Below are comments made by Publisher Ricky Mathews and Executive Editor Stan Tiner regarding the Pulitzer Prize gold medal for service journalism awarded to the Sun Herald on Monday:
Ricky Mathews comments:
The following are comments made by Ricky Mathews, publisher of the Sun Herald, following the announcement that the Sun Herald won a Pulitzer Prize gold medal for service journalism:
"It's been a hell of a journey, you guys, and this is the ultimate honor.
Most of the employees see when they come here a videotape that says you are the Sun Herald. What that means to all of us is that the newspaper ultimately and the employees who work here are a reflection of the community. We do a great job when people who are reading our paper see themselves in our newspaper.
They have done so in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
There couldn't be a better honor than to know that and to be recognized by some of the best newspaper people in the country for saying that we have been a reflection of our community: the pain, the joy, the unbelievable agony and everything that comes with that. We will, as Stan pointed out, arise from this terrible situation."
"I said to the group this morning if we were to win this, I think our best journalism is still ahead of us because this Sun Herald is in a community that has never been in the situation that we're in right now. We're in no man's land. Economically, we're going to be OK. Socially, we're going to have some big challenges ahead of us.
The newspaper's role in making sure that all the people of South Mississippi move forward, I think will be on us for many years to come. That delights me to know that this newspaper is that engaged in the process.
Thank you, all of you, and congratulations for your leadership in all the newsroom. Let's accept this honor with absolute humility and in appreciation."
Stan Tiner's comments
If I could turn back time and somehow remove August 29, 2005, from history and take away all of the enormous pain and loss suffered across our beautiful Coast I would do so. But I cannot.
So I look back across the fog and chasm of the months since and I remember not just the death and devastation, but also the courage and the spirit, the love and the hope, and the many, many helping hands that pulled us from the rubble to begin the journey to a future that we are traveling each day with sweat and dignity.
As soon as the great flood receded that epic story unfolded. Katrina had changed our lives forever but the Sun Herald's staff accepted their personal losses with grace and immediately began to tell South Mississippi's story to the world.
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