Kudos to St. Louis American photographer Wiley Price for being named 2021 Media Person of the Year by the St. Louis Press Club organization. Wiley has not only persevered through the growth pains of a local media market that has yielded many individual success stories, but he has chronicled in pictures an urban community that for decades struggled to keep up with the prosperity of other U.S. cities. He has been the face of the American newspaper and a central figure in its enormous growth as an award-winning periodical recognized around the country.
Without fail Wiley has been on the scene for more stories rife with repercussions in the black community than any reporter or photographer in the state. He has become a staple in the truest sense of journalistic doggedness and media integrity; through his on-the-scene coverage of civil disturbances, street protests or marches for justice. He is a fighter who has helped catapult our neighborhoods, municipalities and elective government to a better place than it was several decades ago. There couldn’t be a better choice for this honor than Wiley Price, alongside of whom I proudly worked in the print media and could always depend on to record the visual images that no wordsmith could capture with pen and paper. He is a St. Louis original and most worthy of the lofty honor being bestowed upon him by the St. Louis Press Club. I’m sure I join the legions who congratulate Wiley.
Kevin Boone
St. Louis
