Former editor Jim Ketchum dies at 91
James Power Ketchum, a longtime newspaper editor who worked as a copy editor at the Vacaville Reporter in the 2000s, died at the St. Joseph Hospital in Orange Tuesday after contracting COVID-19. He was 91.
Ketchum’s daughter, Karyl Ketchum, remembered him as a loving father who was believed strongly in a free press and social justice.
“He was a champion for justice, and everything that he did in his teaching, mentoring and writing,” she said. “He was just a gentle man.”
Ketchum was born Nov. 26, 1929, just four weeks after the Stock Market crash that triggered the Great Depression. Karyl said growing up during this period shaped her father, and he
would always share stories about saving tinfoil in a ball and men who lost everything in the crash coming to his mother’s kitchen door to ask for a meal.
“My parents, both of very modest means, were, because of their skills and ambitions, able to insulate our family from the hardships suffered by many,” Ketchum later wrote on his blog, Ketch’s Klippings. K etc hum graduated from Michigan State University in 1951 with a degree in journalism a nd later began his career as a sports editor at the DeKalb Daily Chronicle in Illinois. He then worked as a news editor and copy desk chief at the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram in Ohio, a copy editor at the Pontiac Press — later the Oakland Press — in Michigan and as the managing news editor of the San Diego Union-Tribune, where he was part of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize for local news reporting in 1979.
Karyl said a favorite quote of her father’s was one by Steven Wilson, a character on the longrunning radio series “Big Town” which Ketchum listened to in his youth: “Freedom of the press is a flaming sword. Hold it high, use it justly, guard it well.” She said he would use this quote at local board meetings and to inspire young journalists.
“He believed in freedom of the press,” she said. “He thought it was absolutely one of the pillars of democracy, and without it, democracy would flounder.”
Karyl said her father was so committed to journalism that he would not let anything prevent him from missing a deadline. She recalled how when living in San Diego, the seats in his car had been stolen from his car. He went back in the house, grabbed couch cushions, strapped them down and drove off to work.
“He was determined,” she said.
Upon retiring from the Union-Tribune, Ketchum moved up north with his wife, Rose Marie. One day, he inquired about The Reporter to then-Managing Editor Diane Barney.
“In the course of talking to him, I discovered that he had recently retired,” she said. “He had all these amazing credentials, and I asked if he would ever consider working in the newsroom again. I was very fortunate that my publisher, Steve Huddleston, said yes when I asked if we could hire him as a copy editor.”
Despite working part time on the copy desk, Barney said he was so much more than that.
“He was a mentor to me and many on the staff,” she said. “He was always generous with his comments and his ideas and praise. He was always encouraging, and he really brought the light to journalism.”
Ket chum worked at The Reporter for the better part of the 2000s, back when the paper was located in a large building on Cotting Lane. Throughout his time, he worked with many of the paper’s editors and reporters and was remembered by his former colleagues as a very affable person who was very adept at editing others’ work. Karen Nolan, who worked on the copy desk with Ketchum, said he had “a wealth of knowledge.”
“He could take copy and make it sing, improve upon it,” she said.
Additionally, Nolan said he was a great coach to the writers.
“I learned a lot about coa ching people f rom him,” she said.
Robin Miller, the city editor at the time, said he was known as “Jim Ketchum- all” because of his ability to catch every typo or misspelling before an article went to print.
“He was a wonderful copy editor,” she said.
Miller also recalled how he was a mentor to several writers on staff.
“He had a group of young writers, most of them straight out of college and learning the craft,” she said. “It was great to have somebody with his kind of experience on the desk, and he would take them under his wing and help them with their stories. He would read their stories before he ever turned them in for me to edit.”
Miller sa id he a lso brought a lot of exuberance to the newsroom. Having graduated from Michigan State, he was “a rabid fan” of its athletics. This was evident when Reporter employees would do March Madness pools, and he would always enter Michigan State into the bracket.
Former staf fer Ryan Chalk said he was about a year or two out of journalism school when he went from being a Reporter photographer to a writer. He credits a lot of his success to Ketchum.
“He was a tremendous help to someone like me, in terms of story structure, making the story grab the reader ’ s attention and making the daily product that we put out as best as it could be,” he said.
Chalk said he also provided helpful suggestions.
“He had a great way of working with writers to make the stories the best they could be,” he said, “and I thank him.”
Former reporter Tanya Castaneda, nee Mannes, said Ketchum was an elder statesman of The Reporter newsroom.
“He had a seasoned and practiced eye for headlines,” she said. “He would advise the younger generation of reporters and editors on how to turn a phrase for maximum impact, avoid unintended innuendos and pick just the right word to describe something.”
Castaneda also said that he would always give advice “with a twinkle in his eye” and instill confidence in her.
“I knew I could trust his advice because of his long career in the newspaper industry,” she said.
Castaneda recalls Ketchum as somebody who really loved journalism.
“He was not in the newsroom because he needed to make any money but because he wanted to be there,” she said. “He wanted to share his wisdom and he wanted to have fun, and for him, he always had a lot of fun.”
Melissa Murphy, former reporter and editor, began working with Ketchum when she was an intern and appreciated his patience with new hires.
“I remember him being very understanding and welcoming to a brand-new journalist who was just entering the field,” she said. “He would want us sitting next to him while he went through our stories, and it was definitely a teachable moment.”
Murphy said the skills she learned from Ketchum are skills she currently employs as editor of the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
Leo Holzer, who worked w ith Ketchum on the copy desk, said he worked closely with the writers which helped lift the burden off the copy editors.
“He helped them with their copy so it became a lot better,” he said. “They learned a lot from him, and we learned a lot from him too.”
Holzer recalled that he and Ketchum were working late one night in 2006 when updated information came in on the mine explosion in Sago, West Virginia. Other publications reported that the 13 miners were found alive when it was later revealed that all but one died.
“He had a seasoned and practiced eye for headlines”
— Former reporter Tanya Castaneda
The Reporter was set to run a wire story on the disaster, and Ketchum called for the press machines to be pulled back until the correct story ran.
“( Huddleston) saw the headline in the paper next morning and thought, Oh, we blew it,” he said. “Then he realized we actually got it right.”
After leaving The Reporter, Ketchum continued writing. He set up a blog called Ketch’s Klippings, where he detailed his history of working in journalism.
Barney said Ketchum touched base with her last year after losing his wife to Alzheimer’s. This led to weekly phone calls where they exchanged conversations. Despite being 91, Barney said he was very spirited.
“He was so engaged and so lively,” she said. “He really cared about the world and politics and what was happening around him.”
Karyl said that after her father contracted COVID-19, it infected both of his lungs and he would have difficulty breathing. Nonetheless, she said he remained mentally strong throughout the ordeal. He lost the ability to speak, but Karyl was able to communicate with him through an iPad, where she told him to focus on breathing and sleeping.
“He looked at me really seriously, and he shook his head in this very determined way that he had,” she said. “He was reassuring, yes, he was serious about it. He was gonna kick its butt.”
Ketchum died the day before the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, something Karyl said would have absolutely broken his heart as a staunch social justice advocate.
“The image of a Confederate flag being paraded through the halls of our democracy could have broke him, or, it could have sent him in a rage to his keyboard where he might have hammered out one more blistering editorial,” she elaborated on Facebook.
Karyl said her father would be remembered for a lot of things.
“He was a really loving father and believed in his children, the importance of journalism and the goodness of this country,” she said.