Jay T. Harris (December 3, 1948 – ), an

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

journalist; journalism educator at the Medill School of Journalism,

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

; and chairman and publisher of the ''

San Jose Mercury News ''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidia ...

'' in

San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popu ...

, United States. He is a self-described "journalistic traditionalist" and stepped down as publisher as a statement about how the newspaper industry's emphasis on profits was harming its public mission. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the

National Association of Black Journalists The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) is an organization of African-American journalists, students, and media professionals. Founded in 1975 in Washington, D.C., by 44 journalists, the NABJ's stated purpose is to provide quality p ...

in 1992.

Personal

Jay T. Harris was born December 3, 1948, in

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, United States. He is the son of Richard James Harris and Margaret Estelle Burr Harris. Harris graduated with honorary doctorate degrees in English from Lincoln University in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

and Santa Clara University in California. While at Lincoln, he was the editor of the university's student newspaper. Harris is married and has three children. He lives in Los Gatos, California.

Career

He started his first job as a reporter for the Wilmington ''News-Journal'' from 1970 to 1975. He was a journalism professor at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in Chicago from 1975 to 1982. In 1982, he moved to Washington D.C. where he worked as a news columnist and national correspondent for the

Gannett News Service Gannett Co., Inc. () is an American mass media holding company headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.Philadelphia Daily News in 1985. Harris moved on to join the Knight Ridder, the parent company of one of ''Mercury News''. He was newspaper publishing chief executive in San Jose for ''Mercury News'' from 1994 to 2001. Harris became responsible for nine other newspaper companies, when he was promoted to vice president of operations. For Harris's work in journalism, he received awards from different universities, public benefits and social justice organizations. On March 19, 2001, Harris officially resigned as publisher for the ''San Jose Mercury News''. The Knight Ridder found out from Harris himself, that he resigned instead of accepting stiff budgeting targets that made it inevitable to have layoffs and that Harris knew would harm quality. Jay Harris then presented a speech, in which he made clear that he was urging editors to put readers first, which was his target from the beginning. He wanted to make quality and profits an equal priority for newspapers. Other journalists, however, believed that it was his inflexibility that led to his resignation. After Harris's resignation, the pressure was on the ''San Jose Mercury News'' to show it was preserving quality and in that same year they added 30 new journalists to help out with Silicon Valley when it became popular. He joined the faculty of Journalism and Communication at the

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

in 2002. Starting in 2000, Harris was the chair of the board of the

Bay Area Council The Bay Area Council is a business association in San Francisco, founded in 1945, and dedicated to economic development in the San Francisco Bay Area. At its inception in the post WWII years, members included Wells Fargo, Bank of America, the ...

and was a member of the boards of a variety of different organizations, which included the

American Press Institute The American Press Institute is an educational non-advocacy 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization affiliated with the News Media Alliance (formerly the Newspaper Association of America). The institute's mission is to encourage the advancement of news m ...

, the

Pacific Council on International Policy The Pacific Council on International Policy is an independent, non-partisan, membership-based organization dedicated to global engagement. Founded in 1995 in partnership with the Council on Foreign Relations and the University of Southern Califo ...

and also the Council on Foreign Relations.

Notable works of journalism

Jay T. Harris was working at his school newspaper while in college but didn't consider a career in journalism until he was hired by Fred Hartmann, editor '' Times-Union'' in

Jacksonville Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the List of United States cities by area, largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the co ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, for a summer internship. After Harris graduated, Hartmann guided him and another correspondent through an 18-month investigative task to distinguish the 10 most dynamic heroin merchants in Wilmington, an undertaking that ended up being one of the first in computer-assisted

investigative journalism Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years res ...

. The project won the 1972 Associated Press Managing Editors' Public Service Award. Jay Harris is credited with expanding the ''San Jose Mercury News'' coverage of an increasingly diverse population. The paper launched '' Nuevo Mundo'', a Spanish-language paper, in 1996 and '' Viet Mercury'' for the valley's substantial

Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia ** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam. * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overse ...

community in 1999. However, it was his eagerness to grow the business division to cover the internet insurgency that helped the paper's notoriety and earned him fans in the newsroom. On October 5, 2000, Jay T. Harris presented the annual Frederick S. Siebert lecture at Michigan State University, which was co-sponsored by Michigan Press Association. Harris entitled the speech "Press Freedoms and the Responsibility of Journalists in the age of New Media". Harris was hailed as the country's top African-American publisher of a daily paper and was known for his support for newsroom diversity. He put in seven years at the ''Mercury News'', which was positioned as one of the 10 best daily papers in the nation by the

Columbia Journalism Review The ''Columbia Journalism Review'' (''CJR'') is a biannual magazine for professional journalists that has been published by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961. Its contents include news and media industry trends, an ...

while he was in charge of extending the paper's business and innovation scope. He composed and propelled the American Society of Newspaper Editors' yearly national registration of minority work in day by day daily papers, which remains the business benchmark. While at the ''Mercury News'', Harris built a diverse news staff, having 30 percent minorities.

Context

In April 2001, Harris addressed the American Society of Newspaper Editors on his rationale for resigning. Richard A. Oppel, editor of the '' American-Statesman'' in Austin,

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

and ASNE's outgoing president, said: "History will record this was the most effective and critical discourse at any point given at ASNE." The ASNE convention happened to coincide with a report, entitled "Voices of Anger, Cries of Concern," issued by journalists from the

on the toll that industry layoffs were having on the diversity of news staffs. On May 10, 2001, Harris wrote an opinion piece for ''

Nation A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a combination of shared features such as language, history, ethnicity, culture and/or society. A nation is thus the collective Identity (social science), identity of a group of people unde ...

'' magazine that further advanced his resignation speech before his colleagues. He argued that newspapers, like hospitals, were stewards who acted in the public interest and that acting to safeguard those interests at times would outweigh business decisions. After Harris's resignation, Knight Ridder tried to assure ''Mercury News'' workers that it would like to stay away from cutbacks and layoffs in order to cover Silicon Valley.

Jerome Ceppos Jerome Merle Ceppos (October 14, 1946 – July 29, 2022) was an American journalist, news executive, and educator. He is recognized as the former top editor of The Mercury News, San Jose Mercury News and the Dean of the Manship School of Ma ...

, Knight Ridder's vice president for news, responded by pointing out that the Knight-Ridder staff had been increased to 403 writer but would see a decline in about 10 to 15 positions in the next year.

Awards

* Associated Press Award (1972) * NABJ, Hall of Fame (1992) * NABJ, Ida B. Wells Award Winner (1992)

References

External links

National Association of Black Journalists

encyclopedia.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, Jay T. 1948 births Living people African-American journalists Journalists from Washington, D.C. The Mercury News people 20th-century American newspaper publishers (people) 20th-century African-American people 21st-century African-American people