One final honor

Editorials will always make a difference

Jun 18, 2021

The Front Page

Morning Update

Saturday, June 19, 2021

By Ken Tingley

In the epilogue of my forthcoming book, I write about the urgency I felt at the start of 2020. As our resources in the newsroom dwindled, I struggled with when to retire. While I mulled the when, I found a renewed purpose and energy for the writing as our community and country deal with crisis after crisis.

After losing three staff members to a layoff that previous November, I took over the editorial writing full-time so Will Doolittle could focus on news stories and editing. I was writing three or four editorials a week and another three or four columns. There was no shortage of material. I believed I was at the top of my game as a writer and I didn’t want to leave anything on the table.

One of the last things I did before retiring in July was put together my column and editorial entries for the state contest. I had always handled the entries to the journalism contests and I knew it would be difficult for the staff to pick up the slack.

In March, almost a year after I had written my last editorial in The Post-Star, I got an email from my longtime colleague Will Dooolittle. He said he had just got done putting together my contest entries for the New York News Publishers Association contest.

“I was struck by how good they are and how much I miss your writing - the immediacy of it and the sincerity and humor,” Doolittle wrote.

Coming from such a great writer as Will, it meant a lot. The one thing you need to know about newsrooms is that compliments are not part of the daily equation. We just don’t go around telling each other how good we are.

The results of the publishers association contest were announced on June 1. As usual, The Post-Star did quite well with nine awards.

Bob Condon let me know that I had won the top award for editorials and columns. My entries came from the first three months of the year.

All but one of my entries - my farewell column - were written over the first three months of the year. It was nice to be recognized one final time, especially after all the awards banquets were canceled last year. It is also the perfect segway for what I hope is my next career in book publishing, a collection of my columns that will be published on July 30. Two of the columns honored by the publishers this year are also in the book.

I also think it is important to note the editorial writing entry. All five entries were written over a two-week period as the pandemic shut down our community and state. People were concerned. They were scared. The newspaper asked for answers.

It’s the important work that community newspapers did so well and struggle to do now.

My book publisher likes the stories in my columns. He believes there is a market beyond the city of Glens Falls. I think so, too, because ultimately it is story-telling about life.

I’m asking all you who read my column to give my book a vote of confidence with a vote on the “Something or Other Publishing” website. It will only take a minute. You just have to type in your email address on the link below.

Vote for Ken Tingley book

Keep in mind, you can also still read my commentary at this site. If you subscribe - it doesn’t cost anything - you will get each commentary in your email.

Thank you for your support now, and for your support all these years.