Josh Edwards, editor of The Daily Sentinel in Nacogdoches, Texas, is an additional finalist in the under 35,000 circulation category of the Editorials category of the Carmage Walls Commentary Prize competition.
His editorials call out Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for lying to voters during his multi-million dollar campaign to unseat incumbent Texas House Republicans who opposed his school voucher plan.
Edwards said: "Nacogdoches and the greater Deep East Texas region is a vastly conservative area of Texas, and the majority of our residents support Abbott. To publicly challenge the Republican Party’s statewide standard bearer so strongly took great courage."
He said, "We believe that we were the first rural, editorially conservative paper to turn on Abbott over spreading falsehoods. Continued lies and half truths by the governor caused our editorial board to withdraw our political endorsement of Abbott from 2014, the last time we fully endorsed a slate of candidates."
Edwards noted that both editorials were picked up by The Associated Press and carried in papers throughout Texas. He said the Feb. 21 editorial was also the subject of a Feb. 22 story by Newsweek, and Edwards appeared the next week on Spectrum News to defend the editorial.
"Despite our efforts to educate the public on Abbott’s deceitful campaign, he was successful in unseating most of his House opponents in the March Republican Primary and runoffs," Edwards said. "However, we believe that our editorials gave a voice to rural Republicans who will not tolerate being lied to and will encourage others to speak out against the immensely popular governor."
Here are links to his two editorials:
Among the comments from judges: