Nominations sought for the Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, integrity and tenacity in rural journalism by June 15

Tom and Pat Gish

Each year the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues presents the national Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, tenacity and integrity in rural journalism, named for the couple who exemplified those qualities as publishers of The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Ky., for 52 years.

Nominations for the Gish Award may be made at any time, but the deadline for new nominations to be considered for this year's award is Monday, June 15. The winner will receive the award at an event in Lexington, Ky., on Oct. 22.

To make a nomination, please send a detailed letter explaining how the nominee shows the kind of courage, tenacity and integrity that Tom and Pat Gish demonstrated at their weekly newspaper in the Central Appalachian coalfield. They withstood advertiser boycotts, business competition, declining population, personal attacks, and even the burning of their office to give their readers the kind of journalism often lacking in rural areas, and were the first winners of the award named for them. Tom died in 2008 and Pat in 2014. Their son, Ben, is the editor and publisher of the Eagle and serves on the award selection committee.

Additional documentation may be submitted after the nomination, and may be requested or required. Send your nominating letter, initial documentation and any questions to Institute Director Benjy Hamm at benjy.hamm@uky.edu.

The Institute seeks nominations that measure up, at least in major respects, to the records of the Gishes and other previous winners. Other winners have been the Ezzell family of The Canadian Record in the Texas panhandle; Jim Prince and Stanley Dearman, current and late publishers of The Neshoba Democrat in Philadelphia, Miss.; Samantha Swindler of The Oregonian for her work at The Times-Tribune in Corbin, Ky., and Jacksonville Daily Progress in Texas; Stanley Nelson and the Concordia Sentinel in Ferriday, La.; Jonathan and Susan Austin of the Yancey County News in North Carolina; the late Landon Wills of the McLean County News in Kentucky; the Trapp family of the Rio Grande Sun in northern New Mexico; Ivan Foley of the Platte County Landmark in northwestern Missouri; the Cullen family of the Storm Lake Times-Pilot in northwest Iowa; and Les Zaitz of the Malheur Enterprise in eastern Oregon. In 2019, the award went to three reporters whose outstanding careers revealed much about the coal industry in Central Appalachia: Howard Berkes, retired from NPR; Ken Ward Jr., then with the Charleston Gazette-Mail; and his mentor at the Gazette, the late Paul Nyden. In 2020 the award went to the late Tim Crews of the Sacramento Valley Mirror; in 2021 to the Thompson-High Family of The News Reporter and the Border Belt Independent in Whiteville, N.C.; in 2022 to Ellen Kreth and the Madison County Record of Huntsville, Ark.; in 2023 to Craig Garnett of the Uvalde Leader-News in Texas; in 2024 to Eric Meyer and the Marion County Record in Kansas; and in 2025 to Lisa Stayton and The Mountain Citizen of Inez, Kentucky.

The Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based at the University of Kentucky, is focused on helping sustain journalism in rural communities in the United States through information, expertise, training, outreach and other programs.

June 1 is deadline for nominations for the Al Smith Award for public service through community journalism

Al Smith

The Bluegrass Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky seek nominations for the Al Smith Award by Monday, June 1. This honor is given annually for public service through community journalism over a lifetime by a native or resident of Kentucky, or someone who has spent a significant portion of his or her career in the state.

The award is named for its first recipient: Albert P. Smith Jr., who owned weekly newspapers in Kentucky and Tennessee and was the founding host of KET’s “Comment on Kentucky” and the main co-founder of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues. He was chairman emeritus of its national advisory board when he died in 2021.

The award is based on news coverage and editorial leadership that serve community needs. Preference is given to journalists in smaller markets, to recognize restrictions that market size can place on the ability to provide outstanding public service through journalism. If a publisher or station owner is nominated, the judges may consider his or her civic service and the successful management of conflicts that can arise between journalistic, managerial, ownership, and civic roles.

Past winners of the Al Smith Award have been Bill Estep of the Lexington Herald-Leader; Bobbie Foust, a longtime fixture in West Kentucky journalism; Ben Gish and Sam Adams of The Mountain Eagle; Chris and Allison Evans of The Crittenden Press; WKMS News at Murray State University; Becky Barnes of the Cynthiana Democrat; David Thompson of the Kentucky Press Association; Stevie Lowery of The Lebanon Enterprise; Ryan Craig of the Todd County Standard and his late uncle Larry Craig of the Green River Republican; Sharon Burton of the Adair County Community Voice and The Farmer’s Pride; the late Carl West of The State Journal; Bill Bishop and Julie Ardery of the Daily Yonder; John Nelson and the late Max Heath of Landmark Community Newspapers, Jennifer P. Brown of Hoptown Chronicle; and Smith. More details can be found here. 

The award will be presented at the annual Al Smith Awards Dinner Oct. 22 at The Campbell House in Lexington. Nominations, supporting letters and sufficient documentation should be sent by Monday, June 1 to:

Al Smith Award SPJ Bluegrass Chapter 
123 West Todd Street 
Frankfort KY 40601-2825

Nominations may also be sent electronically to al.cross@uky.edu. For more information about Al Smith and the award see www.ruraljournalism.org or call Bluegrass SPJ Secretary Al Cross at 502-682-2848.

Commentary: Why one journalist traded covering national news for a small-town newspaper in Big Sky Country

After he left a national media career to become editor of the Glasgow Courier in Glasgow, Montana, this journalist began to see his writing and the news differently, writes Skylar Baker-Jordan, reflecting in The Daily Yonder on his journey to a new career in the "middle of nowhere."

"Within my first few hours of being in Valley County, I learned people are hungry for local news. A new face in Glasgow, a town of 3,202 people, folks immediately asked what brought me, a born and bred Appalachian, to the high plains of Montana," Baker-Jordan writes.

Once Glasgow residents learned Baker-Jordan was the Courier's new editor, he was inundated with town gossip, juicy conflicts and events the paper needed to investigate. He writes, "That thirst for local news is not unique to Glasgow, but it is increasingly difficult to quench. . . More than 130 local papers ceased publication in the past year alone."

As smaller newspapers close, fewer towns can rely on local reporting, which the "middle of nowhere" towns need more than most. Baker-Jordan adds, "Moving here was my chance to use my talents in the service of a community that needed an editor to help its local paper avoid this fate."

Baker-Jordan didn't decide to switch careers in an instant, but over time, while he was working as an editor at 100 Days in Appalachia, a nonprofit newsroom managed by and for Appalachians. He writes, "Suddenly, I was writing about and reporting on regional matters I’d long overlooked, and the response was overwhelming. In my entire career, the most gratitude I received from readers – the highest volume of responses – was to stories I wrote about local and regional matters."

He began to think about his past journalistic efforts differently. Baker-Jordan explains, "The sheer vitriol of the partisan press began to make my screeds feel less like a righteous contribution to public discourse and more like the very thing eroding trust in media and our civic institutions writ large."

Baker-Jordan doesn't see his new editing gig or his town as lesser than his career in the bigger national news arena. He writes, "Small towns deserve to see themselves reflected and taken seriously every bit as much as large urban areas or Congress and Wall Street. They deserve reporters and editors who are dedicated to telling their stories, to establishing a public record of their history and people."

Quick hits: Mississippi bans lab-grown dairy; Lawyers for Reporters; pay phones help boomers and zoomers connect

State-level bans like Mississippi's can restrict access to the 
 lab-grown dairy industry. (Photo by A. Chaudhary, Unsplash)

Mississippi is the first state to ban lab-grown dairy after passing a bill effective July 1, reports Karen Bohnert for Dairy Herd Management. Lab-grown dairy is "produced through precision fermentation or cell-culturing techniques" and often referred to as "fake milk," Bohnert explains. The bill, HB 1153, requires strict labeling requirements and updated authority to state inspectors to prevent the manufacture, sale and distribution of cell-cultured dairy throughout the state, Bohnert reports.

Lawyers for Reporters, created by the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice, is a free resource for American local and public-interest journalism organizations needing legal services, reports Tandy Lau for E&P Magazine. There's a five-person in-house legal team based in New York offering assistance, and they partner with outside counsel for extra support in farther areas. Managing Attorney Kay Murray told E&P they "really guide [journalists] to ensure that they've got the backup to get it right, that they are confident about getting it right [and] that their understanding with their sources is something that everybody is on the same page about." They hope to soon provide more support for investigative reporting and coverage of immigration issues as well. "If I was trying to quantify the value of [Lawyers for Reporter's assistance], it would add up to easily tens of thousands of dollars if not well into the six figures," Warwick Sabin, CEO and president of Deep South Today, told E&P.

A new study found a long-term shift in cancer death trends, with rural areas facing higher cancer death rates than urban areas in recent years, reports Dennis Thompson for U.S. News & World Report. Previously, between 1969 and 1971, “large cities had the highest overall cancer death rates, followed by small- to medium-sized cities.” However, rural areas had the highest rates in 2021 to 2023, and large cities had the lowest rates. Specifically, lung cancer deaths among rural men were 26% lower than city dwellers in 1969 to 1971, but 55% higher in 2021 to 2023. Researchers said the shift and continuously widening gap is “likely driven by limited access to health care, lower cancer screening rates, higher poverty, more smoking and other lifestyle and environmental factors” in rural communities.

In a new social experiment by Matter Neuroscience, two old payphones set up at a nursing home in Nevada and near Boston University allow "zoomers" and "boomers" to call each other from 3,000 miles apart, reports Scottie Andrew for CNN. Designed to help people feel less lonely, this pilot project will last at least a month, according to Matter Neuroscience. "Friendship could come in all ages. Wisdom can come in all forms, and we just want people to get out of their comfort zone and have a conversation," Matter Neuroscience social strategist Calla Kessler said.

GM announced it will be adding a day of factory
production to it heavy-duty truck line. 

General Motors is increasing its heavy-duty truck production, as consumer demand remains strong despite rising gas and diesel prices, reports Christopher Otts for The Wall Street Journal. GM's Flint Assembly plant in Michigan will operate six days a week now, rather than five, producing more heavy-duty versions of the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups, Otts reports. Workers will be "mandated into overtime hours to cover the additional day of production," explains Otts. As gas prices have risen by about one-third since the beginning of the Iran war, GM's stock has declined about 10% so far this year, and forecasters predict new-vehicle sales to fall 6.5% in the first quarter.

Study: Gen Z journalists may be avoiding rural newsrooms

Some younger journalists worry that rural newsrooms
might be too conservative for them. (Adobe Stock photo)

Gen Z journalists may be steered away from rural newsrooms due to a lack of knowledge in jobs available, as well as concerns of salary, politics, social life and career advancement potential, according to a new study involving students in the United States and Canada.

To examine why students in their late teens to early 20s are not attracted to working in rural areas, journalism professor Teri Finneman of the University of Kansas and instructor Tyler Nagel of Southern Alberta Institute of Technology surveyed 183 of their local mass communication students to ask how they felt about the possibility of reporting in rural communities, writes Tandy Lau for E&P Magazine.

Shared below is a Q&A on why some students who were surveyed find reporting in rural areas to be unappealing and what newsrooms may be able to do to attract younger journalists.

Q: Why aren’t more journalist students aware of available jobs in rural areas?
A: Some journalism schools are only teaching their students about journalism at a national level and not providing the context of journalism at a rural level. Eighty percent of Kansas respondents said they had not been taught about rural journalism in their classes at all, so they didn’t know what jobs there are available.

Q: Why are students concerned about salary?
A: While rural newsrooms often have a lower cost of living, students still have financial concerns. The Kansas respondents said they face student debt while the Canadian respondents face a current housing crisis.

Q: Why might students be concerned about politics?
A: Kansas students, particularly those with diverse backgrounds, responded they fear not being welcomed in rural communities due to polarizing politics and rural areas leaning red.

Q: How can rural newsrooms combat concerns of a lack of social life and career advancement opportunities?
A: Communicating with young journalists still in school is key in opening rural opportunities for them. Modernizing job descriptions, communicating opportunities to grow into leadership roles, creating a network for young journalists to socialize, and incentivizing the possibility of taking over a rural paper are a few of the recommendations by Finneman and Nagel after conducting their study.

Journalists can help rural communities by reporting on local drinking water data and quality

The EPA maintains the Safe Drinking Water Information System. Users can click on states or use search tools.

Rural communities need journalists who investigate and report on local and more regional drinking water issues, from tainted wells to water that runs brown and few people would voluntarily drink.

The Safe Drinking Water Information System is online, searchable and a place to start exploring area-specific data. SDWIS data is managed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and required by the Safe Drinking Water Act, writes Joseph A. Davis for the Society of Professional Journalists. Access SDWIS here.

The act requires more "public disclosure than almost any other environmental law. The data is all there (mostly), although SDWIS is not that easy to use," Davis explains. "It really helps if you know the official name of the drinking water system you are interested in."

U.S. water systems come in all sizes, and some regional water services have surprising regulations. Davis writes, "A Girl Scout summer camp’s well system may not even operate year-round. But it’s still a 'community water system' that must meet the act’s requirements."

For communities with more than 10,000 residents, the Consumer Confidence Report contains vital data. "It tells people whether the water meets standards (or doesn’t), and what the contaminants of concern are," Davis writes. Reporters may want to remind readers that not all contaminants are regulated.

Other tips include looking into lead and bacterial levels. Davis adds, "Groundtruth everything you can. Talk to water users and system operators instead of relying merely on data. Go to utility board meetings. Taste the water. Visit the source."

Reporting on Addiction launches hub for journalists covering opioid addictions, deaths and settlement dollars

As opioid settlement money continues to be divvied out to state and local governments, reporters can help their communities understand where the money is coming from and discern who and how their regional governments are spending it.

Reporting on Addiction, a collaborative project of the Opioid Policy Institute and 100 Days in Appalachia, provides reporters with an "Opioid Settlement Resource Hub" filled with robust story ideas and insights to use when covering the history, dollar amounts, tools and impact of opioid settlement funds in local communities.

For journalists looking to explain the history of opioids in the U.S. and the background of the settlements, the hub provides story angles and questions for reporters to consider, as well as examples from reliable news sources for context.

Once an audience knows more about how opioid addictions and overdose deaths negatively impacted their community and how settlement spending plans aim to spur recovery, journalists can create community-specific settlement tracking tools that serve as a valuable public resource. The hub provides links for numerous ways to investigate and report on settlement spending.

Is it working? Journalists can help their audiences measure if opioid settlement plans and spending are slowing the opioid crisis within their communities. Stories that evaluate the results and how plans evolve will become increasingly crucial as programs are implemented and more data becomes available.

Reporter Bill Estep wins Al Smith Award for community journalism, recognizing 40 years of Appalachian stories

Bill Estep

Bill Estep, who chronicled the stories of Appalachian Kentucky and its communities for more than 40 years, is the 2025 winner of the Al Smith Award for public service through community journalism by a Kentuckian, given by the Bluegrass Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Institute for Rural Journalism at the University of Kentucky.

Estep retired this summer from the Lexington Herald-Leader, which he joined in 1985 after working at the Tri-City News in Cumberland and the Commonwealth-Journal in his hometown of Somerset. He spent most of his career covering Appalachian Kentucky, but was also a projects reporter and Frankfort Bureau chief. He worked on the Herald-Leader series “Cheating Our Children,” which helped lead to the Kentucky Education Reform Act; “Prescription for Pain,” which led to stronger anti-drug efforts in Appalachian Kentucky; and “Fifty Years of Night,” a 2012 look at the region in the 50 years since Harry M. Caudill published "Night Comes to the Cumberlands." 

The Herald-Leader’s Linda Blackford, who worked with Estep and John Cheves on the “Night” series, noted “Bill’s kind, patient, laconic way of asking questions, and truly listening to the answers. Thousands of Kentuckians trusted him with those stories because they recognized he was one of them.” His work also won praise from Gov. Andy Beshear, who said “Bill dedicated his storied career to lifting up the voices of his neighbors.” State Senate President Robert Stivers of Manchester praised his fair, factual reporting and said, “I consider him the Walter Cronkite of Kentucky.”

The Al Smith Award is named for the late Albert P. Smith Jr., who was the driving force for creation of the Institute for Rural Journalism, headed its advisory board and was its chair emeritus until his death in 2021. He published newspapers in Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee, was founding producer and host of KET’s “Comment on Kentucky,” and federal co-chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission. He was the first winner of the award in 2011.

SPJ Bluegrass Chapter Secretary Al Cross said many journalists might not think a reporter for a metropolitan newspaper could be a community journalist, but Estep was. “Community journalism has been called ‘relationship journalism,’ in which you rely on closer ties to subjects and sources than the typical practitioner of metropolitan journalism,” said Cross, who was founding director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and a regional and political reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal. “You may not be a resident of their communities, but you want to be seen as a friendly neighbor, or at least a friendly acquaintance. You care about them, their communities, and their reactions to your reporting, writing and presentation in much the same way as their local community journalists do – if you are doing the job right. Bill is the best I’ve ever known at that.”

Institute Director Benjy Hamm said, "For decades, Bill Estep incorporated the best qualities of a community journalist into his work at the Herald-Leader. His powerful reporting has changed laws, lives and communities – all for the better."

“He’s been the voice for a community of communities that is often overlooked or even ignored nationally,” said Peter Baniak, former executive editor of the Herald-Leader. “He’s told stories that matter for an entire region and its people, and he’s told them with great care, empathy and honesty that news coverage – especially national news coverage – of the region often lacks. Time and again over the course of 40 years, his thoughtful, fearless on-the ground reporting in this region has made a difference and led to change. And his care, compassion and passion in doing his job has earned the trust of both readers and the people he’s covered, regardless of their politics or position in life.”

Herald-Leader Editor Rick Green, a former editor of the Courier-Journal, said of Estep, “He was a journalistic treasure, someone who knew the heartbeat of the commonwealth didn't emanate from the large cities of Lexington or Louisville.”

Estep, 65, still lives in his native Pulaski County. He is a 1982 journalism graduate of Western Kentucky University. When he retired, he said that he had seen many changes in journalism, but “What hasn’t changed is the mission. I see that as finding good stories, helping people understand what’s happening in their world, including what their government is doing for and to them, and holding power accountable — and doing all of it fairly, accurately and thoroughly.”

Estep will be honored at the annual Al Smith Awards Dinner Nov. 13 at The Campbell House in Lexington. He will be joined by Lisa Stayton of Inez, owner and co-publisher of The Mountain Citizen, the 2025 winner of the Institute’s national Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, tenacity and integrity in rural journalism, along with winners of chapter scholarships. The keynote speaker will be Dee Davis, president of the Whitesburg-based Center for Rural Strategies.

Besides Smith, previous winners of the Smith Award, and their affiliations at the time, are:

2012: Jennifer P. Brown, Kentucky New Era; and Max Heath, Landmark Community Newspapers
2013: John Nelson, Danville Advocate-Messenger
2014: Bill Bishop and Julie Ardery, The Daily Yonder 
2015: Carl West, The (Frankfort) State Journal 
2016: Sharon Burton, Adair County Community Voice and The Farmer’s Pride 
2017: Ryan Craig, Todd County Standard, and the late Larry Craig, Green River Republican 
2018: Stevie Lowery, The Lebanon Enterprise 
2019: David Thompson, Kentucky Press Association 
2020: Becky Barnes, The Cynthiana Democrat 
2021: WKMS News, Murray State University 
2022: Chris and Allison Evans, The Crittenden Press 
2023: Ben Gish and Sam Adams, The Mountain Eagle 
2024: Bobbie Foust, The Lake News, Calvert City 

The Mountain Citizen of Inez, Ky., wins the 2025 Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, integrity and tenacity in rural journalism

A scrappy little newspaper that has fought for more than 30 years for clean water and open government in its Appalachian county is the winner of the 2025 Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, integrity and tenacity in rural journalism.

The Mountain Citizen is a weekly paper serving the 11,000 people of Martin County, 231 square miles along Kentucky’s northeastern border with West Virginia. For decades, the Citizen has been the key watchdog on the local water district, which has long had problems providing clean and adequate supply, and on coal companies and local government.

Tap water in Martin County often runs brown, and the Citizen’s efforts prompted state Public Service Commission investigations of the Martin County Water District in 2002, 2006 and 2016. This year, the paper revealed that a state agency had failed to correctly calculate Martin County’s scores in a water-funding competition for poor and underserved counties, and that in 2018 the county’s water was some of the most corrosive in the nation, more so than in Flint, Michigan, in 2015.

“The Mountain Citizen has spent decades overcoming obstacles and opposition to inform its community about serious problems with its water supply and other important issues,” said Benjy Hamm, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism. “Its work represents the best of rural journalism and everything the Gish Award was established to honor – courage, integrity and tenacity.”

In recounting the paper’s water work, owner Lisa Stayton wrote, “When you live here and see your neighbors carrying bottled water into their kitchens, you understand this is about survival. And you worry because you know that many of your neighbors can’t afford to buy bottled water and are drinking tap water that you wouldn’t drink yourself.”

The paper’s water reporting began in 1993, when it revealed that a coal company had so badly cracked the bed of a creek that it had to put a plastic liner in the creek to keep its water out of an underground mine. The paper reported several coal-slurry spills, then got an important scoop in 2000 when it obtained and published maps of a defunct mine that was the conduit for a massive spill from a surface-mine pond, which polluted streams and valleys with an estimated 250 million tons of waste.

When the Citizen forgot to renew its corporate charter in 2000, its corporate name was legally claimed by the water district’s board chairman, who had been the subject of critical reporting by the newspaper. The paper kept using its name, defying a court order, and was fined for contempt of court, but after two years the state Court of Appeals threw out the charge and the fine.

Though the paper’s future was in jeopardy, then-Editor Gary Ball, a former coal miner, continued its strong stances. When the state attorney general’s office announced it would have investigators in the field for the 2002 general election, he told the Lexington Herald-Leader that they were “paper tigers” who were six weeks late, since the groundwork for vote fraud is laid well before an election.

In 2003, the Citizen reported that the county schools spent nearly $250,000 on travel over four years, including airfare for spouses of board members, prompting the schools to refuse complimentary copies that the newspaper had sent to all classrooms. In 2012, the paper challenged the school board’s private discussion of the superintendent’s contract and was upheld by a binding opinion from the state attorney general. In the same year the attorney general ruled the paper was entitled to child-abuse records withheld by the state.

The Citizen was founded in 1990 as a consolidation of the Martin County Mercury and The Martin Countian, a newspaper that had won national attention for the crusading reporting and editorial stances of owner-publisher Homer Marcum. The Citizen took similar approaches; when the school system was no longer required to publish the names and salaries of teachers, the paper did that on its own. It withstood competition from other newspapers and by 2001 was the county’s sole paper.

The award is named for Tom and Pat Gish, who published The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Kentucky, for more than 50 years. Their son and successor, Ben Gish, is on the award selection committee. “I read The Mountain Citizen regularly (we trade subscriptions),” he wrote. “They do a really good job.”

Stayton and the Citizen will receive the Gish Award Nov. 13 in Lexington, Ky., at the annual Al Smith Awards Dinner of the Institute for Rural Journalism. The dinner will also include presentation of the Al Smith Award for public service through community journalism by Kentuckians to Bill Estep, who recently retired from the Lexington Herald-Leader after chronicling the stories of Appalachian Kentucky for more than 40 years.

 

The keynote speaker will be Dee Davis, president of the Center for Rural Strategies.

Other Gish Award winners have been the Ezzell family of The Canadian Record in the Texas panhandle; Jim Prince and Stanley Dearman, current and late publishers of The Neshoba Democrat in Philadelphia, Miss.; Samantha Swindler of The Oregonian for her work at The Times-Tribune in Corbin, Ky., and Jacksonville Daily Progress in Texas; Stanley Nelson and the Concordia Sentinel in Ferriday, La.; Jonathan and Susan Austin of the Yancey County News in North Carolina; the late Landon Wills of the McLean County News in Kentucky; the Trapp family of the Rio Grande Sun in northern New Mexico; Ivan Foley of the Platte County Landmark in northwestern Missouri; the Cullen family of the Storm Lake Times-Pilot in northwest Iowa; and Les Zaitz of the Malheur Enterprise in eastern Oregon.

In 2019, the award went to three reporters whose outstanding careers revealed much about the coal industry in Central Appalachia: Howard Berkes, retired from NPR; Ken Ward Jr., then with the Charleston Gazette-Mail; and his mentor at the Gazette, the late Paul Nyden. In 2020 the award went to the late Tim Crews of the Sacramento Valley Mirror; in 2021 to the Thompson-High family of The News Reporter and the Border Belt Independent in Whiteville, N.C.; in 2022 to Ellen Kreth and the Madison County Record of Huntsville, Ark.; in 2023 to Craig Garnett of the Uvalde Leader-News in Texas; and in 2024 to Eric Meyer and the Marion County Record in Kansas.

A virtual chat on Sept. 17 will explain how journalists can track and report on opioid settlement fund spending

As part of its mission to help journalists cover opioid lawsuit settlement fund spending in their communities, Reporting on Addiction will host a virtual chat with Mississippi Today’s Allen Siegler and Kate Royals on Sept. 17 at 1 p.m. EST. 

Interested journalists can register here.

During the 30-minute session, Siegler and Royals will discuss:

• How to explain settlement spending with audiences that need specific and clear details on why opioid spending is vitally important to the future health of their communities.
• Outline how they work together -- as reporter and editor -- to shape stories that include complex public health and financial information that readers understand and find engaging.
• Tips on how to pitch accountability stories that get approved.

Siegler is Mississippi Today’s mental health reporter. He has reported on public health for nonprofit newsrooms such as Mountain State Spotlight, an investigative outlet in West Virginia, and Healthbeat, a startup with bureaus in Atlanta and New York City. He holds a master of public health degree.

Royals became Mississippi Today’s managing editor in June. She previously served as the newsroom’s community health editor. Under her leadership, the health team won the 2023 Bill Minor Prize for Investigative Reporting for its series “Shaky Science, Fractured Families,” which she co-reported.

Reporting on Addiction is a collaborative movement staffed by media professionals working to decrease addiction stigmas by sharing leading practices for covering all types of addiction.

Nominations sought for the Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, integrity and tenacity in rural journalism by Aug. 11

Each year the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues presents the Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, tenacity and integrity in rural journalism, named for the couple who exemplified those qualities as publishers of The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Ky., for 52 years.

Nominations for the Gish Award may be made at any time, but the deadline for new nominations to be considered for this year's award is Monday, Aug. 11. The winner will receive the award at an event in Lexington, KY, on Nov. 13. 

Eric Meyer and the Marion County Record in Kansas received the award in 2024. 

To make a nomination, please send a detailed letter with some documentation explaining how the nominee shows the kind of courage, tenacity and integrity that Tom and Pat Gish demonstrated at their weekly newspaper in the Central Appalachian coalfield. They withstood advertiser boycotts, business competition, declining population, personal attacks, and even the burning of their office to give their readers the kind of journalism often lacking in rural areas, and were the first winners of the award named for them. Tom died in 2008 and Pat in 2014. Their son, Ben, is editor and publisher of the Eagle and serves on the award selection committee.

Additional documentation may be submitted after the nomination, and may be requested or required. Send your nominating letter, initial documentation and any questions to Institute Director Benjy Hamm at benjy.hamm@uky.edu.

The Institute seeks nominations that measure up, at least in major respects, to the records of the Gishes and other previous winners. Other winners have been the Ezzell family of The Canadian Record in the Texas panhandle; Jim Prince and Stanley Dearman, current and late publishers of The Neshoba Democrat in Philadelphia, Miss.; Samantha Swindler of The Oregonian for her work at The Times-Tribune in Corbin, Ky., and Jacksonville Daily Progress in Texas; Stanley Nelson and the Concordia Sentinel in Ferriday, La.; Jonathan and Susan Austin of the Yancey County News in North Carolina; the late Landon Wills of the McLean County News in Kentucky; the Trapp family of the Rio Grande Sun in northern New Mexico; Ivan Foley of the Platte County Landmark in northwestern Missouri; the Cullen family of the Storm Lake Times-Pilot in northwest Iowa; and Les Zaitz of the Malheur Enterprise in eastern Oregon. In 2019, the award went to three reporters whose outstanding careers revealed much about the coal industry in Central Appalachia: Howard Berkes, retired from NPR; Ken Ward Jr., then with the Charleston Gazette-Mail; and his mentor at the Gazette, the late Paul Nyden. In 2020 the award went to the late Tim Crews of the Sacramento Valley Mirror; in 2021 to the Thompson-High Family of The News Reporter and the Border Belt Independent in Whiteville, N.C.; in 2022 to Ellen Kreth and the Madison County Record of Huntsville, Ark.; in 2023 to Craig Garnett of the Uvalde Leader-News in Texas; and in 2024 to Eric Meyer and the Marion County Record in Kansas.

The Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, which is based at the University of Kentucky, is focused on helping to sustain journalism in rural communities in the United States, through information, expertise, training, outreach and other programs.

Interested in rural reporting? Attend the live, virtual launch of the Rural Reporter's Notebook podcast and learn more.

For people curious about rural reporting or want to know more about how other news sources approach it, the Rural Journalism Collective is launching the Rural Reporter's Notebook podcast on Wednesday, May 14 at 2 p.m. (Eastern Time) with a live recording that includes a Q&A session with podcast hosts Claire Carlson and Julia Tilton from The Daily Yonder.

Anyone interested can attend this live, virtual event. Register here.

The podcast on May 14 will highlight how Carlson and Tilton interview their featured guest. The two will explain their processes during and after the interview. Then Caroline Carlson, senior digital editor of the Daily Yonder, will join the show and share details about launching and stewarding this bi-weekly podcast. The Q&A will follow.

The bi-weekly podcast will feature Claire Carlson and Tipton discussing news stories big and small and what they mean for rural communities. 

Expert, best practices resources for journalists from Reporting on Addiction are available and free

Reporting on Addiction is a collaborative movement staffed by media professionals working to decrease addiction stigmas by sharing leading practices for covering all types of addiction.

Photos can help readers connect and
remember. (ROA photo)

 

One of the project's best offerings is its website's visual guide, which allows journalists to access photo portrayals that illustrate addiction experiences from multiple real-life angles. This addiction-sensitive photography helps journalists report on substance use while sticking to a principle of "do no harm."

The photos also help readers develop a more memorable and connected understanding of how illegal drugs harm individuals and communities. Access their one-page visual style guide here.

Applying for Reporting on Addiction's expert database
takes less than five minutes. (ROA photo)

The project also gives options for newsrooms of various sizes, including professional and student newsroom training, research-based reporting resources, and an active expert database for question-and-answer sessions.

For journalists covering the opioid settlement's terms, disbursements and news, the site has a series of recorded "Fireside Chats" and a Slack channel to help reporters inform readers about where, when and how opioid litigation money will be handled in their community.

As added support, Reporting on Addiction offers downloadable, free resources that include:

• Language style guide
• Digital Security Toolkit
• Trauma-Informed and Empathetic Reporting Toolkit

They also offer one-to-one and group training for individual journalists or their newsrooms.

Community newspapers can benefit from more effective promotion and marketing

Benjy Hamm

By Benjy Hamm

Director, Institute for Rural Journalism

ESPN has long promoted itself as the “worldwide leader in sports.” You can forgive its audience if they don’t realize that ESPN has been losing millions of customers who have been “cutting the cord” from cable and satellite TV.

ESPN’s long-time business model -- and that of cable TV -- has been collapsing in recent years, even though it remains profitable and has retained a loyal audience. Sound familiar? But in the face of many difficulties, ESPN has never stopped relentlessly and effectively promoting its shows, content, employees and overall brand.

When I talk to my students and community groups, most people have a highly favorable opinion of ESPN and overestimate its average audience and business outlook.

Compared to ESPN and most TV and radio stations, newspapers are reticent to promote themselves, outside of an occasional story about awards they’ve won, a house ad during National Newspaper Week or subscription flyers. That approach is grounded in a news philosophy 200 years old that valued the anonymity of journalists – emphasizing that the stories are more important. And it has continued for other reasons, too, including the fact that many newspaper journalists don’t see the need for promotion, and some even find it unseemly.

Our modesty – and in many cases silence – about the value of what journalists do and the importance of strong community newspapers might have worked OK when the media world was less competitive and newspapers were flourishing. But in this era of an attention economy and endless demands on people’s time, a lack of marketing and promotion is damaging.

That vacuum also has allowed others to define us, and frequently in extremely negative terms. When I speak to community groups or at events, even loyal newspaper readers express concerns that “no one reads a newspaper” anymore, that newspapers are dying and that “everyone gets their news on their phone.” You know that’s not true. A lot of people read your stories, your great journalism changes lives and changes laws, and the cell phones people use are simply another way news and information is delivered.

When I ask community members how well their phone covers local council meetings, they are often confused by the question. But we know the answer. It doesn’t. The local community newspaper journalist is frequently the only person covering those meetings. Even much of the discussion about community news on social media is commentary on facts reported by journalists, not original reporting by social media sources.

We probably all know what it’s like to be the only person – not just journalist – in the audience at a local meeting, budget session or court hearing. Community newspapers produce a significant amount of original, exclusive content in their communities. Yet, few people realize those facts.

If we don’t promote our work, who will? If we don’t develop marketing campaigns for our news organizations, staff and products (Ex. special sections), then residents won’t fully value what the newspaper means to that community.

Allowing other people to define community newspapers hurts in other ways, too. Large foundations that plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to support journalism in the United States are proposing spending millions on digital start-ups or giving large sums of money to urban news organizations to increase their coverage of rural areas. There’s little talk about helping the thousands of newspapers already in existence in these communities. I have heard these large funders speak at conferences, and they do not seem to know much about the strengths and importance of community newspapers.

Not all of these problems are new. When I worked at a newspaper in South Carolina, we were surprised to see the results of a study that measured the most trusted sources for news in our region. The TV stations ranked highest in every category, even though local newspapers produced many more stories overall and were responsible for nearly all of the major investigative and enterprise coverage.

The researcher said the results were similar in every region where he conducted surveys, and he attributed it to how often TV stations promoted their work and their journalists – in addition to that personal “connection” of seeing someone on TV. He said newspapers did little or no promotion and took for granted that residents would understand their value and recognize their outstanding qualities.

I have seen examples of newspapers that effectively promote what they do – in print, online, through social media and at community events. In many cases, the ones that do well with promotion and marketing are in competitive markets.

At the Institute for Rural Journalism, we would like to learn more about the ways that community newspapers are successfully promoting themselves and the overall importance of good journalism in local communities.

If you have examples that have proved successful, please send them to me at benjy.hamm@uky.edu. I will follow up in a future column with your ideas. In the meantime, if you’re not doing much promotion, consider ways your newspaper can help residents realize that you’re the leader in local news coverage for that area and that what you do is of huge value to the community. Feel free to reach out if you are unsure of what to do.

Benjy Hamm is director of the Institute for Rural Journalism, which is based at the University of Kentucky. He previously served as editorial director for Landmark Community Newspapers, as an editor for The New York Times Regional Newspaper Group and as a reporter and editor for The Associated Press.

Bobbie Foust, still reporting at 90, wins Al Smith Award for public service through community journalism in Kentucky

Bobbie Foust

Bobbie Foust, for decades a fixture in West Kentucky journalism, is the winner of the 2024 Al Smith Award for public service through community journalism by a Kentuckian, presented by the Institute for Rural Journalism at the University of Kentucky and the Bluegrass Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Foust has edited three newspapers in the region and reported for others, and though she just turned 90, she is still covering city council meetings according to her decades-old approach: “Be honest, be accurate; be open with people, be kind when I can, but perform the journalistic function: report the facts and let the results fall where they may.”

In semi-retirement Foust is also writing historical articles about the region, and continuing her community service. In 2018, she served as the news-media liaison and adviser for a group of Marshall County High School students who sought gun-control measures after a mass shooting at the school in the pro-gun county. One of the parents, Gloria Hollifield, said in an award nomination, “She has the tenacity and the courage to stand for what is right, regardless of the backlash she undoubtedly faced.”

While Foust was not acting as a journalist in that role, she was using her journalism experience and skills to perform a public service, said Al Cross, director emeritus of the rural-journalism institute and secretary of the SPJ chapter. “In community journalism, journalists are by definition members of the community they serve, sometimes in ways other than journalism,” he said. “Bobbie has made clear since supposedly retiring eight years ago that she will continue to help her neighbors with journalism and other community service.”

Foust retired from the Herald-Ledger in Eddyville in January 2016, but has continued to write for The Paducah Sun and The Lake News in Calvert City, and cover the Calvert City council for the Benton Tribune-Courier, which she edited twice. She also edited the Marshall County Messenger and was editor of the Eddyville paper in her first stint there.

She has interviewed Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson and Billy Graham; covered executions at the Kentucky State Penitentiary; and has long followed the evolution and devolution of Land Between the Lakes, the recreation area created on 170,000 acres that the Tennessee Valley Authority took from people living between Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley. As TVA prepared to give up the LBL to the Forest Service, and Foust tried to hold officials’ feet to the fire, TVA Board Chair “Craven [Crowell] got to where he wouldn’t talk to me,” Foust recalled, adding that in her career, “That has been the continuing story that I feel like may have benefited the citizenry.”

Foust began her career at Calvert City’s first newspaper, the Valley Sun, in 1961. The newspaper closed the next year, but Foust said she freelanced as she dealt with “four little curtain-climbers” that she brought into the world from 1956 to 1959. In 1968 she joined The Calvert News and then its parent paper, the Benton Tribune-Democrat, and then its successor, the Tribune Courier. She joined the startup Marshall County Messenger as editor in 1977 and returned to the Tribune Courier in 1979, becoming editor in 1980.

Foust made the Tribune Courier a National Blue Ribbon Newspaper, an award given by the National Newspaper Foundation, and won many awards from the Kentucky Press Association, including Freedom of Information, Community Service, news and sports reporting, and photography. But she fell out with the paper’s owner, Walt Dear, and went to work with her friend Frances Baccus at the Eddyville paper, where she was editor. When it sold three and a half years later, she joined The Paducah Sun, the regional daily, and stayed seven years, until she turned 65.

She and her husband Ray Foust traveled widely, but she also helped with special projects at the Sun, and in 2001 Editor Jim Paxton made her editor of the Tribune Courier, which his family media company had purchased. She left 20 months later when her husband suffered a terminal illness, but after his death again she joined the Herald Ledger, by then also a Paxton paper, as a reporter. Even after she left the job in 2016, she kept doing journalism “because I love it,” she says. “I will probably write something the day that I die. . . . I’m curious about what’s going on; I love interaction with people.”

Institute for Rural Journalism Director Benjy Hamm said, “Few journalists in Kentucky history can match the longevity and level of service that Bobbie Foust has provided as a reporter and editor to numerous communities in the commonwealth since 1961. She exhibits many of the qualities of Al Smith – including a lifetime of service – and is a worthy recipient of the award named for him.”

Bluegrass SPJ President Casey Parker-Bell of KET, a fellow native of the Jackson Purchase, said, “Bobbie Foust’s story exemplifies the type of journalism that Kentucky needs. She has the tenacity and courage all journalists should strive for, and is deserving of this year’s Al Smith Award.”

The award is named for the late Albert P. Smith Jr., who was the driving force for creation of the Institute for Rural Journalism, headed its advisory board and was its chair emeritus until his death in 2021. He published newspapers in Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee, was founding producer and host of KET’s “Comment on Kentucky,” and federal co-chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission. He was the first winner of the award, in 2011.

Foust will be honored at the Al Smith Awards Dinner Oct. 10 at the Embassy Suites Lexington on Newtown Pike, near Interstate 64/75. She will be joined by Eric Meyer, editor-publisher of the Marion County Record in Kansas, the 2024 winner of the Institute’s national Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, tenacity and integrity in rural journalism, along with winners of chapter scholarships. The guest speaker will be Campbell Robertson, who covers Kentucky and other states for The New York Times. For updates see www.RuralJournalism.org.

Besides Smith, previous winners of the Smith Award, and their affiliations at the time, are:
2012: Jennifer P. Brown, Kentucky New Era; and Max Heath, Landmark Community Newspapers
2013: John Nelson, Danville Advocate-Messenger
2014: Bill Bishop and Julie Ardery, The Daily Yonder
2015: Carl West, The State Journal, Frankfort
2016: Sharon Burton, Adair County Community Voice and The Farmer’s Pride
2017: Ryan Craig, Todd County Standard, and the late Larry Craig, Green River Republican
2018: Stevie Lowery, The Lebanon Enterprise
2019: David Thompson, Kentucky Press Association
2020: Becky Barnes, The Cynthiana Democrat
2021: WKMS News, Murray State University
2022: Chris and Allison Evans, The Crittenden Press, Marion
2023: Ben Gish and Sam Adams, The Mountain Eagle, Whitesburg

Eric Meyer and Marion County Record, Kansas paper raided by police chief it was investigating, win Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, integrity and tenacity in rural journalism

Eric Meyer with his weekly newspaper

Eric Meyer and the staff of the Marion County Record in Marion, Kansas, are the winners of the 2024 Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, integrity and tenacity in rural journalism, presented by the Institute for Rural Journalism at the University of Kentucky.

Meyer and his weekly newspaper have become a touchstone for freedom of the press since August 2023, when local police raided his office and his home and confiscated computers, reporters’ notes and cell phones, ostensibly investigating charges of identity theft and illegal use of a computer. It didn’t take long for some motives to be apparent: city officials’ desire to punish the newspaper for its investigation of the police chief’s questionable employment background and its reporting on the mayor’s alleged ethics violations and other activities. A few weeks later, the chief was suspended, and three days later, he resigned.

Five days after the raid, the county attorney withdrew the warrants signed by a local judge, saying they were “legally insufficient,” and the confiscated items were returned. But in the meantime, Meyer’s 98-year-old mother, Joan Meyer, collapsed and died after telling journalists that she was upset and stressed by the raid of her home and the paper where she had worked for 50 years. She said, “These are Hitler tactics, and something has to be done.”

The raid, perhaps unprecedented, sparked international outrage at a time when local newspapers are struggling. Eric Meyer said soon after the raid, “If we don’t fight back, and we don’t win in fighting back, it’s going to silence everybody.” Since then, he and his staff have continued to show the courage, tenacity and integrity often required to deliver good journalism in rural areas. The Record “is uncommonly aggressive for its size,” The New York Times reported. “Meyer said that the newspaper, which has seven employees, has stoked the ire of some local leaders for its vigorous reporting on Marion County officials.”

That profile fits those of other Gish Award winners, including the first winners and the award’s namesakes: Tom and Pat Gish, who published The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Kentucky, for more than 50 years. Their son and successor, Ben Gish, is on the award selection committee. He said of Meyer, “Given today’s political climate, what happened to him in Kansas almost certainly will happen at some other small-town paper when another unfit person wins that county's sheriff’s race.”

Meyer’s family bought the Marion County Record in 1998 to keep it from being sold to a chain. His father, Editor Bill Meyer, had worked there since 1948, and won the Eugene Cervi Award of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors in 2002. Eric Meyer returned to his hometown to run the paper during the Covid-19 pandemic after working as a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal and teaching journalism at the University of Illinois.

"Eric Meyer and other journalists at the Marion County Record covered their community with courage, tenacity and integrity long before a shocking police raid brought them international attention,” said Benjy Hamm, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism. “But the raid and its aftermath revealed to a much larger audience that the Marion County Record could not be intimidated, denied or defeated in its pursuit of the truth."

Meyer will receive the Gish Award Oct. 10 in Lexington, Ky., at the annual Al Smith Awards Dinner of the Institute for Rural Journalism. The keynote speaker will be Campbell Robertson, who covers Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia for The New York Times and is based in its Washington Bureau. For updates see RuralJournalism.org.

Other Gish Award winners have been the Ezzell family of The Canadian Record in the Texas panhandle; Jim Prince and Stanley Dearman, current and late publishers of The Neshoba Democrat in Philadelphia, Miss.; Samantha Swindler of The Oregonian for her work at The Times-Tribune in Corbin, Ky., and Jacksonville Daily Progress in Texas; Stanley Nelson and the Concordia Sentinel in Ferriday, La.; Jonathan and Susan Austin of the Yancey County News in North Carolina; the late Landon Wills of the McLean County News in Kentucky; the Trapp family of the Rio Grande Sun in northern New Mexico; Ivan Foley of the Platte County Landmark in northwestern Missouri; the Cullen family of the Storm Lake Times-Pilot in northwest Iowa; and Les Zaitz of the Malheur Enterprise in eastern Oregon. In 2019, the award went to three reporters whose outstanding careers revealed much about the coal industry in Central Appalachia: Howard Berkes of NPR; Ken Ward Jr., then with the Charleston Gazette-Mail; and his mentor at the Gazette, the late Paul Nyden. In 2020 the award went to the late Tim Crews of the Sacramento Valley Mirror; in 2021 to the Thompson-High family of The News Reporter and the Border Belt Independent in Whiteville, N.C.; in 2022 to Ellen Kreth and the Madison County Record of Huntsville, Ark.; and in 2023 to Craig Garnett of the Uvalde Leader-News in Texas.

Nominations sought for the Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, integrity and tenacity in rural journalism by April 15

Tom and Pat Gish, about 20 years ago

Each year the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, publisher of The Rural Blog, presents the Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, tenacity and integrity in rural journalism, named for the couple who exemplified those qualities as publishers of The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Ky., for 52 years.

Nominations for the Gish Award may be made at any time, but the deadline for new nominations to be considered for this year's award is April 15. To make a nomination, send a detailed letter with some documentation explaining how the nominee shows the kind of courage, tenacity and integrity that Tom and Pat Gish demonstrated at their weekly newspaper in the Central Appalachian coalfield. They withstood advertiser boycotts, business competition, declining population, personal attacks, and even the burning of their office to give their readers the kind of journalism often lacking in rural areas, and were the first winners of the award named for them. Tom died in 2008 and Pat in 2014; their son Ben is editor and publisher of the Eagle and serves on the award selection committee.

Additional documentation may be submitted after the nomination, and may be requested or required. Send your nominating letter, initial documentation and any questions to Institute Director Benjy Hamm at benjy.hamm@uky.edu.

The Institute seeks nominations that measure up, at least in major respects, to the records of the Gishes and other previous winners. Other winners have been the Ezzell family of The Canadian Record in the Texas panhandle; Jim Prince and Stanley Dearman, current and late publishers of The Neshoba Democrat in Philadelphia, Miss.; Samantha Swindler of The Oregonian for her work at The Times-Tribune in Corbin, Ky., and Jacksonville Daily Progress in Texas; Stanley Nelson and the Concordia Sentinel in Ferriday, La.; Jonathan and Susan Austin of the Yancey County News in North Carolina; the late Landon Wills of the McLean County News in Kentucky; the Trapp family of the Rio Grande Sun in northern New Mexico; Ivan Foley of the Platte County Landmark in northwestern Missouri; the Cullen family of the Storm Lake Times-Pilot in northwest Iowa; and Les Zaitz of the Malheur Enterprise in eastern Oregon. In 2019, the award went to three reporters whose outstanding careers revealed much about the coal industry in Central Appalachia: Howard Berkes, retired from NPR; Ken Ward Jr., then with the Charleston Gazette-Mail; and his mentor at the Gazette, the late Paul Nyden. In 2020 the award went to the late Tim Crews of the Sacramento Valley Mirror; in 2021 to the Thompson-High Family of The News Reporter and the Border Belt Independent in Whiteville, N.C.; in 2022 to Ellen Kreth and the Madison County Record of Huntsville, Ark.; and in 2023 to Craig Garnett of the Uvalde Leader-News in Texas.

Join Solutions Journalism Network's second Rural Cohort; deadline to apply is March 19

When it comes to societal problems, journalists are some of the most strategically placed professionals to expose what's gone wrong. At the same time, they are uniquely positioned to find answers to those problems. If you're a community journalist who wants to add solution-seeking depth to your reporting tools, consider signing up for the Solutions Journalism Network's next Rural Cohort. The deadline to apply is March 19. 

The Rural Cohort is a six-month program designed especially for the challenges of rural-serving newsrooms. Its goal is to support and train newsrooms seeking to learn solutions journalism and put it into regular practice. 

This isn't a program designed to add work to a newsroom's already full plate. Instead, cohort members will learn how to convert some of the vital and valuable coverage they're already doing into a solutions framework. Examples: county commission agendas, school board meetings, press releases and regular beat coverage.

Adrianna Adame

Last year, SJN trained its first cohort of rural journalists who learned how to incorporate a solutions lens into their reporting. With that new view, these reporters developed stories with added depth and meaning for their audiences. One example is Adrianna Adame, the education reporter for Buffalo's Fire, an Indigenous digital outlet based in North Dakota. She covered graduation rates this year, digging into how a local Native high school has become an example for other schools.

The non-profit Solutions Journalism Network defines its focus as "'rigorous, evidence-based reporting on the responses to social problems, the mission of which is 'to transform journalism so that all people have access to news that helps them envision and build a more equitable world,'" writes Lauren Kessler for Nieman Storyboard.  

Uvalde editor, honored for his work, wishes he had done more before tragedy struck

Craig Garnett will receive the Tom and Pat Gish
Award Feb. 29. (Oklahoma Press Association photo)

By Al Cross
Director Emeritus, Institute for Rural Journalism 

The town of Uvalde, Texas, pop. 15,000, and its same-named county of 25,000 were very unlucky in May 2022. That’s when an 18-year-old with an assault rifle at an elementary school killed 19 students and two teachers – a toll that probably would have been less had police not botched the response.

But Uvalde was also lucky – that it had a newspaper with an editor-publisher, Craig Garnett, who had long been willing to tell hard truths about things that matter, and who kept doing that in the aftermath of the tragedy.

The day after the shooting, the twice-weekly Leader-News published a black front page, with “MAY 24, 2022” in reverse type. The next front page had portraits of the 19 children and the start of a story with biographies of each one. Inside was a column from Garnett, addressing the police delay in confronting the shooter.

He said a regional police official "could not answer why it took an hour to end the attack," quoted him as saying police were “measuring," and wrote; "The question is how much measuring is permissible, while children are being murdered. Or perhaps they were already gone. It pains to write these words of criticism about law enforcement, but parents and the community have the right to know. They must be told why police, whom parents at the scene begged to go in and save their children, failed to act. They have to know, to ever begin to heal."

In an editorial a month later, Garnett named names and was blunt: “No mass school shooting in the United States has ended with such glaring failures in both the law enforcement response and school district security. . . . Neither [school] Police Chief Pete Arredondo, acting city chief Mariano Pargas, Uvalde County Sheriff Ruben Nolasco nor any state or federal officer among the 376 responders to the scene was willing to take the helm of what was clearly a rudderless ship cast into a hurricane.” That didn’t sit well with local law enforcers and their supporters, but Garnett’s initial reporting and commentary had already spoiled his good relationship with the school district and police agencies.

Meanwhile, Garnett spent much time “sitting with families who lost children, siblings, friends; interviewing survivors, teachers and students, about their experience,” Leader-News Managing Editor Meghann Garcia said in nominating him for the 2023 Tom and Pat Gish Award from the Institute for Rural Journalism at the University of Kentucky, which I ran at the time. Garnett wasn’t able to attend our awards banquet in October, but in a recorded video for it, he reflected on his experience – and offered some advice for community editors and publishers:

“What happened in Uvalde was crushing. It continues to be an enormous weight on many of our shoulders, especially the families of victims. And we have endeavored to cover every aspect of that shooting. We still are working for information, accountability from various institutions, particularly our city and our school district and our law enforcement officials. We plan to follow that to its conclusion, whatever time it may take.

“But being successful at that and community journalism, as most publishers know, depends on your people. And I happen to have a group of journalists who are beyond amazing. None of us graduated from elite universities, some of us don’t have college degrees, but after the tragedy on May 24, each one of them brought something extremely important to our coverage. And our grand total [is] five of us, so there wasn’t a lot. It didn’t take long to have our discussions with each other and to plan our day. And it’s true in most of the newsrooms across this country and community journalism. But it brings you together in a way that nothing else can, I don’t suppose, unless it would be a foxhole. We learned from that. And one of the things we’ve taken away from May 24 is that we didn’t do enough before.

“We have a wall full of plaques from the South Texas Press Association, the Texas Press Association, but we didn’t do enough. We didn’t ask enough questions. We didn’t hold people running for elected office to account like we should have. We didn’t question people who wanted to run our institutions closely enough. What motivated them? What experience do they have? What would they do in a crisis? And we certainly didn’t hold our law enforcement to a high enough standard, the people who swore to protect us.

“So, we will work harder in the future to do that, to make sure that we know as much as we can about people who intend to lead our community, especially in the aftermath of a tragedy. We want to know how they’ll react. It’s not entirely possible. There are all kinds of things that pop up that you can’t plan for, but you can get a sense of where people’s souls lie and what their commitment is to your community. And that’s what I would advise to my fellow publishers in small towns. Pay attention. Pay attention to everything, to those people who run institutions, to the kid who’s slipping between the cracks, who might one day become the same school shooter we had. Be invested beyond what you are now, if that’s possible. I know most of you work your hearts out. But if there’s one thing we would like to do better, it would’ve been that.”

Garnett will share more of his experiences and receive the Tom and Pat Gish Award Feb. 29 at the University of Texas during a symposium, “Courage, Tenacity, Integrity and Innovation in Rural Journalism,” sponsored by the Institute for Rural Journalism, the Texas Center for Community Journalism at Tarleton State University, and the Center for Ethical Leadership in Media in the University of Texas School of Journalism and Media. He will be joined by fellow Texans Laurie Ezzell Brown of The Canadian Record, Randy Keck of The Community News in Aledo, Tara Huff of The Eagle Press in Fritch, John Starkey of Rambler Texas Media and Daniel Walker of the Vernon Daily Record, the Burkburnett Informer Star and the Clay County Leader. For more information about the event, go to https://tccjtsu.com/community-journalists-will-talk-courage-tenacity-innovation-and-integrity-at-ut-austin-feb-29/. The event is free, but registration is required; here’s the link: http://tinyurl.com/4fpvwcwu.

Al Cross edited and managed rural newspapers before covering politics for the Louisville Courier Journal and serving as president of the Society of Professional Journalists. He is director emeritus of the Institute for Rural Journalism and a professor at the University of Kentucky.