Journalism in danger
Palestine Herald-Press’ Pulitzer is a reminder of vital role held by newspapers, subscribers.
When Jake Mienk, publisher of the Herald-Press in tiny Palestine, Texas, heard Monday that his newspaper had won a Pulitzer Prize, he and his goosebumps went looking for editor Jeffery Gerritt, who had stepped out for an afternoon cup of coffee.
“I tackled him in the parking lot,” Mienk told the editorial board Monday, about an hour after Columbia University and the Pulitzer board named Gerritt as winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in editorial writing, putting him in company with winners from the nation’s largest and most-storied publishers, from the Washington Post to Reuters to the New Yorker. “Honestly, he grabbed hold of me and sank to his knees and just started crying.”
The news gave us goosebumps, too. Gerritt has been knee-deep in national awards over the past couple of years for his passionate, informed editorials. The wins came this spring for a series of tough editorials last year about needless deaths in Texas county jails. He won the national Headliner Award for editorial writing and the Burl Osborne Award for Editorial Leadership and Community Engagement. Before coming to East Texas, Gerritt spent 17 years in Detroit, where he was a reporter, editorial writer, assistant city editor and columnist for the Detroit Free Press.
But in our business, nothing quite compares to the Pulitzer Prizes handed out each spring. In citing Gerritt’s work, which zeroed in on conditions in Anderson County, the Pulitzer board noted his bravery in calling to account powerful local officials. The board said Gerritt had won “for editorials that exposed how pre-trial inmates died horrific deaths in a small Texas county jail — reflecting a rising trend across the state — and courageously took on the local sheriff and judicial establishment, which tried to cover up these needless tragedies.”
Mienk conceded the editorials had made him nervous when they published. “Of course they did,” he said. “I am not going to lie. I sweated every last editorial we wrote. These editorials were taking to task the highestpowered people in our community.”
But he said he was made comfortable because he trusted his editor. “His knowledge, his passion about these topics, and especially his background in writing about prison and jails,” he said. “I know that if anyone was an expert in these topics, it was Jeff.”
Yet, the cost of producing great journalism has never been higher, especially for smaller community and regional newspapers. And the business of truthtelling is under attack, actively by those who would rather not face it and passively by those who would rather not pay for it. So Gerritt’s victory is tinged with a certain irony: His Pulitzer comes only days after the paper announced it would cut publication from five days to three.
The Herald-Press is owned by Alabama-based Community Newspaper Holding Inc., which owns 12 papers in Texas. Business at the company’s East Texas papers had actually been doing comparatively well as of late, Mienk said — until COVID-19 shut local economies down. In 2017, he actually had ordered a paper in Corsicana to increase publication from three days a week to four. But that upward trend reversed itself this year.
On Saturday, he announced the cutback in Palestine, telling readers that COVID-19 had wiped out the newspaper’s ad revenue. Mienk said Monday he hopes the cut is only temporary until this crisis passes. We hope so, too. Newspapers cost money to publish, and the good ones cost extra. It’s a sad footnote on a happy day when we celebrate the Herald-Press’ editorial page as the best in the nation.
Several others with Houston and Texas connections were recognized. W. Caleb McDaniel, a Rice University professor, won the history category for his book “Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America.” Jericho Brown, who earned his Ph.D. from the University of Houston’s creative writing program, won in poetry for “The Tradition.” Former Chronicle reporter Brian Rosenthal also won, for investigative reporting at the New York Times. Dallas Morning News photographer Tom Fox was a finalist for breaking news photography.
To all the winners, congratulations. Enjoy the recognition. We live in a society where brave, independent journalism is both needed and imperiled now more than ever before. Let the Herald-Press’ story be a reminder of newspapers’ vital role in our democracy, and subscribers’ vital role in keeping it alive.