Lee announces winners
of 2005 President's Awards
 
DAVENPORT, Iowa (Oct. 4, 2005) — Mary Junck, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Lee Enterprises (NYSE: LEE), announced today the winners of 2005 Lee President's Awards for News, Innovation and Lee Spirit.

Individuals and teams who won the 11 awards will be honored, along with finalists for Enterprise of the Year, at a recognition dinner Nov. 15 in Chicago. The awards carry cash prizes totaling $60,000.

"These are the highest awards in our company, representing the very best of outstanding work we do every day for the benefit of readers and advertisers," Junck said. "With Lee's growth this past year, we expanded the number of awards, but our teams of outside judges still had a difficult time narrowing down the large field. In celebrating these winners, we also honor our many other worthy nominees."

EXCELLENCE IN NEWS

The news award recognizes outstanding achievement in any aspect of journalism, from reporting and writing to photography, graphics and design.

The judges selected five sets of winners:

• Marc Chase and the staff of The Times of Northwest Indiana, based in Munster, for an investigative reporting project that took a powerful look at workplace safety, and the lack of it. The three-day series revealed a pattern of violations of safety standards, lax regulations and minimum fines, resulting in a human toll of 239 dead and 304 injured in the region over 30 years. This is Marc's second President's Award. He won in 2002 while at the Quad-City Times in Davenport, Iowa.
    
• Michael Marizco and Kelly Presnell of the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson for a series titled "Smuggling Children," about how Mexican children are smuggled into the United States to be reunited with a parent who is here illegally. Sometimes, the children are intercepted by kidnappers demanding ransom. Despite great difficulty, reporter Marizco and photographer Presnell reported on and showed real people, using real names. The series also has already received several national and state awards.
     
      
• The Wisconsin State Journal in Madison, where a team of reporters, editors, photographers, artists and designers produced a compelling six-part series that examined the state's prison system and corrections policies. What emerged was a picture of a justice system so pre-occupied with punishment that many had lost sight of their first obligation: To make citizens safer. Instead of helping prepare inmates for a return to society, the system has done little more than warehouse 21,000 prisoners, half of whom will re-offend after they are released. Phil Brinkman led the project. Others on the team were David Dombrowski, Phil Glende, Tim Kelley, Pat Reardon, Craig Schreiner, Laura Sparks and Jonathan Utz. This is the Wisconsin State Journal's fourth President's Award for news over the last six years — all for outstanding investigative reporting.
     
• The newsroom staff of the Missoulian in Missoula, Montana, for immensely popular weekly feature-story obituaries of everyday people. "Western Montana Lives" is written so well and displayed so prominently that the feature stands far above similar efforts at other newspapers across the country. The citation says, in part: "In the talented hands of Missoulian reporters, the life stories of our communities become little novels full of all the funny, sad and sometimes unbelievable twists that make up all of our life stories."
     
• A 12-member team at the Quad-City Times in Davenport and the Iowa Des Moines bureau, for "Getting By, Getting Lost," a provocative series about the working poor — and ways to help break the cycle. Team members were John Humenik, Jan Touney, Ann McGlynn, Dan Gearino, Charlotte Eby, Todd Dorman, Tory Brecht, Derek Anderson, Jeff Cook, Larry Fisher, John Schultz and James Gale. Although the Quad-City Times version received the award, this was a statewide project, and similar stories also appeared in Lee's other Iowa newspapers.

Each set of winners will receive $5,000, a plaque and individual crystal engravings.

The judges awarded honorable mentions to:

• Lincoln Journal Star in Lincoln, Neb., for "Standing at the Crossroads," a special report on Whiteclay, a town on the border of Nebraska and South Dakota with a population of 14 and where 11,000 cans of beer are sold each day, adding to the alcohol plight of the Lakota people.
     
• St. Louis Post-Dispatch, for "Madison County: Where Asbestos Rules," exposing a proliferation of injury claims in a corruption of the justice system.
     
• Napa Valley Register in Napa, Calif., for reporting how the majority of Napa Valley restaurants failed to meet state standards for public notification of restaurant health and safety reports.
     
• North County Times in Oceanside/Escondido, Calif., for "The Road to College," a year-long project to help young people begin preparing early.
     
• Santa Maria Times in Santa Maria, Calif., for remarkable coverage of Michael Jackson's trial.

Judges for the Excellence in News category were Richard Cole, dean of the school of journalism and mass communications at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Brant Houston, executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors; and Melanie Sill, editor of The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C.

INNOVATION

The innovation award recognizes an individual or team for creating or significantly advancing a new idea, product or process that drives revenue, builds readership or serves customers better.

Judges for the innovation category were Barbara Cohen, president and founder of Kannon Consulting; Herbert W. Moloney III, publisher of The Examiner in Washington, D.C.; and Mary Alice Shaver, director of the Nicholson School of Communication at the University of Central Florida.

They selected five sets of winners:

• Andrea Walczak of The Times of Northwest Indiana. From candy pills to healthy food to National Doctors' Day postcards, she used innovation to tap the under-sold health care category, with a pocket-size regional health guide, a new weekly health section and a "code blue" in-paper and online advertising program. The program has brought new revenue totaling more than $100,000 at the Times, and other newspapers in Lee are planning to follow suit.
    
  
• A 10-member "Day in the Life" team at the Elko Daily Free Press in Elko, Nev., for creating a powerful campaign that touches nearly every Lee priority. It's an ongoing series of feature stories about ordinary people, and its popularity has strengthened the bond between the newspaper and the community, leading to increased circulation. The newspaper has donated $10,000 of advertising revenue from the program to the American Red Cross. Team members are Ross Andreson, Mike Christensen, Adella Harding, Martin Harris, Marianne Kobak, Mike Magney, Tom Martin, Jeff Mullins, Shelli Stumpp and publisher Rhonda Zuraff. The citation says, in part: "Even small news departments with limited resources can rise to the top and produce such first-class work." The Elko Daily Free Press has circulation of 6,100.
     
• Ryan Bouc and Steve Thomas of the Lincoln Journal Star in Lincoln, Neb., for creating and advancing a new process for Hispanic publications — Hispanos Unidos — that drives revenue, identifies underserved readers and promotes cooperation among Lee papers. By centralizing core resources such as translators, bilingual editors and page designers, Lee is able to produce localized Hispanos Unidos editions in Lincoln, Columbus, Omaha, Sioux City, Muscatine and Twin Falls. And that list is sure to grow. Bouc is general manager of Hispanos Unidos, and Thomas is managing editor of the Lincoln Journal Star.
     
• The Circulation/Marketing Department of The Daily Herald in Provo, Utah, for its Savvy Shopper program. Every week, Rebecca Pickett writes a print and online column full of tidbits aimed at saving readers money by shopping smart and using Daily Herald coupons. Since it began in March, the Savvy Shopper program is credited with attracting 700 new subscribers, increasing Sunday single-copy sales by 400 units and improving overall subscriber retention by 2 percentage points. It has also strengthened relationships with grocers and generated new revenue through sponsorship advertising. Karl Wurzbach created the program. Others on the team are David Bake and Bryan Smith.
     
• The St. Louis Best Bridal team at the Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis. Members include Sherry Anders, Van Avanzado, Chris Culbertson, Mike Giger, Stephanie Louvier, Jamie McClelland, Karen McKay, Bob Meyer, Chris Ortwerth, Laura Pauley, Marcie Schnell, Alyssa Stahr, Dorothy Vogel and Mary Ann Wagner. The program begins with aggressive publication of engagement and wedding announcements, which has helped build readership of the weekly newspapers. That information is then parlayed into a multi-platform advertising program unlike any other. St. Louis Best Bridal has won other awards, including first place in the Suburban Newspaper Association's Advertising and Promotions Contest.
  

Winners will receive $5,000, a plaque and individual crystal engravings.

The judges awarded three honorable mentions:

• Quad-City Times in Davenport, Iowa, for creating a separate, high-impact edition for sale at newsstands.
     
• The Courier in Waterloo, Iowa, for creativity in online development.
     
• Santa Maria Times and The Lompoc Record in California for use of color in a redesign of their classified advertising sections.

LEE SPIRIT

The Lee Spirit Award recognizes outstanding citizenship and personal commitment to the community and Lee.

The 2005 Spirit winner is David Fitzsimmons of the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson. He's a prolific, award-winning editorial cartoonist who supports the newspaper at every turn and puts to work his enormous talents for every worthy cause that comes knocking. In the past year, he made 118 personal appearances, before crowds as small as two dozen and as large as 1,500, inspiring young people, entertaining senior citizens and helping raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for good causes. As for his cartoons, he's enormously popular and one of the most productive in the business, producing six a week as well as a Sunday Opinion strip and a weekly local-culture cartoon for an entertainment section. He has been honored by the Arizona Press Club as the state's top editorial cartoonist three years in a row, and the mayor calls him the conscience of the community.

Photos and more information about the Lee President's Awards are available at www.lee.net.

Lee Enterprises owns 52 daily newspapers and a joint interest in six others. Lee also operates associated online services and more than 300 weekly newspapers, shoppers and classified and specialty publications. Lee is based in Davenport, Iowa, and its stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol LEE. For more information about Lee Enterprises, please visit www.lee.net.