The passing of the last country editor
The passing of the last country editor
By DAVID AWBREY
The Salina Journal
Bob Wellington was the last of them -- the final survivor of a generation of Kansas editors who gave our state a special place in American journalism.
Editor and publisher of the Ottawa Herald for more than 25 years, Wellington died a few weeks ago. His memorial service drew journalists from around the state to honor a man who was a precious link to the past.
It was a personal loss for me.
Bob was among the group of bright young men -- all World War II combat veterans -- that Kansas newspaper mogul Jack Harris assembled at the Hutchinson News in the late 1940s and early 1950s: Whit Austin, who became editor of the Salina Journal; John McCormally, who wrote editorials on legislative reapportionment that helped the News earn the Pulitzer Prize; and my father, Stuart Awbrey, who headed Harris Enterprise papers in Hutchinson, Garden City and Burlington, Iowa.
They were the giants on whose shoulders journalists of my generation stand.
They called themselves "country editors," a description borrowed from William Allen White. Indeed, Austin, McCormally and Awbrey worked for White in his famous journalism boot camp in Emporia, taking from the master a deep love of people and community.
White's philosophy was simple. As he watched people walk by the Gazette office, he realized that each of them had a unique story -- a tale of joy and sorrow that if shared with others would make readers more sensitive and more compassionate toward the human condition.
In our present age of instant information, of talking heads and Internet anonymity, White's principle is often ignored because too many journalists, especially in the national media, have lost touch with the everyday events and emotions -- the "human juices" -- that connect people to one another.
Yet, the country editor tradition still thrives in Kansas, and it is one reason for optimism that journalism will not simply become information processing controlled by giant media corporations.
One of my favorite pastimes is reading weekly and smaller daily newspapers in Watson Library at the University of Kansas. Unlike the larger metro dailies in Kansas City, Topeka and Wichita that report to corporate headquarters in California or Georgia, most of the smaller papers are locally owned or part of newspaper groups controlled by Kansans.
Most of them publish the kind of hometown news that comes only from editors with deep roots in their community. How some of them survive given the woeful economy in parts of rural and small-town Kansas is a mystery to me. It must be through a combination of love for newspapers, reader and advertiser loyalty and savvy business sense.
These Kansas editors are a vital part of American democracy. In an age of mega-media mergers, where newspapers are simply another commodity in a corporate portfolio, country editors serve as the conscience of the profession, as reminders of what journalism should be.
They are the last purists in an industry that increasingly caters to power and that perceives the bottom line as the only standard of success. To them, news is not simply the doings of the rich and famous or a natural disaster in some faraway place; news is the weekly meeting of a women's club, the high school basketball game, the arrival of a new doctor in town.
Early next month, several dozen Kansas journalists will gather at KU for William Allen White Day, which serves as a family reunion of editors and reporters who care passionately about this state and its people.
This year, Bob Wellington won't be among them. But his legacy lives -- in each editorial on a community issue, in each story about a neighbor who cares for others.
