Byron Tate, editor of the Pine Bluff Commercial in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, placed second in the under 35,000 circulation category of the Editorials category of the Carmage Walls Commentary Prize competition.
Second-place includes a curved glass plaque and a cash prize of $1,000.
Tate said he had never entered the Carmage Walls contest before, but when he saw that it was using "courage" as one of the criteria, he decided this was the year to enter. Through hard-nosed reporting, he said the paper "pulled back the curtain on how lacking Go Forward has been in overseeing the tax money they were able to use. After that, the editorials rather wrote themselves!"
Go Forward Pine Bluff is a nonprofit that was created to move Pine Bluff in a positive direction. To do that, Byron said, they lobbied for and got passed a 5/8th-cent sales tax in 2017. The tax expired in September of this year. Consequently, he said Go Forward got the city council to put a renewal of the tax on the ballot last year — in a special election in May. He said, "Our newspaper did numerous stories — and numerous hard-hitting editorials — that highlighted the fact that the tax had not come close to fulfilling Go Forward's promises. The tax was defeated."
In submitting his entry, Tate said: "I believe we were largely responsible for that outcome. Go Forward tried again in November with the same result. Team Go Forward is populated by many of the heavy hitters in town — bankers, lawyers, hospital execs, business people — the monied class — and they were incensed that the newspaper wrote unflattering stories about Go Forward's wasteful spending and editorials urging no votes. Suddenly, ‘friends’ were not nearly so friendly. Letters were sent to the publisher calling for my ouster. More than one person told me ‘you should watch your back’ and one of them was a cop with 30-plus years on the force. Things got tense — and have remained thus. Even my wife was not immune. She runs a food pantry and some of the irked stopped supporting her work."
Three editorials were submitted as part of this entry:
Reject the evidence of your eyes and ears
This editorial focuses on the heavy-handed methods the Go Forward CEO used against one of the aginners.
Jimmy Cunningham is dancing yet again
This editorial is about a man who actually has a vetted plan to bring tourists to town but who continues to be stymied by Go Forward forces — because his plan is not their plan.
Go Forward PB, what's the rush?
This editorial looks at non-transparent method used to get the ballot items on the ballot.
Among the comments made by contest judges:
