Archive Past Programs

FROM OUR ARCHIVE: PAST
PROGRAMS

TO GIVE YOU A FURTHER IDEA OF WHAT OUR MUSEUM IS ABOUT, HERE ARE
DESCRIPTIONS OF OUR MOST RECENT ANNUAL PROGRAMS:

“Polarization in Ohio: Bridging the Divide”

Ohio’s Braver Angels and USA TODAY Ohio Network
partner to “help citizens unite Ohio”

Year 2021

2019

Join us at our annual program co- - sponsored by the Columbus- - based chapter of the Society of Professional
Journalists : A longtime Boston Globe reporter and editor tells of:f hundreds of U.S. and foreign newspapers he curated during his career, papers that recorded the first draft of a generation of the history of our nation and the world. He also introduces his significant gift to our Museum,

“A Life’s Journey in Daily Journalism”
The Tom Palmer Collection
7:15 p.m. Thur., Sept. 5, 2019, 1st Baptist Church, Fredericktown, Ohio

Boston Globe veteran Tom Palmer will share highlights of his 32 years as a reporter and editor at the Globe and a few from earlier at the Topeka Capital-Journal, Orange Coast Daily Pilot and Los Angeles Times. He was in Berlin when The Wall fell, covered the Iran-Contra Hearings and the aftermath of the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster, hid from men with guns in Africa and Haiti, and wielded the power of the First Amendment with an emphasis on fairness and telling the whole story. Join him, in words and pictures, on his journey.

On the day of the program, the Museum, a block north of the village’s Public Square, will be open for tours and letterpress printing demonstrations from 6 to 7 p.m. and after the program, from 8:30 to 10. The church hosting the program is around the block from the Museum at 22 E. Sandusky St., a block east of the Public Square. The tours, demonstrations and program are free and open to the public.

Speaker: John C. Long, Director of The Main Street Free Press Museum, he has taught journalism at St. John’s and Hofstra universities in and near New York City, where he lives, for the past seven years. He was an editor at The Wall Street Journal for 10 years and for 30 years before that was a writer, editor, executive and ombudsman for The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, for 30 years. He shared in a staff Pulitzer Prize at each paper. He was a reporter for The Columbus Dispatch while earning his journalism degree at Ohio Wesleyan University. He also edited Fredericktown’s weekly newspaper, the Knox County Citizen, with his father, who was a member of the Central Ohio Pro Society of Professional Journalists chapter for 48 years. John Long, in his 47th year in SPJ, is a member of both Central Ohio Pro and SPJ’s New York chapter, of which is past President and currently President of the Deadline Club Foundation, the chapter’s fund-raising arm. He is also past President of the Louisville chapter. Earlier, he served five years on the founding staff of the Peace Corps in Washington, D.C.

Contact: 105 E. 38th St., Apt. 5A, New York, NY 10016-2634; phone or text 917-693-7664; John.Long.FHS@gmail.com

2017

“TRUST IN THE PRESS:
Where did it go? How to get it back?”

Members of the public are invited to join this discussion, led by two veteran journalists, of a subject central to the operation of our democracy. Bruce Cadwallader worked for 30 years on four Ohio newspapers and views the issue not only from an inside-the-newsroom perspective, but also from outside, thanks to his later experience in public relations and as a public servant. Cadwallader is now Community Outreach Director for Franklin County Children’s Services in Columbus. He is a former national board member and regional director of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), the nation’s oldest journalism professional organization, and former president and currently a vice president of SPJ’s Central Ohio chapter. The other discussion leader, John C. Long, directs the Museum, teaches journalism at St. John’s and Hofstra universities in and near New York City and worked for more than 40 years at The Courier-Journal in Louisville and The Wall Street Journal, and earlier at The Columbus Dispatch and Fredericktown’s weekly newspaper, the Knox County Citizen. He is a former president of SPJ’s Louisville and New York chapters and serves on the latter’s board.

2016

“Challenges and Opportunities of Student Journalism”

Student journalism isn’t mere academic exercise. It’s as real as the journalism on the front page of The New York Times or The Columbus Dispatch or on the evening network TV news. And sometimes it’s even more challenging. What special challenges do high school journalists face? How does the journalistic playing field at private universities differ from that at public universities?

Get the answers to those and other questions — and bring some of your own — from a panel whose members have served for many years on the front lines of these issues:

Karen Allen, journalism and English teacher at Centerburg, Ohio, High School, adviser of the school’s award-winning student newspaper, The Trojan Crier, and co-adviser of the Student Board of the Ohio Scholastic Press Association, of which she is a board member.

Spencer Hunt, faculty editorial adviser of The Lantern, the storied student newspaper of Ohio State University.

Dr. Paul E. Kostyu, chair of the Department of Journalism at Ohio Wesleyan University and adviser of The Ohio Wesleyan Transcript, the nation’s oldest independent student newspaper.

John C. Long (moderator), who teaches journalism at St. John’s and Hofstra universities in New York after more than 40 years on daily newspapers (The Dispatch, The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, and The Wall Street Journal) and who directs the Museum.

2015

“What Happens When a Town Loses Its Newspaper –
Your Town and Your Newspaper?”

This year’s Museum program hits close to home. The building that is now the Museum formerly housed Fredericktown’s weekly newspaper, the Knox County Citizen, which was published there for 35 years by Rarick W. Long, who was a co-founder of the Museum in 2000. The Knox County Citizen continued to be published, under several owners and in several other locations in Fredericktown, after Mr. Long sold it in 1977 – until February of this year, when it was folded by its latest owner, Civitas Media LLC. Fredericktown had traced its weekly newspaper to 1845, and now it was gone. But the Citizen Editor Penny Smith and photojournalist Jason Bostic were determined to keep Fredericktown informed by founding a news website, TheFredericktownCitizen.com, reviving the name of the Fredericktown paper during the 1920s and ’30s, before it was renamed the Knox County Citizen.

Penny Smith and Jason Bostic, co-owners of The Fredericktown Citizen LLC, will talk about their adventure in keeping community journalism alive in Fredericktown. Museum Director John C. Long, who teaches journalism at St. John’s and Hofstra universities in the New York area, will moderate and provide background on how community newspapers elsewhere are dealing with similar developments.