Oregon editor wins weekly editors' top writing award; other winners' topics include secrecy, guns, books, Covid, racism

Steve Bagwell

Steve Bagwell, editorial-page editor of The News-Register in McMinnville, Oregon, won the 2023 Golden Quill Award for editorial writing from the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors, which held its annual conference at the University of Nevada, Reno, last week.

Bagwell's editorial hoisted Yamhill County Commissioner Lindsay Berschauer by her own petard: words she used to get elected in 2020, promising to make “helping working families” and “protecting working-class families” her top priorities. She and her mentor on the three-member commission, Mary Starrett, refused to accept $68,644 from the state for substance-abuse prevention, rural health care and vaccinations, objecting to a standard clause that "commits Oregon counties to supporting life- and health-saving vaccinations, most of which target dangerous diseases like polio and diphtheria," Bagwell wrote. "The counties are left to decide for themselves how deeply that commitment needs to run."

Immunization services "would seem to most benefit working-class families from rural areas where private health services may not be as affordable and accessible," Bagwell wrote. "But Berschauer and Starrett have displayed almost cult-like devotion to the unorthodox beliefs of the far-right fringe, leading them to repeatedly honor personal ideological purity over the broader interests of ordinary citizens. . . . We take vehement exception to their repeated efforts to impose their alarmist screeds on the rest of us, particularly when those views lack any vestige of factual or scientific grounding. We find it even more objectionable when they prove willing to incur materially harmful collateral damage on their self-proclaimed rural working-class constituency in the process, by thwarting aid having nothing to do with immunization against communicable disease.

To close the editorial, Bagwell quoted a post-election statement from Bershauer: “Too often, those in government operate in a bubble. They fail to understand the impact of their decisions on working families, and that erodes taxpayer trust.” He concluded, “Well, we certainly have to agree with her there. We couldn’t have said it better.”

Bagwell headed the "Golden Dozen" of editorial awards from ISWNE. Two of the 11 others won for editorials about government secrecy. Outgoing ISWNE President Gordon Cameron, group managing editor of the Ancaster News in Hamilton, Ontario, won for an editorial lampooning a local school board for keepign secret why it had sanctioned a trustee for the thid time in the current term; and Bill Schanen III of the Ozaukee Press in Port Washington, Wis., for an editorial taking the city council to task for keeping secret the identity of a developer who was making a controversial proposal.

Other winners in the Golden Dozen and their topics, in alphabetical order, were:

• Tamara Botting of The Sachem in Hamilton, Ontario, who held the local health department accountable with a deeply reported column about how and why it had given her the wrong information about self-isolation after she was exposed to a person with Covid: "People could have been putting off getting tested ... because of misinformation."
• Melissa Hale-Spencer of The Altamont Enterprise in New York, for a long piece about the history of racism in local schools, prompted by the latest incident, ending with "an appeal toward healing. This is empathetic local journalism at its best," wrote the judge, KUNR Manager Brian Duggan, former executive editor of the Reno Gazette-Journal.
• Molly McRoberts of the Potter County News in Gettysburg, S.D., for a short editorial about the Texas school shooting, with this line: "There’s talk after these shootings happen, but rarely change. Some say it’s a mental-health issue. Others say it’s a gun-accessibility issue. It looks like there’s a chance it could be both. And again, it does seem like there could be some discussion."
• Leonard Sparks of The Highland Current in Cold Spring, New York, for a piece titled "The Covid shrug," reflecting on how the pandemic had changed him, his neighbors and their attitudes, and how it had entered a new phase with vaccines that prevent hospitalization for the disease.
• Lisha Van Nieuwenhove of The Uxbridge Cosmos in Ontario, for an editorial titled "Share the freakin' road," about the need to be patient with farming equipment at harvest time, sparked by an accident in front of her husband's family farm.
• Alan Wartes of the Gunnison Country Times in Colorado, for an editorial about citizen's plea to move a sexually themed book from the young-adult section of the libary to the adult section, and the reaction. "Book banning is a bad idea. Period," he wrote. "But so is attacking the motives and character of someone who simply sees an issue differently than you do with harsh and unfounded rhetoric."
• Peter Weinschenk of The Record-Review in Abbotsford, Wis., for an editorial driving home the findings of the newspaper's investigation of the Marathon County court system, which found that the courts are overwhelmed by poor people largely arrested by Wausau police "and without enough public defenders to represent them. . . . Let us drive on slushy, potholed roads. Let us check out ragged, old books from the library. Let our park buildings go unpainted. Let zoning requests gather dust. But don’t make us live without justice. That is the bedrock of our civilization and should be our first priority."
• Brian Wilson, news editor of The Star News in Medford, Wis., for a column urging readers to look past the sensational murder of a 10-year-old girl and think about the need for mental-health services that may have prevented it.
• Geoffrey Woehlk, news editor of The Maryville Forum in Missouri, for a column admonishing local citizens who harshly criticize public officials at meetings: "Why do school board members even want to be school board members? Who would want to be a superintendent? Or a tourism committee member? Or a city manager? Or a teacher? Why subject yourself to the abuse?"