Family History in Journalism

My own connection to journalism has a little history to it, one that I have learned along the way. There is an award with my name on it, the Rockower Awards. Actually not my name but the name of my great-Grandfather Simon. The Simon Rockower Awards are the equivalent of the Pulitzer prize for Jewish Journalism. It is the award given by the American Jewish Press Association for excellence in Jewish journalism.

My other familial connection to journalism is my cousin Elsa Black and her husband Creed Black. Creed Black was the president and CEO of the Knight Foundation, and before that an editor, president and chairman for a number of other paper. Elsa was on the editorial board of the Philadelphia Inquirer. I asked Elsa and Creed to take a guest column on the blog about the good ol' days of the newspaper world. From Elsa:

"Anyway, Creed and I would be delighted to send some posts about journalism in the “olden days.” As a preview, I’ll tell you that when I left the newspaper business in late 1977, I still typed on a manual typewriter (we were just starting baby steps towards computerization) and copy went to the composing room via pneumatic tubes. Talk about life in the dinosaur age!! Anyway, as they used to write, “MTK”—“more to come."

Their post will appear later this semester.