Blog
The 2009 board of directors election
- By: ASNE staff
- On: 04/03/2009 00:00:00
- In: ASNE elections
The following candidates will vie for eight seats on the board of directors — five three-year terms, one two-year term and two one-year terms.
The following candidates vie for eight seats on the board of directors — five three-year terms, one two-year term and two one-year terms. Below, you'll find each candidate's aspirations for ASNE, as well as a brief bio and information on ASNE activities. Be sure to check them out, then log in to vote. You must be a member in good standing in order to cast your ballot. Polls close April 24.
- Andrew N. Alexander, Ombudsman, The Washington Post
- Amanda Bennett, Executive Editor, Bloomberg News, New York
- Timothy A. Franklin, Louis A. Weil Jr. Endowed Chair, Indiana University School of Journalism, Bloomington, Ind.
- Diana Fuentes, Editor, Laredo (Texas) Morning Times
- Anthony Moor, Deputy Managing Editor/Interactive, The Dallas Morning News
- Arnie J. Robbins, Editor, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
- Carlos Sanchez, Editor, Waco (Texas) Tribune-Herald
- Rex Smith, Editor, Times Union, Albany, N.Y
- Kathy Spurlock, Executive Editor, The News-Star, Monroe, La.
- Mizell Stewart III, Editor, Evansville (Ind.) Courier & Press
- Margaret M. Sullivan, Editor, The Buffalo (N.Y.) News
- Kenneth E. Tingley, Editor, The Post-Star, Glens Falls, N.Y.
Like the news organizations we serve, ASNE is facing unprecedented financial challenges and must redouble its efforts to remain essential in a fast-changing industry. Perhaps more than at any time since our founding in 1922, we need board leadership that is visionary, passionate, dedicated and inspirational.
ASNE board members have two priorities.
The first is to ensure that our organization survives. We urgently need to settle on a new model that addresses the harsh reality that our financial base is significantly diminished because of the economic stresses we are all experiencing.
The second is to focus on core goals that are of critical importance to our members.
Among them should be a continuation of our strong advocacy for the First Amendment, freedom of information and shield law protections. Through the launch of Sunshine Week and ASNE's leadership role in advocating for greater transparency in government, we have started to see meaningful changes that benefit society and our news organizations.
ASNE also needs to find ways to continue to promote diversity in our newsrooms and coverage.
And we need to refocus on a mission that was central to ASNE's constitution when it was written 87 years ago. It says the organization should “work collectively for the solution of common problems.” Those problems can seem overwhelming today. But that's one of the reasons ASNE is so important. Working together — metros and community papers; print and online — we can emerge stronger, vibrant and more essential than ever.
I am the ombudsman for The Washington Post. Prior to assuming that position early this year, my entire career was spent with the Cox Newspapers chain. I began at the Cox-owned Dayton Journal Herald and was transferred to the Cox Washington bureau in 1976. I covered the nation's capital and also reported from more than 50 countries before becoming Cox foreign editor and deputy bureau chief in Washington. I became Cox Washington bureau chief in 1997, managing a staff of roughly 30 that included more than a dozen foreign bureaus as well as domestic bureaus in New York and on the West Coast.
I am on the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists, the advisory board for the Scripps College of Communication and in 2006 was inducted into the National Freedom of Information Act Hall of Fame.
Alexander joined ASNE in 1998. An incumbent, he was elected to the board of directors in 2007. He currently co-chairs the Freedom of Information Committee and chairs the ASNE Awards Board. He has also served on the Convention Program, First Amendment and Nominations committees.
Amanda Bennett is executive editor/Enterprise for Bloomberg News. She was editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer from June 2003 to November 2006, and prior to that was editor of the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader. She also served for three years as managing editor/projects for The Oregonian in Portland.
Bennett served as a Wall Street Journal reporter for more than 20 years. She held numerous posts at the paper, including auto industry reporter in Detroit in the late '70s and early '80s, Pentagon and State Department reporter, Beijing correspondent, management editor/reporter, national economics correspondent and, finally, chief of the Atlanta bureau until 1998, when she moved to The Oregonian.
In 1997 Bennett shared the Prize for national reporting with her Journal colleagues, and in 2001 during her tenure at The Oregonian, that paper won a Pulitzer for public service.
She is the author of five books, including “In Memoriam” (1998), co-authored with Terence B. Foley; “The Man Who Stayed Behind,” co-authored with Sidney Rittenberg (1993), and “Death of the Organization Man” (1991).
She is a member of NABJ, ASNE, The Pennsylvania Women's Forum, and is on the board of directors of the Temple University Press and of the Rosenbach Museum, a Philadelphia museum of rare books.
An ASNE member since 2000, Bennett was chair of the Readership Issues Committee and has served on the APME/ASNE Wire Watch, Awards Board and Leadership committees, as well as a convention floor manager.
During this time of profound transformation, ASNE must play a lead role in fostering a national discussion about the future of journalism, and in the process provide its members with innovative ideas for both short-term sustainability and long-term growth. In doing so, it should engage with other national media organizations and tap into the resources of the nation's major universities, which could be incubators for new journalistic models and a resource in helping financially constrained newsrooms fulfill their public service mission. At this time of crisis, ASNE needs to be an engine of ideas for the future.
Franklin assumed the Louis A. Weil Jr. Endowed Chair in January. In this role, Franklin also is the director of Indiana University's new National Sports Journalism Center.
Before his appointment at I.U., Franklin was the editor and senior vice president of The Baltimore Sun for five years.
During Franklin's tenure, The Sun won numerous national journalism awards and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in local reporting in 2007. The Sun's national awards under his leadership included the Polk Award, two national Society of Professional Journalists Awards, two National Headliner Awards, the Loeb Award, the Mike Berger Award and the top print journalism award in Tribune Co. The Sun was named the Newspaper of the Year three straight years by the Maryland/Delaware/D.C. Press Association. In 2008, Franklin was named one of Maryland's most influential leaders.
Before joining The Sun, Franklin was the editor and vice president of the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel for three years. During that time, the Sentinel won more than two dozen national journalism awards, including the Polk Award for environmental reporting, the Scripps Howard Distinguished Service to the First Amendment Award for its investigation into NASCAR racing safety, the National Journalism Award for literacy form the Scripps Howard Foundation, a national Society of Professional Journalist Award for non-deadline reporting, and a National Headliner Award for investigative reporting in collaboration with The Sun. In 2003, the Sentinel won the highest journalism honor from the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors for its coverage of the Columbia space shuttle tragedy.
Franklin's first top editor job was at his home state newspaper, The Indianapolis Star, a paper he led in 2000. In his year there, The Star won a national Polk Award for state reporting for an investigation into Indiana's “shockingly inadequate oversight” of its mentally ill patients.
Previously, Franklin spent 17 years as a reporter and editor for the Chicago Tribune. His reporting assignments included Cook County government, Chicago City Hall and the Illinois Statehouse. He then rose through the editing ranks from assistant city editor to associate managing editor. Under Franklin's leadership in the mid 1990s, the Tribune's sports section was named among the 10 best in the nation.
Franklin has been active in First Amendment and freedom of information issues. He took the leading role in organizing the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors first Sunshine Sunday public awareness campaign for open government in 2002. That effort was honored with the Society of Professional Journalists Sunshine Award, and his efforts also were recognized by the First Amendment Foundation. That initial Sunshine Sunday effort in Florida has blossomed into a national public awareness campaign.
In 1981, he won the Society of Professional Journalists' Barney Kilgore Award as the top college journalism student in the nation.
He has been a member of the Board of Visitors of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland since 2004.
Franklin co-chairs ASNE's Freedom of Information Committee. He joined ASNE in 2000. Since then he has served on the Ethics and Values and Leadership committees, in addition to FOI.
As the evolution of newspapers accelerates at a harrowing pace, it's imperative that we find new ways to maintain our role as the independent eyes and ears of the public. Our democracy depends on it. I believe ASNE is uniquely positioned to help meet this challenge. Our new webinars are providing cutting-edge training for our members, while our strong focus on the First Amendment and ensuring open government remains an essential part of our mission. And even as restructuring reduces our newsroom numbers, we must help our members with diversity efforts to ensure we remain viable sources of accurate, balanced information for our respective communities. ASNE's strength is in its members; we are creative, hard-working, never-say-die individuals who willingly share ideas and lend each other support. Together, we can forge new paths.
A second-generation Texan whose first language was Spanish, Fuentes grew up in Laredo on the Texas-Mexico border.
Fuentes started her journalism career on the copy desk at the Laredo News in 1977 and was hired at rival Laredo Morning Times as a police reporter in 1979. She has since worked as reporter and editor at several newspapers, including the Del-Rio News Herald, San Antonio Light, San Antonio Express-News and The Beaumont Enterprise. At the Express-News, she was the first woman and first minority to serve on the Editorial Board. At The Beaumont Enterprise, she was the first woman and minority to serve as managing editor.
She became Editor of Laredo Morning Times in May 2004, the first woman to hold the post in the paper's 125-year history.
Fuentes serves on the board of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas and is active in the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, among other organizations. She has previously served on the NAHJ board, including winning national election as secretary and treasurer.
An incumbent, Fuentes was elected to the board of directors last year. She joined ASNE in 2007, is incoming co-chair and has chaired the Small Newspapers Committee. She also serves on the Freedom of Information Committee and was a member of The American Editor Committee
Since I entered newspapers, my focus has been to help fellow journalists successfully transition our craft from the analog era into the digital one. I see my role at ASNE as the same.
For newsroom leaders, who make up the core of ASNE's membership, that means having the insight and experience to see how emerging information technology trends will impact our profession before they hit; discovering opportunity in that disruption; and effectively communicating the cause and response so decisions can be made.
As a longtime board member of the Online News Association, which represents the new era's digital leaders, I also see a need for ASNE and ONA to act collaboratively to educate each other's memberships.
And as the ONA's awards committee chair, I bring an understanding of how to increase peer recognition for members' digital work, by better tuning ASNE's awards to the new medium.
Anthony Moor is deputy managing editor/Interactive at The Dallas Morning News where he directs the newsroom's new media strategy and operations and helped grow dallasnews.com traffic 70 percent in his first year.
In 2008 the site was honored with RTNDA's Edward R. Murrow Award as best non-broadcast Web site.
Previously he served as editor of OrlandoSentinel.com, a 2007 Knight-Batten Award for Innovation winner and 2006 Online News Association general excellence finalist.
Moor was New Media Editor at the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle, where he devised the paper's convergence strategy, and won a 2003 Online Journalism Award for creative use of the medium.
Moor developed an interest in interactive media at San Francisco's KRON-TV during the dot-com boom, while reporting on ventures with names such as RealAudio, Hotwired, Quokka and PointCast.
In his early career, Moor was an investigative reporter in Buffalo and state capitol bureau chief in Santa Fe, N.M. He spent two years in Tokyo working variously at the ABC News and CNN bureaus.
Moor serves on the board of the Online News Association and chaired its 2005 conference in New York. He has also served on the board of directors of the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists.
Moor has been a member of ASNE since 2007. He is a member of the Innovation Committee and served on the Interactive Media Committee.
During this challenging economic time, we need each other more thanever. We need to learn from each other and support each other. ASNE can help lead the effort in a variety of ways: by providing leadership andinsights as we create fast, flexible and nimble news organizations designed to deliver news to readers and viewers how they want it and when they want it; by providing tools and strategies for great print and online journalism during this transformational time; by leading the battle to expand our First Amendment protections; and by educating our readers about the importance of journalism and public service in ademocracy.
Arnie Robbins was named editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in December 2005. He served nearly seven years as managing editor. Arnie joined the Post-Dispatch in April 1997 as director of staff and organizational development and was named deputy editor six months later. Arnie spent 13 years at the Minneapolis Star Tribune as executive sports editor, assistant managing editor/Features and Change editor. He was a copyeditor and deputy sports editor at the Chicago Sun-Times from 1978-84 and a sports reporter and editor at the Suburban Trib from 1975-78. He grew up in Cleveland. Arnie is a member of the Missouri Sunshine Coalition and on the board of directors of the Mid-America Press Institute. Arnie and his wife, Terrie, former VP of marketing for the Post-Dispatch and general manager of STLToday.com, live in the city of St. Louis in a 106-year-old house surrounded by gardens and indoor and outdoor cats.
Arnie Robbins has been a member of ASNE since 2000. He has chaired the election judges and is incoming co-chair of The American Editor Committee. He has also served on the Craft Development, Diversity, Education for Journalism, Freedom of Information, Interactive Media, Leadership and Readership Issues committees.
In 1978, ASNE did something extraordinary: It challenged America's newsrooms to achieve proportional parity with the ethnic and racial mix of its local population by 2000.
Such boldness is necessary today.
As our industry grapples for survival, I believe that ASNE could help by taking a lead in developing a new nonprofit cooperative similar to The Associated Press.
This cooperative would aggregate its members' online content, charge readers for that content, then disburse proceeds to its members. The move to charge readers for online content must be done collectively. And an organization such as ASNE must take the lead.
In December 2001, Carlos Sanchez became the 5th editor of the Waco (Texas) Tribune-Herald since 1917. A native Texan, Sanchez grew up in El Paso.
The Tribune-Herald is the sixth newsroom he has worked in during his 24-year career. He has also worked in newsrooms in Colorado, El Paso, Austin and in Washington, D.C., where he worked seven years for The Washington Post.
Sanchez joined ASNE in 2007. He serves on the Freedom of Information and Diversity committes and is a member of the ASNE Awards Board.
ASNE needs three priorities: to help editors be smart strategic leaders in challenging times, to protect the principles that support American journalism and to build an audience that appreciates quality journalism. The first two points have historically been ASNE's strengths: great training and powerful advocacy for the First Amendment on Capitol Hill, in court and in public. The third has been my focus as Education for Journalism Committee chair: encouraging the development of news literacy programs in universities and colleges, schools and community settings. Expanding these efforts will benefit our news organizations and our society. Great journalism will thrive only if consumers recognize it.
Rex Smith has been editor of the Times Union in Albany, N.Y., a Hearst Newspaper, since 2002. He was managing editor of the paper for seven years before that. Rex also spent four years as editor of The Record in Troy, N.Y., and was for 11 years a reporter, national correspondent and bureau chief for Newsday. Earlier in his career, he worked at smaller papers in South Dakota and Indiana and was for one year a TV reporter and anchor in the New York metropolitan area. He has been president of the New York State Associated Press Association and is the longtime vice-chair of the New York Fair Trial/Free Press Conference.
An ASNE member since 2003, Smith chairs the Education for Journalism Committee and has served on the Convention Program Committee.
ASNE's collegial environment provides inspiration and motivation for editors who are too often the lone voice for journalism in their buildings and in their communities. As ASNE works with editors to navigate our cultural and technological evolution, I wish to be part of that good fight.
Community journalism is a fundamental asset of every town and city. ASNE will continue to share ideas, offer training and provide advice to editors coping with today's financial realities so that good, strong journalism remains a core value of their leaner operations.
Spurlock began her career as a reporter for the newspaper she now edits. After serving in various reporting and editing capacities on the features and city desks, she moved to Baton Rouge as a public information officer for the Louisiana Office of Tourism. But ink was in her blood, and she quickly returned to the newspaper business as managing editor of Louisiana Suburban Press, a weekly newspaper group in the Baton Rouge area, and then to the Morning Advocate in Baton Rouge as copy editor and assistant city editor.
She then joined The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., as city editor and later became the publisher of the company's weekly newspapers and niche publication division. The itch to return to the newsroom struck when the editor's job at her first newspaper came open. She has been executive editor of The News-Star since 1995.
Under her leadership, the newspaper has received national recognition and awards for its freedom of information and public service work, for taking an active stand in statewide legislative ethics issues, for its work on statewide education reform and for its local economic development activities.
Spurlock has been a strong First Amendment advocate in her state, serving as a founding board member of the Louisiana Freedom of Information Coalition and currently as chairman of the Louisiana Press Association's Freedom of Information Committee. She's also been heavily involved in journalism education, serving as an adjunct professor at the LSU Manship School and at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, working with the journalism and mass communication departments at three area universities, developing local high school programs and mentoring dozens of interns. She also has served on the Louisiana Press Association's outreach and journalism education committees.
A member since 2001, Spurlock is incoming co-chair of the Small Newspapers Committee having also chaired that committee in 2006-07. She is currently a member of ASNE Awards Board and has served on the Campfire, Craft Development, Education for Journalism and High School Journalism committees. She was also a floor manager at the 2006 convention.
Despite the gloom and doom in our industry, I get out of bed each morning excited about the opportunity to figure out the future of local journalism. That same opportunity has sustained me in leading newsrooms through ownership changes, buyouts, layoffs and restructurings.
Through it all, my mission is to lead the changes that are necessary rather than see my news organization fall victim to those changes. As painful as some of those changes are, I believe some of the essential needs of the communities we serve – for civic dialogue, for understanding different points of view and for the information citizens need to live their daily lives – can only be satisfied with a robust local newsgathering operation. That operation may be different, perhaps one that combines elements of newspapers, magazines, radio, television and online, but it must survive.
ASNE and its members are poised to lead that revolution in much the same way as our newsrooms have evolved to embrace the delivery of information on multiple platforms.
Mizell Stewart III, editor of the Evansville Courier & Press, is a veteran journalist who has coordinated coverage of such high-profile news events as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the deadlocked 2000 presidential election.
Before joining the Courier & Press, Stewart was managing editor of the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal and a consultant for the former Knight Ridder newspapers. While in the consulting role, Stewart helped lead a team of Knight Ridder journalists who covered Hurricane Katrina at the Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss. The newspaper's coverage won the 2006 Pulitzer Gold Medal for Public Service.
Stewart also is the former editor and vice president of the Tallahassee (Fla.) Democrat. In Tallahassee, Stewart was part of an operating team that successfully turned around a 15-year trend of declining circulation. He also directed several award-winning reporting efforts, including the newspaper's coverage of the 2000 election and an in-depth examination of Florida's foster care system.
Originally from Cleveland, Stewart began his newspaper career as a 16-year-old summer photography intern with Sun Newspapers. He has lectured at The E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University and in the Department of Journalism at Bowling Green State University.
He has given presentations on leadership, management, reporting and diversity for the American Press Institute, the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the National Writers Workshops, Investigative Reporters & Editors, the National Association of Black Journalists and the World Journalism Institute.
tewart serves on the board of the Mid-America Press Institute, the Board of Student Publications at Bowling Green State University and chairs the Journalism Alumni Advisory Board at Bowling Green State University.
An ASNE member since 2004, Stewart serves on the Freedom of Information Committee and was a member of the Craft Development Committee.
It's simple: ASNE must survive. And it must find ways to be stronger than ever before. The times are troubled, the future is uncertain and good leadership has never been more important. I don't claim to be an oracle — I leave that to my boss, Warren Buffett — but I can claim to be optimistic, forward-thinking and, maybe most important of all, determined. I'm good at solving problems — and there are plenty of those. Our nation can't do without the best qualities of newspaper journalism: its watchdog role, its depth, its big-picture objectivity. As an organization, we have to figure out how to continue and how to save the crucial mission of newspaper journalism. I'm confident that we can. I want very much to be part of the solution. I hope you'll give me that chance.
Margaret M. Sullivan began her career as a summer intern at The Buffalo News — the largest news organization in upstate New York — in 1980 and rose through its reporting and editing ranks to become its first female editor in 1999. She led the team that created BuffaloNews.com's multimedia content, making it the region's leading news Web site. As editor, she formed the paper's first investigative reporting team and has emphasized hard-hitting local enterprise reporting. For five of the past seven years, the News has won the Distinguished Community Service award from the New York State Newspaper Publisher Association for its investigative journalism. Sullivan has served on the American Press Institute's advisory board, and, in 2002, wrote the freedom of Iinformation “stump speech” for ASNE.
Sullivan joined ASNE in 1999. She is incoming co-chair of the First Amendment Committee and has served on the American Editor, Diversity, Ethics and Values and Freedom of Information committees.
The survival of ASNE is what is at stake just as the survival of newspapers is at stake. It is that simple. Bold decisions need to be made quickly with the new board of directors to ensure that this great organization can continue for the long term. That will mean looking at the fundamental structure of how ASNE is funded and how it will maintain and recruit members in the future. With so many of the larger newspapers struggling, we need to make ASNE the premier journalism organization for all its members and reach out and recruit editors from smaller, medium and weekly newspapers. We will have to look at dues structures and how to fund our convention programs as we go forward. We will also need to look at reaching out to other journalism organizations to see if we can help each other. I've been an advocate for small newspapers ever since I joined ASNE 10 years ago. I think my experience with smaller newspapers and my experience with other journalism bodies would be beneficial as a member of the ASNE board of directors.
Tingley was named editor at The Post-Star in January, 1999. He had previously worked as the sports editor there since 1988. Before that he worked as the sports news editor in Kingsport, Tenn., as sports editor in Oneonta, N.Y. and as a sportswriter in Plattsburgh, N.Y. and Ashland, Ky. Tingley has previously been active with the Associated Press Sports Editors and spent one year as APSE Fourth Vice President and two years as the Third Vice President. He was just recently named to the board of directors of New York State Associated Press Association. As editor of The Post-Star, the newspaper has been named the Newspaper of Distinction four times.
Tingley has been married to his wife Gillian for 27 years. They have a 13-year-old son, Joseph.
Tingley joined ASNE in 2000. He served on the board of directors in 2005-06, filling a vacated seat. He was co-chair of The American Editor and chair of the Small Newspapers committees. He has also served on the Convention Program Committee and is currently a member of the First Amendment Committee.