Colorado-based author and SPJ member Cameron M. Burns has won “Best Travel Book” of 2002 in the North American Travel Journalists Association’s annual competition for “The Shoes of Kilimanjaro & Other Oddventure Travel Stories.” Books by writers from across the country and throughout the world were included in the competition. This is the second travel writing award given to Burns in 2002; he also won an award for a condensed version of his essay “The Shoes of Kilimanjaro.”
Esquire will replace controversial editorPeter Howarth when he leaves the magazine with Simon Tiffin, deputy editor of society magazine Harpers & Queen. Tiffin was with rival men’s magazine GQ for 10 years and had worked there as chief sub, sports editor and editor of the GQ Active supplement. He joined Harpers in 2001. Howarth will remain a consultant with Esquire, which he edited for six years. He is famous for banning scantily clad female models from the cover and choosing to instead use male cover stars.
Paul McMasters, First Amendment Ombudsman at The Freedom Forum, was elected president of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government. McMasters succeeds Robert M. O’Neil, founding director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression. O’Neil was the first president of the open-government group, heading it since its inception in 1996. He served as president of the University of Virginia in 1985-90 and is a law professor at U.Va. McMasters joined The Freedom Forum in 1992 after 33 years in journalism, the last 10 at USA TODAY, where he was associate editorial director. McMasters is based in Arlington and regularly writes and lectures on First Amendment and freedom of information issues. He is a former national president of the Society of Professional Journalists and served as its FOI chair four years. He is also the immediate past president of the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation. He is a charter member of the national Freedom of Information Hall of Fame, and is a recipient of the John Peter and Anna Catherine Zenger Award for his First Amendment and FOI work.
Charlotte Grimes, the journalism professor who stirred controversy by stating that Hampton University President William R. Harvey is against teaching “muckraking” journalism, has resigned from the historically black university in Virginia. The comments were made to Editor & Publisher and Richard Prince’s Journal-isms, an online media-news report, days after the dedication of the Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications building at Hampton. The building was funded by a $10 million commitment by the E.W. Scripps Co.’s philanthropic foundation. “I didn’t want to be a distraction from a very important discussion about the journalism school’s mission,” she said from her home. “I didn’t want the controversy to be about me, because it’s not about me.”
David Kieselstein will leave as Money magazine president to become president of Time Inc. Parenting Group. He’ll be filling a vacancy left by Andy Sareyan, who went to Entertainment Weekly. The current president of the Fortune Group, Chris Poleway, will take on the responsibilities of the Money Group, including Money magazine and its CNN/Money.com partnership. Kieselstein was with Money since 1999 and ran the consumer marketing and new ventures group at Fortune before that.
Tonnie L. Katz, editor and vice president of the Orange County Register, has announced that she will resign her position for family reasons, Register Publisher and CEO N. Christian Anderson said. Senior Vice President Ken Brusic will take over Katz’s duties. Katz, 57, came to the Register in 1988 as assistant managing editor, moving to managing editor in 1989. She became editor in 1992. Under her watch, the paper was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism in 1996 for its probe of fertility fraud at the University of California, Irvine, Center for Reproductive Health. Brusic, 58, became senior vice president for content and strategy this year. He oversees news operations at the Register, in addition to other duties. He came to the company in 1989, became managing editor in 1992 and then executive editor in 1997.
Sue Porter, editor of Scripps Howard News, was selected as one of five winners of this year’s William R. Burleigh Distinguished Community Service Awards. The awards are presented by the Scripps Howard Foundation. They are in recognition of the work of William R. Burleigh, who retired as chief executive officer of The E.W. Scripps Company in 2000 and has given his time and expertise to dozens of causes and institutions. Porter won the award for a wide range of community service, from helping orphaned girls and the homeless to organizing fund-raisers and writing newsletters to organizing blood drives to mentoring young people. She received a trophy, recognition in the Hall of Fame at the Scripps corporate offices, and the right to award a $5,000 grant to the charity of her choice. In addition to her work for Scripps Howard News, Porter is also president of the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation.
Veteran war journalist and author Joseph L. Galloway has joined Knight Ridder’s Washington bureau. Galloway will help cover American military action in the Middle East and will act as an adviser to other reporters at the bureau. With a reporting career of 42 years, Galloway is co-author of “We Were Soldiers Once … and Young,” which was the basis for the film “We Were Soldiers” starring Mel Gibson. Galloway went on four tours in Vietnam and rode into battle with the 24th Infantry Division during the Persian Gulf War as the only nonpool reporter. According to Knight Ridder, he is the only civilian to receive the Bronze Star from the Army during the Vietnam War, which he received after rescuing a wounded American soldier in 1965. Knight Ridder Washington Bureau Chief John Walcott said that Galloway “brings a unique voice, writing for the folks back home, for the families of the men and women this country sends into battle.” Galloway began reporting at The Victoria (Texas) Daily Advocate. He was a foreign and war correspondent for United Press International for 22 years and spent nearly 20 years at U.S. News & World Report.
Dennis J. FitzSimons, president and chief operating officer of Tribune Co. of Chicago, has been elected CEO. John W. Madigan, will continue as board chairman until Dec. 31, when he will retire. He plans to leave the Tribune board in May 2004. FitzSimons came to the Tribune Co. in 1982 in sales for WGN-TV in Chicago. He held several positions in Tribune Broadcasting Co., becoming president of the group in 1994. The group’s TV stations went from six to 24 under his supervision. He was key in the development of the WB Network, which is partly owned by Tribune. He has also worked in increasing content sharing and cross-selling and cross-promotion between newspapers, TV stations, and interactive businesses owned by Tribune. Madigan joined the company in 1975. He became CEO in 1995 and chairman in 1996.
Onetime president of Time Inc.’s Parenting Group John Hartig has officially joined Hearst Magazines after consulting for the publishing company. Hartig will take over the new position of senior executive for magazine and business development and will access new publishing possibilities, including acquisitions and brand extensions. Hearst recently has had several launches and spinoffs. The company has announced a travel spinoff of Town & Country, Town & Country Travel, and will in March launch Lifetime in partnership with the Lifetime cable network.
Randy Picht, director of stock table services for The Associated Press, will take over as director of Capitolwire, a state government news and information service bought by the AP in August. The Harrisburg, Pa.-based service provides news, electronic documents, and texts of legislation to professional audiences in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Virginia. Picht replaces Peter Shelly, a founder of Capitolwire, who left to join a Harrisburg-based government relations firm. Picht began with the AP in Albany, N.Y., in 1983. He worked in AP bureaus in Rochester, N.Y., St. Louis and Kansas City before going to AP headquarters as business news editor in 1997. He was appointed to head the stock market tables operation in 2000.
David M. Shribman, assistant managing editor, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and Washington bureau chief of The Boston Globe, has been appointed as executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He takes over for John G. Craig, who will retire by May. Shribman will begin his appointment in February. Craig, executive editor at the paper for 25 years, will remain on during the transition. Shribman received a Pulitzer in 1995 for coverage of American politics. His column, “National Perspective,” is syndicated in more than 50 newspapers. He came to the Globe after working as a national political correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. He previously covered Congress and national politics for The New York Times and was a national staff member of The Washington Star, which is now defunct. He is a regular panelist on the PBS show “Washington Week in Review” and a frequent analyst for BBC radio.
David Kennedy, Stanford University professor and award-winning historian, will join the board that chooses the Pulitzer Prizes, Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger has announced. Columbia oversees the awards, which are journalism’s highest honor, under the direction of publisher Joseph Pulitzer. Winners for next year will be announced April 7. Kennedy, 61, received a 2000 Pulitzer Prize in history for his book “Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-45.” He was a 1981 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in history for his book “Over Here: The First World War and American Society.” The Pulitzer board chooses the winners in 14 categories in journalism and seven in the arts and music. Voting members serve a maximum of nine years.
Margaret Carlson, the first woman to be a columnist at Time magazine, will end her column and instead contribute to GQ, a men’s magazine owned by Condé Nast. She will still write articles for Time magazine. Carlson, who regularly appears on weekly political television programs, will write nine pieces for GQ during the next year. The columns will emphasize reporting instead of opinion writing, as her “Public Eye” column for Time did. The Time column appeared less often after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and editorial executives say she was looking to go elsewhere. Carlson, who played an important role in Time’s coverage of the Clinton administration, was angered by a suggestion by editorial director of Time Inc. John Huey that she do more television work and less work for Time magazine. She hired David Boies, a prominent litigator, to come to a new employment agreement with the company. Carlson and Jim Kelly, managing editor at Time, say the problems have been worked out on friendly terms and that she will continue to deal with the magazine.
Richard Allen, former National Geographic Ventures president and CEO, will begin as president and CEO of Vulcan Sports Media. He replaces James Nuckols, who will continue to consult with the company. Allen now will have responsibilities over the group’s sports franchises, which include Sporting News magazine, the country’s oldest sports magazine; Sporting News Radio Network, which has 450 radio station affiliates and owns and operates three radio stations in New York, Los Angeles and Boston; and a book publishing unit and a Web site. Vulcan Ventures, owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, bought The Sporting News from Times Mirror Magazines in early 2000. A year later he purchased network and radio station assets of One-On-One Sports and combined them with the publishing franchise.
Walter Wells has been named the new top editor at The International Herald Tribune. The former Tribune managing editor and New York Times veteran will temporarily take over as The Times gains full control of the Tribune from The Washington Post. He replaced executive editor David Ignatius, the former Washington Post editor who will return to the Post as a columnist. The change in leadership comes after The New York Times Co. announced in October it would buy The Washington Post Co.’s share of the English-language newspaper. Before the deal, each group owned 50 percent. The parting is bittersweet, however, because The Post has suggested that The Times threatened to start up a competitor to the Tribune in an attempt to force The Post to sell. Ignatius was quoted as showing concerns about the new ownership. Wells, 59, will be consulting editor as the deal is completed and will assume the title of acting managing editor upon completion. A Times spokeswoman said the appointment is not permanent, but more details are not available. Ignatius, 52, will return to the Post as an associate editor and twice-weekly columnist for its Op-Ed page. He was the Tribune’s executive editor since 2000. Before that he was an editor at the Post and a reporter at The Wall Street Journal.
DEATHS
Roone Arledge, known as a pioneer television executive at ABC News and Sports, died Dec. 5 at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He was 71. The creator of shows such as “Monday Night Football” and “Nightline” retired in 1988. Arledge is credited for building ABC News during the 1980s and bringing modern production techniques to sports coverage. He was president of the sports and news divisions at ABC for a decade. A 36-time Emmy winner, he was cited as one of the 100 most important Americans of the 20th century by Life magazine in 1990. He joined ABC Sports as a producer in 1960 after working for five years at NBC. He was given control of ABC’s NCAA football broadcasts, and he introduced new techniques throughout the 1960s such as slow-motion and freeze-frame views, instant replays and hand-held cameras. He created one of the most popular television sports series ever, “ABC’s Wide World of Sports,” and coined the tag line – “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.” When Sports Illustrated in 1994 selected 40 individuals with the greatest impact on sports over the previous 40 years, Arledge was third behind Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan.
Glendale, Calif., resident and News-Press columnist Chuck Benedict died Nov. 9 of heart failure at age 83. A charter member of the Southern California Sports Broadcasters Association, he had known fellow broadcasters Stu Nahan, Dick Enberg, Chuck Panama, Irv Kaze, Vin Scully, Chick Heart and others for more than 40 years. Benedict, while with the Los Angeles Rams, helped to scout future NFL Hall of Famers Deacon Jones, Rosey Grier and Jackie Slater. His voice was recognized on air and in meeting rooms for almost half a century. Benedict, treasurer and two-term president of the SCSB, was given a lifetime achievement award last February from the group and was the sixth person to earn the honor. His last column for the News-Press appeared in the Oct. 31 edition. The subject was Howard Ehmke, a 1914 Glendale High graduate and sore-armed pitched who led the Philadelphia Athletics to victory over the Chicago Cubs in the 1929 World Series.
Former CBS writer and editor Ed Bliss, who worked with journalists such as Edward R. Murrow and Water Cronkite and also later founded the broadcast journalism program at American University, died Dec. 2 of a respiratory disorder at an Alexandria, Va., hospital. He was 90. Over his 25 years in CBS radio and television, Bliss wrote and edited the news summary for Murrow’s 15-minute broadcasts, worked with Fred Friendly on “CBS Reports” and worked as CBS News President Dick Salant’s executive assistant. He became Cronkite’s news editor when “CBS Evening News” became the first 30-minute newscast in 1963. Bliss was the person sitting behind Cronkite during the announcement of the assassination of President Kennedy. Bliss founded the broadcast journalism program at American University’s School of Communication in 1968. He retired in 1977, the same year he was named professor of the year by SPJ. He wrote “Writing News for Broadcast,” first published in 1971 and widely used as a journalism text. He also wrote “Now the News: The Story of Broadcast Journalism,” published in 1991. A book centering on his wife’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease, “For the Love of Lois,” is scheduled to publish posthumously next year.
Christopher R. Carey, a journalist for more than 40 years and a former foreign editor for the Chicago Tribune, died of complications from heart problems Dec. 13 at his home in St. Joseph, Mich. He was 67. Carey began reporting for newspapers in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Kentucky. He was a spokesman for the University of Michigan from 1965 to 1970 before returning to news as the head of the copy desk of the Detroit Free Press. He came to the Tribune in 1980, where he held several positions, including national and foreign news editor.
Award-winning photographer Andy Cifranic died Nov. 16 of throat cancer complications in Middleburg Heights, Ohio at age 71. A past Ohio Newspaper Photographers Association Photographer of the Year, he began his career at The Plain Dealer in 1948 in the display advertising department as an office boy. From 1951 to 1955 he worked in photography while in the Air Force. After being discharged, Cifranic returned to The Plain Dealer as a clerk in the dispatch room until a position opened up in photography. He retired in 1998.
Thomas Gephardt, The Cincinnati Enquirer’s editorial page editor for 32 years, has died at age 75. He died Nov. 18 from complications of lung cancer. He was editorial page editor from 1960 until retirement in 1992, holding the associate editor title the past 20 years he was at the paper. Gephardt picked up the nickname “Mr. Whig” from his creation of a character in a regular Sunday column he wrote that he used to convey his conservative viewpoint.
Ernest Leiser, the CBS News producer who hired current anchor Dan Rather, died Dec. 3 of a heart attack in South Nyack, NY. He was 81. The Philadelphia native graduated from the University of Chicago and served in the Army during World War II, where he was a correspondent for Stars & Stripes. His work centered in Europe, where he was briefly jailed by Communists as he covered a revolt in Hungary in 1956. Named director of CBS News in 1964, Leiser hired Rather and served as executive producer of the “CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.” He was an executive producer for ABC News from 1972 to 1975, but returned to CBS to take charge of political convention and election coverage until retirement in 1985.
Jay Reed, ex-Marine and journalist for almost 40 years, has died of lung and bone cancer. Reed, 73, joined The Milwaukee Journal (now the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) in 1963 and continued to write for the newspaper even during his bad health. He died Nov. 8 at St. Mary’s hospice. Reed, who wrote about hunting and fishing, also covered the Vietnam War in 1967 and 1968 and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize for that reporting. Reed revisited Vietnam in 1989, becoming a Pulitzer finalist again after a second series of articles on the country. He came from western Wisconsin, joining the Marine Corps in World War II. Only 15, Reed had to lie about his age to join. He went on to work in an iron foundry and then as a hotel bartender before becoming a reporter. He was recalled during the Korean War and then worked several writing jobs before returning to The Journal.
Stephen Rogers, president of The Post-Standard in Syracuse, N.Y., died Nov. 12 at Crouse Hospital at age 90. Rogers was just getting ready to leave for work on Election Day when he suffered a stroke. He came to Syracuse in 1955 as publisher of the newspaper and became known as a hard-nosed, outspoken businessman and newsman. He was also known to love his work and his town. Rogers watched the newspaper move into a new building on Clinton Square in 1971, and he guided it from typewriters to computers and other high-tech operations.
United Press International columnist Vernon Scott, who wrote on Hollywood celebrities and the industry for fifty years, died Nov. 18 in a Los Angeles hospital. Scott, who was hospitalized on Oct. 18 for pancreatitis, was 79. He had been in intensive care for three weeks. A member of UPI for 52 years, he reported on all the major celebrities of his time, such as John Wayne, Charles Bronson and Frank Sinatra. One of his favorites was Marilyn Monroe. A best-selling book he co-wrote about late actress Jill Ireland’s battle with cancer led to the 1991 television movie “Reason for Living: The Jill Ireland Story.” While at the UPI Los Angeles bureau, he saw the beginning of television and a brief obsession with 3-D movies. He was a rival of The Associated Press’ veteran Hollywood reporter Bob Thomas for the number of Academy Awards ceremonies covered; Scott staffed 50 over his career. Scott also reported on politics and the major parties’ political conventions.
Bella Stumbo, a profiles and features reporter for The Los Angeles Times, died at age 59. A longtime smoker, she died Dec. 5 in her Highland Park home after a two-year battle with throat cancer, said friend and attorney Bernard Kamine. Stumbo’s work appeared in The Times for 22 years, beginning in 1971. Her personality profiles included many public and controversial figures, from former Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry to Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner. Before coming to The Times, Stumbo worked at UPI, Bangkok world, The Los Angeles Evening Citizen News and KABC-TV.
Paul Vathis, an Associated Press photographer for 56 years, died Dec. 10 in his sleep at home in Mechanicsburg, Pa. He was 77. His works included a pensive picture of then-President Kennedy and former President Eisenhower walking together at Camp David after the Bay of Pigs invasion. The work won Vathis a Pulitzer Prize. Vathis worked from the AP bureau in Harrisburg, Pa., for most of his career, building a national reputation for his skill and energy. He also recorded the only newspaper photos of Wilt Chamberlain’s historic 100-point NBA basketball game in 1962. He was there as a spectator and had taken his son as a 10th birthday present. He photographed the 1987 news conference suicide of then-Pennsylvania Treasurer R. Budd Dwyer after Dwyer was convicted of taking a bribe. He also covered the Three Mile Island nuclear power accident in 1979. The World War II Marine combat veteran was introduced to photography while sitting in the rear gunner’s seat of a dive bomber and shooting pictures of bomb damage on caves where Japanese soldiers hid. Vathis began working with the AP in 1946 in Philadelphia and went on to the Pittsburgh bureau before coming to Harrisburg in 1952. Kennedy’s press secretary scolded him for shooting the picture of Kennedy and Eisenhower in April 1961 that won a Pulitzer, because the photo opportunity had been declared over.
Fay Gillis Wells, pioneer aviator, White House correspondent and Hollywood writer, who was accompanied by her pet leopard Snooks regularly, has died at 94. She died in Fairfax, Va., on Dec. 2. As a foreign correspondent, London tabloids speculated that Wells was an Italian spy because of her mysterious movements during the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent Wells and her second husband on a top-secret mission to Africa in 1941, where they were to find possible postwar homelands for Jews. They eventually recommended Angola. She and her husband had Page 1 bylines in The Herald Tribune on the same day. In lulls during the war, Wells taught other foreign correspondents to knit. The couple went to Hollywood in 1936, where Wells began reporting for The Herald Tribune. The couple had brought a leopard, a lioness and a cheetah home, and Wells brought the leopard along for interviews. The two did radio shows from South America in 1938. The family returned to the United States after their son was born in 1946, and Wells became a stay-at-home mother for 18 years. When her husband took over the Washington bureau of the Storer Broadcasting Company in 1963, Wells began reporting on the White House. She was one of three female reporters who traveled to China in 1972 with President Richard M. Nixon.
News photographer Eddie Worth died Nov. 10 at an age of 93. Worth covered battles in Western Europe after D-Day and also the war trials of Nazi leaders. He worked for The Associated Press for the majority of his career and had become a legend in news due to his dedication, energy and ability to capture the most difficult stories. Worth began work with the AP as a dispatch rider in 1934, also doing work as a free-lance photographer. He first found success in photography when he hired a plane and obtained shots from a mine disaster in northern England. While with the AP, he covered many events that led to World War II, and he became acquainted with several top Nazi leaders, including Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. A combat photographer during the war, Worth landed in Normandy during the D-Day invasion with Canadian troops. He covered battles in France and northern Germany, traveling with Allied troops during the rest of the war. He then covered Nazi leader trials in Nuremberg. Afterward, he covered several other trouble spots in the world, including unrest in Cyprus in the 1950s.
