Gena Asher | Dec. 13, 2010
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| Courtesy photo |
| Jack Backer led the IDS from 1969 to his death in 1976. He is one of five 2011 inductees in the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame. |
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Backer guided the student newspaper’s transition from a school-controlled classroom lab to a fully independent news organization paying its own way and dealing with decision-making issues as would any newspaper. Those who nominated him recalled his motto, “Progress is crisis-oriented,” and his “gee whiz” notes when he marked up a week’s worth of IDS issues for critique sessions. They also lauded his ability to always seem as if he were having fun, even amid deadline pressures and “crises.”
The other inductees are Bruce Baumann, retired editor of the Evansville Courier and Press; The Times of Northwest Indiana executive editor Bill Nangle; the late Clay Trusty of the Indianapolis News who headed the Indiana Plan to nurture college journalists; and the late Charles Werner, Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist at the Indianapolis Star.
The Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame was established in 1966 to recognize and honor journalists who have contributed to the profession through their careers and communities. Housed at Indiana University, the Hall of Fame conducts its annual ceremony at the Indiana Memorial Union in Bloomington.
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