Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame http://indianajournalismhof.org Tue, 01 May 2012 14:19:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Hall inducts new members, awards service prize http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/04/hall-inducts-five-new-members-awards-service-prize/ http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/04/hall-inducts-five-new-members-awards-service-prize/#comments Sun, 29 Apr 2012 13:23:03 +0000 Gena Asher http://indianajournalismhof.org/?p=2781
kroft
Photo by Ann Schertz
CBS' Steve Kroft talked about his Kokomo roots during his address. Five others also were honored.

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A newspaper reporter whose investigations led to policy change, an intrepid news magazine broadcaster, a pioneering female columnist, a renowned media researcher, and a newspaper executive and industry advocate are the newest members of the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame.

The organization honored its 2012 inductees and the recipient of its newest award during ceremonies April 28 at the Indiana Memorial Union on the campus of Indiana University in Bloomington.

The newest members are:
  • The late Mark Ferree, a longtime senior executive of the Scripps-Howard newspaper company who was a national free press advocate as president of the American Newspaper Publishers Association in 1960-62;
  • Skip Hess, who spearheaded numerous prominent investigative projects during more than 30 years as a reporter for the Indianapolis News and Indianapolis Star;
  • Steve Kroft, a native of Kokomo, Ind., who has been a correspondent for CBS’ 60 Minutes for more than two decades;
  • The late Kate Milner Rabb, an author, historian and pioneering newspaper columnist;
  • David Weaver, an Indiana University professor whose research on working journalists and on agenda setting in media have gained notoriety.
The group presented its inaugural Distinguished Service Award to Walt Tabak, who spent 25 years providing technical support to Indiana newspapers that receive The Associated Press.

Board president Ray Moscowitz and hall of fame executive director Larry Taylor kicked off the ceremony, then introduced board member Lee Giles, former news director at WISH-TV in Indianapolis, to emcee the induction.

For each inductee, the hall of fame presented a video illustrating the person’s accomplishments, then the honoree or his or her family accepted the awards.

Paul Stevens, former AP bureau chief in Indianapolis, talked about Tabak, who was in the audience with family members. He recalled Tabak’s dedication to keeping all member newspapers online, even if it meant Tabak had to drive across the state in all sorts of weather to do so. Tabak also helped newspapers convert to technologies that changed frequently over the years.

Ferree’s family members accepted on his behalf, and his great-nephew talked about Ferree’s love of both the newspaper industry and IU, which awarded Ferree an honorary degree. Kevin Harris even showed a pin his “Uncle Mark” had given him that touted IU’s 1981 basketball championship. Harris also recounted Ferree's and seven other newspapermen's refusal to censor the news during the early 1960s Cold War era.

tabak
Photo by Ann Schertz
For 25 years, Walt Tabak kept member newspapers online for The Associated Press. He is the first recipient of the Distinguished Service Award.
Skip Hess talked about several stories from his long career as an Indianapolis Star reporter. Several of the people who nominated Hess were in the audience, and many of his anecdotes involved those in attendance. But he also ended his talk comparing the hall of fame membership with the Pulitzer Prize, and said he values the hall of fame honors more because of all the other Hoosier journalists who are members.

CBS’ Steve Kroft made a one-day trip to Bloomington just to accept his prize. The Kokomo native talked about his Indiana roots and pride in his Midwestern upbringing, which he said served him well as he crafted a 40-year career in broadcast, half of it at 60 Minutes.

The great-grandchildren of Kate Milner Rabb accepted the award on behalf of the writer whose 1920s-30s era column in the Indianapolis Star was a “must-read.” Julia Rabb Whitley said she hadn’t known much about her great-grandmother until recently, but was sure Rabb would have been honored by this induction.

IU Professor Emeritus David Weaver also drew on his Indiana heritage as he addressed the audience. He has spent nearly all his life in the state, and most of it as a student or professor at IU. He said he has been lucky for the support of the three deans he has worked for at the IU School of Journalism, and he acknowledged his colleagues in the audience for their support.

Taylor summed up the day by announcing that nominations for the 2013 awards are now open, with a deadline of Oct. 1. All materials are on the website.

The Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame, founded in 1966, now includes more than 200 members. It is housed at the Indiana University School of Journalism’s Ernie Pyle Hall.

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]]> http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/04/hall-inducts-five-new-members-awards-service-prize/feed/ 0 Weaver, David H. http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/04/weaver-david-h/ http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/04/weaver-david-h/#comments Sun, 29 Apr 2012 13:16:23 +0000 Gena Asher http://indianajournalismhof.org/?p=2773 In the 100 years that journalism has been taught at Indiana University, there has been one distinguished professor.

That would be David H. Weaver, 65, who retired in December and assumed professor emeritus status after more than 37 years of teaching and research.

The “hugely significant” 2011 honor “means that journalism has won a seat at the academic table,” according to Fort Wayne Journal Gazette Editor Craig Klugman, a friend and colleague of Weaver’s (and a member of the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame).

Weaver agrees.

“I’m very pleased about this, not just for myself but also for the school,” said Weaver. “It’s a sign of recognition from Indiana University that journalism is a legitimate field that belongs in a research university.”

Other Weaver firsts include:

• In 1988 he became the first Roy W. Howard Professor in Journalism and Mass Communication Research at IU’s Bloomington campus. The chair is named for the Howard in Scripps-Howard.

• In 2009 he became the first IU recipient of the lifetime research award given by the national Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

Weaver was president of AEJMC in 1987-88 and the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research in 1986-87. He is a fellow of the International Communication Association.

Such recognition is no surprise to those who have worked with him during his illustrious career. Says IU School of Journalism Dean Brad Hamm: “… Dave’s unique standing (indicated by the AEJMC Deutschmann Award for research excellence, given to only about 20 people in our field in its history), along with top national book awards (SPJ) for the American Journalist studies, provided the clear justification” for him being named a distinguished professor.

Weaver’s 27-page curriculum vitae details awards, 13 books and numerous articles about journalists, the agenda-setting role of media, voter learning in political campaigns, newspaper readership, foreign news coverage and journalism education. Read it and you will get a peek into the man’s prodigious work ethic, curiosity and contributions “not only to the IU’s School of Journalism, but also to the industry and to research and study of journalism,” Klugman said.

The vitae and more make this Hoosier native a worthy inductee into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame.

Most prominent is his work in agenda setting, which now is replicated throughout the world. An IU release announcing that Weaver was ending his teaching career, but continuing his research, said the work is an “exploration of media effects on the public as well as influences on the media agenda such as news sources, other news media, journalist norms and traditions, unexpected events and media audiences.”

His other focus centers on journalists and journalism, which has resulted in the 1982, 1992 and 2002 American Journalist series, co-authored mainly with his mentor, IU professor emeritus G. Cleveland Wilhoit.

The series involves asking nearly 1,500 journalists basically the same questions from year to year and presenting the findings.

Weaver’s latest book is “an edited book, with professor Lars Willnat, titled The Global Journalist in the 21st Century, that includes studies of journalists from more than 30 different countries,” Weaver said. “Each chapter is written by a scholar living and working in the country where the study took place.”

Weaver said he will play a secondary role in a 2012 American Journalist study, if funding is acquired.

Of the future of journalists and journalism, Weaver said, “I’m optimistic that the skills and knowledge of good journalists will always be in demand, regardless of how the news is delivered, but I’m also concerned about the economics of journalism at this very challenging time for many traditional news organizations. I hope that some way can be found to better pay for high quality journalism in this Internet Age.”

Weaver was born in Hammond in December 1946 to Josephine and David Weaver. She graduated from the University of Chicago and taught French in junior high and high school. He was an insurance inspector.

The oldest of four children, Weaver became interested in journalism in junior high, when he carried papers for The Hammond Times, and at Hammond High School, when several teachers encouraged his writing. He graduated in 1964 and headed to Bloomington.

Says Weaver: “My interest in journalism was honed and heightened when I became a journalism major at IU and worked on the Indiana Daily Student as a campus reporter, copy editor and assistant editor"; the Gary Post-Tribune; Bloomington Courier-Tribune and the Chapel Hill (N.C.) newspaper.

He also knew he did not want more than summer work at Inland Steel Company in Northwest Indiana. And he wanted to make his mother, who died when he was a senior at IU, proud.

Writing about his protégé’s early days for an IU faculty retirement book, Wilhoit said one of Weaver’s IDS stories “about a cross burning by the Ku Klux Klan – in which he identified Klan leaders – led to a visit to the IDS newsroom by them in search of David.

“Although he was seated nearby, the editor alertly told them no one knew where David was. Fortunately, no threats were ever made, but the incident gave David an intense realization of the power and importance of journalism and fired his desire to learn more about it.”

He graduated in 1968 and immediately began a master thesis project as Wilhoit’s first research assistant. Building on earlier work by Wilhoit and Joseph Ward, Weaver said his was a study of “news magazine coverage of U.S. senators that tried to predict which senators would get the most and least news coverage from factors such as state size, seniority, committee assignments, staff size and activity, political leanings, and security of a Senate seat.”

Upon its completion in October 1969, Weaver entered the U.S. Army as part of his ROTC obligation as a second lieutenant in the Signal Corps, serving at Fort Bragg, N.C., and Long Binh, South Vietnam, as an information officer and adjutant. He was discharged honorably in the summer of 1971 with two Bronze Stars and several other medals.

Then, again with encouragement from Wilhoit, Weaver began the doctoral program in mass communication at Wilhoit’s alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in the fall of 1971.

His doctoral dissertation was a study of predictors of press freedom in 137 different countries from 1950 to 1966, and was directed by professor Donald Shaw, who was also Hamm’s dissertation director. With a doctorate in hand, he was actively recruited by several universities, but chose to return to Bloomington.

It didn’t take long for Weaver’s academic star to shine. In 1983, “even before publication of the first book in the American Journalist series, he won the prestigious AEJMC Krieghbaum Under-40 award,” Wilhoit said.

“Weaver is known internationally and he has been a clear leader for decades as a top scholar in our field,” Hamm said. “He has an incredible record both in quality and quantity, and he has worked with scholars and students throughout the world.”

In 2008, he returned to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a distinguished visiting professor. In 2009, he was a visiting professor at National Chengchi University in Taipei, Taiwan.

But Bloomington is home. He and wife Gail (they met at IU), have a son, Quinn, a software engineer in the San Francisco Bay area, and a daughter, Lesley, who is finishing a doctorate in medical anthropology at Emory University, Atlanta. They are first-time grandparents to Lesley’s daughter Annie, born in August.

Now removed from the demands of teaching, Weaver plans to spend some time perfecting his guitar skills. “I play mostly folk music, especially the music of Bob Dylan, but also some blues and early folk-rock and rock of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Paul Simon, Otis Redding and others.”

About Indiana and IU, Weaver said: “I am proud to be a native Hoosier, and I consider myself very lucky to have been able to spend my entire career at Indiana University. I have received great support from my deans, fellow faculty members, students, the Roy Howard family, and Indiana journalists such as Craig Klugman and Ray Moscowitz for nearly 38 years as a faculty member. It has been a privilege to have spent my career at Indiana University and in the state of Indiana during all these years.”

By Sarah O. Wilson, publisher, The Rochester Sentinel


]]> http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/04/weaver-david-h/feed/ 0 Kroft, Steve http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/04/kroft-steve/ http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/04/kroft-steve/#comments Sun, 29 Apr 2012 13:16:14 +0000 Gena Asher http://indianajournalismhof.org/?p=2766 In his four decades of broadcast journalism, Steve Kroft has won nearly every award bestowed upon successful journalists. He’s especially proud of the five Peabodys and two Duponts his CBS team has earned for work at the news magazine 60 Minutes.

Now, Kroft can add membership in the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame to his list of proud moments.

“You do this work for yourself, and you always take pride in your work,” the Kokomo native said in a phone interview from his 60 Minutes office in New York. “You also do this for your peers, and this peer recognition is important.”

In nominating Kroft for the honor, Indiana University School of Journalism dean Brad Hamm cited Kroft’s awards, including an Emmy for Lifetime Achievement, and hundreds of stories of regional, national and international significance.

“There is no doubt that his record of achievement is worthy for consideration by the hall of fame,” Hamm wrote. “Few people in Indiana journalism history likely have achieved his national stature in broadcast journalism.”

Kroft began garnering respect for his work as a draftee in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam conflict. As a brand-new Syracuse University graduate, he joined the information office of the 25th Infantry Division, where he escorted TV crews covering the frontlines in the first war broadcast into America’s living rooms. Before his tour ended, he was a correspondent and photographer for Stars and Stripes.

Returning stateside, he worked for local TV, then completed a master’s degree at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He says he already had an eye on TV correspondence and knew the training could improve his credentials and experience. It worked: After reporting for two Florida stations, he joined CBS in New York in 1980 and quickly won a promotion to the London bureau.

Kroft’s stock rose steadily. He won an Emmy in 1984, the first of 10 so far, and covered high profile stories such as hijackings, the Lebanese Civil War and the Catholic-Protestant conflict in Northern Ireland. CBS tapped him to co-anchor a newsmagazine, West 57th, and, in 1989, he landed his dream job at 60 Minutes.

Kroft has interviewed scores of politicians, celebrities, crooks, cons, millionaires, and movers and shakers. He has covered the big stories of the last two decades, from examining the Chernobyl nuclear graveyard to Pakistan’s political instability to Wall Street’s meltdown.

Kroft said his passion for getting the story drives him. In 2011, he snagged two of the biggest stories of the year: an interview with President Barack Obama on the killing of Osama bin Laden and an expose on the misrepresentations in Three Cups of Tea, the bestseller by Greg Mortensen. This year, he has covered the lack of prosecution for Wall Street firms’ transgressions and insider trading in Congress.

While he has a team to work with him, Kroft leads each project, from reporting and directing the research to shaping the stories. He writes the scripts, but there’s plenty of pre-interviewing and re-interviewing along the way, both of which can change a story.

“One time we covered a story in Nevada about a campaign to free a man thought to be mistakenly imprisoned,” Kroft said. “We did the research and uncovered some documents others had missed, and came to the conclusion that there was no mistake. And that’s the story we aired.”

Despite the team, the lights and cameras, stories still require old-fashioned, shoe-leather reporting. For the story on insider trading among members of Congress, Kroft could get no one to talk to him. He resorted to going house to house, knocking on politicians’ doors to ask his questions.

At the heart of the process is the interview. Kroft said he relies on decades of experience to guide him, but like any good journalist, he doesn’t leave anything to chance. He writes out his questions, then reads them back to himself to ensure they sound natural and to work on what he calls “phraseology.”

“The questions are in my own words and are in order,” said Kroft, who added that he learned a lot about interviewing from fellow 60 Minutes correspondents Mike Wallace and Ed Bradley. “I want to be really familiar with the questions because, when the interview starts, I have to listen to be ready to follow up with questions.”

Viewers may notice Kroft’s paper in his hands during interviews, but he says he rarely looks at the questions.

His process may sound like overkill to all but seasoned journalists. For the Obama interview after the bin Laden raid, Kroft formulated 62 questions, knowing he would not use them all. The Poynter Institute’s Al Tompkins used the Kroft-Obama interview as an object lesson on interviewing and posted his report on the website of the institute, a training center for journalists. Tompkins praised Kroft’s technique, even though he said the veteran broadcaster broke some “rules of interviewing,” such as asking yes-no questions or asking two questions at once.

Kroft laughed, saying that he didn’t know there were such rules, and he talked to Tompkins for the Poynter column. As for the Obama piece, Kroft said he had interviewed Obama before and, as with many people he’s interviewed more than once, quickly learned what works and what doesn’t.

“We have sort of a shorthand because I have interviewed him so many times,” he said. “I know what not to ask him – long questions – but if I ask shorter questions, I’m likely to get a shorter response and get the tempo going.”

In some interviews, tempo is elusive. Kroft recalls chats that didn’t go well and those that surprised him.

“One that’s by far the worst was with the most famous photographer in the world, Henri Cartier-Bresson,” he said. “He didn’t want to do the interview and, when he finally did, he wanted to talk about painting, which he’d recently taken up. It was very challenging.”

Conversely, Clint Eastwood’s tough-guy persona turned out to be just one fascinating layer of the accomplished actor-director, he said. In the 2003 interview, Kroft described Eastwood as “totally laid back and comfortable in his own weathered skin.”

Kroft likes those surprises.

“I’m doing a story right now with Sergio Marchionne of Fiat, who has given few interviews and seems so soft spoken,” Kroft said. “But we met with him and he seems very honest and interesting.”

Of course, good stories require multiple interviews. Kroft often talks to several people on air for each investigative piece, the cornerstone of the 60 Minutes franchise.

“People expect this kind of work from us,” he said. “We have to keep a steady stream of it going. It’s hard to do, it is expensive and it takes a long time to accomplish.”

Kroft continues to thrive on the work. With two years left on his contract, he said, he is considering options.

“I’ve already cut back from 20 to about 15 pieces a year, and I’ll be 67 in August,” Kroft said. “I think I would like to write a book, which I always say but never have time to do, and I have always wanted to teach.”

A third generation avid golfer, he expects to work that pastime into any schedule he develops. And, visits to Kokomo to see old friends, something he does every couple of years, are on the agenda.

Kroft’s Midwestern upbringing continues to shape his outlook on topics such as retirement, he said.

“For most of the people who have stayed with 60 Minutes so long, the job has been their lives,” said Kroft, who lives in New York with his wife and son, who soon will head off to college. “This has been my life for going on 25 years. But I have that Midwestern ethic of working hard, then relaxing at something different that you enjoy. I’m hoping to try that out.”

By Gena Asher, Indiana University School of Journalism Web Editor




]]> http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/04/kroft-steve/feed/ 0 Tabak, Walt http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/04/tabak-walt/ http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/04/tabak-walt/#comments Sun, 29 Apr 2012 13:16:03 +0000 Gena Asher http://indianajournalismhof.org/?p=2776 Walt Tabak's 25 years of providing technology support to Associated Press members in Indiana overlapped monumental changes in the way words and pictures were delivered to the state's newsrooms.

Tabak helped AP members make changes as dramatic as moving words at 66 words a minute and delivered by Teletype to 1,200 words a minute and delivered by satellite. When he began, photos were delivered on flimsy paper. By the time he retired in 1986, photos were called "LaserPhotos."

"If one measure of success is the ability to deal with change, few people could be considered more successful than Walt Tabak," concluded Jack Ronald, editor and publisher of The Commercial Review in Portland. "I can think of no one who had a greater impact on news technology in Indiana in the 20th Century."

As chief of communications for The Associated Press in Indiana, Tabak supervised a team of communications specialists and was responsible for ensuring that Associated Press news, photos and stock market information reached hundreds of newspapers, radio and TV stations throughout Indiana.

For leading in a time of extensive change in the AP’s methods of transmitting the news, Walt Tabak is the winner of the first Distinguished Service Award established by the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame.

Tabak began his lifetime in communications at age 20 when he joined the U.S. Army during World War II. He was assigned to the 418th Signal Company attached to the Eighth Air Force Fighter Command in England. He crossed the English Channel and landed at Le Havre, France. Tabak was trained as a radio/teletype operator, which made him a natural for communications work with The Associated Press. His entire life has been in communications and serving the news media.

Tabak joined the AP in 1952, and in his first assignment in New London, Conn., he sent all the copy when the world’s first atomic submarine, the Nautilus, was launched. After assignments in Bridgeport, Conn., and New York City, he moved to Indianapolis as a technician in 1961 and was promoted to Indiana chief of communications two years later.

While chiefs of bureau were in charge of the news report and membership concerns, it was often Tabak, or his technicians, who went out in the worst weather to make sure that newspapers and broadcast stations stayed in business.

Former Indiana Chief of Bureau Joe McGowan – one of six AP chiefs of bureau with whom Tabak worked – recalls that in 1972 the Evansville Courier called the AP office in Indianapolis to say it had lost all AP service. It was late in the day. Tabak got his wife Dot to join him and they drove to Evansville to personally make the repairs. While he worked in the newspaper, Dot slept in the car. Late that night, with repairs complete, Walt joined Dot and she drove back to Indianapolis while Walt slept. He then went to work the next morning, ready to serve other members.

Tabak recalls being stranded in a blizzard in Farmersburg, south of Terre Haute, after a trouble call in Vincennes. Publisher Bill Brooks of the Sun-Commercial suggested he stay over, but Tabak stubbornly set out to return to Indianapolis. He made it as far as a truck stop in Farmersburg and spent three days there, swapping stories with truckers.

On another occasion, Tabak recalls when his son Ron drove him in his four-wheel truck to Elkhart to help get the paper back in service during a blizzard.

When Tabak marked his 30th anniversary with AP in 1982, AP President Keith Fuller was among many who cited his accomplishments.

“I could recount here the numerous compliments and bouquets that have come your way over the years, both from members and staffers alike,” Fuller said. “Suffice it to say that one would have to go a long way to find another chief of communications as well-liked and as thoroughly professional as you.”

While chiefs of bureaus came and went, Tabak and his wife were the continuing welcoming face to members and non-members alike. He helped preside over conventions, made visits with the chiefs, and turned each trouble call into a chance to solidify the bonds between the cooperative and the member.

He didn't only fix things. He listened to member concerns and he was a teacher during this time of great change.

"Walt was a constant comfort for Indiana newspapers," said Bob Zaltsberg, editor of the Herald-Times of Bloomington. "During a time of transition in technology, he was the one person between AP and its members when it came to systems problems."

Tim Harmon, executive editor of the South Bend Tribune, noting the many changes in news delivery technology during Tabak’s career, said, “Transitions such as those went very smoothly, and the few problems and complaints were handled very well. Walt's work was seamless and routinely invisible. Walt's quick responses to the occasional transmission or reception crisis are legendary.

“The high-quality service that Walt embraced and practiced for so many years served generations of newspaper staffs and readers who never met him or heard his name. In Indiana, Walt Tabak set the standard for technological excellence in journalism.”

Tabak annually played a major role in one of the world’s greatest sporting events, the Indianapolis 500, and was responsible for setting up the communications networks at the Speedway that AP writers and photographers depended upon to cover the 500.

Like many in the field of journalism, Tabak’s job was a 24/7 commitment that required a balance of his AP work with family life. Tabak and Dot raised two children, Barbara and Ron.

“As we were growing up, my dad always knew how to balance work and family,” Barbara Tabak Burris said. “Often, when he would get a trouble call in the evening or on the weekend, we would all go and make a family outing of it. Ron and I learned a lot about Indiana history and visited towns and cities in Indiana that our friends had never heard of.

“During the years we were growing up, the Associated Press people who worked with or for my dad were our second family. We grew up with their kids and shared many family activities with them.”

Tabak and his wife Dot were married for 48 years, until her death in 1996. Besides their daughter Barbara and son Ron, they have a grandson Travis and great-granddaughter Olivia.

By Andrew Lippman, Indianapolis chief of bureau, 1984-89
and Paul Stevens, Indianapolis chief of bureau, 1982-84


]]> http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/04/tabak-walt/feed/ 0 Rabb, Kate Milner http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/04/rabb-kate-milner/ http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/04/rabb-kate-milner/#comments Sun, 29 Apr 2012 13:15:53 +0000 Gena Asher http://indianajournalismhof.org/?p=2771 After a stroll in Indianapolis in 1905, pioneering newspaper columnist, historian, author and playwright Kate Milner Rabb and actress Edith Keay daintily lifted the skirts of their long, shirtwaist dresses and sat down on the curb at 14th and Delaware. The two talented women, who wanted to show off their talents, envisioned starting their own dramatic club.

That curbside chat propelled the formation of The Players, one of the most venerable social clubs in the city, now in its 107th season.

Some 15 years earlier, her journalism career had begun to blossom when she edited a weekly magazine, Indiana Women, for several years. She published her first book, National Ethics, in 1896. That was followed in 1900 by The Boer Boy, a work of fiction translated from the German.

Rabb was just getting started. What followed were acclaimed accomplishments that are the basis for her entry into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame.

A red-head from the Ohio River town of Rockport, Rabb was born Aug. 9, 1866, to Dr. Isaac Livingston Milner and Martha Parsons Milner. And early on, the vanished past fascinated the freckle-nosed, pig-tailed little girl as she rode in her father’s buggy while he made rounds throughout Spencer County.

“Kate gained the knowledge and background of early Indiana pioneers as she accompanied her father,” according to Kay Dian Bertl, Daughters of the American Revolution Spier Spencer Chapter Regent. He treated patients; she talked to them.

She also fast-talked her way into Indiana University at the age of 15. She began a romance there with football star Albert Rabb Sr. of Covington, Ind., a plot she later used in a novel.

“She arrived as a freshman from her hometown of Rockport and immediately asserted a feminine prerogative,” according to an April 18, 1961, UPI article. “She wouldn’t tell her age. She never did and her insistence caused some amusing tangles. A friend said she thought for years that Kate’s insistence on keeping her age a secret was because she was older than her husband. But it developed that it was her youth she was trying to conceal. She hadn’t wanted her freshman classmates to know that she was only 15 years old and most of them were 18.”

A member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority and Phi Beta Kappa honorary, Rabb received her B.A. in 1886 and M.A. in 1888. Her sorority pin later became the chapter president’s pin.

While on campus, she submitted articles to the Rockport newspaper. And she became engaged to Albert before he left for the University of Virginia to obtain his law degree. She returned home to teach school there and in Jeffersonville.

The Rabbs married in Rockport on Oct. 7, 1891, and moved to Indianapolis. They had two children, Albert Livingston and Martha Charlotte.

Newly married, Rabb began to focus on journalism. In 1907, she edited the five-volume Wit and Humor of America, published by Bobbs-Merrill Publishing for whom she had read manuscripts for many years. Her interest in Indiana history was sparked while writing the 1916 centennial pageant for her native Spencer County. History was burgeoning in Indiana, and she was at the forefont.

In 1923, she was appointed to membership in the Indiana Historical Society, which published her Indiana Coverlet Weavers in 1928. She also sold articles to the Atlantic Monthly, the Delineator, St. Nicholas and the Youth’s Companion. In addition, she and William Herschell (a member of the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame) co-authored two volumes of a four-volume History of Indiana.

Kate was 52 when Albert, a prominent attorney, died in 1918. They had been married for 27 years. His death marked the beginning of her career as a columnist.

Indianapolis history was featured in her three-times-a-week column, “The Old Town.” But she is best remembered for her popular column, “A Hoosier Listening Post.” It ran daily on The Indianapolis Star’s editorial page from 1920 until three days after her death in 1937. (She always wrote in advance when she visited her daughter, Martha (Mrs. William Hobbs) of St. Augustine, Fla., so there was no lapse in its appearance.)

Featuring local, state and regional history, her column and daily articles covered history, customs, fads and fashions based on her research of records of Indiana towns that had faded from the scene.

She went on “pilgrimages,” where she reportedly knew someone in every town. Readers supplied much of her material, and she showed her appreciation by writing thank-you notes, sometimes more than 3,000 a year.

Meanwhile, Woman’s Press Club of Indiana was founded on Feb. 18, 1913, as a support system and a network for women in journalism. At the time, it was a male-dominated profession, as illustrated in this news item from a 1937 WPCI newsletter:

“Kate Milner Rabb, Florence Webster Long, Mabel Wheeler Shideler and Louise Eleanor Ross attended the Sigma Delta Chi-Associated Press annual dinner May 14 at the Columbia Club. The invitation was extended to club members by Mickey McCarty of the News. About twenty-five women in all were present, the first time they were permitted to sit in on the men’s dinner party. The women made a favorable impression, so they were told, and will be asked again….”

Rabb was elected president of Woman’s Press Club of Indiana in 1929 and served a three-year term. The organization became a state affiliate of the National Federation of Press Women when it was founded in Chicago in 1937, the year that Rabb died.

Fellow WPCI member Florence Webster Long said, “Mrs. Rabb’s interest in her native state formed the basis of her books and her daily column, ‘A Hoosier Listening Post,’ through which she was known throughout the state.”

Rabb was offered a chair in the IU English department twice by former classmate and later IU President William Lowe Bryan. She declined. Bryant wrote in the Summer 1937 IU Alumni Quarterly, “Her love of books helped her to grow in fine appreciation of what was best, to her masterly sense of what was fine and finest.”

On May 7, 1961, members of Woman’s Press Club of Indiana were at Indiana University for the formal naming of the Kate Milner Rabb residence hall, which is part of Teter Residence Center. In 1913, she was elected as a member of the first Indiana University Alumni Council. She served until 1924 and was a frequent speaker at alumni banquets.

IU was a family affair. Her son Albert Livingston Rabb was also a graduate and served on the Board of Trustees from 1936-1939. President Herman B Wells introduced family members at the Rabb Hall dedication, including the widow of Kate’s son, Mrs. Albert L. Rabb. Two of four grandsons were in attendance: Dr. Frank Morrison Rabb, a 1947 graduate of the IU School of Medicine, and Albert L. Rabb, who graduated from IU with honors in 1949.

Tributes to her memory continued in 1962, when WPCI members presented Florence Stone with the first Kate Milner Rabb Award. It is given annually to a WPCI member who has made a significant difference in the organization during the past club year. This award — WPCI’s highest honor — recognizes a member for continuous excellence and professional service in journalism.

With her enthusiasm, energy and zest for life, the bubbly Kate was a people person. She enhanced the lives of people – the IU and Butler University journalism students she taught, members of the Indiana Historical Society, Daughters of the American Revolution, Theta Sigma Phi, the Writers’ Club, the Contemporary Club, Portfolio, The Players, Nature Study, Women’s Rotary, the Indiana Artists Club and the Society of Indiana Pioneers.

Joan Bey and Jinsie Bingham, members of both the Society of Indiana Pioneers and Woman’s Press Club of Indiana, said in a joint statement, “Not only was Kate Milner Rabb a descendant of Indiana pioneers, but a pioneer in the field of journalism when few women had the time, means and ability to write for publication and influence the destiny of women in journalism today.”


By Julie Slaymaker, past president of Woman’s Press Club of Indiana


]]> http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/04/rabb-kate-milner/feed/ 0 Hess, Skip http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/04/hess-skip/ http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/04/hess-skip/#comments Sun, 29 Apr 2012 13:15:41 +0000 Gena Asher http://indianajournalismhof.org/?p=2763 Skip Hess worked as a teen-ager at a Southern Illinois gas station owned by a man who refused to allow blacks to buy gasoline. Skip would direct them to the nearest station — and feel bad about not being able to do more.

Seeing this type of mistreatment of people made Skip determined to do something about wrongdoers.

Howard K. “Skip” Hess became a journalist.

For 50 years, Skip championed the rights of the wronged as an award-winning investigative, government and general assignment reporter.

Skip worked as a reporter and editor for the Fort Hood (Texas) Sentinel, Kokomo Morning Times, Wabash Plain Dealer and The Indianapolis News and The Indianapolis Star.

His reports covered the mistreatment of the mentally ill, corrupt cops and scandalous bail bondsmen. He investigated corruption by public officials and misuse of public funds in the state’s Department of Education and in the Secretary of State’s office.

It is this body of work for which Hess was selected for induction into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame.

“Skip Hess got results that clearly exemplify the public good that results when the press fulfills its watchdog role,” said Frank Caperton, retired executive editor of The Indianapolis Star.

As Skip reported for newspapers, always in the back of his mind was the mistreatment he witnessed at the gasoline station. More than once, Skip helped innocent, marginalized people convicted of crimes go free.

“He grew up in the oilfields of Southern Illinois – a rough place, if you‘ve ever been there – and he never forgot the little guy,” said Joe Hallinan, a Pulitzer Prize- winning journalist and one of Skip’s friends.

Nancy Comiskey, who worked with Skip at the News and the Star as a reporter, desk editor and managing editor, said he was a “consummate journalist who never lost his zest for a story and always put the reader first.”

Skip graduated from Mt. Carmel (Ill.) High School, but he wasn’t college material, he said. He was drafted into the Army and enrolled in the Defense Information School in New York. He finished last in his class, but that didn’t stop him from being hired as a reporter and editor at the Army’s Fort Hood Sentinel.

After military duty, Skip was hired as a sports reporter for the Kokomo Morning Times in 1965 and became sports editor a year later. The next year, he was hired as a sports editor for the Wabash Plain Dealer and left there in 1967 to accept a general assignment position with the News.

That’s where Skip spent the next 31 years. It was an era when journalists could spend months reporting and developing leads about wrongdoing. Sometimes leads fizzled after the investing of hundreds of hours. But many leads panned out, culminating in Skip correcting a wrong.

Skip also reported on several major events of the ’60s and ’70s: the 1965 Palm Sunday tornado in Howard County; the 1969 mid-air plane crash over Shelby County that killed 83 people; 30 consecutive years of the Indianapolis 500 Race; the 1979 killing of a mother and her three children by Steven Judy, who was electrocuted for his crimes; the Tony Kiritsis case involving a man who kidnapped mortgage executive Richard Hall and held him at shotgun-point in downtown Indianapolis in the 1980s.

Once Skip was assigned to report on what it was like to be homeless and broke in Indianapolis. So without money or identification, he lived on the streets for a week and wrote stories that would help readers better understand the plight of the homeless.

Skip also wrote dozens of stories as a features and outdoors reporter. One story was a compassionate tale about a wounded crow lying on the ground at the side of I-65 near Raymond Street.

On his way to and from the office, Skip watched daily as other crows cared for the injured crow until it was strong enough to fly away. It was a slice of life story about prevailing sometimes against all odds.

Skip estimates he wrote more than 4,000 stories during his career.

He has won more than 40 writing awards. He was a six-time winner of a CASPER (Community Appreciation for Service in Public Enlightenment and Relations) Award for community service and four times was named Indianapolis Magazine’s “Best of Indianapolis” investigative reporter.

Skip credits former Indianapolis Star publisher Eugene S. Pulliam with helping him become successful as a journalist. Pulliam trusted him, Skip said. But despite his allegiance and appreciation, Skip supported fellow journalist Betty Cadou when she filed a lawsuit in federal court against the newspaper for what she believed was its discriminatory policy of not hiring female reporters. Skip voluntarily wrote a letter to the federal court.

Skip was known for having good sources. They led to the 1985 conviction of four-term state school superintendent Harold Negley on felony charges of ghost employment and official misconduct.

In nominating him for the IJHF, Skip’s wife, Gloria, wrote about one of his stories: “Secretary of State Larry Conrad had to repay the state thousands of taxpayer dollars that he used on political campaigns and for his personal use.”

In reporting about the mentally ill at Central State Hospital in the late ’60s and early ’70s, Skip was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Then-Gov. Otis Bowen credited Skip with widespread improvements in the state’s mental health system, including construction of new facilities at Central State.

Skip’s last major project resulted in a second Pulitzer nomination. He was on a team of reporters in 1987 that uncovered widespread corruption in the state’s Department of Corrections. The agency’s chief executive, Gordon Faulkner, was convicted on criminal charges.

In another investigation, Skip chased a tip that a Marion County sheriff’s deputy had falsely accused a man of beating and robbing him. The suspect was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in prison, but Skip uncovered the truth. He found that the deputy had lied, so the man was released.

In 1995, the News and the Star merged and Skip got the job of outdoor reporter. “This meant that instead of examining deficiencies in state institutions…he turned his watchful eye on Indiana’s rich resources – our wildlife, nature trails, campsites, parks, trees, wildflowers, waterways and everything under the sun and moon,’’ said Ruth Holladay, who was his editor the last four years he worked full time.

“If there’s one word that comes to mind with Skip during the four years I worked with him, it is ‘trusted.’ I trusted him with any story, and I trusted him to make the coffee … and keep us all on an even keel. He did it all.”

The last edition of The Indianapolis News was published on Oct. 1, 1999. It was the year Skip decided to stop working full-time.

“Newspapers trusted you and turned you lose,” Skip recalled. “Now it’s quantity instead of quality. I think watchdog journalism is gone. Then, they’d trust me to work on a story three or four months and sometimes I wouldn’t write a story. They trusted me for a year on a project and I would just go and go and go. Can you imagine newspapers turning you loose for a year today?”

Now he spends lots of time volunteering at Rocklane Christian Church, of which he is a member. He’s also volunteered at the Ronald McDonald House and played Santa for Riley Hospital kids. He also volunteers as a coach for girls’ softball at the Indianapolis Edgewood Athletic Association, and he rides his motorcycle for the Indiana Patriot Guard to escort the bodies of deceased soldiers to funeral homes.

Now 73, Skip has six children: Vicki, Tammy, Shane, Erin, Michelle and Matt. A stepson, Ronnie, is deceased. He also has 10 grandchildren.

Every other week, he writes his outdoors column for the Star. “The column kind of keeps me in journalism. For me, it was hard to get out,” Skip said.

He has no regrets about his career. He hopes only that he made a difference.

“I never remember a time when I didn’t want to go to work. It was something I loved.”


By Eunice Trotter, Communications Specialist, American Senior Communities


]]> http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/04/hess-skip/feed/ 0 Ferree, Mark http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/04/ferree-mark/ http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/04/ferree-mark/#comments Sun, 29 Apr 2012 13:15:13 +0000 Gena Asher http://indianajournalismhof.org/?p=2759 As a longtime executive with Scripps-Howard Newspapers, Indiana-born Mark Ferree always believed in the vitality of the industry he spent his life supporting.

“No other profession offers the opportunity this one does to those willing to apply themselves,” Ferree said in 1960, when he was elected as the new president for the American Newspaper Publishers Association (ANPA). Ferree went one step further, however, calling newspapers “basic to our whole way of life. We should never be afraid of anything.”

Ferree supported his words with action just a year later, when on May 9, 1961, he and seven other American newspaper executives from such institutions as the New York Times, Dallas Times-Herald, and the American Society of Newspaper Editors, met with President John F. Kennedy to discuss the importance of national security regarding news coverage of the failed Bay of Pigs operation in Cuba. The president had initiated the conversation weeks earlier in a speech before an ANPA meeting in New York. In spite of pressure from Kennedy, the news executives stood their ground on freedom of the press.

“The conference in the president’s office was a total failure,” noted Pierre Salinger, White House press secretary. “Although JFK produced a number of recent news dispatches that clearly violated national security, the news executives told him bluntly that they would accept no new security restrictions — voluntary or official — in the absence of a declaration of national emergency.”

Even before the meeting, Ferree had staunchly opposed the threats to established press freedoms. Although after Kennedy’s ANPA speech, Ferree had indicated that when national security was involved, publishers would respond to a patriotic appeal from a president, he went on to say that if it involved censorship, “the only censorship workable or acceptable to newspapers of this country would have to be voluntary censorship along the lines worked so successfully by newspapermen themselves in the last war [World War II].”

Ferree’s high regard for his chosen profession came naturally. Born in Marion on Jan. 19,1905, Ferree got his start on newspapers as a delivery boy for the Richmond Palladium-Item. His older sister was married to the publisher of that newspaper, Ed Harris, whom Ferree described as “a wonderful person, a good newspaperman and gave me my liking for newspaper work.”

During high school he worked as a reporter and editorial writer at the Marion Chronicle. He also developed fond memories of carrying buckets of water at 50 cents a day to a Curtis Jenny biplane that gave sightseeing flights at a cow pasture north of town. Sometimes he had to use the water to not only cool the aircraft’s engine, but to also wash down the passenger seat after someone had lost their breakfast after a thrilling aerial ride.

Ferree enrolled at Indiana University, where he continued to write as a student, covering the downtown beat for the Indiana Daily Student newspaper. When he left the university in 1925, however, Ferree did not find work at a newspaper. Instead, he took a job as a sales trainee with the Dashiell Motor Company selling Dodge automobiles in Chicago, where he had worked during summer vacations, before returning to journalism as telegraph editor on the Evansville Courier.

While working on the Courier, he received a telephone call from Olin W. Kennedy, editor of the Miami Herald. “He offered me $65 a week,” Ferree said. “I was making $35 and couldn’t believe my luck.”

In 1930 he married Ruth Gauntt Welborn of Evansville; the couple had one son, Evan. And he soon left the newspaper business.

Over the next few years, Ferree worked as the head of advertising and publicity for the Southern Pine Association. But newspapering kept tugging at him. He returned to journalism in 1932, selling advertising on commission for the Washington Daily News, a job made possible by help from fellow Hoosiers Nelson Poynter, Lowell Mellett and Ernie Pyle.

“I made so much selling to the retail lumber and home building trade they were happy to put me on salary,” Ferree recalled.

He later became advertising director and business manager for the Indianapolis Times before becoming assistant general manager for all Scripps-Howard newspapers on Jan. 1, 1945. He became executive vice president and director of the E. W. Scripps Company, the operating company of Scripps-Howard Newspapers, in 1952.

A self-professed practical realist, Ferree refrained in his business dealings from “pontificating or offering gratuitous advice.” Instead, he preferred to give those in charge of each newspaper in the Scripps-Howard chain “freedom and complete autonomy.”

He played a key role in cutting costs by merging printing plants between Scripps-Howard and competing newspapers in such cities as San Francisco, Albuquerque, Birmingham, El Paso, Evansville, Knoxville and Columbus. “Costs are cut, competition continues, and both papers are stronger,” he said. “Most importantly, two separate and distinct editorial voices are preserved to serve the community.”

Although the Scripps-Howard offices were in the New York Central Building at 230 Park Ave. in New York, Ferree spent between one-third and one-half of his time visiting newspapers in the chain around the country. Most of the trips were made on the company’s plane, a Douglas B-23, and Ferree estimated he flew nearly 50,000 miles every year. Fellow Scripps-Howard employees described him as someone who “runs in oil,” meaning he worked smoothly and got along with everyone.

“Scripps-Howard executives are not ‘ulcer men,’” he once observed. “They enjoy what they are doing, like I do, I am sure. And because of that, they get things done through hard work—not worrying.”

On weekends, he and his wife relaxed at their country home in Lewisboro, N.Y., where Ferree could be found chopping wood or walking his Labrador retrievers, Cappie and Petite.

As president of the ANPA, Ferree worked on a special committee to promote better understanding of daily newspapers. “Newspapers need to be promoted as an important part of the political, economic, social and cultural life of the United States,” he said.

For years he had been concerned that critics led the public to believe that newspapers were in danger of fading away. Those critics who chop away at the roots of the newspaper tree, he asserted, never recognized that they, “with all free citizens, live and work in the shade of that very tree.” Ferree warned that if newspapers, as fully independent mediums of news and opinion, faded away, “criticism would wither, not for lack of a target but for lack of its chief protector.”

Ferree always maintained strong ties to his native state. In 1959, he was named Hoosier of the Year at the annual dinner of the Indiana Society of New York. Also that year, IU awarded him its Distinguished Alumni Service Award, praising him as a “journalist, editor and distinguished administrator in the complex world of newspaper publishing.” In 1977, seven years after his retirement from Scripps-Howard, Ferree received a honorary doctorate of law degree from IU.

In 1981, Ferree and his wife gave $100,000 as an endowment for journalism education at the university. The endowment now supports the Mark and Ruth (Welborn) Ferree Scholarship for undergraduate journalism majors.

Mark Ferree died of a heart attack on Feb.13, 1982, after clearly establishing a powerful legacy leading to induction into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame.

By Ray E. Boomhower, Indiana and Midwestern History

]]> http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/04/ferree-mark/feed/ 0 Tickets on sale for April 28 induction banquet http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/03/tickets-on-sale-for-april-28-induction-banquet/ http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/03/tickets-on-sale-for-april-28-induction-banquet/#comments Thu, 08 Mar 2012 15:16:03 +0000 Gena Asher http://indianajournalismhof.org/?p=2737 moscowitz baumann Hall of fame president Ray Moscowitz, left, examines newly inducted member J. Bruce Baumann's plaque at the 2011 ceremony. Tickets are on sale now for this year's induction ceremony April 28. (Photo by Ann Schertz) Reserve your spot now for the 2012 Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame induction banquet, which honors five innovators in the field of journalism and the first recipient of the Distinguished Service Award.

Inductees are publisher Mark Ferree, longtime Indianapolis reporter Skip Hess, 60 Minutes' Steve Kroft, writer and columnist Kate Milner Rabb and journalism professor and researcher David H. Weaver. Walt Tabak is the first to receive the Distinguished Service Award, created last year, for his 25 years of helping Associated Press member organizations move to new technologies.

The festivities begin at 10:30 a.m. April 28 in the Tudor Room of the Indiana Memorial Union on Indiana University’s Bloomington campus. After a cocktail reception, luncheon will be served at noon and the induction ceremony will follow.

Tickets are $40 each. To purchase, download this form (PDF format) and return in the U.S. mail with a check to cover all the people in your party. Deadline is April 20.

The Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame has reserved a block of rooms for April 27 at the Hilton Garden Inn. Make reservations at 877-782-9444. Refer to “IJH” to access the hotel block and receive the special rate of $139 plus tax per night. Reserve your room by March 27.

The Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame, founded in 1966, now includes more than 200 members. It is housed at the Indiana University School of Journalism’s Ernie Pyle Hall.


]]> http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/03/tickets-on-sale-for-april-28-induction-banquet/feed/ 0 Hall selects five inductees, first service award recipient http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/01/hall-to-induct-five-new-members-first-service-award/ http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/01/hall-to-induct-five-new-members-first-service-award/#comments Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:45:30 +0000 Gena Asher http://indianajournalismhof.org/?p=2726
The Hall of Fame also during that ceremony will present its first Distinguished Service Award in recognition of an individual who has made outstanding career contributions in support of Indiana journalism.

"After the winnowing process, which consumes several hours of each board member's time, the board met for almost three hours,” board president Ray Moscowitz said of the selection process. “As in the past, the five new inductees were chosen from 12 finalists. The board also voted to present the first Distinguished Service Award to a most-deserving recipient.

"As in past years, I am tremendously proud of the board's dedication and hard work in selecting people who will add prestige to the IJHF," he added.

Those to be inducted into the Hall of Fame during the ceremony at Indiana University are:
  • ferree
    The late Mark Ferree, a longtime senior executive of the Scripps-Howard newspaper company who was a national free press advocate as president of the American Newspaper Publishers Association in 1960-62. Ferree grew up in Marion, Ind., and was a writer for the Marion Chronicle before he attended Indiana University in the early 1920s. His career included stints as a reporter for the Evansville Courier, advertising director for the Indianapolis Times and vice president of the Richmond Palladium-Item.


  • skip hess
    Skip Hess, who spearheaded numerous prominent investigative projects during more than 30 years as a reporter for the Indianapolis News and Indianapolis Star. His work included exposing inhumane treatment of mentally ill patients at state hospitals that led to state reforms in the 1970s, and disclosure of misuse of taxpayer money after which the state schools superintendent was convicted of official misconduct and the secretary of state repaid thousands of dollars. Hess worked at the Kokomo Morning Times and the Wabash Plain Dealer before going to Indianapolis. He has continued writing an outdoors column for the Star since retiring as a reporter in 1999.


  • kroft
    Steve Kroft, a native of Kokomo, Ind., who has been a correspondent for CBS’ 60 Minutes for more than two decades. He has won numerous national awards for stories such as the vulnerability of the nation’s power grid to computer hackers and the conflict of interests between military contractors and the government in the awarding of contracts. He was a Stars and Stripes correspondent in Vietnam before starting his broadcast journalism career and joining CBS News in 1981.


  • rabb
    The late Kate Milner Rabb, an author, historian and pioneering newspaper columnist. Rabb was a Rockport, Ind., native who wrote columns devoted to the state’s history for The Indianapolis Star from 1920 until 1937 — a time when few women had such opportunities. She was president of the Woman’s Press Club of Indiana in 1929-31, and a residence hall at her alma mater Indiana University was named in her honor in 1961.


  • weaver
    David Weaver, an Indiana University professor whose research on working journalists and on agenda setting in media have gained notoriety. Weaver joined the journalism faculty at IU in 1974 after earlier earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the university. He has written or co-written several books, three focusing on data about journalists he helped gather, published in 1986, 1996 and 2007, and others focusing on agenda setting.


Walt Tabak will receive the hall of fame’s first Distinguished Service Award. Tabak spent 25 years providing technical support to Indiana newspapers and broadcast stations that receive The Associated Press. He is credited with helping steer many of the state’s newsrooms through technical changes that saw the delivery of wire stories and photos go from the teletype days to satellite transmission.

The Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame was established in 1966 to recognize and honor journalists who have significantly contributed to the profession through their careers and communities.

Housed at Indiana University’s School of Journalism, the Hall of Fame conducts its induction ceremony at the Indiana Memorial Union in Bloomington. Tickets for the luncheon ceremony are $40. For more information, email the Hall of Fame at ijhf@indiana.edu.







]]> http://indianajournalismhof.org/2012/01/hall-to-induct-five-new-members-first-service-award/feed/ 0 2011 Induction Ceremony http://indianajournalismhof.org/2011/11/a-zenphoto-gallery/ http://indianajournalismhof.org/2011/11/a-zenphoto-gallery/#comments Thu, 03 Nov 2011 19:21:40 +0000 akoop http://indianajournalismhof.org/?p=2703 http://indianajournalismhof.org/2011/11/a-zenphoto-gallery/feed/ 0