I want to thank the Press Club of Metropolitan St. Louis for this prestigious and coveted award and offer my hearty congratulations to this evening’s other awardees – two highly respected and esteemed journalists, Jennifer Blome and Don Marsh.
I am even more grateful and appreciative because this is an award from other communications professionals. So I accept on behalf of the dedication and hard work of so many members of The St. Louis American team, current and past, who have contributed to our ongoing mission of building a relevant, credible community newspaper.
The American is an advocacy newspaper that is committed to constructive reform and change – change that is essential because, while we see some increased diversity, we are far from a post-racial society. The problems we face are deeply embedded in our history and in our economic and political structures and are a barrier to a more just and equitable society.
As the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is currently meeting in St. Louis, said, “We mourn those tragic events in which African Americans and others have lost their lives in altercations with law enforcement. Racism is an evil which endures in our society and in our church.”
His outspoken statement added that there must be change – change that “must address root causes of these conflicts: a violent, sorrowful history of racial injustice, accompanied by a lack of educational, employment and housing opportunities.”
Pope Paul VI said: “If you want peace, work for justice.” These words have resonated with the courageous, young, black millennials and their supporters who have provided much of the driving force behind a sustained protest movement that seeks and demands transformational change.
As a community newspaper, we see ourselves as a journalistic enterprise that is strongly identified with its community, its unique experiences and concerns. As a case in point, The American was covered in an article in the Harvard University-based Nieman Reports entitled, “Local Weeklies Are Covering the Communities Big Dailies Ignore.”
Nieman Reports noted that staff “had an advantage over the journalists who flocked to Ferguson in the wake of the shooting of Michael Brown Jr. on August 9, 2014.” I will quote this report at length.
The African-American community of greater St. Louis already knew and trusted the paper, which has covered that community since 1928. Missouri State Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal, who represents Ferguson, calls The St. Louis American “the only source of information we have that’s balanced and of interest.”
And Adolphus M. Pruitt II, president of the local NAACP, says, “They cover those things that are truly emotionally charged for the black community, in ways that go into detail on the subject and the issue.”
In addition to its news reports, editorials, and widely read Political EYE column, The American’s coverage of churches, community organizations, and social events has helped keep the African-American community tied together as it dispersed from the central city to the suburbs, says University of Missouri journalism professor Earnest L. Perry Jr.
“Say you grew up in one part of St. Louis that was heavily African-American and moved to another part that wasn’t, you’d still have a link back to that community” through the weekly paper, Perry says.
That kind of connection is a hallmark of the community journalism that weeklies provide. Often, local newspapers are the top source for news about a community, a source that has grown in importance as regional papers have pulled back from covering outlying communities over the past 15 years. Weeklies with a strong editorial voice bring communities together – or stir debate – over issues of great local import.
Some weeklies, like The American, cover not only a geographical community but also a “community of interest,” the term used to describe groups with a shared orientation, whether racial, ethnic, occupational, or otherwise.
Yet, we share, along with all of our colleagues in media, an interest in and commitment to the collective well-being of our region.
These remarks were delivered June 11 upon acceptance of the Press Club of Metropolitan St. Louis’ awarding Suggs 2015 Media Person of the Year, along with Blome and Marsh.
