The Western Producer has a news editor. Make that a new news editor.
Terry Fries has been listed on the staff roster in recent months as “acting news editor” which, as one wag quipped, meant he had all of the work and none of the authority.
We’ve cleverly removed the “acting” from the title, and Terry can have new business cards printed forthwith. Oh yes, and the authority too.
The Producer hired Terry as copy editor five years ago, when he was working for the Cranbrook Daily Townsman. The job brought him back to his home province, where he also once worked at Yorkton This Week and Enterprise. He obtained his journalism degree from the University of Regina.
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We first put Terry to work stamping out the nouning of verbs and the verbing of nouns, and kept him busy separating the proverbial wheat from the proverbial chaff. He’ll still be doing some of that as news editor, but he takes on a myriad of other duties related to story selection and newspaper production. Call him with story ideas, because that’s part of his job too.
There are a few other announcements. The Canadian Farm Writers Federation held its annual convention last week in Sainte-Adele, Que., and announced the winners in the annual farm press awards competition.
Editor Elaine Shein found space in her luggage for six Western Producer awards won by six different staffers.
Assistant news editor Bruce Dyck won the gold award in weekly press reporting for a story on a farm machinery co-op and Saskatoon reporter Ed White won the silver award in the same category, for a report entitled “Laboring for change.”
Special reports editor Barry Wilson won the silver award in the weekly press column category for his piece, “Reform party stumbles into cleverly laid Liberal trap.”
Winnipeg bureau reporter Roberta Rampton won the bronze award for press feature, for a special report on supply management, and Farming magazine editor Bill Strautman won the silver award in monthly press reporting, for a story on trucking wheat to Thunder Bay. I won the gold award for weekly press editorial for a piece titled “Board directors will earn their keep.”
Such recognition from our peers in the agricultural news business is gratifying. Farm writers federation members know all about the challenges and the effort involved in agricultural reporting.
