If you missed all of our great speeches at our Journalism Awards and Dinner on November 16, 2017, or want to hear them again and share them, you can listen to them below:
KTVU News Broadcaster and Awards Emcee Tara Moriarty’s opening speech.
Board Member Carla DeLuca Worfolk introduces Lifetime Achievement Award winner David Louie.
Louie’s keynote speech starts at 3:00.
Board Member Dave Price introduces SF Press Club Service Award winner Peter Cleaveland.
Cleaveland’s speech starts at 2:17. A transcript of the speech can be found at the bottom of this page.
Board Member Jim Kirkland introduces SF Examiner Editor-In-Chief Gregory Andersen.
Andersen accepts the Bill Workman News Writer Award on behalf of SF Examiner Writer Michael Barba at 1:28.
All the Journalism Award winners can be found here.
Transcript of Peter Cleaveland’s speech:
Thank you David….Ladies and Gentlemen…
When this Press Club was re-formed in 1974…
There were 3 commercial TV Networks, Plus PBS
There were 5 Network Radio News Operations…ABC, CBS, NBC, Mutual and
Associated Press…it’s about the same today.
In San Francisco there were 10+ radio stations with fulltime news
departments…today there are 2.
In San Francisco there were 7 TV stations.
We were awash in daily newspapers. From San Francisco down the
peninsula to San Jose and up the East side of the Bay and in Contra
Costa and Marin counties.
There were no personal computers as we know them today
There were no cell phones. No Commercial Satellites
The internet didn’t exist.
There was no Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat.
Bill Gates was 19.
Mark Zuckerberg would not be born for another 10 years.
It was…it can be argued…a simpler time.
We had the Vietnam War, but it would end in less than a year.
In August, Richard Nixon…a step or two away from being impeached,
resigned as President.
A month later he was granted a full pardon by his successor, Gerry Ford.
Closer to home in 1974 Patricia Hearst was kidnapped from her
apartment in Berkeley….her father, Randy Hearst, publisher of the San
Francisco Examiner, gave away several million dollars worth of food in
an attempt to win her release.
She was captured in 1975 and was convicted of Bank Robbery…after
serving almost two years in federal prison….her sentence was commuted
by President Jimmy Carter and in 2001 she was granted a full pardon by
President Clinton.
It may have been a simpler time…but it wasn’t without its major stories.
Here are few other random facts from that year 43 years ago.
The Dow Jones Average closed the year at 616…its close today…23-thousand 458.
An average new home in 1974 was about 34,000 dollars.
Average income in the U.S was $13,900 a year,
And a dozen eggs were 45 cents.
But believe it or not…the way we gathered and reported the news then
wasn’t all that different from today….but our audience was.
Most people got their first news from radio…describing the fire and
the scene and maybe having a quick interview. This was followed in
the early evening by our local TV news which showed the flames and
fire personnel fighting them and having on-scene interviews with
residents and firefighters. Then the next day would come the
Chronicle or an afternoon daily reporting the story in depth…how many
fires in that same apartment building over the past years…how many
people were made homeless and their names and other facts that
developed since the radio and tv folks had left the scene.
It was a triad….with the audience depending on all three media sources
to get the fullest picture of the story.
And here we are…43 years later…and we’ve got all that, radio, TV, and
print on our phones. Instantly available.
But the one constant is the reporter, the photographer and the cameraperson.
Without them…no story.
One last example of why I think most of us decided to get into this
business in the first place…our natural curiosity.
The what is going to pop up on our plate today? And what will be the
effect on our fellow citizens of what we do with it?
120 years ago…1897…the editor of the New York Sun received a note from
an 8 year old girl. The girl had been told by her father, when she
asked him a question…that if she saw the answer in the Sun…it would be
so.
The girl…Virginia…was her name…picked up pen and paper and wrote “some
of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus….Please tell me the
truth…is there a Santa Claus”. The editor handed the note to one
reporter…who refused to deal with it. So he gave it to veteran
newsman…Francis Pharcellus Church. And what came out of his
typewriter has become most reprinted editorial in the world.
I’m not sure, but I really doubt Mr. Church gave much thought to
history when he began typing…”Virginia…your little friends are
wrong…they have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus”.
You might keep that in mind the next time the desk hands you what…on
the surface…looks like a ho-hum story.
You never know……
Thank you all.