Virginia publisher, Alabama editor and writer are finalists for Southern newspapers' commentary prize

Staffers of The Tidewater News of Franklin, Va., and the TimesDaily of Florence, Ala., are finalists in the small-paper category for the Carmage Walls Commentary Prize awarded by the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association. The winner will be announced Oct. 1 at SNPA's News Industry Summit in Naples, Fla.

Tidewater News Publisher Steve Stewart editorialized against a Franklin School Board policy that required teachers to give students a grade of 60 when they had scored lower, even much lower. The board reversed itself, and Stewart complimented it in an editorial. For his other editorials, click here.

Executive Editor Scott Morris and staff writer Robert Palmer editorialized during and after passage of the controversial Alabama law that allows police officers to detain motorists they suspect are illegal immigrants and makes it illegal to knowingly give a ride to an illegal immigrant. To read their work, click here.

The finalists among newspapers with circulation of more than 50,000 are Linda Campbell, editorial writer and columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and John Railey, editorial-page editor of teh Winston-Salem Journal. For details, click here.

After officials berate reporter, publisher calls them out face to face, and in paper, for violating bid law

After the commissioners of Crawford County, Missouri, "verbally attacked" a Cuba Free Press reporter who had asked questions about road projects and spending, according to the Missouri Press Association Bulletin, Publisher Rob Viehman confronted the commissioners and asked why they hadn't given the weekly newspaper two records it had requested: a list of bids for road materials and planning records for this year's road work. (Wikipedia map)

His questions, and the commissioners' answers, revealed that the county had been disobeying state law by not seeking bids for the materials. "I'm not saying you didn't get a fair price, but we don't know if you did," Viehman told them. "We just want you guys to follow the rules."

Viehman wrote in an editorial: "Not only does the bidding process give the taxpayers the best deal, it provides the elected officials with cover and accountability. It’s to our commissioners’ benefit to take bids on everything they can so they can tell the voters, their neighbors, 'We asked for bids and we accepted the bid that we felt was best for us because ... ' By not taking bids, our commissioners can’t say that. Taking bids could also get the taxpayers a better price on items that may only be available locally from one vendor. If the only asphalt supplier in Crawford County has to submit a bid for their product, isn’t it more likely they will reduce their price out of concern a nearby competitor might underbid them? If bids aren’t taken, however, that can never happen. By not taking bids, our commissioners don’t know if the taxpayers got the best price for asphalt, rock and culverts. That’s the problem!" (Read more)

Rural editor wins national opinion award, again, and gets in line to be publisher of The Anniston Star

UPDATE: Davis, 47, has been named associate publisher in preparation to become publisher. He will remain editor. He is an Anniston native who has been at the Star since 2003. Read more here.

For the second year in a row, Bob Davis of The Anniston (Ala.) Star was named Opinion Journalist of the Year for newspapers with circulations less than 100,000 by the Association of Opinion Journalists (formerly the National Conference of Editorial Writers).

Davis is editor of the 20,000-circulation Anniston Star in rural northeastern Alabama, a paper that serves several small towns and rural counties along Interstate 20 between Birmingham and Atlanta, at the southern end of Appalachia near the Talladega National Forest.

Davis was praised for both the quality of his writing and for the breadth of issues he tackled in his columns and editorials (links to some examples are below). The judges wrote: "Bob Davis' columns have the best anchor any local newspaper could have -- a sense of place. Whether he's doing a devastating takedown of one state Sen. Scott Beason or advocating literacy programs (as opposed to absurd immigrant laws), the voice is always that of a thoughtful Alabama Southern gentleman who's considered all arguments."

When Davis won the award last year, the judges particularly praised his editorial campaign calling for reform of the Alabama constitution, which dates to 1901 and has a number of obsolete items in it, such as language making interracial marriage illegal and calling for the segregation of schools, both rendered moot by federal laws.

"His focus on issues that matter to all Alabamians (even if they don't know it yet) is clear, determined and precise," the 2011 judges wrote. "He even breathes a diverting life into the issue of Alabama's execrable 1901 constitution, the gift that keeps on giving to Alabama editorial writers and the problem that refuses to go away."

The Star is a storied community newspaper, made famous for its anti-segregation stances during the Civil Rights movement and its persistent watch-dogging of local and regional government agencies under publisher H. Brandt "Brandy" Ayers.

The AOJ's Opinion Journalist of the Year award for publications above 100,000 circulation went to Thomas Frank of Harper's magazine, who has written much about low-income rural people who vote against their economic interests by supporting candidates who stress religious and social issues (What's the Matter with Kansas?)

Here are some links to Davis' winning entries, which he provided to The Rural Blog:
"Reading into a real problem," Sept. 30, 2011; "Beason's gamble: State lawmaker walks thin 'wire'," June 16, 2011; "A 'band of brothers' for Bentley," Jan. 23, 2011; "Memories to warm us during the rebuilding," May 1, 2011.

Budget cuts strangle Forest Service's ability to fight 'catastrophic' forest fires, Idaho paper says

The U.S. Forest Service hasn't been exempt from budget cuts in recent years, and the editorial staff of The Idaho Statesman outlines some reasons why taking money from the agency is leaving it with little resources to fight massive forest fires that have been devastating the West in recent years.

"Congress raided $200 million from a Forest Service’s firefighting fund in 2011, and grabbed another $240 million this year," the staff writes. "That leaves the Forest Service looking for ways to reduce firefighting costs — before they eat into the rest of the agency’s budget." The Service decided to aggressively fight fires "from the outset" this year in the hope it can save money by ending fires early. That approach "is the Forest Service's equivalent of kicking the can down the road," they write.

Stopping small fires could stop larger fires in the short run, but they write, it leaves forests with lots of undergrowth that increases the risk of "catastrophic fire" later. "And so, in a delicious little government irony, the Forest Service is making decisions that might compromise the health of the forest -- in order to preserve its budget for initiatives such as 'forest health,' the use of logging and prescribed burns to thin out fire-prone lands." (Read more)

Michigan county's papers among many winners in National Newspaper Association's annual contest

Not only does Allegan County, Michigan (Wikipedia map), have more than one newspaper, it has two of the best, according to the judges in the National Newspaper Association's 2012 Better Newspaper Contest. And they think Jack "Miles" Ventimiglia of Warrensburg, Mo., is both a fine editorial and feature writer (and maybe a headline writer, too). Here are the winners in selected categories and circulation classes:

Best Local News Coverage
Circulation less than 3,000: Delano (Minn.) Herald Journal; second, The Commercial Record, Allegan, Mich.
Circ. 3,000‐5,999: Allegan County News, Allegan, Mich.; second, The Barrow Journal, Winder, Ga.
Circ. 6,000 or more: Washington (Mo.) Missourian; second, The N'West Iowa Review, Sheldon.

Best Investigative or In‐Depth Story or Series
Daily: Wyoming Tribune Eagle, Cheyenne, stories on Niobrara oil boom by Shauna Stephenson, Michael Smith and Angela St. Clair. The Grass Valley Union of Northern California won second place for a series on a bank that federal officials closed.
Non-daily, circ. 10,000 or more: Bill Rodgers, Rio Grande Sun, Espanola, N.M., for "Loopholes Plague State Sex Offender Registry."
Non‐daily, circ. 3,000‐9,999: Steve Ranson, Lahontan Valley News and Fallon Eagle Standard, Fallon, Nev., for "Destination Southwest Asia," about local troops in Afghanistan. Michael Higdon designed the pages.
Non‐daily, circ. under 3,000: Luige del Puerto, Arizona Capitol Times, Phoenix, for a series on birthright-citizenship legislation.

Best Editorial
Circ. 3,000‐5,999: Jack "Miles" Ventimiglia, Daily Star‐Journal, Warrensburg, Mo., for "State's obese House offers gobs of fat to cut."
Circ. under 3,000: Steve Haynes, Oberlin (Kan.) Herald, for "A whole lot of good ideas can threaten our freedom."

Best Editorial Page(s): Circ. 6,000 or more: Ellsworth (Me.) American; under 6,000: The Hinsdalean, Hinsdale, Ill.

Community Service: The Las Cruces (N.M.) Bulletin, "Las Cruces: A Photographic Journey;" second, The Barrow Journal, Winder, Ga., coverage of Barrow County budget crisis; third, The Blackshear (Ga.) Times, "The New War / Just One Pill / Bad medicine is big business / Drug net nabs ten / Twelve arrested in drug roundup." (The Times has a great motto: "Liked by many, cussed by some, read by them all.")

Best Agricultural Story under 6,000 circ.: Jack "Miles" Ventimiglia, Daily Star-Journal, Warrensburg, Mo., for "The Grape Depression; Raisin Hell: Heat destroys grape crop." Maybe the best headline, too? No, that's an overall award, and it went to the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. (There are no circulation or frequency divisions for headlines.) Second place went to the N'West Iowa Review, a weekly.

Awards for general excellence will be announced at the NNA convention in Charleston, S.C., in early October. But you might be able to calculate them from a list of all the winners, available here.

Weekly editors' group gives top awards to publisher from South Dakota, editor from Nova Scotia

The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors concluded its annual conference last weekend at Western Washington University in Bellingham by giving one of its stalwarts the organization's top award and recognizing some of the best editorial writing in weeklies in 2011.

Tim Waltner, publisher of the Freeman Courier in South Dakota, won the Eugene Cervi Award, which honors an editor who has consistently acted in the conviction that good journalism begets good government, and for adhering to the highest standards of the craft. Waltner became editor of the Courier in 1977, and he bought it in 1984. His son Jeremy is now editor, and both of them have been president of ISWNE. "I strongly believe that aggressive but fair news reporting and bold opinion writing are at the heart of the mission of a community newspaper," he said in response to the award, named for the late editor of the old Rocky Mountain Journal. Waltner is on the advisory board of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, publisher of The Rural Blog.

The Summer 2012 edition of Grassroots Editor, the organization's quarterly, has six tributes to Waltner and copies of every award-winning editorial in its annual Golden Quill editorial contest, in which a winner and a Golden Dozen are honored. This year's Golden Quill went to Vernon Oickle of the Lunenberg County Progress Bulletin of Nova Scotia, who "spent months digging into why and how the local school board failed to inform the public about its review process on potential school closures and ignored its duty to engage the public in discussion about the issue," the citation says. "It took months to get the relevant emails and the board wanted to charge hundreds of dollars for the records. The paper prevailed and did not have to pay for the information because the emails were of vital public interest. The outcome of Oickle’s battle was that the board was fired by the Department of Education. Additionally, the provincial legislature created additional powers for the minister of education to review and remove school boards." The quarterly has a full account from Oickle.

The Golden Quill winners were Melissa Hale-Spencer of the Altamont Enterprise in New York; Paul MacNeill, publisher of the Eastern Graphic on Prince Edward Island; Missy Layfield of the Island Sand Paper in Fort Myers Beach, Fla.; Ross Connelly of The Hardwick Gazette in Vermont; Robert Trapp of the Rio Grande Sun in Española, N.M.; George Brown of the Ponoka News in Alberta; Peter Weinschenk of The Record-Review in Abbotsford, Wis.; Mo Mehlsak of The Forecaster in Falmouth, Maine; Jim Painter of the West Valley View in Avondale, Ariz.; Joan Plaxton of The Valleyview Valley News in Valleyview, Alberta; and David Giffey, former editor of the Home News in Spring Green, Wis.

Appalachian coal layoffs prompt prescriptions from newspapers and thinkers in the region

The widespread layoffs at coal mines in coal-dependent Central Appalachia have prompted editorial commentary from various vantage points, including a thrice-weekly newspaper, a weekly, a regional daily and the president of a regional development and investment group.

In a reader poll by the Appalachian News-Express in Pikeville, Ky., more than twice as many people blame "regulations" as "market conditions" for the layoffs, but the newspaper editorialized: "The reasons for the mining cutbacks are varied, and many factors are to blame; from simply a reduced need for coal to regulations that seek to reduce or end the country’s reliance on the natural resource. But, now’s not the time for finger-pointing and blame. Now’s the time to stop fighting amongst ourselves about whether mining is right or ethical and decide to ensure the future of our region. For years, the call falling on deaf ears locally has been that our economy must be diversified. And, while some progress has been made, it’s not been enough. The technological advances of recent decades, which once promised to break down the region’s barriers to success, have not paid the dividends expected. But, something has to happen and it must happen now." The weekly paper (which is largely behind a pay wall) says that the federal government is responsible for the regulations, "So, perhaps it’s time for the federal government to pony up and begin to mitigate the changes that occurring here."

The Hazard Herald wrote, "We can’t predict when we’ll reach the bottom of the current downturn, but what we can say is that if we don’t work to diversify now, our economy is going to sputter to the point that it can’t support the people it currently does." The weekly paper suggested tourism development, "But in the end we’re going to have to attract or create an industry or industries that will replace the hundreds of jobs we have lost, and more we are likely to lose. (Read more)

In an editorial titled "In decline," referring to the coal industry, The Independent of Ashland, Ky., a daily, says the fight "should not be a choice between saving the environment or saving jobs. Instead, we must find a way to preserve jobs without leveling our mountains, burying our streams and polluting our air. An impossible task? Well, it won’t be easy but it is the best hope of keeping coal an important source of energy." (Read more)

Justin Maxson, president of the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development, makes some specific suggestions in the Lexington Herald-Leader: "Create regional planning and funding infrastructure. We need a new and participatory body that can plan, implement, fund and evaluate economic development in the region. Tie it to the creation of a permanent fund using coal severance taxes, and we have a powerful new way to move forward. Invest more in small business and entrepreneurship. We need more successful small businesses and more entrepreneurs with the potential to build larger businesses and create jobs. Building a more effective infrastructure to support entrepreneurs at all levels is key. Support local leadership development and capacity building. Eastern Kentuckians must be central to solutions in the region. Building from and expanding existing efforts to support and involve local leaders in economic development is a central facet of a strong economy. Build around economic sectors important to the region. We should create special support resources for key parts of the economy and communities — health care, tourism, child care, wood products, local foods, energy efficiency, housing — as all play important economic roles and could play a larger role with targeted support." (Read more)

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/07/02/2245592/justin-maxson-eastern-kentucky.html#storylink=cpy