Par Ridder, vice president and advertising director of The Tribune of San Luis Obispo, Calif., since 1999, became president and publisher effective Nov. 1, the newspaper’s corporate parent, Knight Ridder, announced. In the two years he has been advertising director, ad revenue has grown at a faster pace than at any other Knight Ridder paper, the company said. Ridder, 33, is the son of Knight Ridder Chairman and Chief Executive Tony Ridder. Before joining The Tribune he was recruitment manager at the Contra Costa Times in Northern California from 1997 to 1999. He also worked as a retail sales representative for The Washington Post and was a circulation zone manager for the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal. Ridder replaces Harold Higgins, who has been named publisher of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Higgins replaces Rick Sadowski, who accepted an early retirement package. Higgins, 51, brings 13 years of publishing experience to the job. Higgins turned the once-struggling Tribune into the chain’s fastest-growing in terms of revenue. Sadowski had been publisher of the St. Paul Pioneer Press since July 1997. Sadowski’s career includes 31 years with Knight Ridder, starting at the Miami Herald in 1970. He joined the Pioneer Press after serving as publisher of the Long Beach (Calif.) Press-Telegram. The New York Times has named senior editors Andrew Rosenthal and Roger Cohen to new positions, filling spots left open by a changeover in the top editorial ranks at the newspaper. Rosenthal, currently the foreign editor, will become an assistant managing editor and will be involved in the creation of the daily news report. Cohen, the deputy foreign editor, will become acting foreign editor. Rosenthal, who is 45, joined The Times in 1987 from The Associated Press, where he was Moscow bureau chief. Cohen, 46, joined the paper in 1990 as a media reporter. He also had been a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and Reuters. Lou Heldman, who has spent nearly 30 years with Knight Ridder as a reporter, editor and publisher, will become president and publisher of The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle on Jan. 1. He replaces Peter Pitz, who is retiring. Heldman, 52, currently is publisher of the Centre Daily Times in State College, Pa., which, like The Eagle, is owned by Knight Ridder. Heldman has experience with large and small newspapers. He started his career as an intern in the Detroit Free Press newsroom in the early 1970s and worked at the Miami Herald from 1983 to 1989, helping develop el Nuevo Herald, its Spanish-language daily. Prior to that he led the staff of the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel to a Pulitzer Prize for local reporting. Pitz, 60, announced that he would retire at the end of December. Pitz said he made the decision because “it’s just time for a change.” Pitz said he does not plan to leave Wichita and will pursue another career. Knight Ridder, the Eagle’s parent company, hired Pitz to serve as the newspaper’s chief executive in September 1996. For two years prior to joining the Eagle, he directed business operations at nine Knight Ridder newspapers. Brian C. Mulligan resigned as chairman of Fox Television, effective Sept. 30, citing personal reasons, parent company News Corp. Ltd. said in a release. Mulligan, a Seagram Universal and Universal Pictures executive before joining Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, took the reigns of Fox’s operations less than a year ago. “Years of non-stop travel and involvement with approximately $100 billion of transactions in my previous job, followed immediately by the time demands of being chairman, led me to conclude that I needed to strike a better balance between my personal and professional life,” Mulligan said. Philip Kent, the No. 2 executive at Cable News Network, resigned at the end of September as president and chief operating officer of the Turner Broadcasting System news group. Kent was appointed CNN president a year ago in an effort to bring business leadership to the network. However, his power was diminished earlier this year when Time Inc. editorial director Walter Isaacson became CNN’s chairman and chief executive. Kent, 46, said that the change “was one of the many factors, but it wasn’t the only factor” in his decision. He said he has not decided what his next career move will be. Lou Waters, the white haired anchor who has been a fixture at CNN since its inception two decades ago, also is leaving the network, CNN sources said. Waters, co-anchor of the weekday afternoon news program “CNN Live Today,” is the latest familiar face to depart the network as it attempts to revitalize itself with a roster of better known names. He follows CNN Washington bureau chief Frank Sesno, who was scheduled to leave the network Sept. 30, after seven years overseeing coverage of the nation’s capital. Sesno, who will remain a contributor to CNN, said in a statement that he wants to explore “an array of career moves – in business, academia and related media fields.” Bernard Kalb also will be stepping down from his duties as a panelist on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.” Kalb joined the network in 1992 as the original host of the program and as a contributor to the network. Kalb has traveled the globe for more than three decades as a correspondent covering world affairs for CBS, NBC and The New York Times. He will continue his work with the Freedom Forum, where over the years he has produced panels focusing on topics such as international media. Rescue workers found Ted O’Brien, 60, a Boston radio news anchor, in good health Sept. 4 after he spent two nights lost in rugged terrain in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. O’Brien, of Boston National Public Radio affiliate WBUR, said he reached a section of poorly marked trail and instead of camping there decided to backtrack, getting lost in the dark. He spent the night of Sept. 2 on top of a mountain, he said. “It turned out that what I thought was just a walk in the park was one of the toughest trails in these mountains,’’ O’Brien said. “I should have known that.” He added, “I’m just very, very fortunate and very grateful that I’m still walking around.” In 1998, O’Brien was named associate director of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism in Washington. He returned to Boston airwaves the following year. Jonathan Marshall, a long-time publisher and philanthropist, was inducted to the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication’s Hall of Achievement Oct. 18. He received his Master’s degree from the University of Oregon. Marshall, who was twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, joined five other inductees at the event. The Hall of Achievement honors alumni and faculty of the School of Journalism and Communication for their contributions to their profession and the community at-large. The university stated that each inductee represents the finest traditions of journalism, and Marshall is exemplary of the type of individual the Journalism School is proud to include in the ranks of its alumni. He and his wife Maxine owned and operated The Scottsdale (Ariz.) Progress for almost 25 years. After selling the paper, the Marshalls founded The Marshall Fund of Arizona, a non-profit charitable foundation dedicated to a variety of causes, including culture, art, human and social problems, environmental protection, civil liberties, and furthering the democratic process and promotion of world peace. Edward Hooper, of Knoxville, Tenn., received the Department of Defense’s Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the Nation’s highest military honor, for his dedicated work as a broadcast and print journalist in documenting the lives of Tennessee veterans. He also was recognized Aug. 15 for working to ensure the poorly marked historic graves of the State’s Medal of Honor recipients be properly identified and maintained. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, “While serving as a broadcast journalist and writer, Mr. Hooper brought to the National consciousness the remarkable service and sacrifices of the young men and women serving in the United States Armed Forces and brought to life the personal sacrifice, character, courage and dedication of America’s servicemen and women, her veterans and all those who support them.” Rep. John J. Duncan, Jr. (R-Tenn.), said, “Hooper’s life is a clear and daily reminder that not every hero wears a uniform. His efforts also remind us that we share a common duty to preserve the memory of our Nation’s servicemen and women and to herald the legacy they leave with every selfless act of service and heroic stand of courage.”
DEATHS
Rabbi Sidney J. Jacobs, 84, reporter, talk show host, editor and publisher, died July 19 in Culver City, Calif. He had been a member of the Society of Professional Journalists (formerly Sigma Delta Chi) for 55 years. After graduating as valedictorian of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism in 1938, Jacobs joined the Chicago City News Bureau. He went on to edit The Jewish Advocate, a chain of 19 Jewish community newspapers. He was ordained as a rabbi in 1946, and over the following decades, he combined a career on the pulpit and in the media. From 1968 until 1971, he hosted the television talk show “Of Cabbages and Kings” on WLS in Chicago. In 1971, he was named managing editor of The B’nai B’rith Messenger, serving the greater Los Angeles area. He founded Jacobs Ladder Publications in 1985. Jacobs was the author of four books: “The Jewish Word Book,” “Clues About Jews For People Who Aren’t,” “122 Clues For Jews Whose Children Intermarry” and “Jewish Clues to Your Health and Happiness.” He garnered numerous awards for his work in interracial justice. John Katich, 51, a journalism professor at the University of Kansas since 1985, died Oct. 5 of cancer in Lawrence, Kan. Katich was honored posthumously Oct. 11 by the School of Journalism and Kansas Association of Broadcasters with the presentation of the Grover Cobb Award for distinguished service to Kansas broadcasting. Katich was the founding general manager of TV-30, a low-power station at the university, and became an assistant professor in 1986, teaching media sales and management. Before joining the university staff, he managed stations in Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota and Missouri. He also established a station in Anchorage, Alaska. Norman T. Wilson, 57, night metropolitan editor for The Baltimore Sun and former Evening Sun reporter and assistant city editor, died of a heart attack Aug. 21 at his Brooklyn Park home. Wilson’s career at the newspapers spanned nearly 29 years. He had been The Sun’s night editor, responsible for putting the local news section to bed, since 1993. Wilson was one of the first blacks hired at The Sun papers and also was the first black editorial writer to work on a Baltimore daily newspaper when he wrote editorials for The Evening Sun in 1981. Bob Williams, 86, who had been a New York Post television columnist for 21 years, died Aug. 20 at St. Vincent’s Manhattan Hospital. He lived in the Chelsea section of Manhattan. The cause of death was cancer, said his ex- wife, Beatrice Williams-Rude. He joined The Post in 1946 as a reporter. He was a Post television columnist from 1957 to 1978, and for most of that time was its only television columnist. Thomas Wheeler Dewart, 90, president and publisher of the New York Sun at the time his family sold the paper in 1950, died Sept. 2 in Greenwich, Conn., of complications from Parkinson’s disease. Dewart, whose father William T. Dewart Sr. purchased the Sun in 1926, joined the paper in 1931 as assistant treasurer. He became vice president and treasurer in 1940 and president in 1944. Dewart took over as publisher in 1946, succeeding his brother, William T. Dewart Jr., who died in a plane crash while taking flying lessons. The paper, known for being a conservative voice in New York journalism, was sold by the Dewart family to Scripps-Howard in 1950 for $3 million. It then merged with the World-Telegram. Kathy Scruggs, 41, a reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution who played a prominent role in the paper’s coverage of the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing, was found dead Sept. 2 in her suburban Atlanta home. Scruggs, who joined the newspaper 15 years ago, had suffered a variety of health problems for the past year, the paper said. Cherokee County Coroner Earl Darby said it appeared she died in her sleep, although an autopsy would be done to establish the cause of death. William Doherty, 65, an award-winning legal affairs reporter and editor for The Boston Globe, died Sept. 4 of pancreatic cancer. Doherty’s courtroom coverage spanned four decades, from Sen. Edward Kennedy’s 1969 accident at Chappaquiddick to the 1997 baby murder trial of au pair Louise Woodward. As the Globe’s federal court reporter, Doherty reported on Judge W. Arthur Garrity Jr.’s 1974 decision desegregating Boston public schools. He was among a team of reporters and editors whose work on the ruling and the ensuing struggle helped the Globe win a Pulitzer Prize for public service. Lou Grant, 81, the longtime San Francisco Bay Area political cartoonist, died Sept. 7 in his Oakland home. A self-taught artist, Grant created his cartoons from the Oakland Tribune newsroom from 1954 to 1986. His drawings were syndicated with the Los Angeles Times and frequently appeared in Newsweek and Time magazines. Grant’s works were highlighted in a 25-year retrospective at the Oakland Museum in 1980. Some of his original cartoons are kept in the Kennedy Memorial Library, the Harry Truman Library, the Lyndon Johnson Library and the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Frank Hoy, 65, an award-winning photographer at The Washington Post and a professor of photography at Arizona State University, died Aug. 31 in Mesa, Ariz. During his 17 years at The Post, Hoy won picture of the year honors from the National Press Photographers Association and the Hague Holland World Press Photo Award. He also wrote a book titled “Photojournalism: The Visual Approach.” Hoy joined the Arizona State faculty in 1978 after five years at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications. He spent 22 years at Arizona State before retiring last fall.
