The Press Democrat's Inspiring Columnist, Chris Smith
Our speaker for April 30, 2020 was Chris Smith, the Press Democrat’s columnist extraordinaire! Chris is a homegrown hero, having started his career in journalism at the PD upon graduation from high school. He’s worked at the paper for 35 years and counting. Randy Seelye, who worked with Chris at the PD for many years, introduced Chris as the “Must be Friday” columnist who worked for years with Gaye LeBaron. Chris talked about some of his most recent columns, the big Pulitzer Prize for the October 2017 fire coverage, and the challenges for newspapers in this new digital age.
Chris mentioned the “daily miracle” of turning a seemingly random set of stories into a complete newspaper every single day, and how that miracle has become even more difficult with lower staffing and ‘shelter-in-place’ rules. Most of the PD’s writers are now working remotely. On most days the front page is devoted to COVID-19 coverage. In fact, every newspaper is covering the story and every U.S. newspaper is under siege by the lack of advertising. The PD itself has lost something like $700,000 in advertising revenue in the last month! Some newspapers have shut down during this pandemic. Even a 100-year-old newspaper in New Hampshire recently eliminated its daily print version except on Sunday.
Chris also spoke about some amazing recent stories, including the Ben Thornton story. This story was first told by the PD in 2006, when Ben was 3 ½ years old and needed a heart transplant. He was in full cardiac arrest but was brought back on life support until they could find a new heart. The surgery was successful but due to a blood clot Ben became paralyzed. Chris recently heard about Ben again from a friend of his father. Ben is now on his way to the University of Arizona on a full-ride scholarship! (See April 26 story by, you guessed it, Chris Smith). Another great story is Angel the Cow (April 30th). This is about the October 2017 fire, the death of Angel’s owner, Valerie Evans, and the rebuilding of the family home demolished by the fire. You can see the log cabin-style home’s construction progress (I see it almost every day) on the west side of Highway 101 in the Coffey Park area.
Ben Thornton
During the worst fire in California’s history (at the time), the Press Democrat stood out in its coverage of the fire. As with the current pandemic, the PD was stretched to the limit in responding to the fire. Every story was about the fire; how it happened, how it spread and how it affected the people of Sonoma County. This amazing coverage resulted in the PD winning the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting. This was not, as Chris said, the ‘small local paper division’ prize; it was the prize for all papers in the United States in that important category. This is one of the greatest achievements in journalism and it was earned by our very own amazing paper, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat!
Thank you, Chris for the talk for the stories and for being an important voice in our community. Amazing job!
