Between all the chatter, columns and news articles last week about Tribune becoming a privately held company, I couldn’t help but wonder what the deal means for readers.
It would be nice to say it means that there will be more space for international news, that Northeast is coming back as a slick magazine, that every town in central Connecticut will have its own reporter, that Parade will return as a Sunday supplement, that the TV book will again have 24-hour listings, that the parimutuel agate will be restored and that The Courant’s customer service reps will again be centralized in Hartford.
With all that accomplished, readers and I could get back to talking about the quality of The Courant’s journalism.
However, nostalgia doesn’t serve here. The Courant is different from the newspaper it was when Tribune merged with Times Mirror Co. seven years ago and even more different from the newspaper Times Mirror bought in 1979. As easy as it might be to blame the parent company for all the changes that readers and the staff have survived, the downsizing and cost-cutting are no different here than at many other newspapers.
I have faith. I see evidence nearly every day that The Courant will continue its 242-year tradition of setting standards of excellence. The flurry of small articles lately reporting on Courant awards is inspiring. I’m sure most readers pay little attention to these self-congratulatory items, especially when “Dilbert” is misplaced or the crossword puzzle is erroneously repeated..
But before The Courant shuffles off to new way of ownership and all the possibilities that go with it, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on the fact that last year The Courant pulled off some stunning work – despite some intense challenges.
Most noteworthy: “Mentally Unfit, Forced To Fight.” Staff writers Lisa Chedekel and Matthew Kauffman have been scooping up awards and accolades since the series was published last May. The expos on the U.S. military’s practice of deploying troops with serious psychological problems to Iraq even after superiors have been alerted to suicide warnings and other signs of mental illness has won numerous national awards: the Worth Bingham Prize, the Selden Ring Award, the Polk Award, the Newspaper Guild-CWA’s Heywood Broun Award, the Publick Occurrences Award, the Dart Award for Excellence in Reporting on Victims of Violence, and The Courant’s own Charles Dudley Warner Award for investigative reporting.
There is some truth to the adage that news staffs pursue big investigative projects to impress their peers. This time, however, the project impressed the U.S. military into changing its mental-health guidelines.
As if that weren’t reward enough.
The most obvious: Coverage of U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman. I can imagine critics of Washington Bureau Chief David Lightman rolling their eyes, but his dogged reporting of the Connecticut senator’s independent run in the 2006 elections won the Washington Press Club Foundation’s David Lynch Regional Reporting Award.
The triple crown: Associated Press Sports Editors recognized The Courant’s sports department with a Top 10 finish in the 100,000-250,000 circulation category for its daily, Sunday and special sections.
Photo finish: The photo staff won a number of awards in the Pictures of the Year International photography competition affiliated with the Missouri School of Journalism and the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute. The newspaper took first place for the best use of photographs among large newspapers. It also captured second place for picture editing and third place in the multiple page feature story category.
Top designs: The Society for Newspaper Design honored The Courant with 57 awards, fourth among publications in the worldwide contest. The Award of Excellence was given for design portfolios to Tim Reck for a features portfolio, to Greg Harmel for a news portfolio and to Nicole Dudka for a features portfolio.
Famous last words: The American Planning Association awarded the editorial department’s Place section the top prize in the large newspaper category for its series of columns and editorials on sprawl.
Best in business: The Society of American Business Editors and Writers recognized the Business section for overall excellence among medium-sized newspapers.
