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Introduction
Leadership is not professional. It's personal. A great editor is in your face and in your life. You are terrified of him, and you love him.
-- Tom Oliphant on Tom Winship
At its annual convention in April, 2001, the American Society of Newspaper Editors paid tribute to some of its greatest modern leaders, honoring them with short "Leadership Moments" sprinkled for inspiration throughout the three-day program.
Courage was a universal theme of the testimonials, from Katharine Graham's
jaw-tightened determination to rise above a crippling union strike,
to Punch Sulzberger's boldly historic decision to publish the Pentagon
Papers and Bob Maynard's passionate resolve to use diversity to
save a deeply troubled newspaper. 
Courage, too, powering the many editors who lead their newsrooms and communities during the Civil Rights turbulence in the 1960s. Editors such as Ira Harkey, Jr. who, Gene Roberts recalled, "became a pariah in his town" by supporting desegration at the University of Mississippi. "A bullet pierced the door of his newspaper; a shotgun blasted out a window of his home; a cross was burned on his lawn, but Harkey said in an editorial, 'Ah Autumn. Falling leaves, the smell of burning crosses.' "
Great editors. Great leaders. Courageous men and women who, as John
Carroll said about Creed Black, understood that "people don’t buy
newspapers because the newspaper coddles them or because it seeks
their permission before it runs a story, or because it panders to
their prejudices. They buy it because it tells them important things
without flinching, or shading the truth."
ASNE is proud to present these written and audio transcripts of the 2001 Leadership Moments in honor of some of our craft's, and nation's, greatest leaders.
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