Every hometown newspaper has its fans and critics within its community, but few smaller dailies have a respected reputation internationally in the media industry equaling that of The Anniston Star.Readers grumble when they find errors on the front page, editorials that swim upstream instead of with the flow, missing obituaries, misspelled names or a late newspaper reaching their driveway. The task of producing “the perfect paper” is a daunting one for any publication.
The Star’s staff is one that knows it can always improve, and should.
So, readers might ask…what makes The Anniston Star so respectable in the eyes of its newspaper industry colleagues?
Here are but a few of the reasons:
During the 1950s and into the ’60s, The Anniston Star often found itself in the national spotlight for daring to stand up on the side of civil rights in the segregated South.Few Alabama newspapers reported both sides of the Civil Rights movement as did The Star, often against the wishes of local residents and officials who hoped the newspaper would ignore some of the distasteful news events that occurred. The Star also bravely editorialized the need for change.
It earned the newspaper a gritty reputation for being willing to fight big battles most small newspapers, and many larger ones, wouldn’t fight.
Newspaper observers in the industry since have told Star Publisher H. Brandt Ayers that the newspaper possibly could have won a Pulitzer Prize for its efforts.
“The problem was,” Mr. Ayers once told me, “We were just so busy, we forgot to enter it!”
The Anniston Star hasn’t won a Pulitzer Prize, yet, but it has won some of the other top awards given to newspapers.Among them are the national Ernie Pyle Award (1955), the Headliner Award, and more recently the Overseas Press Club award presented in New York in 2001.
The newspaper also is one of 10 finalists in the nation, from all sizes of papers, for the 2002 International Perspective Award to be announced Oct. 25 in Baltimore. The award recognizes the efforts of papers that help readers understand how global news is local news, something that long has been a mainstay in The Star’s newsroom philosophy.
Two years of work chronicling the exchange of economic and social lifestyle elements between the Anniston area and Latin American countries such as Mexico, Cuba and Brazil led to The Star’s nomination for the current honor. The work involved extensive travel to those three countries, most recently a visit to Mexico in which a writer spent time living with a family in a remote village there.
The Star plans to continue this proud tradition of bringing home stories from abroad that affect our area, with other trips planned that will report on direct connections to the local community.
Columbia Journalism Review, produced by the nation’s most prestigious journalism school at Columbia University, ranked in 1999 the country’s Top 50 newspapers. There was no regard given to differences in size, meaning small papers were compared alongside the major metros.
The Anniston Star was ranked as the 30th best newspaper in the United States.
Prestigious exchange programs also keep The Star in the limelight.Today, for example, The Star is in a four-week program hosting Shahin Abasov of Azerbaijan in an international program that allows American newspapers to host foreign journalists, promoting an exchange of professional ideas and cultural knowledge.
Only a month ago, The Star hosted a four-day visit by Gennadi Gevorgyan, a journalist from Armenia who was in the United States as a guest of the State Department.
And earlier this year, The Star played host to Spas Spasov, an editor from Bulgaria whose four-week visit included an opportunity to meet Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman and a tour of the state capitol. That experience opened the door for discussion in The Star newsroom about differences in the political systems of America and other nations.
Closer to home, The Star partnered in the last year with Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Va., for a professional-in-residence exchange. Faculty of Washington & Lee visited The Star on three separate occasions to coach and critique newsroom techniques; while Star editors Anthony Cook, Chris Waddle, reporter Elizabeth Bluemink and yours truly traveled on separate trips for one-week visits to W&L.
We also are involved in a wide variety of partnerships here in Alabama with Jacksonville State University, the University of Alabama and Auburn University.
Smaller-scale, but just as meaningful, are the exchanges of visits with two of the nation’s most highly regarded journalism schools, Columbia University in New York and the University of Missouri.
During a visit to Columbia’s campus in May, I was fortunate enough to meet former President Bill Clinton, who spoke to a small group of journalists on the topic of AIDS. Seeing my Anniston Star nametag, it was Clinton who initiated our conversation, approaching me for a handshake and asking how Mr. Ayers was doing, reflecting on a fond personal relationship with The Star’s publisher.
“Tell that old slug I said hello,” Clinton said with a big smile. “I sure do miss him.”
Notable among The Star’s recent fellowships:
Chris Waddle, executive editor, received a Fulbright award to teach journalism in Bulgaria from July-December 2001.
John Fleming, associate editor, spent the autumn of 2000 on a Reuters Fellowship in Oxford, England.
Anthony Cook, metro editor, spent a week in the spring of 2001 on fellowship in Japan.
Bruce Lowry, commentary editor, received a Pew Fellowship to spend two weeks in Brazil during June 2001.
Mr. Ayers also has received several fellowship awards during his career, including the honor of serving as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University during 1967-68.
Sept. 11 is a name in American history, not just a date.The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, rocked the nation, and it rocked the newspaper industry into action. The Anniston Star responded by producing a rare “Extra” edition: eight ad-free pages of coverage and reporting that began rolling off the press only about three hours after the first story assignments were made.
It remains one of the most amazing newspaper feats I have ever witnessed in my career.
The Star is a morning paper, and the attacks occurred early on a Tuesday morning. That meant to produce the Extra, staffers who had worked late into the night before had to be rushed in, the press had to be primed and readied, and “street hawkers” who would sell and deliver the Extra would have to be recruited for the afternoon distribution of it.
The Star’s lobby was crowded with readers waiting to buy the first copies of it, having heard on the radio the Extra was in production.
One year later, a 12-page, ad-free special section was produced marking the anniversary.
Its cover was one of only 13 in the nation to be displayed in Editor & Publisher magazine, a leading media-industry publication.
Much of this honors list is a direct result of The Anniston Star being a hometown newspaper in the hands of a family that cares about the product.
Many newspaper chains would come in and cut the staff and its resources, eliminating many of the special projects and much of the daily coverage The Star has long provided its readers. But plans are for the newspaper to always remain a private paper.
That is but one of the many reasons The Star is so special.
But, special it is.
