N.C. newspaper family accepts Gish Award; Chuck Todd tells crowd rural journalism 'has never been more important'

Some of the nation's best rural journalists received awards last night as Chuck Todd of NBC News told them that their work “has never been more important.”

The Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues (publisher of The Rural Blog) presented the Tom and Pat Gish Award to the late Tim Crews, editor-publisher of the twice-weekly Sacramento Valley Mirror in Willows, Calif.; and to the Thompson-High family, who owned and operated for three generations The News Reporter in Whiteville, N.C. The Institute and the Bluegrass Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists also last night presented the Al Smith Award for public service through journalism by Kentuckians to Becky Barnes, editor of the Cynthiana Democrat, and Murray State University's WKMS-FM.

The Gish Award is named for the late publishers of The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Ky., who exemplified the values of courage, tenacity and integrity in rural journalism for more than 50 years. Their son Ben Gish, who carries on their legacy at the Eagle today, helped choose the winners and present the awards last night at the Al Smith Awards Dinner at the Griffin Gate Marriott Resort in Lexington, Ky. It was the first held without Smith, co-founder of the institute, who died in March.

Tim Crews held up a toothbrush outside a jail after serving five
days in 2000 for refusing to give up an anonymous source.
(Associated Press photo by Rich Pedroncelli)

Crews was “one of the greatest fighters for open government at the local level in this country,” Institute Director Al Cross told the crowd. Crews died in November 2020, but his widow Donna Settle, who still publishes the Mirror, accepted the award on his behalf in a video. She said Crews started standing up to bullies in kindergarten, first with an older boy who tried to steal his milk.

Reporting in Fort Morgan, Colo., Crews "changed the town forever," said Settle. He ended a sheriff’s career by discovering he was illegally giving gun permits to family and friends. In Glenn County, California, Crews "had the attention of the county government and the city government and school district, knowing that when he asked for something, he would fight to get it." And when a judge threw him in jail for refusing to reveal his sources, he wrote about it "from jail on little pieces of paper and pencils provided by fellow inmates who admired what he was doing."

Rural journalism was the love of Crews’s life, Settle said, because it offered many challenges and allowed journalists to deeply engage with their communities. But, when they became a couple, Settle discovered the bravery required of a reporter when she had to get used to seeing local officials in public after Crews wrote critical stories about them. “That was a challenge that I hadn’t realized before, and I’m sure practically all good rural, small-town reporters go through the same thing,” she said. “You have to stand up to them. Tim never backed down from a good fight on getting the public the open records they were entitled to.”

Les High and Ben Gish with the Tom and Pat Gish Award

The 2021 Gish Award winners, the Thompson-High family, were no strangers to speaking truth to power. Under publisher Leslie Thompson, The News Reporter and the nearby Tabor City Tribune became in 1952 the first weeklies to win the Pulitzer Prize for public service, for reporting and commentary that quashed the Ku Klux Klan in Columbus County, where the group had become entwined with law enforcement. Thompson “was a principled man who never wavered from his core beliefs,” said grandson and longtime publisher Les High, who accepted the award on the family’s behalf.

"Since then, The News Reporter has continued to show courage, integrity and tenacity by holding accountable local public officials – especially those in the criminal-justice system," said Cross. "The paper has done this despite significant financial adversity, reader and advertiser boycotts, personal attacks and threats against family members; and taking smaller profits to better serve its readers, while always looking ahead. I think it provides an example of how a community newspaper can adapt to the digital age, still perform first-class public service and even extend its reach beyond its home county."

When Leslie Thompson died suddenly in 1959, son-in-law Jim High took over, husbanding the paper's shaky finances into a healthier state and continuing its tradition. "He did not shy away from a good fight either," Les High said.

High sold the paper to editor Justin Smith in August, but says Smith has the kind of spirit needed for the job. Also, they wanted to keep the paper's ownership local. Not content with retirement, earlier this year High launched the nonprofit Border Belt Independent, which provides in-depth investigative reporting for four nearby rural counties. He aims to support the six papers still operating in rural southeastern North Carolina, and hopes the project will be replicated in other rural communities.

High said he loves the line from the Apple TV series "Ted Lasso" in which Ted is told: “The truth will set you free, but first, it will really piss you off.” He concluded:

“The truth, however, is hard to come by today. When you hear the stories about Tom and Pat Gish or Tim Crews, we wonder if journalists today are made of the same stuff. The answer is a resounding, 'Yes!' Increasingly diverse media outlets are still producing remarkable stories with smaller staffs and fewer resources while operating under a difficult business model. Reporters do this for little pay, work long hours and endure personal attacks where they are cast by would-be autocrats as the enemy of the people.

“But that doesn’t change the mission. Our fragile democracy is under attack – and as we have seen – truth is the first casualty. Many of us tonight, myself included, stand on the shoulders of giants who risked their lives and livelihoods to tell truth to power. We owe it to them, our communities and this nation to persevere with courage and tenacity despite the daunting headwinds that lie ahead.”

Anita Richter of the Kentucky Association of Electric Cooperatives,
a dinner sponsor, presented Todd a personalized Louisville Slugger.

Chuck Todd agreed. In his keynote speech, NBC's "Meet the Press" host said the nation is at war over basic facts. But, though their work has never been more important, "Our work’s never been more second-guessed or worse, misconstrued and even attacked." 

Todd said rural journalists play a critical role in helping readers understand the local ramifications of the biggest three stories right now: climate change, inequality, and the future of this democracy. "Rural journalism is truly a community service," he said. "It’s incumbent upon all of us to be ambassadors for this work."

Speaking after presentation of the awards, Todd said, "I have to tell you, this has been a great tonic tonight. . . . This has been a nice time, and it reinforces me. . . . I wish a lot more of my colleagues in D.C. and New York would hear some of these stories. I know we need to do a better job of covering America. . . . If we’re going to break through, if we’re going to earn trust, we gotta cover the whole country, and we gotta cover the whole country with a bit more heart, a but more humanity and a little less judgment, if you will. . . . There’s a lot more to learn, sometimes, in rural American than there is in urban America."

He said journalists need to rebuild their credibility by being careful about their tone and taking themselves out of the story. Too often, he said, "We're more worried about 'takes' than we are about facts. . . . I'm sorry for those of us in this room that sometimes get attacked based on what people think of us in the national media."

Conversely, he said, “The credibility of the national media depend on local media, and local media give us more credibility.” But readers play a critical role too, he said: “Sometimes being a citizen is active work. It’s not stable right now. All of us play a role. If you’re not in journalism, then support it.”

The dinner, which was not held in 2020, also saw presentation by the Institute and the Society of Professional Journalists Bluegrass Chapter of the Al Smith Awards for public service through community journalism by Kentuckians, to Becky Barnes of the Cynthiana Democrat for 2020 and to WKMS, the radio station at Murray State University in the far western end of the state, for 2021.

WKMS Station Manager Chand Lampe said in accepting the award, "It’s really hard to tell these stories of impact in rural communities, specifically where local politics and kingmakers make it hard to tell these stories. In some cases, of course, the fact that you know the person that you’re reporting on, and in some cases it makes it extraordinarily challenging. Rural journalism is truly a community service, and it’s incumbent upon all of us to be ambassadors for this work."

This story has been revised to correct an editing error misattributing the quote immediately above.