Blue Highways Journal

Gene Roberts, left, accepts the North Carolinian of the Year award from NCPA President Tim Dearman of Statesville Friday in Asheville. (Photo by Jock Lauterer)

Arguably the most decorated living Tar Heel journalist, the 75-year-old Roberts started small before becoming a national figure.

But even when he reached the top, he never turned into what my mama used to call “Mr. Big Britches,” — never forgetting or denigrating his humble Eastern North Carolina journalism origins; and that’s one of the many reasons why I honor him so.

To my great delight, I’m not the only one. The North Carolina Press Association named Roberts its 2008 “North Carolinian of the Year” at their annual summer convention in Asheville on Friday, July 18.
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June 24, 2008

State Port Pilot staffers assemble for a group portrait in their skylighted entrance atrium: clockwise, from front and lower step, Colin Campbell, writing intern from UNC-CH; Lisa Stites, staff writer; Jonathan Spiers, staff writer; Lee Hinnant, news editor; Ben Brown, staff writer; Suzi Drake, features editor; Ed Harper, editor and Hilary Snow, staff writer. Not pictured, Bret McCormick, sports editor, Jim Harper, photographer and Terry Pope, associate editor. (Photo by Jock Lauterer)

Maybe you’ve been reading about the buyouts, layoffs and shrinking news hole at McClatchy-owned papers and could use a dose of optimism.

To do that, you might want to take to the “blue highways,â€? where all-local community papers, including small dailies but especially independently owned weeklies, are holding their own, and then some.

For starters, I wish I could pack the whole glum bunch of professional media funeral mourners into my car and take them to the State Port Pilot of Southport.

The gold standard.

That’s what I call The State Port Pilot. This profitable, innovative, growing, family-owned broadsheet weekly consistently wins annual state press awards for news and advertising by the boatloads.

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