#Newspapers May 11
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Khary McGhee is a friend of mine. He started out his career as a NEWSPAPER journalist but moved on to become a respected higher education administrator. He has worked at Duke and is currently in Texas at T.C.U.
I am proud to say that he worked alongside of me while he was a grad student at UNC Pembroke after he left the NEWSPAPER world.
Last week he wrote about a friend of his Soraya Nadia McDonald who was one of the 3 2020 Pulitzer Prize Finalists in the category of Criticism.
I went online and became familiar with Joseph Pulitzer and all the different categories of Pulitzer Prizes he created with his 1904 last will and testament.
Pulitzer Prizes are not only awarded in journalism but they exist for literature, music, and drama. The awards have changed over the years because Pulitzer was one of the rare people that worded his final wishes with an important caveat. His will included a “provision for broad changes in the system of awards as society changed”. He anticipated that journalism and NEWSPAPERS would change.
It is not the best of times for the NEWSPAPER business. Here is a Feb. 2020 article written by Margaret Sullivan in the Washington Post titled The Future of Local Newspapers Just Got Bleaker
As I read that article and looked at what local NEWSPAPERS have done in North Carolina it made me somber. I know the local paper in Lumberton NC has done a lot of good work but they are under financial siege.
The Pulitzer awards in the Public Service category have been significant in bringing about changes in North Carolina.
In 1990 the Washington (NC) Daily News won the gold medal for exposing problems with city drinking water.
In 1953 the Whiteville News Reporter and Tabor City Tribune for their battle against the Ku Klux Klan. Their efforts were turned into a PBS documentary called The Editor and the Dragon
In America we have many small town problems including how to report the news. It is an important way to hold elected leaders accountable. Without small town papers there is a vacuum of responsibility that creates a slippery slope for the collective well being of communities.
The challenge of the NEWSPAPER world will require a new way of thinking. The good news is that Joseph Pulitzer anticipated that society would change. So now it is up to creative journalistic leaders to figure out how to best make those changes work.
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