Within months of each other this year, both the president and vice president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists lost their jobs, a commentary, if there ever were one, on the state of cartooning in a financially devastated newspaper industry.

After three years as the paper’s first and only editorial cartoonist, Kevin Necessary, the vice president, left his job at the Cincinnati Enquirer because of budget cuts.

This summer McClatchy newspaper laid off three Pulitzer-winning cartoonists: Jack Ohman of the Sacramento Bee, Joel Pett of the Lexington Herald-Leader and Kevin Siers of the Charlotte Observer.

Ohman, president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, told The Washington Post he was “stunningly blindsided” by his firing in July. He was the only person at the Bee to be laid off.

Necessary estimated there were several hundred staff cartoonists in the mid-20th century but now only a handful work full-time at newspapers, which is losing papers at a  rate of two per week in 2022.

“Editors and publishers, whether it’s newspapers or news sites or anything like that, I don’t think they have a good grasp on why this work is valuable,”  Necessary said.

Necessary’s cartoons included this one – one of his most popular – that depicted the mascots of the Cincinnati Bengals and the Buffalo Bills kneeling on the field after Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed after tackling Cincinnati wide receiver Tee Higgins in January. He also illustrated cartoons about gun violence, COVID, and local elections. 

Newspaper cartoons are going extinct, the result of shrinking newsrooms, the rise of social media and popularity of online memes.  

“There are no jobs available because newspapers aren’t hiring for editorial cartoonists,” said Rob Snyder, who worked as an editorial cartoonist for the Baltimore Sun in the late 1980s. “When newspapers began to cut positions in its editorial department 20 years ago, cartoonists were the first to go..”

Editorial cartooning dates back to the year 1754. Good editorial cartoons are made up of a combination of good writing and clear drawings. Five other elements are also used to put these cartoons together. These elements are labeling, irony, exaggeration, analogy, and symbolism. They are meant to have the ability to draw in the audience within a few seconds and deliver a message without confusion. 

“A well-known cartoon is like a drive-by shooting,” Snyder said. “It’s easily digestible, often humorous and doesn’t require slogging through some editorial writer’s boring argument that trips all over itself in some effort to appear balanced or reasonable.”

But the decline of newspapers has drastically changed the landscape, said Jenny Robb, head curator of Comics and Cartoon Art at The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at the Ohio State University.

“I got bumped from more and more papers and I was barely holding on. I don’t even count how many papers. It’s kind of depressing,” said Lalo Alcaraz, the cartoonist  behind “La Cucaracha.” Last year, Alcaraz was the first non-white person ever to win the prestigious Herblock Prize.

Social media – and the way people engage with news – also has contributed. 

“Social media is where many find their news, their memes, their political images,” said Signe Wilkinson, longtime editorial cartoonist for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News who retired from the papers in late 2020.  

Unlike social media, newspapers were generally read by a wide variety of people, she said, “so many eyeballs with many different opinions would see the cartoons.” That’s not the case anymore. “Now eyeballs silo the news they get and see what they already agree with.”

Snyder said he’s also noticed a change in content and style, a reflection of the audience itself. “Americans aren’t as culturally literate as they might have been even 60 years ago,” he said. “Would they get a joke that riffed on a Biblical or literary theme? Cartoons too often now appear to depict news announcers from TV news or a couple sitting on a couch commenting on something they saw on TV.”

Although social media users may lump memes and editorial cartoons in the same category, cartoonists said they most definitely are not.

“I’m against people calling editorial cartoons a meme,” Alcaraz said. “it kind of cheapens what we do.”

Those within the cartoon field have a wide range of different opinions on the art form now and its purpose and how it is viewed by others. 

“The perspective of the way that comics are viewed has changed a lot. Comics were really viewed as something that was just for kids at the start of the last century but now especially after the emergence of graphic novels. People have realized that this is a very powerful art form,” said Caitlin McGurk, curator of Comics and Cartoon Art and an associate professor at the Billy Ireland Library & Museum. 

The problem is finding people to see them.

“I hope there will be new places for our cartoons to be seen by wide audiences but don’t see those places right now,” Wilkinson said.

Angel Lasha Godfrey is a student in journalism and international affairs at the Ohio State University. An earlier version of this story was published in the summer 2023 print magazine. It has been updated.

Sally Bixby Defty, a heralded journalist known internationally for the depth and beauty of her writing and editing, as well as her ability to take on a variety of subjects, died Wednesday. June 29, In a nursing facility at Ticonderoga. NY., of the infirmities of age. She was 89 years old , just a month shy of her 90^th birthday.

She lived most of her life in St. Louis, but  had lived in Bolton Landing, NY, for 14 years where her family had long had a summer outpost. Her house  there was designed by her  son Matthew Defty, a Chicago architect.

She was a long time member of the staff of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and was the first woman to be named executive city editor at the P-D. She was highly regarded by her colleagues, and her resume of stories was extraordinary for  variety, great style and readability and accuracy. She covered everything from a mass murderer’s grisly graveyard to the doings of debutantes at St. Louis’s annual society ingathering, the Veiled Prophet Ball.

Sarah Tuttle Bixby Defty was born and reared in St. Louis, Missouri. She graduated from John Burroughs School in St. Louis and from Vassar College, Poughkeepsie. NY.

She held a variety of jobs after graduation, and once was in the movies as body double for Jane Russell. She was proprietor of a popular restaurant in St. Louis called Sarah’s. When times were tough, she and her sister, the late Lucy Bixby Bertelson, worked sorting mail at the downtown Post Office during the Christmas crunch

But her true calling was journalism, which she pursued with vigor and enthusiasm at the Post-Dispatch. She began her career there as Women’s Editor, then worked her way into the newsroom as a reporter, the first woman to have a desk amongst a population of men in white shirts, many of whom resented having their male bastion infiltrated by a woman. She proved her value quickly and was a respected member of the staff.

Borrowing from the lyrics of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “H.M.S. Pinafore,” she, as a member of the highly peopled Butler and Bixby clans,  is survived by cousins, nieces and nephews, whom  she reckons up by the dozens; as well as  her sons Matthew Defty of Chicago;and Stephen Defty of Berlin, Germany; and her daughter, Sarah Defty McCutcheon of Elkhart, Illinois; and five grandchildren and one great grandchild.

Details of her memorial service are incomplete, but will be announced here at a later date.

Robert Duffy is a former editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis Beacon and St. Louis Public Radio

The first assignment that David Bowes got when he joined the St. Louis Post-Dispatch 61 years ago was to cover a coroner’s inquest for Maye Trainor, the city’s premier madam and hostess to Babe Ruth when Ruth’s New York Yankees were in town. 

In the years that followed he interviewed Dr. William Masters, the sex researcher, reported from a Florida nudist colony as part of cross-country examination of cultural change,  traveled around the globe with President Lyndon B. Johnson and was tear-gassed at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Bowes died May 13 at 88. After his years with the Post-Dispatch, he was a vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers, an associate editor of the Cincinnati Post, and a contributor to Mid-Atlantic regional magazines.

Bowes, a St. Louis native, earned degrees from the University of Virginia and University of Michigan journalism program.  He joined the newspaper as a reporter in 1961, moving to writing editorials in 1967 and serving as a Washington correspondent from 1967 to 1970.

He didn’t always find that his editors wanted to run more risque stories.

Bowes arranged for a rare conversation with Dr.  Masters, the acclaimed sex researcher who had been working under cover in the conservative city. When the doctor’s first book was published, the Post-Dispatch declined to acknowledge or review it on grounds that “some readers might be offended,” according to an obituary prepared by his family.

On another occasion, Bowes filed a story from a Florida nudist colony. Bowes had been sent coast to coast to measure cultural change; the headline he chose, given Oh! Calcutta!’s acclaimed run on Broadway, was “Nudism vs. Nudity.” The story was spiked despite its scholarly context. 

Bowes was the youngest member of the paper’s editorial board, where he wrote about topics including arms control and disarmament, the seasons of weather, continental Africa, science and medicine, literature, merchant shipping, the Mississippi River lock system and Southern Illinois politics.

Bowes was a specialist in urban affairs journalism, he was cited by the Scripps Howard Foundation for “outstanding editorials that produced results” by saving an historic Cincinnati hillside neighborhood from demolition for an interstate highway.  The American Political Science Association recognized him in 1970 for 60 essays written while roving nationally; their insights informed his commentary on city planning, urban design and historic preservation. 

He is survived by his wife, psychologist Rosemary Tofalo Bowes, of Washington, D.C.; three children from his first marriage, to Judith Gregory, and two grandsons.

Ted Gest is president of Criminal Justice Journalists and Washington bureau chief of The Crime Report. He formerly was a reporter and editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and U.S. News & World Report. He was a founding member of the St. Louis Journalism Review in 1970. He is a graduate of Oberlin College and the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University.

This is the commencement address that GJR Editor Jackie Spinner delivered at the graduation ceremony for the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts on May 8. Spinner received an honorary doctorate in media arts.

Thank you.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Eid Mubarak all of you who are celebrating next week.

And congratulations to everyone of you who walked, crawled, ran, rode or were carried to this point. Whether you are here or joining us virtually. It’s an amazing achievement even under typical circumstances. 

These are still far from normal times.

I want to challenge you as you depart on the next part of your journey to take a moment to consider the world “normal.”

In my house, I’ve pretty much banned it. I have three small children who were born in Africa. They are now Black in America. My oldest son is autistic. We don’t look like most of our neighbors. It’s not just the fact that we are a transracial family. Or that my kids came to America as immigrants. I am a single mother and most of the families on our block have two parents. 

I’m not the only filmmaker but I am the only journalist. I’m the only one who has been to war and so much of my experience even now is shaped by the time I spent in Iraq and Afghanistan for The Washington Post. 

What is normal for us? 

It’s probably not the same for you. In fact, if you look to the person to your left and the person to your right, you may see differences or you may not. Your journey to this point is shaped by where you grew up, how much money you had, the color of your skin, your age, your gender. All of those things have made our experiences difference even if we are now roommates or live on the same street. 

I think about the neighborhood where I grew up in central Illinois, the kids on the block there. I babysat for a Jewish family. But most of the families went to church on Sunday. The neighbors who lived next door to us were Black. But most everyone else was white. We had mostly two-parent households but not always. We had teachers and Union workers like my dad. We had accountants. We had neighbors who sold insurance and bought insurance or couldn’t’ afford insurance. A few of my neighbors had disabilities, some more visible than others. We had neighbors with mental health issues and physical health issues. We had neighbors who were born in America and neighbors who were born in other countries. 

You might be asking yourself? Why are you focusing on all of their differences? 

These differences are important because they not only inform who we are but they also inform the work we do. They will inform the relationships you will have at your first jobs after graduation. Your business partnerships. Your network.

Our differences are not what divide us. What divides us is our inability to accept that we are different. What divides us is our refusal to listen to a different viewpoint.

My challenge then is for you to suspend this idea of “normal.” Maybe you ban it from your own vocabulary.

Start with a hypothesis but be willing to abandon it.

Go with a hunch. Be open to the fact that it was wrong.

Tell your story. But tell other people’s stories, too.

This approach has made me an infinitely better professor and journalist and filmmaker, for sure.

I don’t assume all of my students learn or process information the same way I do.

I don’t assume that all of my colleagues have the same struggles. 

I don’t only interview or film people who look like more or grew like me or who think like me. 

College gave you a chance to break out from everything you’ve known, to learn new ideas, to challenge conventions, to have new experiences, to meet people who didn’t grow up the same way you do. It also affirmed the things you like about yourself, the values you have that are important to you.

Keep those.

But… 

Be open to change.

Be open to difference. 

Be open to the idea that your normal is not the best, the right way, the only way.

Congratulations, however you got here, wherever you’re going. 

Walk with purpose. 

Be the change the world needs to be a better place for all of us.

For its 50th anniversary, Gateway Journalism Review asked eight journalists from print, broadcast and online media to share memories of their careers and the stories that they remember most vividly. GJR also asked them where they get their news, where they think the news business is headed, and which reporters and editors from past decades have had the most influence on them and St. Louis journalism as a whole.

Ellen Futterman

Editor, St. Louis Jewish Light; former reporter and editor at the St. Louis PostDispatch

First job in journalism:

General assignment reporter at the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner in the late 1970s: “There was no getting anywhere in L.A. in a reasonable time because of the traffic. I remember the first time I ever saw a dead body; it was in a plane crash. I got to the crash site before the FAA did. The body was still strapped into the seat. That was crazy.”

Memorable stories:

“Not long after I got to the Post-Dispatch was when the AIDS epidemic started coming to the forefront. I knew this was going to be a big, important story, so I kind of jockeyed to get on that beat. This was in the middle or late 1980s. Nothing had really been done at the Post on the gay community before then. I wrote a three-part story about what the epidemic looked like. It was striking how many people wouldn’t allow their names to be used. It was a difficult story to do; it was also hard to get it into the paper. But I had some great editors, and we got it in.

“Another was when we had an interview scheduled with Bob Dylan. I was the entertainment editor; our critic Harper Barnes was supposed to interview him on a Friday. On Tuesday the phone rang. And it was Bob Dylan. And you don’t say to Bob Dylan ‘sorry but this interview is scheduled for Friday, can you call back then.’ So I did it. I love music. (Reporter) Paul Hampel was passing me pieces of paper with questions written on them. The funny thing was, other journalists were calling me after the story came out, asking me about Bob Dylan, because he did so few interviews.”

Influential people:

“Jim Millstone (Post editor) was extremely helpful, and a good voice of reason. Sally Bixby Defty was one of the first women on the news desk. She is a role model. I have a great deal of respect for (former Post reporter) Martha Shirk; she carved out a great path covering women and children. John Brophy (Post newsroom manager) was a very even-tempered, kind person. I learned a lot from him as an editor myself.”

Where I get my news:

“The New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, and the ‘Letters From An American’ newsletter that Heather Cox Richardson (U.S. history professor) sends out every night; she researches the history behind the news. I admit I get some of my news from People magazine, too.”

Where the news business is headed:

“The pandemic has shown how much work we can do from our homes. The future is digital. And it will be curated. For example: You’ll get your sports news from one source, world news from a different source, and Jewish news from another source. I see more publications going to a not-for-profit model.”

Carol Daniel

News Anchor, KMOX Radio

First job in journalism:

“A small country music station in Jefferson City. I did the weekends; there was a top hits show and I would break in and do the weather and a couple of news headlines. I had to do sports, too. I would call my mother – she’s an avid sports fan – and she would tell me how to pronounce the players’ names.”

Most memorable stories:

“Mel Carnahan’s plane crash (in 2000). I had interviewed Carnahan on several occasions. It was a surreal experience to have a man of that stature die in such a way. He was a generous interviewee. It was as if he enjoyed just talking to me. That made it more of a conversation than an interview. “And Ferguson. From a news standpoint, it’s one thing that your town’s on fire. There’s such pain and anger and anguish. But as the mother and wife of Black men, I reacted to it in that way as well, understanding what I knew about the polarizing points of view in our society about race. That’s what was so impactful for me. “At the time, our pastor took part in a prayer vigil at the Old Courthouse. We took our youngest son with us – he was 14 then. He was so upset. Later on, I realized he wasn’t mad; he was just afraid. He said: ‘I don’t know why you brought me out here, when a (Black) boy who looks like me was just killed.’ I could only empathize with that. For me, news has always been not only about information, but information that can change people’s lives. Ferguson was personal.”

Influential people:

“Karen Foss was influential: a trusted voice and no agenda, which I think is what has always been needed. And Sharon Stevens (longtime education reporter at KSDK and KTVI). Reporters covering education – that is so important to have.”

Where I get my news:

“I watch network news, mostly CBS. I read the Business Journal, some of the articles in the Post, and the Washington Post. Also a couple of print publications focused on the Black community. Some Vox. And I work every day with [stories from] the Associated Press.”

Where the news business is headed:

“The trust factor has been so deeply impacted; we have to address that. For journalists today who are out there talking about ‘fake news’: Can we do some soul searching of our own? Can we look back at the example of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ’70s, and the way journalism specifically portrayed the Black community then? “As journalists, if you don’t take the job seriously, this is going to be a tough battle for you. But even if you do take the job seriously, it’s still tough. Building trust and reclaiming it – this is a tough battle. But it’s a battle worth fighting.”

Ray Hartmann

Founder of the Riverfront Times and its current columnist; former CEO/owner of St. Louis Magazine; panelist on the Nine Network’s Donnybrook; radio host for Big 550 KTRS-AM

First job in journalism:

Copy boy for St. Louis Globe-Democrat Editorial Page Editor Martin Duggan in 1968

Memorable stories:

“One of the defining stories for the RFT was during the mid to late ‘80s, when the powers that be in Civic Progress were taking a big chunk of the local tourism budget and just giving it to the VP Fair. One year it was $650,000; they were just giving it to them, with no bid process. They were doing it to give some guy a job; it was an absolute raid on the treasury. “Another story the RFT did was about Joe Pulitzer (Joseph Pulitzer Jr., chairman of Pulitzer Publishing Co.) and a unique arrangement he had with the Saint Louis Art Museum. He would donate millions of dollars of artwork to the museum, and then it was ‘loaned’ back to him so he could use it at his home. It was a singular arrangement. It was not the most important story we did, but it was one that we were known for.”

Most influential people:

“Bill McClellan Media personalities look back by Jack Grone Daniel Hartmann Futterman 9 has been one of the most consistent and best writers anywhere. Certainly Bob Hyland (former KMOX-AM general manager) was impactful. And Duncan Bauman (GlobeDemocrat publisher from 1967 until 1984); I think one of the first stories we did at the RFT was about how Duncan played his aces. And my old friend Martin Duggan: He was really the driving force behind Donnybrook.”

Where I get my news:

“I’m constantly devouring material online; I write articles for Raw Story and I throw in a little bit of work with search engines. It’s always amazed me how little publications use their own morgues and story files.”

Where the news business is headed:

“Print media are really endangered. I would be surprised if the Post lasts too much longer in its printed format. The Post has done as good a job as it can with STLtoday and trying to save its business.”

Sarah Fenske

Host of “St. Louis on the Air” on St. Louis Public Radio; former editor in chief of the Riverfront Times

First job in journalism:

At the Lorain (Ohio) Morning Journal: “I covered the suburbs at first, then switched to city hall.”

Most memorable stories:

“I was the editor on a story that Doyle Murphy did at the RFT called “Seamstress for the Klan.” It was about this woman who murdered the grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan (in Leadwood, Mo. in 2017). She had been sewing the robes for the people in the KKK. It was this crazy, kind of gothic story about Missouri. “Another thing: Back when I was managing editor of the RFT I did some stories (in 2011) about our lieutenant governor (Peter Kinder), who had gone to some ‘pantsless parties’ at this bar. It started with a funny blog post; from there, I started getting all these interesting tips. It ended up being six or seven blog posts. It wasn’t intended to be a serious story, but it turned into one.”

Influential people:

Tom Finkel, the editor of the RFT who brought Fenske to St. Louis. Also Bill McClellan: “The man is a genius. The way he sees the world, and the affection he has for it, is very much a St. Louis trait. He approaches the city with sympathy; with kindness. He’s a perfect St. Louis journalism avatar.”

Where I get my news:

“I have to give credit to the Post-Dispatch. They still set the agenda in this town; they do good work. I also think St. Louis Public Radio is increasingly doing a lot of stuff that you can’t ignore. The Business Journal also does some great work.”

Where the news business is headed:

“It’s a tough time for smaller and midsized cities. St. Louis is still doing a lot better than other comparably-sized places. We still have a good city magazine; we still have an alt-weekly. St. Louis journalism is hanging on in ways that are very impressive.”

Ellen Sherberg

Former editor and publisher of the St. Louis Business Journal; now a consultant for American City Business Journals

First jobs in journalism:

Copy desk intern at the Providence Bulletin; later city desk secretary at the Globe-Democrat

Most memorable stories:

“Probably the crash of Ozark Airlines Flight 809 right near UMSL (July 1973). An airplane crash takes precedence over everything. I was at the Globe at the time. To be fair, I didn’t report the story myself; I just carried the batteries for the reporters’ walkietalkies. The destruction at the crash scene – it was overwhelming. “Also, the first profile we did on Sam Goldstein, the chairman of Apex Oil, right at the beginning of the Business Journal. We were doing our list of the biggest private companies in St. Louis. Apex was at the top, and nobody knew anything about them, so we wrote a long profile. Mark Vittert (Business Journal co-founder) came up with the headline: ‘Sam Who?’”

Influential people:

William Woo (former editor at the Post); Martin Duggan at the Globe “although I didn’t agree with him. They were both very clear voices, and important voices in print journalism.” Sally Bixby Defty at the Post: “She taught me about second chances. She was a real role model for women in journalism.” Mark Vittert: “His vision for covering business news impacted news coverage in general.” Al Fleishman (a founder of Fleishman Hillard PR agency): “He taught me about people and power as well as people in power.”

Where I get my news:

“For local news about St. Louis, I read the Post online, and the Business Journal online. And then the Times and the WSJ. And Axios and Politico. And television, too.”

Where the news business is headed:

“It’s going to be hyper-local. A lot of the big, national coverage will be industry-segmented. I think more news outlets will charge for subscriptions what they should be charging, and people will then make choices based on what’s important to them.”

Sylvester Brown

Former Post-Dispatch columnist; former publisher of Take Five magazine; author and not-forprofit executive

First job in journalism:

“At a local black-owned publication called Tryst that was distributed at restaurants and bars. I was at community college studying art and graphic design. It was like an unofficial internship; I started writing stories and interviews.”

Most memorable story:

“In 2003 there was a group of people going to Powell Symphony Hall in a car when another car plowed into it, killing two of them. The driver of the second car went through the windshield; he woke up after the accident and ran off. He was wanted. I had an activist lawyer friend, Justin Meehan, who called me two days later and said: ‘I’ve got the guy in my office and he wants to talk to you.’ When I got there he was wailing. He wanted to tell his story before he turned himself in. “I told his story verbatim in the paper. They held the presses for it; it was my first frontpage story. I covered the trial a year later. The family members of the victims spoke about forgiveness. [Prosecutors recommended a 14-year sentence, but the judge ended up giving the defendant 120 days in jail plus five years’ probation, according to Brown’s story at the time.] “The judge said the victims’ families had saved his life. It was the most beautiful story of redemption and humanity that I had ever written. And it changed the outcome of that trial.”

Influential people:

“When I started Take Five, I wanted to emulate the Riverfront Times. I thought Ray Hartmann was one of the boldest journalists in St. Louis. His voice and his take on things were very influential on me.”

Where I get my news:

“I’m a Facebook Fenske Brown Sherberg Continued on next page I think more news outlets will charge for subscriptions what they should be charging, and people will then make choices based on what’s important to them.” — Ellen Sherberg “ 10 junkie. I’ve also got a subscription to the PostDispatch, and The New York Times and the Washington Post.”

Where the news business is headed:

“Now anybody can go out there with a cell phone or camera and report the news. There’s this site called Real STL News; they remind me of myself back in the ’80s. They’re showing up at crime scenes; they’re talking to people in the street. But the internet is a double-edged sword. Everybody’s ideas are validated, no matter how wacky and crazy they are. We can use the media for good, but there’s always the threat that it can be used for bad.”

Jeannette Cooperman

Prolific feature writer, former staffer at the Riverfront Times and St. Louis Magazine, and staff writer at The Common Reader at Washington University

First job in journalism:

Managing editor of an earlier incarnation of St. Louis Magazine in the early 1990s. “It was fun, chaotic and disorganized.”

Most memorable stories:

“Going back and researching the history that put Ferguson into context (for the magazine). That really opened my eyes and helped me gain perspective. “Another one was writing about the River Des Peres for the Riverfront Times (in 2000). It was kind of a depressing story. I was going to community meetings; architects had ideas to clean it up and develop it and turn it into a real center for St. Louis. But you could see people’s caution and fear about trying to do something; people seemed to prefer an open ditch. It was maddening trying to cover that. It has a history of environmental toxins, but nothing ever got done. I think they should clean it up and turn it into something that’s an asset.”

Influential people:

Sarah Fenske: “She brought the RFT back to what it used to be; now she’s doing an amazing job in her show on St. Louis Public Radio.” Bill McClellan: “He gives people something to hang onto that feels human and accessible.”

Where I get my news:

Local news is hugely important. I get a lot of my news through online newsletters; I love the Atlantic; I also read The New Yorker and The New York Times. We watch the local news because it’s something to talk about in the evening. I’ll read the Post, but not with the same kind of excitement I did years and years ago. St. Louis Public Radio is probably my favorite source of local news. I feel like they have the chops that used to be the purview only of the daily newspapers.”

Where the news business is headed:

“Online, for sure. I do think it’s going to be a lot more newsletterish; a lot more niche. This is to our detriment; every city needs a local version of the NYT, but we haven’t figured out a way to pay for that investigative reporting. I would love to see more public funding.”

Karen Foss

Former anchor at KSDK-TV NewsChannel 5; now living in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

First job in journalism: “A fill-in secretary at the CBS station in Kansas City in the mid-‘70s. I couldn’t type, but my communications professor told me I should apply for the job. So I put on a skirt and went downtown. I worked my way up through the station and ended up being an anchor there – for a general manager who had said he would never have a woman anchoring the news.”

Most memorable story:

“The flood of 1993. It was a local story that made international headlines. It was both professionally and personally a big story. I had a little cottage on the Mississippi between Elsah and Grafton; I remember helping sandbag in Elsah. The most heartbreaking image was when our reporter Jean Jackson was standing by when this enormous farmhouse – two stories plus an attic – was swept away by the water (during a levee breach in Monroe County, Illinois).”

Influential people:

Bill Bolster (former KSDK general manager): “He brought a fresh and much more aggressive tone to the station, but not in a negative way. He really believed in promoting what we were doing, and putting the money behind it.”

Where I get my news:

“We have a remarkably good local newspaper, the Sante Fe New Mexican. It’s a family-owned paper. The owner sold it to Gannett, but he became so frustrated with how they were running the paper that he bought it back. And The New York Times and the Washington Post online.”

Where the news business is headed:

“The most important thing lies with consumers; for them there needs to be media intelligence. We’re bombarded with so much information, and so much opinion that is labeled as news. For many people it’s hard to distinguish where the information is coming from, and whether it’s from a reliable source.”

GJR Publisher, William H. Freivogel, asked three St. Louis journalists to look back and ahead.

Don Marsh

TV and Radio reporter and longtime host of St. Louis on the Air

We’ve come a long way since my early television days in the sixties when local television news crews of three or four would haul 600 pounds of camera gear to cover stories. Then came video tape and mini cams, satellite technology, and now TV reporters shooting their stories themselves with cameras they can hold in their hands, and edit in the field. Not to mention Zoom interviews in these days of pandemic.

Technology has changed everything. The future will certainly include further technological advances resulting in more blogs, podcasts, and news distributed by, and consumed through, social media. Everything we need to know will continue to be at our immediate disposal on devices we hold in our hands, wear on our wrist or perhaps from chips embedded in our skin, dispensed by a wide variety of sources…including everyman journalists…with myriad motives. They will be capable of reaching us with fewer editorial firewalls and minimum fact checking while traditional print media resources drift into the shadows. Can the Post Dispatch become what it once was again? Can traditional television networks remain relevant? Can radio? Cooperman Foss Marsh Everybody’s ideas are validated, no matter how wacky and crazy they are. We can use the media for good, but there’s always the threat that it can be used for bad.” — Sylvester Brown “ The most important thing lies with consumers; for them there needs to be media intelligence.” — Karen Foss “ 11.

Will they be like today’s major cable networks presenting opinion as news and play to audiences who, like Lemmings, flock only to politically comfortable sources leaving them unexposed to opposing points of view. That’s seenn by many as a major source of today’s political and social polarization.

While it’s impossible to predict the future of journalism and how it will be produced and consumed, it is not difficult to imagine much of it as a potential threat to democracy as we have known it requiring new levels of vigilance and media literacy.

Don Corrigan

Webster University professor and former editor Webster-Kirkwood Times

It’s hard not to think of the 50 years that Charles Klotzer has devoted to the Journalism Review and wonder if there is not some disappointment – maybe even a bit of sadness. Let’s face it, has the situation for journalism in St. Louis and in our nation gotten any better after all those issues, all those articles and bylines? Newspapers have folded forever. Venal politicians yell “fake news.” Our city and our country is divided. We cannot even agree on basic human health measures in a 100-year pandemic. Charles Klotzer might, with good reason, feel some disillusionment in these dark days.

The truth is, however, that Klotzer has made a difference. His legacy journalism and his journalism legacy have made a difference. I saw it personally after the Hazelwood Supreme Court decision in 1988, when young people were told that free speech was a First Amendment gift that was not meant for them. Klotzer wasn’t having it. He argued otherwise. Young people were moved by what his publication had to say – and many of them became reporters and editors and parents who carried that message forward. When I see new generations of young people bravely speaking out that black lives matter, that climate change is real, that the carnage of gun violence has to end – I know that the philosophy of free speech espoused by Klotzer is somehow a factor in all of this.

Klotzer’s Review has argued for many of the causes that young people have embraced today and many, many more important issues over five decades. He has criticized the press when it has looked the other way, when it has not wanted to confront and cover issues that make people uncomfortable. At the same time, Klotzer also has been a steadfast ally of the press, especially in these times when the chips are down and, frankly, the chips are in short supply to fund vibrant and much-needed media voices. Perhaps, Klotzer’s biggest accomplishment is having fostered a nucleus of concerned citizens who care about journalism. These are people who will not sit quietly when demagogues try to silence journalists and call them “enemies of the people.” These are people who have been inspired by the 50-year legacy of Charles Klotzer.

Linda Lockhart

Interim editor St. Louis American and former editor and reporter at St. Louis Public Radio and the PostDispatch

The media landscape in St. Louis has been changing and continues to change at a pace that makes my head spin.

I set out on my path to become a journalist in 5th grade at St. Stephen’s Lutheran School in the old Gaslight Square neighborhood, some 57 years ago. The school newsletter for which I reported was cranked out on a mimeograph machine. Not quite the hammer and chisel of the earliest scribes. But pretty primitive, still.

Fast forward through nearly a half dozen decades, I’ve gone from using manual typewriters, to electric ones; on to several generations of computers, until the convenient laptop I use today.

Fewer people are reading print editions that I prefer, shifting instead to getting their headlines not just on the aforementioned laptop, but on phones that fit in the palm of their hands or even on their Smart watches. They look to Twitter to see what’s happening rather than picking up a paper at their doorstep.

The methods for gathering, presenting and obtaining the news may have changed, but the mission and goals, at least for me, remain the same:

Give the audience stories that help them learn more about what’s happening Give them something I believe they need to know

Give them something that they wouldn’t get, if not for me; something that will make them say, “hmmm, that’s interesting.”

That was my mantra when I worked as an editor on the national/international news desk at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. It remains true for me as I serve now as the interim managing editor of the St. Louis American.

None of us knows what the landscape of the future will look like. But I expect for the journalists and the audiences we serve, we’ll just keep pushing forward to do what we are called to do: educate, inform, enlighten, no matter which tools we use.