Steve and Mimi’s holiday letter: 2016 was an outstanding year

2016 has been an outstanding year for Mimi and me.

We’ve had our disappointments, and they may be our biggest news of the year. We’ll get to them in due time.

But we regard this as an outstanding year for a whole lot of reasons. (We’re talking about the personal level here, setting aside the train wreck that was the 2016 election.) And we’re not going to let those disappointments get in the way of celebrating 2016 as it draws to a close. Some great things that happened this year:

Madeline and Julia enjoyed an Easter egg hunt in our home.

Our granddaughters, Julia and Madeline, visited us along with their parents for Easter (we have a ceramic pitcher on a shelf still with a pink plastic egg resting in its head, remaining from the Easter fun; Granny and Gramps found it a few weeks after Easter and leave it there just for the smiles it brings). We visited Mike, Susie and the girls (and Joe and Kim visiting from Las Vegas) in the Twin Cities in early August, right after our 42^nd wedding anniversary. Then Julia and Madeline came with their parents for another visit in early December. And we’ll be visiting them again for Christmas. What could be better than four visits with the granddaughters in a year? (Well, five, but four visits make for an outstanding year.)

Mike, left, me, Joe and Tom at Kaufmann Stadium in June.

We had more than 10 visits with one, two or all three of our sons. The boys and I met in Kansas City for a weekend of baseball and barbecue in June (and I managed to see both of my brothers, Mom and some friends on that trip). Mimi and I went to Washington for Thanksgiving with Tom and Ashley, with Joe and Kim joining the fun again from Vegas. And earlier in November, Tom and Ashley came down to Lexington, Va., to join me for a weekend with niece Kate and Mark Prylow and their children, when I was speaking at Washington and Lee University. Plus we had solo visits (including Joe and Kim surprising me with a visit in Baton Rouge for my birthday and Mike taking me to my first New Orleans Saints game).

We had more family visits this year, too: Mimi visited her sister, Carol, in Jacksonville, Fla., and my brother, Dan, visited us last week in Baton Rouge. My travels (more on that later) allowed me to squeeze in dinners with three of Mimi’s siblings and others family members in Iowa, Florida and Ohio. And more family visits are coming in January: my sister, Carol, and her family, and all four of Mimi’s siblings with their spouses.

#OJA16 2016 Rich Jaroslovsky Award goes to @stevebuttry pic.twitter.com/vqDEkMNKD6

— ONA Newsroom (@ONANewsroom) September 18, 2016

Professionally, this was a wonderful year for me. The Online News Association surprised me at its awards dinner in Denver with the Rich Jaroslovsky Founder Award. Friend Jim Brady (who was in on the surprise) was waiting at the next table and caught the moment on video. If you want to watch me blubbering my ­gratitude, go to the 50-minute mark on the video of the Online Journalism Awards. I’ll repeat more succinctly here my profound thanks to the ONA board for this career highlight. In reading about the award later, I learned that my friend Dori Maynard won the award posthumously in 2015. I am delighted to have my name associated with Dori’s and Rich’s in this way.

And just last week, I learned of another honor: I will receive the Chairman’s Citation at the National Press Foundation awards dinner in February in Washington. Chairman Kevin Goldberg chose me for the award. Again, I am deeply grateful, both for the award and for the kind praise from many after it was announced.

I know of nobody more than @stevebuttry who has carried the flame of journalistic innovation more effectively or more generously. https://t.co/MhmVSuBKxO

— (((Mark Loundy))) (@MarkLoundy) December 17, 2016

Another professional delight­ came in feedback from a source about a story I wrote in 1996. The source, Bridget Hegarty, actually provided the feedback in 2015, through a Facebook message on Christmas Eve, when I was still hospitalized, recovering from my stem-cell transplant. She told me that my story “helped give what happened to me a voice. It was a voice that I can now use, and do use every day of my life. You gave my voice confidence and reassurance when I thought that part of me was gone forever.” That was as strong an affirmation of my work as a journalist as I have ever received from a source. I include it in the 2016 highlights because I went back to Omaha in February for a follow-up interview and wrote a story about the experience for the Columbia Journalism Review. And Bridget gave me a shout-out last week at her graduation from nursing school.

The blanket Patricia Maris gave me.

Another touching experience relating to feedback on my writing came in October, when I received a gift from Pat Maris, the widow of Roger Maris. I have written repeatedly for years about why Maris belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame. And this fall, I learned that a grandson of Maris is in a colleague’s writing class at LSU. I shared some links to my blog posts with the grandson, and he shared them with his grandmother. And she sent me a blanket from Maris’ celebrity golf tournament. Of course, I blogged about it.

Still another highlight of the year was when Brian Duffy, my former Des Moines Register colleague and favorite editorial cartoonist, drew me for my birthday, based on my Heisenberg Twitter avatar. It has become my social media avatar and the original hangs on our dining room wall.

I didn’t blog as much as usual this year, because I’ve been writing letters to our sons. But my post on the newspaper industry’s defensive digital strategy created a bit of a ripple, drawing attention from the Poynter Institute, Carrie Brown-Smith, Guy Lucas, Dan Kennedy, Dan Rowinski, Tom Grubisch, Lee Procida and lots of journalists on social media. I wrote a few other posts of note during the year, wondering for The Hill about Hillary Clinton’s birthday wish list (we share a birthday) and sharing tips for localizing national and world news for the National Press Foundation.

One of my favorite writing projects for the year was a LifePost timeline about my father, Luke Buttry, who died in 1978. The project was an effort to share Dad’s story with the many grandchildren who have no memories of him (and provide a refresher for those of us with fond memories). My great-nephew (and Dad’s great-grandson) Keaton Poulter died in February at age 7, and I memorialized his short life in a Lifepost, too.

Mimi had a productive year in writing and with the needle. She got a good freelance gig for much of the year, writing questions for the weekly news quiz that was part of Reuters’ White House Run app. She also continued the needlepoint hobby that helped her get through a trying 2015. Her “Expert sailors aren’t made on calm seas” hangs above my desk.

2016 was a good year at LSU’s Student Media, too. Student initiatives helped lead us further and faster toward a digital-first operation than I could possibly have led our students on my own. Students proposed combining our print, TV and digital operations into a single newsroom this fall and switching from a daily newspaper to a 32-page weekly, with a ramped-up digital newsroom, in the coming spring semester. The students are making great progress and plans, and we’re excited about the spring semester.

I also collaborated in the planning and presentation of Just the Facts, an American Press Institute fact-checking boot camp at LSU. In a year when facts seemed to matter so little in the presidential election, I was pleased to be swimming against the tide, exhorting journalists to check the facts and call BS on politicians and others in power. And, as an old API hand, I enjoyed collaborating with the current version of that important organization.

Chemotherapy curtailed all of my travel in 2015, except for Tom’s wedding and some Louisiana day trips. But I was free to travel extensively in 2016, free from chemo for part of the year and later taking chemo that didn’t make me as vulnerable to infections as my 2015 drugs. So I traveled. I was a keynote speaker at the Future of Student Media Summit at Ohio University in April and an ethics fellow at the 62^nd Journalism Ethics Institute at Washington and Lee University in November. I spoke on panels or simply attended journalism conferences in New Orleans, Gainesville, Fla., Oklahoma City, Philadelphia and Minneapolis, in addition to ONA. I returned to TCU, my alma mater, in a faculty exchange with Steve Myers, who spoke at LSU. I flew to St. Petersburg, Fla., to lead a day of workshops for The Penny Hoarder.

A great benefit of the travel was that I had breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks or just hallway conversations with dozens, if not hundreds, of new and old friends at the various conferences and other travels. I won’t try to name you all here (because of the certainties that I’d overlook some and that I’d bore everyone not listed). But those conversations and hugs raised my spirits again and again throughout the year. I am more grateful than I can say for my many friends and the support you have provided.

A year packed with that much joy is a terrific year, even if some heartbreak came along, too.

My two visits of the year to Mom in Kansas City were difficult. Alzheimer’s has taken not only her memory, but most of her awareness of life around her. When I visited in February, she didn’t even know I was family. Four visits over two days in June showed her in a different mental state each time, never recognizing me but a couple of times understanding that family members were visiting. She still enjoys music, even if she can no longer sing lyrics. One special moment of recognition involving my brother Don showed us that occasionally some understanding cuts through her mental fog. My older brother, Dan, visited in December for her 90^th birthday and reports that on a few occasions she seemed to understand and appreciate that her Cubs finally won the World Series this year.

Again, cancer brought the year’s greatest heartbreaks.

Mimi and I enjoyed dinner in Denver with Meg and Dave.

We wept over the breast cancer diagnosis of our niece and goddaughter, Meg Winter. Mimi and I were honored to preside at Meg’s wedding to Dave Winter in Colorado in 2012. Her diagnosis came shortly before ONA this year, so we were able to share hugs and dinner in Denver in September. Meg is enduring the ups and downs of chemo now, and we wish we could be there to continue supporting her in person.

And, as you may know, I had another major cancer diagnosis myself in July. This pancreatic cancer is unrelated to either of my earlier major cancers, colon cancer in 1999 and mantle-cell lymphoma in 2014-15. An edited version of my blog post about Cancer 3.0 ran on the health-care site STAT. After a few months of chemotherapy, we learned in November that the tumor is chemo-resistant. It’s growing and has spread to my liver. When I decided to stop treatment, my friend, Matt DeRienzo wrote a nice post about the Tao of Steve Buttry. I’ve been honored by lots of kind comments from friends, family and other journalists throughout my struggles with these diseases.

Cancer treatment (and the end of treatment) are tougher on a spouse than on a patient, and Mimi has been a powerful source of support and comfort through this all. Whatever lies ahead, we’re facing it together and I have the help I need. We’ve exhausted the treatment possibilities, so now I’ll just enjoy as much life as I have left, savoring every day, even the tough ones. Because I’ve seen this year that a lot of wonderful things happen even in tough times.

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Front-page editorial cartoons: a good idea and a grand tradition

I have never shared the view that a newspaper’s front page needed to be a sacrosanct opinion-free zone.

The New York Times published a front-page editorial about gun violence today, and I blogged separately about that.

As I wrote that post, my mind quickly turned to the Des Moines Register’s wonderful run of cartoonists who produced editorial cartoons running regularly for Page One. This started out as a section of that post, but I quickly decided it was worth a separate post.

I worked a decade (in two hitches, 1977-85 and 1998-2000) for the Register. During both stretches, and for decades before I showed up and eight years I left, the Register published page-one editorial cartoons by three of the greatest artists in journalism history: Pulitzer Prize-winners Ding Darling and Frank Miller, as well as Brian Duffy (who should have a couple of Pulitzers).

I’d like to see a newspaper today revive the front-page editorial cartoon (with digital animated and/or interactive versions). Innovation doesn’t have to be a tug-of-war between invention and tradition. It can mean updating and adapting the best parts of your heritage. Editorial cartoons, particularly at the Register, are a piece of newspaper heritage worth updating and adapting.

Brief reflections on each of the great Register cartoonists:

Brian Duffy

The reason why all of @realDonaldTrump suits come with two pairs of pants.#iacaucus #pantsonfire #DonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/XzAXJPuLTK

— Brian Duffy (@duffyink) December 2, 2015

Duffy is a model for innovation and perseverance as a cartoonist.

I was disgusted in 2008 when the Register cut Duffy’s job after 25 years, losing an important voice and a valuable distinction for one of my favorite papers. I was editor of the Cedar Rapids Gazette, and Duffy produced some cartoons for us, one of his first steps in establishing what is now a statewide network of media customers. We explored the possibility of a deeper arrangement with the Gazette, but I left in 2010 without being able to work that out.

He also draws national cartoons for King Features, local cartoons for the weekly Cityview newspaper and draws live cartoons on a Thursday morning television spot on KCW123 Great Day. An avid cyclist, he draws monthly cartoons for Momentum Magazine. Duffy published another book of his cartoons this year.

I asked Duffy this morning for an update and some cartoons to use. The cartoons he sent, from 1994 and 1999, illustrate how persistent the gun violence issue in our nation is and how long Congress has been under control of the National Rifle Association:

Duffy has been lampooning the Iowa Caucuses since 1984:

Like Miller and Darling before him, Duffy frequently addresses issues in Iowa agriculture.

As you’ll see shortly, Miller was the master of the obituary cartoon, a form in which Duffy also excels:

Frank Miller

One of the regrets of my career is that I was too shy as a young journalist at the Register to ask Miller, a fellow Yankee fan, for the original of a cartoon he drew (alas, for the sports section, not the front page) to accompany a sports commentary that I wrote.

One of the most-heartbreaking stories of my early career was editing Miller’s obituary, masterfully written by Ken Fuson.

Miller won the 1963 Pulitzer Prize for a cartoon on nuclear war:

No one was better at the obituary cartoon:

I wasn’t able to quickly find another of Miller’s obituary cartoons in the excellent Iowa Digital Library collection of his work, but will add one if I find another.

In an earlier post, I used these Miller cartoons about Richard Nixon:

I liked Miller’s tribute to the Des Moines Tribune, which died in 1982, a year before Miller did:

Occasionally a huge breaking story would chase an editorial cartoon off the front page, but the Page One cartoon was such a Register institution that Miller held his place on the cover on a day with two historic stories:

Ding Darling

Darling was before my time, but launched the tradition of cartooning excellence on the Register’s front page, winning Pulitzers in 1924 and 1943.

This cartoon won Darling the 1924 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning.

This cartoon, with the caption, “What a Place For a Waste Paper Salvage Campaign,” won the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning.

In addition to his cartoons, Darling is perhaps best known as a champion of conservation. The J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge at Sanibel Island, Fla., is named for the activist cartoonist who led efforts to protect the area from development.

Which editorial cartoonists are updating?

If you know someone who’s using editorial cartoons on Page One or updating cartoons successfully for the digital age, please share images or links. Editorial cartoons are a rich part of journalism tradition. I hope they are an important part of our future, too.

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Some other editors of the year (or any year)

I can be a bit of a scold to colleagues, exhorting editors to move more boldly and swiftly into the future.

As an industry, newspapers have been slow and clumsy at innovation. But a lot of editors do outstanding, innovative journalism (as well as outstanding traditional journalism) and I would like to recognize some of them. I was honored today by Editor & Publisher, named Editor of the Year. As I explain in a separate post, I was surprised by the honor, not out of false humility but because I truly am no longer an editor.

While I am honored by this recognition, I do want to make the point that many editors are deserving of such recognition. Dozens, if not hundreds, of editors serve their communities honorably, elevate the journalism of their staffs and pursue innovative solutions, even in these trying times.

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Optimism during a tough week for my business

This has been a tumultuous month for the newspaper industry, stumbling toward the finish line of a traumatic year. And it’s been a great week for The Gazette.
WGN, the broadcast flagship of the mighty Tribune Company media empire, took its call letters from the longtime boast in the Chicago Tribune masthead: “World’s Greatest Newspaper.” Last week Tribune filed for bankruptcy.
Gannett Co., the largest newspaper group in the country, cut 10 percent of its jobs. That pushed the nationwide total of jobs lost in the newspaper industry this year above 15,000, according to Paper Cuts, a site that keeps track.
Iowa’s Gannett casualties included the Des Moines Register’s outstanding cartoonist Brian Duffy. As editor of The Gazette, I am delighted that we have added him to our opinion pages in syndication. As a longtime Register reader and former colleague of Duffy at the Register, I am saddened to see the end of the front-page cartoons that became a Register distinction.
I brushed away tears some 25 years ago as I edited the 1983 obituary of Frank Miller, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist whose work graced the Register’s front pages for three decades following the tenure of Jay N. “Ding” Darling, winner of two Pulitzers. Many of us wondered then if the Register’s front-page cartoons – even then an anachronism, though much beloved by Iowans – would continue. But the Register hired Duffy, gave him the front-page slot and he lasted nearly as long as Miller. But the turmoil in the newspaper industry was more powerful than that quaint tradition.
The loss of a cartoonist paled, though, in comparison to the nationwide loss of billions of dollars in advertising revenues and in value of newspaper stocks.
Stock in Lee Enterprises, Davenport-based publisher of five Iowa newspapers and 48 other dailies, dropped last week to 35 cents a share. Within the past year Lee’s high was $15.97. That means the stock lost 98 percent of its value within the past year. Shocking as that is, Lee is faring better than a couple other newspaper companies, Gatehouse and Journal Register, and not much worse than McClatchy or Media General.
Even the powerful New York Times has lost nearly two-thirds of its stock value in the past year. As it struggles to restructure debt, it plans to mortgage its Manhattan headquarters and rumors swirl of a buyout by Google.
“Perfect storm” is a cliché that we have overused since that George Clooney movie made it popular. But the newspaper industry is facing a perfect storm of economic challenges: Print circulation has been falling for decades; online audience is growing but online advertising commands a tiny fraction of the rates of print ads; print advertising revenue dropped suddenly and sharply last year and even worse this year; and now the nation’s economy has plummeted into recession or worse. Even with all that, newspaper companies generally would have healthy operating profits. But those circumstances have made it difficult to impossible for many companies to handle their burdensome debt loads.

As companies like Lee, McClatchy and Gatehouse expanded in recent years, when advertising revenues were still rising, they bought at the top of the market, like lots of homeowners now facing foreclosure. As with banks, insurance companies and lots of overextended families, it is the debt that threatens these newspaper companies.

So why was this one of my most exciting, optimistic weeks in 37 years in the newspaper business? Not just because we’re doing better than other companies or just because our debt is manageable. If we were operating the same as other companies, we still might be heading the same direction.

This past week was exciting and optimistic because the Gazette staff did some outstanding journalism, looking back six months after our devastating flood. But we also looked ahead last week. Gazette executives spent lots of time planning a course that I think will secure a prosperous future for our company in face of all this turmoil. We are headed toward an organizational transformation unlike anything attempted in the news media. As we work out details, we will tell you about our plans. Chuck Peters, our CEO, is already blogging about the new mindset we need, the new tasks we must do and the new organization we will become.

Read his blog and mine. We’ll keep you updated on our plans. I hope it will be more uplifting than reading about what’s happening elsewhere in the news industry.

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