Author: Curtis L. Esquíbel and Marian Liu
Published: April 02, 1998
Last Updated: January 31, 2000
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Profiles of the Winners

By Curtis L. Esquíbel and Marian Liu
ASNE Reporters

Ken Fuson, The Sun, Baltimore
He attended rehearsals for "West Side Story" at North County High School in suburban Baltimore for more than two months and remembers the nervous energy he felt in the days leading up to opening night.
But Ken Fuson from The Sun wasn't memorizing lyrics or dance steps. He was covering a story he'd thought about for all of his 19-plus years as a high school actor-turned-reporter. The plot of the story, Fuson said, was simple: a group of teenagers pouring their all into the making of a high school theater production.
For his efforts, Fuson won for non-deadline writing in the 1998 Distinguished Writing Awards and Jesse Laventhol Prize competition.
"I always think it's exciting to show in small ways what growing up is like," Fuson said.
Fuson, a native of Granger, Iowa, performed in theater productions. "I was very excited for the students after their last performance," Fuson said. "But I was also sad when it was over because I knew I wasn't going to see them as much. And it's always sad when you have to sit down and write it."

Justin Davidson, Newsday
Take a glance at Justin Davidson's resume and it doesn't exactly fit the mold of a typical journalist. Fluent in Italian and with a doctorate in musical composition, Davidson also is Newsday's classical-music critic by trade.
He is a winner of a Distinguished Writing Award for his work in the criticism category, this year's rotating category.
Davidson said he tries to get across the reasons why he loves "the art form" of classical music so much.
"I write about things that are important in cultural terms," said Davidson, who began writing for Newsday. "To my mind, music should be something that is affecting, that changes the way people feel. I try to write something that could be interesting to anyone."
Born and raised in Rome, Davidson received his bachelor's degree from Harvard in 1987.
In his nomination letter, Newsday editors wrote that Davidson's music reviews "delight the aficionado, educate the novice and seduce even the least-inclined."

Stephen Hunter, The Washington Post
Stephen Hunter, movie critic for The Washington Post, estimated he has reviewed more than 3,000 movies in his career. To to stay fresh, Hunter said he absorbs and reacts to cinema as any other moviegoer would.
Although he has analyzed movies at the Post and The Sun in Baltimore for 17 years, Hunter joked that he hadn't won an award for his reviews, until now. Hunter was named a Distinguished Writing Award winner in the category of criticism.
"Writing in some sense is more important than an opinion of a movie," said Hunter, who has been at the Post since April 1997. "I think that a critic's biggest problem is trying to stay fresh. I try and approach the work and experience it in a sense of charmed naiveté. Because if all you do is give your negative opinions on a movie, people will get bored with you because no one likes to read a whiner."
Also a novelist who has authored eight books, Hunter takes great pleasure in writing a review without laboring over too many reporting duties. But, Hunter says, "I'll usually write the piece without any reference materials because I want to do it as innocently as possible."

Michael J. Jacobs, Grand Forks (N.D.) Herald
"Language has power," said Michael J. Jacobs, editorial writer for the Grand Forks Herald.
Jacobs, winner of the editorial writing award described his power as being " in the unique position to speak for the community about all the emotions that they were feeling."
His two entries ranged from journalism credibility to the flood of 1997 in Grand Forks.
In his piece on the flood, he chronicled the human spirit -- and the fight of the community to get back on its feet.
"It was a good subject for editorials to stimulate optimism about chances," said Jacobs, "In a sense they were all like a coach's peptalk; they've got us down but we can still lick them."
Like a good coach, his stories encouraged the community to fight back, but could not be depended on to fight for them.
"The intent was to tell the community, look we're with you and will be with you in crises, but certainly you can't expect us to get you out, you need to do that," said Jacobs.
In his second piece, he explained why the Grand Forks Herald decided to uphold its first commandment of "Never Hold the News."
Jacobs said, " I don't think the interests of the community are served by hiding the truth. The bottom line is never holding the news."

Patricia Smith, The Boston Globe
"I stand in the story and immerse myself into 80 lines," said Patricia Smith, bi-weekly columnist for The Boston Globe and winner of the commentary/column writing award. "Readers feel that it happened to me and what it's like to be in that situation," she said.
Everyday things become the subject of Smith's columns. "Any slice of life can be a column - one person on a bus, a Washington, D.C. policy - can be made into a story. Everything is column fodder," Smith said.
The lines between column writer and reporter are blurred in her stories. Smith combines poetry, reporting, play writing and other styles to bring her subjects to life.
"The people who read Stephen King are really enamored by the story," Smith said. "You have to consider a reader of tales, so you blur the lines between genres."
She brings her columns into the heart and soul of the reader by writing visually about what happens to her subjects. Her editor, Matthew V. Storin, especially recommended one column about the survivors of the Tuskegee experiments, that brings tears to readers' eyes.
Smith said, "I sit in the scene and record the voices and things that happen to the people so that it becomes vivid ...the story then happens to the readers."

John J. Keller, The Wall Street Journal
"How do you meet a deadline?
"Pray!" John J. Keller said.
Keller, a news editor for The Wall Street Journal, received the Jesse Laventhol prize for deadline reporting by an individual. Keller won with numerous exclusives about AT&T's executive shake-up.
"Preparation is everything. The trick is to know when to cut loose and start writing when you make sure you have enough," Keller said. "It's about asking the right question, getting the story in and producing the full story."
Keller was able to turn in a front-page story about the resignation of AT&T's president in less than two hours. Later, he filed many other stories about AT&T in similiar deadline situations.
"I have covered the telecommunications industry for the last 14 1/2 years and have followed AT&T since its breakup," Keller said. "It was one of the seminal events in history, a great place to report."
In covering business, Keller said he educates his readers and makes sure that his articles are not too technical. "I wrote so that the reader can come away with something."

Team from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
In the Laventhol reporting competition, the prize for deadline reporting went to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for its coverage of a Ku Klux Klan rally held in downtown Pittsburgh and the counter demonstrations.

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