Knight Ridder to Honor Excellence Awards Winners

SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept. 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Knight Ridder today announced the winners in its nineteenth annual James K. Batten Excellence Awards competition, designed to recognize and celebrate the successes of Knight Ridder people.

The winners will be honored at a special dinner hosted by Chairman and CEO Tony Ridder on Oct. 31 in San Jose. The winners will receive a total of $37,500 in prize money.

John S. Knight Gold Medal

The top prize, the John S. Knight Gold Medal, was awarded to Knight Ridder Cairo Bureau Chief Hannah Allam, who served nearly two years as head of the Baghdad Bureau.

Knight Ridder Chairman and CEO Tony Ridder said, "Hannah Allam, all of 28 years old, is a genuine prodigy -- a journalist of outstanding accomplishment and a leader who, by her courage, compassion, commitment and talent, is an inspiration to the many others working with her. As a reporter from Iraq in the summer of 2003, and our Baghdad bureau chief from December 2003 until just recently, she has won the admiration of the entire press corps for the quality of her coverage.

"She assembled a remarkable staff of Americans, British and Iraqi (including Sunnis and Shiites) who regularly out-report and out-write the competition. She has also, as her nomination said, 'mastered challenges few of us will ever face. She has run down a street with bullets pinging off the pavement to cover the siege of a mosque. She has felt the concussion from a roadside bomb. She saved a colleague from assassins. She has comforted sobbing employees grieving the loss of a staffer who drove into an intersection where a military operation was under way and was killed by an American bullet.'

"It is rare that this award goes to someone without a long record of achievement within the company. In Hannah's case, she has squeezed into two years what many others don't experience in a lifetime. John S. Knight would be very proud."

"Hannah is a talented reporter and a stalwart leader," the jury said. "She has accomplished so much, and she has so much heart as well. She's a Mozart, a Beethoven -- she's a prodigy."

Hannah Allam joined the St. Paul Pioneer Press in 2000 as a staff writer. For two months, in the summer of 2003, she was one of a number of Knight Ridder journalists rotated into Iraq to cover the war. With her rotation up, she left Iraq, but returned the following December to become the Baghdad bureau chief. Among many accomplishments, she distinguished herself as the first western correspondent to go behind enemy lines and secure interviews with insurgency leaders.

Allam is the daughter of a mother from Oklahoma and a father who is Sudanese Egyptian. She was raised in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Oklahoma. She graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1999 and had internships with The Washington Post, The Wichita Eagle and the (Minneapolis) Star-Tribune before joining the Pioneer Press. She speaks French and Arabic as well as English. Within the past month, after nearly two years in Iraq, she transferred to Cairo to become bureau chief there for Knight Ridder.

Special Citation

The Excellence jury awarded a Special Citation to the employees of the Biloxi, Miss., Sun Herald, which has gone to extraordinary lengths to serve its stricken community in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Ridder said, "From the moment the storm bore down on Biloxi, and through all the devastation and horror that followed, the Sun Herald continued to publish. Just hours after the storm, a skeletal staff was in the battered plant. There was no power, no water, no plumbing and, for days, precious little food or fuel. There was no obvious way to get the paper distributed. But there was determination.

"With extraordinary help from colleagues at the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Publisher Ricky Mathews and Vice President/Operations Marlene Kler saw that the paper got out. They did it while dozens of Sun Herald employees were still unaccounted for. They did it despite homeless conditions for many -- even now, more than 20 percent of the Sun Herald's employees are without their homes. And they did it under conditions in which even the most basic kinds of communication were nearly nonexistent. First a half press run and no advertising, then, by the end of the week, a full run and some advertising -- and it is building back from there. Within eight days, the Sun Herald was printing in its own plant again.

"None of this would have been possible without strong reinforcements from other Knight Ridder newspapers and Knight Ridder corporate, but at the heart and soul of it all was the spirit of resilience among the Biloxi staffers themselves. Recognizing the magnitude of the disaster, and the equal magnitude of the response from our people, the judges were unanimous in awarding this special citation to the Sun Herald."

General Excellence

In the General Excellence category, four winners were named: Andrea Mathewson, production director of the Akron Beacon Journal; Don Olmstead, market research manager for the Contra Costa Times; Mary Ann Lindley, editorial page editor at the Tallahassee Democrat; and Dennis Wichterman, director of online sales/City Group markets for Knight Ridder Digital.

Andrea Mathewson is a detail person -- but she never loses sight of the big picture. As production director at the Akron Beacon Journal, she oversees a division that performs at the top of its game. It earned two first-place print awards in 2004, one within Knight Ridder, the other from an industry group. Earlier this year, the department celebrated 24 months without any downtime.

During the same period, the newspaper switched ink vendors, converted to lighter-weight newsprint and added a second inserter operation. Mathewson's ability to carry out big changes without disrupting the day-to-day performance is exemplary.

She's sought after for projects that require coordination between departments; she's currently in charge of implementing sub-ZIP zoning, a valuable enhancement for advertisers, but one that requires new procedures in production and circulation, as well.

"She shows day-to-day excellence in the way she approaches her job," the jury said. "She's a wonderful teambuilder. She shows great ability in ways that extend beyond what could be a very narrow functional area."

Don Olmstead, Contra Costa Times market research manager and strategic plan project manager, is an outstanding analyst and strategic planner. Coupled with his extraordinary ability to engage others, it has made him a central figure in the newspaper's efforts to transform itself.

His National Situation Analysis kicked off the Times' five-year strategic planning process. In it, Olmstead identified major trends challenging the future success of the business, and possible courses of action. It made a clear case for action -- in Contra Costa and possibly at other newspapers.

After laying that foundation, Olmstead helped organize a planning process involving more than a hundred Times employees.

One early outcome: The Times is testing a program that helps sales reps better advise customers on how to allocate their spending across a variety of advertising products -- online, print and targeted publications.

Olmstead was also very instrumental in helping the Times realign its operations when it was acquired by Knight Ridder in 1996.

"It's simply extraordinary what he's done since Contra Costa joined Knight Ridder," the judges said. "He always goes beyond the call of duty. His initial strategic plan helped bring about fundamental changes in how that newspaper went to market. He knows how to present ideas and challenges in a way that helps the decision makers focus their efforts. And he has ideas that can be replicated in other parts of the company. That's invaluable.

Editorial Page Editor Mary Ann Lindley is sometimes called "the conscience of Tallahassee." Under her direction, the Tallahassee Democrat's opinion pages reflect a diversity of local voices and views representing the community it serves.

Lindley invented "Zing!," one of the earliest of the now-ubiquitous rant columns found in newspapers across the country. She regularly audits the Democrat's editorial and op-ed pages to ensure that they offer depth and variety. Her colleagues are convinced that has played a role in the newspaper's steady increases in circulation and reader satisfaction scores.

Lindley believes in giving back to the community -- and understands that such visibility helps bind readers to the newspaper and build its credibility. She has served as the Democrat's Relay for Life chair, raising money for the American Cancer Society, and is past president of the Capital Tiger Bay Club, an highly regarded public forum for discussion of political and social issues. She's a two-time president of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.

She's a mentor to young writers and encourages long-term staffers to improve their skills.

"Mary Ann is a tremendous local voice for the Tallahassee Democrat," the judges said. "She is really effective at communicating with readers. The editorial page is such an important part of the newspaper, and she has made sure it has a real connection with readers."

Although the Democrat was recently sold to Gannett Co., Inc., Lindley had already been chosen as an Excellence finalist, and Knight Ridder felt her long record of accomplishment should be recognized.

Dennis Wichterman, director of online sales for Knight Ridder Digital's 20 small to mid-sized City Group markets, knows how to build commitment and deliver results. Sharing knowledge and offering assistance and encouragement is a key part of his approach -- he even designed an unofficial logo to brand the successful efforts of the group.

Wichterman led the development of tailored market-specific programs for driving growth in recruitment, automotive, real estate and retail -- every category of online advertising. It's paying off: Through August, City Group revenue is up 77 percent from the same period in 2004.

A special local-sales-blitz effort in partnership with four small-market newspapers netted more than half a million dollars in revenue. Designed to build newspaper staffs' confidence and skills in online ad sales, it brought in another $144,000 in real estate banner ads.

Prior to taking responsibility for the City Group markets, Wichterman served as online sales manager for Philly.com, helping turn around results in that market. To rally his troops, Wichterman rang a brass ship's bell in his office each time an online ad sale was made. In 2004, revenue there grew by 71 percent.

"Dennis gets extraordinary results from these smaller markets," the judges noted. "He understands the importance of simple things -- a special logo for his group's efforts, ringing the bell to signify sales -- to help inspire his teammates. He knows how to provide leadership and deliver results."

Innovation Excellence

Vance Lehmkuhl, online editor at Philadelphia Daily News, was recognized for Innovation. He focuses his imagination on Web-only content based around newsroom efforts, extending and enhancing the Daily News brand.

He creates online games that supplement the paper's coverage. The first, "Build Your Own Parkway," which let users try their hand at urban planning, was tied to a special section on city revitalization. A foul-ball-catching game illustrated a Daily News cover story on prime seats at the Phillies' new ballpark. He collaborated with graphic designer Jon Snyder to post a 3-D animation "fly-through" of the new Eagles stadium.

Many of his ideas aim to drive traffic from the Web to the newspaper, including a caption contest announced on the Web that required users to pick up a newspaper to see the photo. When the Daily News became the first newspaper in the country to launch a regular podcast (PhillyFeed), Lehmkuhl created a comic radio play with a pitch for Daily News home delivery. He also wrote and produced the theme song for the show.

Described as the "one-man band of online operations," Lehmkuhl is multi-talented: He's a cartoonist, an avant garde artist and a composer and lyricist whose musical play "A Wonderful Noise" won a national theater award this year.

The jury said, "Vance's work is really innovative. Singlehandedly, he is doing incredible things -- and swimming upstream to get some of them done. No sooner had he applied for the newly created position of online editor than he was suggesting blogs. Now there are five of them. There is 3-D computer animation, online games, podcast promotional spots and the YoJoe! Intranet site [which lets employees communicate with Publisher Joe Natoli.] It's really wonderful."

Journalism Excellence

Knight Ridder Baghdad correspondent Tom Lasseter won the Journalism Excellence award.

Lasseter's reports on insurgent and anti-insurgent strategy in Iraq have repeatedly broken new ground. Among his exclusives: Marines near Ramadi had stopped patrolling large areas of insurgent-infested Anbar province because it was too dangerous; the growth of Sunni and Shiite vigilantism; evidence that Iraqi police have formed death squads to kidnap and torture Sunni Muslim men, crimes that no U.S. or Iraqi government agency was investigating. He was the first reporter to get generals in Iraq to acknowledge on the record that they foresaw no military way to defeat the insurgency. And he quoted officers in the field in western Iraq saying they don't have enough troops to secure the border with Syria.

Knight Ridder Washington Bureau Chief John Walcott called Lasseter "a primary reason why Knight Ridder's Iraq reporting is widely considered to be the nation's best. He's aggressive, dogged, thorough and fair in his effort to tell American readers what's taking place in Iraq."

The judges said, "Tom exemplifies excellence; he's an exceptional reporter and he has been a real watchdog in Iraq. He gets people to tell him things, he gets out where the action is and he has a history of outstanding investigative work."

Marketing Excellence

Two people received Marketing Excellence awards: Patricia Royal, classified ad director at The Miami Herald, and Grace Thomson, outside sales representative at The Monterey County Herald.

Pat Royal is a top Knight Ridder classified executive who has helped shape strategies and tactics in use throughout the company. Her long success with print has extended to impressive results with online classifieds. She led the effort to make The Herald the first Knight Ridder paper to launch online ad ordering -- providing important customer-spending information for the rest of the company. She's been an active part of a number of companywide online initiatives.

Her real estate print-and-online packages led to The Herald's "best practice" designation in online sales performance in 2004. That same year, she led The Herald to the largest Dollar revenue growth in Knight Ridder.

Royal has also led training efforts internally and across other Knight Ridder operations. She's been a consistently outstanding manager and mentor. She serves on companywide and industry task forces and boards.

"Pat knows classifieds inside and out, and she does an outstanding job in a difficult area -- online classifieds, which are critical to the continued success of the company," the judges said. "She also goes beyond her immediate responsibilities. She mentors people, and she's involved in a variety of industry organizations and she has a record of sustained performance over a long period of time."

Outside sales representative Grace Thomson has one of the toughest territories at The Monterey County Herald: tourist-dependent Carmel-by-the-Sea and Steinbeck's Cannery Row in Monterey.

Local merchants declined her first advances, saying that parking restrictions made it too difficult to attract shoppers. Parking tickets are the city's second-largest source of revenue, and two-hour limits are prevalent. Thomson persuaded the mayor and council to accept a visitor's permit, which ran along with a downtown Carmel group ad.

Thomson has demonstrated a talent for meeting a variety of customer needs in equally innovative ways. For a jeweler catering to wealthy clientele, she devised wraparound ads that run whenever high-end events come to town.

Thomson has grown revenue in her territory by 87 percent in two-and-a-half years. Ad count is up 57 percent and her active accounts are up 66 percent.

"She's very creative, and she's very customer-focused" the judges said. "She really listens to her customers, looks for their problems, comes up with solutions and gets results. Her initiative truly has made her customers' businesses more successful."

Operational Excellence

Three employees were honored for Operational Excellence: Dan Auxter, zone manager at the Akron Beacon Journal, Dave Bauer, vice president/operations at the San Jose Mercury News, and Warren Blankenburg, production manager at The (San Luis Obispo) Tribune.

Dan Auxter, who first worked for the Akron Beacon Journal as a carrier at the age of 10, supervises circulation in a rural area about as large as two of the five counties the newspaper serves. Despite the challenges of rural delivery, his zone consistently ranks at the top in customer service.

One reason is the solid relationship he has with district managers and others he oversees. He's a patient coach and a reliable role model who "steps up to the plate every time." He also knows the value of personal attention; every Mother's Day, he gives all contractor carrier moms a corsage and gift certificate.

Auxter also believes strongly in reaching out to the community. He mentors a high school Junior Achievement program that won national recognition. He involves his colleagues each year in the Harvest for Hunger campaign. After 9/11, he spent a week in New York helping support rescue workers at the Trade Center.

"Dan not only does his job exceptionally well, he's committed to the Beacon Journal and to the community," the jury said. "He delivers the kind of customer service that retains subscribers. He sets a wonderful example for his district managers and carriers -- in fact, one of them proposed his nomination. That says a lot."

Dave Bauer's job title -- (until two weeks ago vice president of technology) -- only hints at the influence he has throughout the Mercury News and Knight Ridder. He began his career as a reporter and editor, moving into technology as the tools used in the newsroom left typewriters behind.

His personality and leadership have made him an invaluable part of Knight Ridder's companywide Operations Task Force; his credibility makes him an effective advisor to other newspapers. Philadelphia Newspapers Publisher Joe Natoli, who worked with Bauer in Miami and recruited him to San Jose, said, "Two things make Dave Bauer special: his breadth of experience and the willingness to share it."

Three projects Bauer helped drive led to nearly $4.5 million in technology-related savings. He leads by example: the Mercury News and Contra Costa Times have combined administration of their advertising and circulation systems; they are evaluating bringing in The (San Luis Obispo) Tribune and The Monterey County Herald as well.

The Excellence judges said, "Dave has been made contributions on a scale that really help the company. He has been a crucial thread in moving Knight Ridder forward over the past 10 years."

Production Manager Warren Blankenburg makes sure everything runs on time for The (San Luis Obispo) Tribune. Most of the time, that means managing a well-oiled machine -- a group of employees who understand the business goals and how to meet them, thanks to his coaching. But sometimes, at a small newspaper, it means rolling up your sleeves and pitching in.

Packaging and Distribution is the last assembly point before bundled newspapers go on the trucks; it's the place where all the logistics of sending advertising inserts to the right neighborhoods come together. Under Blankenburg's leadership, performance went from disappointing to impressive. His colleagues in Advertising and Circulation consider him an indispensable partner in pleasing their customers.

His people skills are widely recognized; he's frequently asked to serve on cross-departmental efforts.

The jury said, "Warren has an impressive record -- he gets the work done. There is nothing more critical than on-time performance -- that's essential to being able to ensure that the newspaper is delivered to customers when they want it."

People Development Excellence

Awards for People Development were given to Devon Goetz, director/human resources at The (San Luis Obispo) Tribune, and Trisha O'Connor, editor of The (Myrtle Beach) Sun News.

Devon Goetz understands the importance of business literacy -- and how to help managers consistently provide it to the people who work with them. She was named human resources director at a challenging time for The Tribune, when a variety of new products had been introduced and new managers were pushing for higher performance.

The solution, Goetz believed, was clear goal-setting and consistent coaching. She developed a program for new supervisors that has since been adopted throughout Knight Ridder. She implemented development plans for managers, updated twice a year. And she oversees business-literacy discussion sessions -- at least eight a year.

The results have been applauded at all levels of the company.

The jury said, "Devon doesn't just provide training to the front-line employees, she coaches supervisors as they rise through the ranks to help them acquire the skills they need to be effective managers. She adds life to the everyday efforts to connect employees to the goals of the business."

Editor Trisha O'Connor has a keen eye for potential. Her ability to hire and develop young talent has made The Sun News a "port of entry into Knight Ridder," her publisher said. Journalists who got their start in Myrtle Beach now work at five other Knight Ridder papers.

The development of ambitious up-and-comers pays off for readers, too; The Sun News is one of three Knight Ridder newspapers to improve reader satisfaction in all categories in the most recent surveys.

O'Connor emphasizes strong journalism. She directed and edited a yearlong watchdog series about misuse of public funds that led to the indictment of the transit authority director and changes in how volunteer boards and agencies handle business.

"She is the epitome of what an editor in a small to mid-sized paper should be," the judges said. "She hires people others might pass over and turns them into success stories. She's bringing diversity to the paper. This is where Knight Ridder's strength comes from -- people who do what Trish does so well: develop others."

A 10-member judging panel led by Joan Ridder Challinor, member of the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science and a retired Knight Ridder Board member, selected the winners. Other panel members were Ken Bunting, executive editor, Seattle Post-Intelligencer; Don E. Carter, retired vice president, Knight Ridder; Dr. Virginia Dodge Fielder, retired vice president, Knight Ridder; Larry Jinks, retired senior vice president, Knight Ridder, and retired publisher, San Jose Mercury News; Steve Montiel, director, Institute for Justice and Journalism, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California; Linda O'Bryon, senior vice president, Nightly Business Report/WPBT; Orage Quarles, publisher, Raleigh News and Observer; Chris Urban, president, Urban and Associates; and Bill Winter, president, William Winter and Associates.

Knight Ridder is one of the nation's leading providers of news, information and advertising, with newspapers, online products and targeted publications. The company publishes 32 daily newspapers in 29 U.S. markets, with a readership of 8.5 million daily and 11.0 million Sunday. Knight Ridder also has investments in a variety of Internet and technology companies and two newsprint companies. The company's Internet operation, Knight Ridder Digital, develops and manages the company's online properties. It is the founder and operator of Real Cities (http://www.realcities.com/), the largest national network of city and regional Web sites in more than 110 U.S. markets. Knight Ridder and Knight Ridder Digital are headquartered in San Jose, Calif. (NR)