The Indiana Publisher

March 2020 Page 6 Shari Rudavsky Indianapolis Star Katrice Hardy named Indianapo- lis Star executive editor, USA TODAY Network regional editor The award-winning execu- tive editor of South Carolina's Greenville News will become the first African American and the first woman to serve as executive editor of The India- napolis Star, parent company Gannett announced March 2. Katrice Hardy, who joined Gannett in 2016, also has served as the USA TODAY Network's regional editor for the South, overseeing newsrooms in Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, North Carolina and her native Louisiana. She came to Greenville after more than two decades at the Virginian- Pilot in Norfolk, where she held a variety of positions before becom- ing managing editor. In her new role in Indianapolis, she will oversee more than two dozen Gannett newsrooms through- out Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky as the Midwest regional editor. At a meeting Wednesday afternoon where Hardy was introduced to the IndyStar newsroom, she said she would encourage the paper to be "big, bold, ambitious and innovative." "We have to come in here every day and think nontradition- ally," she said. Hardy herself is a nontraditional choice, breaking two previous barriers for the organization's top newsroom position. The choice of an African American woman to lead Indiana's largest newsroom is nothing short of "huge," said Steve Jefferson, president of the Indianapolis Association of Black Journalists. "It changes the face of who is usually in charge when it comes to editorial decisions in our commu- nity," he said. "It also has the potential to make sure that there is more coverage considered when it comes to the African American community, and I think it also lends to having someone in the position that can also help with gender sensitive coverage as well." Those who know Hardy personally say she was an excellent choice for the job. Alison Bethel McKenzie, director of corps excellence for Report for America and a former executive director of the Indianap- olis-based Society of Professional Journalists, said that she and Hardy travel in the same circle of African Americans who are newsroom leaders. "Katrice Hardy is the real deal," she said. "She is tough, empathetic, has a great nose for news and has her thumb on the pulse of a rapidly changing industry. This is such a significant appointment on another level because we have seen such a decline in the number of minorities in newsroom leadership across the country." Hardy said that she sees one of her biggest challenges in India- napolis as increasing diversity in coverage, and, to her, diversity is not just about race but also can include other often overlooked communities, such as parents raising autistic children. Often, she said, her energy stems from exchanges with others, and she plans to bring that approach to her new job, listening to and learning from a wide range of voices. Such an approach, she said, can help IndyStar reach a broader, more diverse audience. "How do you better connect with your communities so they find you indispensable?" she said. While in Greenville, Hardy helped grow the paper's digital readership. She focused on watch- dog and investigative journalism and launched a new print and online magazine, the "American South," which examines politics and culture in the region as well as race. Under her leadership, the paper won Editor & Publisher maga- zine's 2019 award for Best Community Service for "Taken," a yearlong investigation into South Carolina's civil asset forfeiture practices, which disproportion- ately affected black males. Her experience positions her well to lead IndyStar, which has won numerous awards for its investigations, from its work on real estate scams to a multiyear investigation of how USA Gymnastics failed to report sexual abuse of athletes, Gannett executives said. Hardy named Indianapolis Star executive editor, USA TODAY Network regional editor Hardy Hanaa' Tameez NiemanLab When Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert touched all the reporters' microphones at a press conference two days before he tested positive for COVID-19, he probably wasn't thinking about Ryan G. Reynolds. Reynolds is the sports editor at the Evansville Courier & Press in Indiana. He and his team of four reporters cover mostly high school and college sports. Gobert's diagnosis and the rapid shutdown of most organized sports in North America that followed have created a situation with few precedents for Reynolds and other sports editors. "I've been doing this for 22 years, and the only thing that compares to this is 9/11, and that doesn't even come close" in the level of disruption, Reynolds said. In Evansville and across much of Indiana, high school basketball is king. So when it was announced that the state tournament would be played without any fans this past weekend, the impact would be felt far beyond the players and their families. "People coming into town would be spending money at the local restaurants, on concessions, or even on gas tank fill ups," Reynolds told me late last week. "A lot of these small towns and smaller schools might lose a part of their annual revenue from whatever happens this weekend." In the end, what happened this weekend was nothing — because soon after we spoke, the entire tournament was postponed amid the shutdown of hundreds of Indiana schools. The novel coronavirus has been found in at least 131 countries since its initial discovery in Wuhan, China three months ago. As we've been writing, an already fragile news industry has been tilted on its axis, as journalists around the world try to cover the unprecedented pandemic while protecting themselves from infection. News organizations big and small have asked journalists to work from home. For Shemar Woods, the director of digital for sports at The Philadel- phia Inquirer, no "how to work from home effectively" articles could have prepared him for working remotely while three of his reporters covered the Sixers game the night the NBA announced its postpone- What do sports journalists do when there are no sports to cover? "I've been doing this for 22 years, and the only thing that compares to this is 9/11, and that doesn't even come close" in the level of disruption. Ryan Reynolds, sports editor, Evansville Courier & Press See Sports, page 12

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