Jerry Ceppos, the onetime prime editor at The Mercury Information and later dean of two main journalism faculties, died Friday night. He was 75.
The reason for dying was sepsis introduced on by a extreme an infection, stated his spouse, Karen Ceppos.
In a journalism profession spanning greater than 50 years, Jerry Ceppos led The Mercury Information when California’s Silicon Valley was exploding with innovation, together with the beginning of digital media that will finally undermine the normal newspaper enterprise. As an editor and later an educator, he drove a concentrate on the brand new expertise and its remaking of society. He additionally championed variety within the newsroom and the classroom.
“Jerry Ceppos was an exquisite journalist — gifted, principled, industrious, dedicated to accuracy and equity,” stated Larry Jinks, former writer of The Mercury Information.
The paper received two Pulitzer Prizes whereas Ceppos was managing editor. As government editor, he endured heavy criticism for the publication of a flawed investigative sequence implicating the CIA in unlawful drug dealing, however later earned widespread reward for accepting private duty on the entrance web page and overhauling the paper’s enhancing course of.
He would rise to be the highest information officer of Knight Ridder, former proprietor of The Mercury Information, The Miami Herald, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Detroit Free Press, The Charlotte Observer, The Kansas Metropolis Star and 26 different each day papers, making it for a time the second largest writer of newspapers in the USA. Knight Ridder, primarily based in San Jose, is now defunct and The Mercury Information is owned by MediaNews Group.
Ceppos took satisfaction in the truth that he elevated the racial and ethnic variety of The Mercury Information employees roughly threefold throughout his tenure as government editor.
David Yarnold, who succeeded Ceppos as government editor in San Jose, stated, “Jerry did one thing that solely nice editors do: Within the mid-90’s, he understood the story we have been sitting on, the making of Silicon Valley within the context of a majority minority group, and he challenged his newsroom to see the large image.”
That meant creating new beats and reporting groups to cowl beforehand neglected populations.
Susan Goldberg, who succeeded Yarnold and was later editor in chief of Nationwide Geographic, stated Ceppos was unfailingly encouraging. “He assured you, in detailed methods, why you have been certified for roles you assumed have been out of attain,” she stated. “You all the time felt higher after speaking with Jerry. What a present.”
As dean of the Manship Faculty of Mass Communication at Louisiana State College, Ceppos began a information service to assist fill a void left by declining mainstream information retailers, assigning pupil journalists to cowl state authorities and undertake investigative initiatives.
He urged them to dig into unsolved murders by Ku Klux Klansmen throughout the civil rights period, and 90 information websites in Louisiana and Mississippi have run tales by Manship college students, stated Christopher Drew, a former New York Occasions investigative reporter who directs the service.
Jerome Merle Ceppos was born in Washington, D.C., on October 14, 1946, the one youngster of Harry and Florence (Epstein) Ceppos. His mom’s brother, Sidney Epstein, was a legendary Washington newsman, the nattily attired metropolis editor of the afternoon Washington Star when it was town’s dominant paper, and an inspiration to his nephew. Epstein would reminisce about mentoring Carl Bernstein earlier than he went on to Watergate fame with Bob Woodward or reluctantly hiring an inexperienced younger Jacqueline Bouvier as a roving photographer, lengthy earlier than she would turn into First Girl Jacqueline Kennedy.
As a self-described “geeky” pupil at Northwood Excessive Faculty in Silver Spring, Ceppos edited the varsity paper, The Crimson and Black. On the College of Maryland, he edited The Diamondback and graduated in 1969 with a level in journalism.
After school, Ceppos was a reporter and editor on the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle in New York for 3 years. In 1972, he moved south to turn into an editor at The Miami Herald, the start of an extended profession with Knight Newspapers, later Knight Ridder.
A Herald colleague, Marcie Ersoff, launched Ceppos to her child sister, Karen. They married in 1982 and had two kids, Matthew, who lives in Reno, Nevada, and Robin, of Washington, D.C. Along with household and work, Ceppos’ passions included high quality wines and gathering pens. No journey again to his hometown was full with no go to to Fahrney’s Pens, a boutique specializing in high-end writing devices.
In 1981, Ceppos moved to San Jose, the place he rapidly rose via the enhancing ranks. Its Pulitzer Prizes when he was managing editor have been for reporting on large transfers of non-public wealth by President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines out of his nation, and for protection of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
In 1996, a 12 months after Ceppos grew to become government editor, the Mercury Information revealed a three-part investigative sequence, Darkish Alliance, which made the sensational cost that the crack epidemic raging in Los Angeles was largely sparked by two Nicaraguan emigres promoting big quantities of cocaine to boost funds for a CIA-backed insurgent military of their dwelling nation.
When three newspapers, The New York Occasions, The Washington Submit and The Los Angeles Occasions, revealed main items calling into query the reporting in Darkish Alliance, Ceppos assigned a reporter and editors uninvolved within the authentic tales to re-report them.
On Might 11, 1997, he revealed a front-page column, saying that the Darkish Alliance sequence had “oversimplified the complicated problems with how the crack epidemic in America grew” and “didn't embrace data that contradicted a central assertion of the sequence.” He took private duty for the flawed work, saying, “Few issues in life are tougher than proudly owning as much as one’s shortcomings.” He stated the paper had failed to satisfy its personal excessive requirements and would overhaul a few of its enhancing processes.
Although Ceppos confronted complaints that he had caved to strain, he would later obtain an award from the Society of Skilled Journalists for his “superior moral conduct” in dealing with the aftermath of the sequence.
In 1999, Ceppos was promoted to vp for information of Knight Ridder, a job during which, for six years, he recognized and recruited prime editors, set high quality and moral requirements, oversaw the corporate’s Washington and overseas bureaus and, as he put it, “led generally recalcitrant newsrooms into the digital age.”
“Jerry was some of the considerate and thoughtful individuals I knew,” stated Tony Ridder, the CEO. “He all the time managed to be upbeat and optimistic when issues have been troublesome.”
Ceppos left Knight Ridder in 2005, simply earlier than the publicly-traded firm was offered and damaged up. After consulting for a number of years, he started a brand new profession as an educator, telling associates he had failed at retirement.
Appointed dean of the Reynolds Faculty of Journalism on the College of Nevada/Reno in 2008, Ceppos raised the funds to renovate the varsity’s constructing and replace its expertise for the digital age, stated Kristin Ghiggeri Burgarello, then director of improvement and alumni relations.
After three years at Reynolds, Ceppos moved in 2011 to the Manship Faculty, the place he was dean for seven years earlier than transitioning right into a full-time educating position, giving programs on media ethics, American media historical past and a seminar on equity in journalism.
Aydin Virga, a rising senior on the Manship Faculty, stated she enrolled final fall in a multiculturalism class Ceppos was educating through Zoom due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She stated he took a particular curiosity in each pupil, making each really feel necessary. “From the second he discovered of my plans to pursue a profession in legislation, he reached out to me individually. He requested to carry a Zoom assembly the place he spent quite a lot of time discussing my anxieties and ambitions.” It was “extremely influential to me as a result of I lastly felt belonging and safety in my path.”
She added, “I hope I can stay as much as the potential that he noticed in me.”
Ceppos will likely be buried in Miami throughout a personal household service. A public celebration of his life will likely be held later. Pals are requested to contribute to the Manship Faculty or the charity of their alternative.