Paul Krugman Wins Scripps Howard Foundation Award

Paul Krugman of The New York Times is among the winners of this year’s Scripps Howard Foundation National Journalism Award winners, announced today. The foundation cited Krugman’s commentary “for courageously and prophetically clarifying complex economic issues, and months later influencing Washington policymakers with his insightful explanation of the global financial crisis.”

Here is the list of other winners:

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING
Rob Barry, Jack Dolan and Matthew Haggman of The Miami Herald receive the $25,000 Ursula and Gilbert Farfel prize for the series “Borrowers Betrayed,” an investigation of the Florida mortgage crisis that led to changes in state laws, policies and personnel.

Finalists: Tom Lasseter, McClatchy Newspapers, “Guantanamo: Beyond the Law;” and Amy Goldstein and Dana Priest, The Washington Post, “Careless Detention: The Medical Treatment of Immigrants”

PUBLIC SERVICE REPORTING
Las Vegas Sun receives $10,000 and the Roy W. Howard award for revealing how shoddy safety practices and lax government oversight contributed to 12 construction deaths in 18 months on the Las Vegas Strip. The stories led to sweeping safety improvements.

Finalist: Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal, “American Dream Project”

EDITORIAL WRITING
David Barham of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Little Rock, receives $10,000 and the Walker Stone award for persuasive editorials on topics ranging from complex global politics to simply using the right word.

Finalists: Lawrence Harmon, The Boston Globe; and Bonnie Williams, Anderson (S.C.) Independent-Mail

COMMENTARY
Paul Krugman of The New York Times receives $10,000 and a trophy.

Finalists: John Kass, Chicago Tribune; and Roger Simon, Politico, Arlington, Va.

HUMAN INTEREST WRITING
Sean Kirst of The Post-Standard, Syracuse, N.Y., receives $10,000 and the Ernie Pyle award for leaving readers with lasting memories of the people and circumstances he introduced in his column.

Finalists: Stephanie Desmon, The Baltimore Sun; and Michael Phillips, The Wall Street Journal

WEB REPORTING
Los Angeles Times receives $10,000 and a trophy for “Mexico Under Siege,” (www.latimes.com/siege), continuously updated multimedia coverage of the Mexican government’s war against ruthless drug cartels.

Finalists: roanoke.com and The Roanoke (Va.) Times, (http://blogs.roanoke.com/ageofuncertainty), “Age of Uncertainty;” and msnbc.com, (www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27105655/), “Decision ’08 Dashboard”

ENVIRONMENTAL REPORTING
Milwaukee (Wis.) Journal Sentinel receives $10,000 and the Edward J. Meeman award for “Chemical Fallout,” investigations by Meg Kissinger and Susanne Rust into toxic consumer goods and the derelict regulatory agencies that permit their sale.

Finalists: Tom Knudson, The Sacramento (Calif.) Bee, “Sierra Warming;” and The Philadelphia Inquirer, (Tom Avril, John Shiffman and John Sullivan), “Smoke and Mirrors: The Subversion of the EPA”

WASHINGTON REPORTING
David Willman of the Los Angeles Times receives $10,000 and the Raymond Clapper award for revealing the FBI and Justice Department’s botched anthrax investigations that ended with a suicide rather than an arrest and a trial.

Finalists: Carolyn Lochhead, San Francisco Chronicle; and the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times

EDITORIAL CARTOONING
Mike Luckovich of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution receives $10,000 and a trophy for his ability to incite multiple emotions with the reading of a single cartoon.

Finalists: Don Asmussen, San Francisco Chronicle; and Alexander Hunter, The Washington Times

DISTINGUISHED SERVICE TO THE FIRST AMENDMENT
Josh Margolin and Ted Sherman of The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., receive $10,000 and the Edward Willis Scripps award for “Big Time, Big Costs: The high price of Rutgers sports,” which pitted the newspaper against the state university over internal records, and led to reforms and new personnel.

Finalists: Joe Adams, The Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville; and Aki Soga and Michael Townsend of The Burlington (Vt.) Free Press

PHOTOJOURNALISM
Michael Robinson Chávez of the Los Angeles Times receives $10,000 and a trophy for his ability to work intimately and analytically in unfamiliar cultures and situations, from Georgia, Mumbai, Nepal, Mexico and rural areas of the United States.

Finalists: Don Bartletti, Los Angeles Times; and Damon Winter, The New York Times

BUSINESS/ECONOMICS REPORTING
Farah Stockman of The Boston Globe receives $10,000 and the William Brewster Styles award for identifying U.S. corporations that were covertly using international relationships and offshore operations to avoid taxes, side-step U.S. laws and deny workers’ rights.

Finalists: Lynn Arditi, The Providence (R.I.) Journal; and Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Little Rock, (C.S. Murphy and Amy Upshaw)

EXCELLENCE IN ELECTRONIC MEDIA/RADIO
National Public Radio receives $10,000 and the Jack R. Howard award for “Dirty Money,” a series by Tanya Ballard Brown, John Burnett, Quinn O’Toole and Marisa Penaloza that exposed abuse of search-and-seizure laws under the guise of drug enforcement.

Finalists: JoAnn Mar, KALW-FM, San Francisco, “Prisons in Crisis;” and WBEZ-Chicago Public Radio, Aurora Aguilar, Joe DeCeault and Greg Scott, “The Brickyard”

EXCELLENCE IN ELECTRONIC MEDIA/TV-CABLE
Downtown Community Television Center of New York City receives $10,000 and the Jack R. Howard Award for “Section 60: Arlington National Cemetery,” a documentary by Rebecca Abrahams, Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill that took HBO viewers to the gravesites of military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Finalists: Doug Smith, WTVT-TV, Tampa, Fla., “Small Town Justice;” and WTHR-TV, Indianapolis, “Broken Buses”

COLLEGE CARTOONIST
Grant Snider of The University News at the University of Missouri-Kansas City receives $10,000 and the Charles M. Schulz award for comic strips that reflect the influence of graphic novels.

Finalists: Joseph Devens, The Daily Texan, The University of Texas at Austin; and Christopher Sharron, Daily Kent Stater, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio

JOURNALISM TEACHER OF THE YEAR
Charles Davis, associate professor of journalism studies at the University of Missouri-Columbia, receives $10,000 and the Charles E. Scripps award. His school also receives a $5,000 grant. The award is given in cooperation with the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

JOURNALISM ADMINISTRATOR OF THE YEAR
Marilyn Weaver, chair of the department of journalism at Ball State University, Muncie, Ind., receives $10,000 and the Charles E. Scripps award. Her school also receives a $5,000 grant. The award is given in cooperation with the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

Rocky Mountain News Will Close on Friday

The Rocky Mountain News, a great journalism institution that has won four Pulitzer Prizes in the past decade, will cease operations tomorrow, just two months short of its 150th anniversary. The newspaper has 231 editorial employees.

It’s been a difficult couple of days for newspapers in the United States. This past weekend, there were separate bankruptcy filings by New Haven (Conn.) Register publisher Journal Register Co. and by the owners of The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News. In addition, the Hartford (Conn.) Courant laid off 100, the San Antonio Express-News eliminated 165 positions, the Providence (R.I.) Journal let 100 people go, and the company that owns the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette and a local television station released 100 workers yesterday. The Sacramento (Calif.) Bee is bracing for layoffs that could affect between 50 and 70 employees tomorrow.

The Rocky Mountain News’ own site reports:

“Today the Rocky Mountain News, long the leading voice in Denver, becomes a victim of changing times in our industry and huge economic challenges,” Rich Boehne, chief executive officer of Scripps, said in a prepared statement. “The Rocky is one of America’s very best examples of what local news organizations need to be in the future. Unfortunately, the partnership’s business model is locked in the past.”

The Rocky has been in a joint operating agreement with The Denver Post since 2001. The arrangement approved by the U.S. Justice Department allowed the papers to share all business services, from advertising to printing, in order to preserve two editorial voices in the community.

However on December 4 Scripps announced it was putting up for sale the Rocky and its 50 percent interest in the Denver Newspaper Agency, the company that handles business matters for the papers, because it couldn’t continue to sustain its financial losses in Denver. Scripps said the Rocky lost $16 million in 2008.

One possible buyer emerged by the mid-January deadline to express interest in acquiring the paper, Scripps said. But the buyer was “unable to present a viable plan” for the paper, the company’s press release said.

Since then, Scripps said, it has been working with MediaNews Group, owner of The Post, to come up with a plan to allow it to exit Colorado. It also shares 50-50 ownership with MediaNews of Boulder’s Daily Camera and a handful of other smaller papers in the state.

The closure of the Rocky will mean Denver will have just one major newspaper, like the vast majority of American cities today.

Scripps said it will now offer for sale the masthead, archives and Web site of the Rocky, separate from its interest in the newspaper agency.

Here is the text of the Scripps press release:

CINCINNATI, Feb. 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Following a sale process that produced no qualified buyers, The E.W. Scripps Company (NYSE: SSP) announced that the Rocky Mountain News, Colorado’s oldest newspaper, will cease publication after its final edition on Friday, Feb. 27, 2009.

“Today the Rocky Mountain News, long the leading voice in Denver, becomes a victim of changing times in our industry and huge economic challenges,” said Rich Boehne, chief executive officer of Scripps. “The Rocky is one of America’s very best examples of what local news organizations need to be in the future. Unfortunately, the partnership’s business model is locked in the past.”

Scripps bought the Rocky Mountain News, which is Colorado’s first newspaper and the state’s oldest continuously operated business, in 1926. After a decades-long circulation war, the newspaper in 2001 entered into a joint operating agreement (JOA) with The Denver Post, which is owned by MediaNews Group.

Boehne and Mark Contreras, the company’s senior vice president of newspapers, discussed the Rocky’s closure with employees at a newsroom meeting today. Rocky employees will remain on the Scripps payroll through April 28, 2009.

Citing mounting financial losses in Denver, Scripps announced on Dec. 4, 2008, that it intended to seek a buyer for The Rocky Mountain News, as well as the company’s 50-percent interest in the Denver Newspaper Agency (DNA), which publishes the Rocky and The Denver Post under the JOA. The DNA, a 50/50 partnership with Denver-based MediaNews Group, has not made cash distribution payments to either partner since last summer, leaving Scripps to cover the full cost of the Rocky Mountain News editorial product. In its year-end earnings report last week, Scripps disclosed that its losses in Denver totaled $16 million in 2008.

Following the mid-January deadline for parties to express interest in negotiating a purchase, only one potential buyer worked with the company’s broker, and that party was unable to present a viable plan. Since that date, Scripps has worked with MediaNews Group, to formulate a plan to unwind the partnership.

Although the newspaper will cease publication after Friday’s edition, Scripps will continue to own and offer for sale the assets of the Rocky Mountain News, including its name, masthead, archives and Web site.

Change at Prairie Mountain Publishing

Scripps also announced today that its 50 percent interest in Prairie Mountain Publishing, a three-year-old partnership involving Colorado newspapers originally owned by Scripps and MediaNews Group, will be transferred to its partner later this year.

About Scripps

The E.W. Scripps Company is a diverse, 130-year-old media enterprise with interests in television stations, newspapers, local news and information Web sites, and licensing and syndication. The company’s portfolio of locally focused media properties includes: 10 TV stations (six ABC affiliates, three NBC affiliates and one independent); daily and community newspapers in 14 markets and the Washington, D.C.-based Scripps Media Center, home of the Scripps Howard News Service; and United Media, the licensor and syndicator of Peanuts, Dilbert and approximately 150 other features and comics. For a full listing of Scripps media companies and their associated Web sites, visit http://www.scripps.com/.

SOURCE The E.W. Scripps Company