cases exposing that tender flesh to the world’s largest news audience on Yahoo. We have to learn how to blend the strengths of professional journalism with the immediacy and voice of the blogger, and to do so both surefootedly and spontaneously.

We’ll sometimes need you to come back from a complicated interview and find a way to produce a few paragraphs of breaking news before you settle in for heavier lifting. We need some of you to see whether video can work for you. We need editors to think about multiple audiences, to flag great stuff we can promote on Yahoo, to be gentle with reporters who are trying things for the first time.

We need you to step up for online Q&A forums, learning to respond to audience questions – even unreasonable ones – with both candor and grace. I hope we’ll soon be helping readers create social networks or communities of interest built around your journalism, and we will need you to understand that process and help nurture it.

And we will need your indulgence, I suspect, as we wander out into the traffic. We’re going to make some mistakes, occasionally ask too much, sometimes reveal to little. Some of the bromides you learned in journalism school or from your first city editor are going to get violated. You may not like all the alternative voices I’m hoping to round up for our revival tent.

But I think you’re going to like the results.

I had a columnist in Anchorage who wrote, “All a reporter really wants is to be at armageddon with a notebook and a pencil.” Well, bullshit. She wants a notebook and a pencil and an audience.

We’re planning to get you a great one.

To the editors of America's small newspapers

By STAN TINER, editor, The Sun Herald

At ASNE, March 26, 2007

Too many American newspapers and their editors have descended into a darkness of spirit and a despair that is palpable. Weighed down by the seemingly unending declines in circulation, revenue, and stock value, we face a depression of circumstance that is reminiscent of this nation’s prospects at the dawn of Franklin Roosevelt’s Presidency. When FDR approached the podium for his first inaugural address in January of 1933, Americans were in the depth of the Great Depression, and they had no clear vision of how to rise from that awful gulf.

Mr. Roosevelt’s words were candid and frank, and taken in their fullness quite remarkable for their wondrous construct. Almost three quarters of a century later, every person in this room, I am sure, and almost every American, can recite one phrase that lifted the nation and helped set her feet on the path to recovery: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. What a simple and powerful thought. Of course when you reflect on the dozen years that were to follow, you would have to say it was not exactly true that fear was the only thing to be feared. The words and deeds of evil men were rumbling across Europe and the Far East, and in time they would engulf this nation and the world in a conflagration unlike any we had seen, causing the deaths of countless millions, and the displacement and degradation of many millions more.

And for Americans, the road to hopefulness and economic prosperity was traveled one day and one mile at the time cheered on by the President whose fireside chats continued to offer encouragement to a nation and a people.

That is the journey I hope we will travel today – one that starts with the stirring message of FDR. But at the outset, I would observe that for newspaper editors, fear thus far seems to be winning.

If you come here today expecting to hear more depressing news, I suggest you have come to the wrong place – for this day we are going to cast off the sackcloth and ashes, we are going to forget the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and the voices of gloom and doom, and we are going to celebrate the wondrous past, present and future of journalism and the opportunities for public service that we are blessed to have as editors of American newspapers, with the emerging power of our websites, and all other platforms available to us, which extend our reach and possibility far beyond that of any preceding generation.

Are we challenged as never before, have we had to learn to multi-task and to carry heavy loads we never thought possible, have we had to learn new technology, and have we had to do more with less than editors in the recorded history of our profession – you betcha. But there is something liberating in knowing that not only have we survived all of this, but for those who have survived, we are smarter, more capable, and more nimble than we thought possible. That which does not kill us makes us stronger, and all of we brothers and sisters of ink on paper and the internet, video, podcasts, and niche publishing are powerful managers of news content and information. Never forget that!

Today we are going to take a journey down memory lane, not just for the purpose of nostalgia, but because it is in the lessons of the history of journalism that we gain insight and hope for the future. American editors, especially small newspaper editors, I believe, have grasped the secret of how newspapers can survive, even prosper, in these days where so many struggle, and where chaos sometimes seems the rule.

A great deal of study and theory has been applied to the explanations that rush forth in a great torrent about the failure of newspapers. Some of these deny the possibility of newspapers in the brave new world where we are headed. Not so quick, my friends – I urge you to not go easily into the darkness of those predictions. While the genius of the crowd is important, so too, I submit, is the genius of the solitary editor who knows and cares for his or her readers and communities – whether it be a small town such as Joe Murray’s Lufkin, Texas, or Ken Paulson’s larger territory – the USA.

In my mind Joe is the very embodiment of what a small newspaper editor should be. He grew up with the smell of hot lead in his nostrils and ink in his blood, brought home every evening by his father, a linotype operator at the Lufkin Daily News. So the boy grew up with the ambition to edit the paper and in the fullness of time, his dream was realized. Joe had reached the pinnacle – he was editor of the Daily News, with all of the challenges and disappointments and long hours that the reality of all dreams include, along with the triumphs and joys.

So on a day off, he stopped by his office to read mail before enjoying some down time, when a citizen of the town stood in Joe’s doorway, hat in hand, inviting him to go down to the local funeral home to see the body of his dead great nephew.

“They beat that boy’s brains out, literally,” he said, telling Joe how the boy had died at Marine boot camp.

It was the last thing Joe Murray wanted to do that day, but he felt a certain duty to go and look at the body in a casket. There was something in the earnest story of the dead boy that touched the humanity inside his big heart and awakened the journalist in him, and so the editor went down to see for himself.

The nation was in the midst of the rising surge of soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen to Vietnam and under great pressure to recruit more and more human treasure to spend in that war. The Marines had recruited the young man from Lufkin whose body Joe had gone to view. And the horrible sight the small town editor saw seemed to confirm the uncle’s version of events.

When he left the funeral home, the editor of the Daily News was already on a mission that would reform the United States Marine Corps and earn the newspaper the Gold Medal Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

Together with young reporter Ken Herman, Murray and the Lufkin Daily News wrote a hometown obituary of Lynn “Bubba” McClure that told how the boy had repeatedly failed entrance exams taken in Lufkin before “passing” the test in San Antonio. “Bubba” McClure died after being required to fight a series of pugil stick battles with bigger and stronger opponents, with the final and fatal blow the one to his head.

The story of the boy’s death led to congressional hearings and changes in recruiting and training in the United State Marine Corps, all because a small town newspaper editor did his duty as he saw it, and pursued truth.

The stirring stories of newspaper editors making a difference and using the power of the press to help illuminate the people did not end 30 years ago in Lufkin, and they are not confined by any means to small newspapers.

I can think of no better example of a current editor listening to his internal voice than Ken Paulson of USA Today.

When Katrina crushed South Mississippi and flooded and destroyed much of New Orleans, American newspaper and broadcast journalists came and reported for a while, and then most moved on. I once wrote that the story of a missing Alabama teenager in Aruba actually received more cable network coverage than the terrible plight of those who survived Katrina, and no one has challenged that statement.

Indeed the focus has so dimmed on that topic that the number one question I’ve been asked at various newspaper meetings I have attended is, “Are you back to normal?” The answer to that is a resounding no, and we will not be for years. The long-term issues of public health – both mental and physical - are profound, as are gigantic insurance questions that have impacted the recovery significantly, as well as housing matters. I suspect it will shock you to learn that about 80,000 of our people are living in FEMA trailers 19 months out from Katrina with little prospect of other housing for many of them today.

I always issue an invitation to editors to come and see the story of Katrina for themselves. There is no way you can imagine the scale and scope and depth of this disaster unless you witness it yourself. A few, including Dave Zeeck, our current ASNE President, have come, and Dave rolled his sleeves up and worked with our newsroom for a week. Now that is leadership, and we are grateful for all who have come.

When I issued the invitation at last fall’s ASNE Board Meeting, Ken Paulson immediately said he would come, and he did. During the APME meeting in New Orleans in October, he made the tour of New Orleans and South Mississippi, and what he saw convinced him his newspaper should do more – much more.

“This is an American tragedy,” Ken said at the time, and he promised that USA Today would commit its journalism to telling the story much more deeply than it had.

Before long, Ken returned to the Katrina zone with his publisher, editorial page editor and virtually the entire leadership of his newsroom in tow, along with an army of reporters, photographers, and webfolk. They have not left us since, and because this solitary editor had a boots on the ground experience, he was able to “see” the story and now his fine paper is telling the continuing saga of Katrina to Americans more comprehensively than any national news organization has done.

I thank Ken for his commitment, as it represents the kind of passion for good journalism that is making a difference in this country.

What he has done is really no different than what you in this room do every day in serving your communities and your readers. You know them, you know the problems that confront them in their daily lives, and you seek to solve them, while illuminating the good they do, and celebrating the joys and achievements that affirm life in those towns.

In looking back on my long career as the top editor of five American newspapers, I am reminded of one of my best moments, though it took my Cub Scout son to prod me to do the journalism that made a difference. I was the editor of the Shreveport Journal, whose readership included the little town of Blanchard where I grew up and attended elementary and middle school, the same public school attended by my three children.

After a PTA meeting one evening, my eldest son’s scout leader said with some humor that Mark, then about 11, had told him that I was going to “save” the little white frame library at the Blanchard school. New laws required all school buildings to have a bathroom and a wheelchair ramp, and the library board had decided to close the Blanchard Library and consolidate at another school to save the cost of those additions.

As we drove home, I told Mark what the scout leader had said and reminded him and his younger brother and sister of our long-established rule that we would never use the power of the newspaper for any personal end. We simply could not do that. With a clearness of mind and pureness of heart that was impressive, he came quickly back with this rejoinder – “Isn’t that what newspapers do – save libraries and help people out?” In that sentence Mark had captured the essence of why I had become a newsperson in the first place – to do good – to help people out.

Chastened by this, and emboldened by the reminder, I did my homework. It turned out that the little Blanchard library not only was one that carried fond memories for the Tiners, it was also the most utilized in the Parish (county) boasting a higher per capita use of materials than any other library. I set out on a mini crusade to save the library. People in the community kicked in with contributions to pay for the bathroom and wheelchair ramp, and the board relented in their plans to close the library. The last time I looked, the little white frame building had a new coat of paint and was still dispensing books to the people of the town, and to students like Mark, who thought that a newspaper could save a library. He is here with us today. Would you stand, Mark?

So what would happen if newspapers went away? Who will save the libraries, and write about the people trying to survive disasters, or tell of the injustices sometimes perpetrated by government or corporations, and all the others who need the spotlight of watchdog journalism shined on their actions?

After several years of almost nothing but negative reporting dominating news coverage of the future of newspapers, there is a glimmer of hope seen in recent publications that suggest the viability of our industry – usually with the caveat that we will survive as a hybrid, combining interactive news with print, as the former expands and the latter contracts in importance.

Robert Kuttner, writing in the current issue of the Columbia Journalism Review, says that while American newspapers dedicate nowhere near the resources to research and development as Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo, we have emerged as formidable web innovators. “And so far nobody has succeeded in replicating the range, depth, and quality of a newspaper in a web-only daily. You can click on Google News for a quick snapshot of breaking stuff, but most of that content originates in newspapers,” Kuttner says.

Content is and has always been our not so secret weapon, and our not so secret advantage. Our journalism and our journalists know how to gather the news and verify it. Despite our very public failures over recent years, I am confident in saying the overall quality of our daily reports are the best they have ever been. Today’s journalist is smarter, more committed to the high values of our profession and works harder than any generation to come before. They deserve better than they get, and I salute them for the amazing way in which they have adapted through the difficult times of this transformative period.

In their Elements of Journalism, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel write that “In the end, the discipline of verification is what separates journalism from entertainment, propaganda, fiction or art.”

Agreed, gentlemen. Discipline and verification and all of the other “stuff” that has been taught in the classrooms and the newsrooms for all of the years of our memory and longer, the values and ethics, belief in truth, and the righteousness that it purchases – the green eyeshade editors and the worn leather soles of reporters who dig in isolation for that thing called news – all of those, and more, that is our splendid advantage.

We can do this thing – no, I am certain we will do it. We will climb out of this valley of the spirit because we have to do it – democracy depends on us, and our journalism is the glue that holds this place together, only our newspapers and websites can provide the news of every town and every community in our nation as we have done so well so long.

Back in the day, back at the beginning of this old editor’s career, there was excitement in waiting to hear the hum of the press, even feeling its vibration within me. There is no less of a sense of awe and accomplishment when sunherald.com shows its electronic face on my Treo with a scoop that has beaten every other news organization in the whole wide world. Before – not so long ago – we had one shot at being first – before the press run started. No longer. Every minute, every second is full of possibility for we newspeople. I don’t like to say platform agnostic – it doesn’t sound right to me – but I will say I embrace with every fiber of my being, that all of us here have been liberated to tell our stories and show our pictures as never before. We do not flee before the new technologies that are here or the ones to come; we will take them into the essence of our profession and make them our own. That is evident on the badge you wear today – ASNE proudly proclaiming of its editor members – “Leading America’s Newsrooms”.

Whether we are known as newspapers in the future or something else, newspapers are our legacy, and their power and value are not diminished by time.

Where we were once slow to embrace change, we are now adapting and innovating and improving our news gathering capacity at warp speed.

I don’t see any dinosaurs in this room, I see racehorses running toward a future with the bloodlines of great editors who came before.

To those who hold the pursestrings of our future, I will say this one thing of which I am certain – we cannot cut our way to prosperity. We can only report our way to success. All of the cutting, all of the marketing in the world will not carry the day. It is content, content, content. We have it – and the capable folks to gather that content in our own newsrooms. They are our advantage, our key to victory.

Which brings me back to Mr. Roosevelt and his admonition to Americans who faced daunting times and uncertain prospect – but whose greatest danger was fear itself. I have sensed fear in our ranks for a while, and if we listen to the voices of doubt which are a chorus, we could easily be persuaded that all is lost.

I say to you here and now, do not be distracted, do not fear the future – for if you hold true to your historic mission, we will do more than survive, we will prevail. Because I know you, because I have seen your grace under the pressure of deadlines and the strain of hard times, I am optimistic and even bold enough to say you will prevail. You simply must.