Oregon Media Insiders

Bill Monroe –outdoors, hunting and fishing. Knew he had a great job, and was well-liked in the newsroom even by those perplexed by the idea of hunting. Known by thousands of readers who could not name any other editor, reporter or columnist.

Norm Maves – started in sports, had a special knack for dealing with young athletes, did general news and the “Back Fence” column for a time, and went back to sports. Knew everybody.

Joel Davis—a photographer who worked mostly nights and whom some of you may have met at shootings, protests and Blazer games. Sort of a 60s guy, and well liked.

Less known by readers but important to the newsroom: Jack Hart, who held numerous titles but was mostly the writing coach who helped reporters like Tom Hallman and Rich Read get into the Pulitizer competition; Stan Horton, detail-oriented TV editor, TV trivia expert and Three Stooges fan, who put out TV Click and weathered the huge growth of listings that came with cable; Sally Cheriel, an editor who improved and broadened health coverage, and Gail Hulden, the newsroom’s chief researcher. Gail, who has a national reputation for researching for newsrooms, taught reporters who still missed typewriters how to Google and spreadsheet, and her name often appeared at the end of stories in tiny italics that said she had contributed to the story. In many cases it should have said “Many of the actual facts in this article came from Gail; she also found the source the reporter got a lot of the information from.”

Some of these people I only worked with, others I knew fairly well. And if we can take a break from all the anti-Oregonian stuff, there is no one on THIS list -- there were exceptions along the way -- who did not do their best to give the reader a fair shake. Maybe some of us did not meet your standard, but we did sincerely try.