“Award” Items

Great Honor for a Student Journalist: Kilgore Award

In late summer, I received notice that I had won the  Barney Kilgore Award sponsored by the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation [later renamed as the Society of Professional Journalists Foundation].  The award included $2,500, which would be presented at the SDX national convention in November in Chicago.  The convention would present an opportunity that would change my life. Learn more about Barney Kilgore here.

In a statement of journalistic philosophy that accompanied my entry, I wrote “a good newsman and a good newspaper will provide the news with creativity, honesty and integrity.”  I also said:

A good newspaper must be aware of the changes in its community.  It must be able to present facts without fear or bias and interpret the news so that its readers can understand their every-changing and complex world.

Those words still work, 45 years later.  I also wrote:

For some people, newspapers are the only to government.

Sadly, too many people in too many cities have no daily newspapers and hence little access or oversight of their government officials.

 

Chicago Tribune Newsroom Award Was Extra Sweet

When I worked at the Chicago Tribune, the newsroom had a special awards dinner every December.  Here’s where the top staffers received recognition [and a very nice check] for accomplishments during the year.  Prior to the ceremony, Joe Leonard, an assistant managing editor, told me to make sure Kathy Oakley got to the dinner.  Joe knew I was dating Kathy and that she had said that she wasn’t planning to attend the dinner.  Joe knew she would win the Johnrae Earl Award for editing.

Kathlyn E. Oakley, who currently occupies the late Mr. Earl’s position in the copy desk slot, was honored for her dedication to good editing, awareness of writers’ sensibilities and grace under deadline pressure.

I also won.  An award for professional performance.  The next year I would win again. Better still: Kathy and I got married.

An Award Dinner That Has Lots of Intersections for the Future

One of the great honors I’ve received is the Bernard Kilgore award from SDX [now known as the Society of Professional Journalists].  I was a student at San Francisco State University and the award came with $2,500 check [ about $15,000 in 2102 dollars].  Robert W. Chandler, who was president of the SDX Foundation, presented the award.  The award ceremony was in Chicago and at the head table I sat next to Clayton Kirkpatrick, editor of the Chicago Tribune.  Here’s what I remember from that night:  Kirkpatrick said that “if you ever want to work in Chicago, let me know.”  Two years later, I did.  But that’s a different story.

Here’s the irony of the that awards ceremony.  Nelson Poynter, board chairman of the St. Petersburg Times, gave the keynote speech.  This is years before he founded the Modern Media Institute, which later became The Poynter Institute and which I joined in 2003.

While I don’t remember his remarks, I think I must have heard them because his thoughts about how to improve the relationship between reader and editor.  Poynter was ahead of his time.

“Today we need better two-way communications between reader and editor, between viewer and broadcaster. We are merely transient agents.” Poynter said. “The white space in the paper and time on the air belong to our clients.”