Robert Rivard Awarded Unprecedented `Editor of the Year' by Editor & Publisher Trade Journal.

Business Editors

SAN ANTONIO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 11, 2000

Editor & Publisher, the trade journal for the newspaper industry, has named Robert Rivard of the San Antonio Express-News as its first editor of the year in its April 10 issue.

Initially announced via Editor & Publisher's Web site, the magazine has now set a precedent after 117 years of existence as the source of news for the newspaper industry, to honor an editorial icon.

The decision to reward one of the nation's top editors was made by a unanimous vote of the Editor & Publisher's upper editorial management. According to E&P Executive Editor Steve Yahn, there were three factors considered in bestowing the honor to Rivard: his leadership in dealing with the December 1998 disappearance and murder of Express-News Mexico correspondent Philip True; his "unselfish commitment to the long-term future of newspapers"; and the opinion and support of San Antonio civic leaders.

Rivard, 48, a newsman to the core, graduated from the University of Texas in San Antonio and began his career in 1977 as a sports reporter in Brownsville. He later switched from sports to news reporting after joining the Corpus Christi Caller in 1978. In 1979 Rivard joined one of the state's dominant newspapers, the Dallas Times Herald, where he persuaded his editors to send him to Central America to open a news bureau.

From San Jose, Costa Rica, he covered the news of wars and revolutions in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala. Because of his efforts to write of guerrilla insurgencies and military-backed death squads he was rewarded the Society of Professional Journalists' Distinguished Service Award for Foreign Correspondents.

In 1983, Rivard joined Newsweek as the magazine's Central American bureau chief in San Salvador. By 1986 he had become the newsweekly's chief of correspondents and a senior editor.

Rivard returned to Texas in 1990 as deputy managing editor of the San Antonio Light and later made the move to the Express-News when the city's two news dailies merged three years later. In 1997 he became editor. Additionally, Rivard is a director of the Inter-American Press Association where he judged for the 1999 Pulitzer Prize contest to be announced this month.

The Philip True incident has shown Rivard's character to be the true indicator of his worthiness as an E&P editor of the year. In December 1998, with word of True's demise, Rivard called Express-News general manager Tom Stephenson and publisher Larry Walker to organize a course of action to get to the bottom of the mystery in Mexico.

"Both Larry and I thought it was dangerous, but Bob was adamant that he should go to Mexico. He wasn't going to be able to live with himself if he didn't do everything that he could do," Stephenson said.

Rivard's leadership took him deep into the Sierra Madre mountains of Mexico to retrace True's solo hiking trip where he and others found True's body interred in a shallow grave in the very canyon where True was murdered by two suspects not yet brought to trial in Mexico.

"We would have never recovered Philip's body or known what happened had Bob not gone," Walker said. "He exemplified what news people from around the world would like an editor to be."

Rivard will return to Mexico in May to demand some answers from the governor and attorney general of Jalisco state concerning why, with a new judge, True's murderers have not come to trial. When told of E&P's additional article and coverage of True's disappearance and murder, Rivard said, "I am grateful that the case is being spotlighted."

Editor & Publisher (www.mediainfo.com) also cites in an editorial, "Rivard's demonstrated and unselfish commitment to the long-term future of newspapers when he turned a golden career opportunity -- editorship of the Miami Herald -- into an investment in new journalists, better staff pay and a bigger news hole."

Rivard said of the millions that Hearst has spent on computers and automation of the paper to keep him and his vision in San Antonio at the Express-News, "Hearst decided to invest in its people as well."

Central to his decision to stay with Hearst in San Antonio at the Express-News were their actions in behalf of Philip True's widow and son.

Rivard said, "Marta True is now in Brownsville, little Philip is a happy, healthy baby, and Hearst has secured the family's future. The corporation's concern for Philip's family was central to my decision to stay here."

On the future of his newspaper, Rivard, now a senior vice president, says, "The Express-News is not a great newspaper, but it has great days, and I think we're on our way."

Robert Rivard and his wife Monika Maeckle have two sons Nicolas and Alexander.

NOTE TO EDITORS: Photo available at www.newstream.com.