Schurz Communication's Pittman, 'St. Cloud (Minn.) Times' Exec Editor Bodette Win Diversity Award

By: E&P Staff John Bodette, executive editor of the St. Cloud (Minn.) Times, and Charles Pittman, senior vice president for publishing at Schurz Communications, were named winners of the 7th annual Robert G. McGruder Awards for Diversity Leadership Wednesday.

They will receive their awards at the Associated Press Managing Editors (APME) convention Sept. 10 in Las Vegas. Freedom Forum funds and administers the awards in partnership with APME and the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE).

Honorees each receive $2,500 and a sculpture.

"John Bodette and Charles Pittman deserve recognition because their qualities are so similar to those of Bob McGruder, and because they haven't lost their focus on the importance of diversity despite extraordinary economic challenges for the industry," said Jack Marsh, vice president/diversity programs of the Freedom Forum and Diversity Institute. "Their passion for diversity is unwavering and an inspiration to others. They model what they preach by mentoring, hiring and promoting journalists of color. Their organizations and readers reap the benefits of newsroom diversity through richer, fairer, more inclusive and more relevant content."

The award is named after former Detroit Free Press Executive Editor McGruder who died in 2002.

Freedom Forum said judges singled out Bodette and Pittman for furthering diversity in content and in recruiting, developing and retaining journalists of color.

Pittman, who own in the over-75,000 circulation category, "has been a persistent and influential voice for diversity and industry change, particularly among the people who lead newspaper companies," Jeanne Fox-Alston, vice president of the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) Foundation, said in a statement. "Through actions and words, he has leveraged the access that he has to industry leaders, and at his company has set an example for others to follow."

Pittman chairs NAA's diversity committee, is a member of the boards of the Associated Press and American Press Institute, and is on the leadership ladder to become president of the Inland Press Association in 2010.

Schurz is one of just three media companies, so far, working with Unity: Journalists of Color Inc., to increase the number of senior newsroom managers of color through the "Ten by 2010" initiative. Freedom Forum also noted that each summer, Schurz Communications newsrooms host a dozen multimedia journalism interns from its Diversity Institute.

"Charles understands, as so many do not, that if we abandon the goals and principles of our business now, we're truly lost," said Tim Harmon, managing editor of the South Bend (Ind.) Tribune, a Schurz newspaper. "Charles stands tall for the idea that newspapers' obligations to serve all parts of their community hasn't gone away just because advertising and circulation revenues are lagging."

Bodette, the winner in the under-75,000 circulation category, was cited for the way he "sets a tone and creates a culture that invites journalists of color to boldly display their abilities and launch their careers," according to the nomination from St. Cloud Times Publisher Bill Albrecht and Managing Editor Sue Halena.

Bodette was recognized for his recruiting and mentoring of young journalists. In recent years, the St. Cloud Times hired seven interns from the American Indian Journalism Institute and 20 interns from the Chips Quinn Scholars program. He is a volunteer mentor at the annual Native American Journalism Career Conference at Crazy Horse Memorial in South Dakota.
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Judges were Calvin Stovall, executive editor, Press & Sun-Bulletin, Binghamton, N.Y., representing APME; Charlotte Hall, editor of the Orlando Sentinel, and Fine of the William Allen White School of Journalism & Mass Communications at The University of Kansas, representing ASNE; Aki Soga, editorial-page editor of The Burlington (Vt.) Free Press, representing UNITY; last year's winners Joe Grimm, former recruiting and development editor at the Detroit Free Press, and Wanda Lloyd, executive editor of the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser; and Marsh, representing the Freedom Forum.