Linda Amster
1996 is the 25th anniversary of the publication, "The Pentagon Papers." The country was split over the Pentagon Papers issue: the First Amendment rights of a free press versus the security threat which could result from publication of classified government material. The acknowledgements page in the front of the book lists the contributions of The New York Times editors involved with this effort to defend the freedom of the press. Also listed among those credited was The New York Times Chief of Research, librarian Linda Amster. Amster was not only on the scene (it wasn't the newsroom or library, but a secret hotel location where the news staff could work on the Papers without discovery), but she was a major player. Amster recalls her research efforts.Doris Batliner
What follows is an account of how a team of news librarians, including Sharon Bidwell, worked together to inform the public of a bus accident that turned into a tragedy claiming 27 young lives near Carrollton, Kentucky. The news coverage earned the Louisville Courier-Journal a Pulitzer Prize in 1989.Elizabeth Donovan
From Watergate to Whitewater, veteran news researcher, Liz Donovan, describes the events, the players and the impact of her "investigative" research covering over two decades of work with The Washington Post.Peter Ford
Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle/Times Union library director, Peter Ford, offers powerful testimony to the new challengesnews librarians face beyond providing basic reference services. He gives evidence how news library staffers are part of the reporting process.Sylvia Frisch
Minneapolis Star-Tribune news library researcher, Sylvia Frisch, describes two long-term investigative special projects in which she played a significant research role. One, the series on arson, won a Pulitzer for the Star-Tribune in 1990.Brooke Cain
Assigned as the lead researcher for an investigative special projects team on hog waste in North Carolina, The News & Observer librarian Brooke Caine describes the months long effort to track the data on "Boss Hog" and the power of pork in North Carolina. The five-part series published in The News & Observer in February 1995, earned the Pulitzer's 1996 Public Service Award among several other national investigative reporting awards in the same year. Cain describes research at The News & Observer as "a collaborative effort between researchers, reporters and editors. Information is shared and ideas and leads spring from conversations and compared notes. The 'Boss Hog' series incorporated this philosophy of teamwork unlike any story we'd worked on in the past."Nancy Burris
In 1997 the Times-Picayune of New Orleans, LA celebrated its first two Pulitizers, one for public service and a second for cartoonist Walt Handelsman. The public service award came for an eight-day series on how the world's fisheries are being destroyed by greedy fishermen, pollution and uncontrolled growth. According to Editor Jim Amoss, the paper got the idea from "problems in our own backyard -- the Gulf of Mexico." A task force of 13 reporters, editors, photographers as well as the papers news librarians took a global look at the problem. Here is Times-Picayune library director Nancy Burris recalling the news librarians' contributions to the series, "Oceans of Trouble." Readers will quickly note that Burris and her skilled staff played different, but increasingly essential roles among top newspaper research departments, that of database trainers, spreadsheet gurus and Internet coaches. The operative words in this newspaper were "reporter training." Burris and her staff document the philosophy and procedures involved.Barbara Newcombe
In 1997 Barbara Newcombe (earlier retired from the leadership of The Chicago Tribune library) was awarded the News Division's highest honor, the Joseph F. Kwapil Memorial Award. She was honored for her long service to the News Division during her career and for what she did afterward.Barbara volunteered her time and considerable experise to the Center for Investigative Reporting in San Francisco for ten years after her retirement from the Chicago Tribune. During that time she compiled and published Paper Trails: A Guide to Public Records in California. She won the Freedom of Information Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California Chapter for that book. In many information professionals' opinion Barbara's book is a trail blazer of its type. It serves as a worthy model for tracking access to any state's public records.
Alison Head
Alison Head is the Director of Information Management at The Press Democrat Newspaper, a New York Times Regional Newspaper in Santa Rosa, CA with a circulation of 100,000. She manages the paper's Editorial News Library and news research efforts as well as identifying and contributing to company-wide information-based projects, including the paper's web page. Alison concurrently teaches in San Jose State University's Graduate School of Library and Information Science and has been Visiting Faculty at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies.John Martin
Kitty Bennett, St. Petersburg Times champ news researcher, said it best. In an email to the NewsLib list on February 18, 1998, Kitty paid tribute to her colleague, John Martin:"Folks:She went on to give news researchers all over the world the highlights. Here is the full story.
We have had such a fabulous news research triumph here today I feel compelled to tell you all about it. The fabulous news researcher in question won't do it out of some strange sense of modesty, decorum, etc....At our weekly editors meeting this afternoon, our assistant managing editor for Tampa (Neville Green) lauded John for a lot of things, but one particularly nice comment made reference to the "intelligent use of the technology" available to us."Johnny Miller
Richard Geiger, San Francisco Chronicle Library Director, begins the story about Joe Miller's relentless pursuit of truth about Pandas this way:
"First off, let it be said that Moses Salmeron's (letter writer to the Chronicle) love of pandas is shared by The Chronicle.Also Koalas and other warm, fuzzy animals with cute faces. In fact, one might reasonably think that their similarities to teddy bears could have perhaps confused us about the relations of bears and panda -- this despite our best efforts to bring you the best-written and edited newspaper in the Bay Area.
Well, it turns out Chronicle editors wer all over that font-page pronoouncement of familial relations -- and the chorus was heard far and wide: `PANDAS AREN'T BEARS!'
But library researcher Johnny Miller met the onslaught of editors and stood his ground. `Pandas ARE BEARS!'" Read the full story here.
"In the summer of 1950, in the first weeks of the Korean War, U.S. military forces opened fire on a group of South Korean civilian refugees at a place called No Gun Ri, killing hundreds of men, women and children.What happened next was equally shocking: Nothing.
Apparently no one in the U.S. military reported the killings. No one investigated them. As years passed, historians remained unaware of what happened, Korean survivors said that when they tried to file a grievance, they met rejection and denial."
That was the beginning. Read on to discover the story behind the story, a Pulitzer-prize winning story. The Associated Press investigative reporters and super researcher, Randy Herschaft, joined Sang-hun Choe (AP's reporter in Seoul) in a great investigative effort that needs to be read. Read about who was involved and discover the art and architecture of difficult, inspired research. This is a story to remember and salute. Randy, described in various ways as a "documents specialist" and a news researcher is portrayed thus in this investigation:
"But Herschaft, whose gentle demeanor masks a tenaciousness as an investigator, returned to New York after a few days with a wealth of photocopied documents. His most startling find: orders from American commanders to their units retreating through South Korea to shoot civilians as a defense against disguised enemy soldiers. A story was taking shape." Read all about it here.Buddy Jaudon
From Tampa Tribune WFLA News Channel 8 researcher, Lyssa Oberkreser (lyssa11@angelfire.com): "I am proud to say that my colleague, Buddy Jaudon, did an extraordinary job of researching the criminal background and driving record of Robert Bruno who was charged late Saturday (August 5, 2000) with second-degree murder in 'what authorities are calling the ultimate form of `road rage.'Carolyn Edds"Buddy, who spent his entire Sunday digging through the Hillsborough County (Florida) public records database, was definitely deserving of his 1A byline!"
Read this story about how a tenacious, talented news researcher discovered the origins of an amnesiac preacher for her paper, the San Antonio Express-News
Michael Koop San Antonio Express-News researcher:
Express-News research editor Mike Knoop was recognized by his newsroom peers at the newspaper's annual Philip True Awards Feb. 26, 2006. Colleague Kevin Frazzini posted the following message to the NewsLib list.
It was a satisfying win for the entire department because we compete in the same
category as the paper's copy editors, who have won every year since the awards
began. This was the first win for a researcher.One of Koop's nominators praised his -- and all of news research's work. "News researchers don't get enough credit for all their hustle."
Mike says getting award "feels like my gold medal. This is awesome."
The awards are named in honor of the newspaper's Mexico City bureau chief, who
was murdered in December 1998 while on a solo backpacking trip in Mexico's
Sierra Madre Occidental studying the Huichol Indians.Read more here:
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA022606.04B.true_awards.2fab546.html
| School of Journalism and Mass Communication Library | UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication
| UNC Homepage |This page was created by Barbara P. Semonche. It was last updated February 2006. If you have any suggestions or comments, feel free to contact Barbara
here.