CHCA names new ‘Local’ editor

By KATIE WORRALL

James Sturdivant, managing editor of two northern New Jersey newspapers, has been appointed by the Chestnut Hill Community Association board of directors as editor of the Chestnut Hill Local. Sturdivant, who will start at the Local on September 7, succeeds this editor. The CHCA publishes the Local.

Sturdivant, a former associate editor and reporter for the Local, has been managing editor of the News-Record of Maplewood and South Orange and Irvington Herald for the past year. In these positions, he supervises day-to-day operations; assigns stories and photos; edits news releases and calendar items; writes editorials and news; does layout and pagination.

He earned a bachelor of arts degree in anthropology in 1993 from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; a master of arts degree in religion from Wake Forest University in 2000; and a master of journalism from Temple University in 2003. Sturdivant first came to the Local in the summer of 2002 as an intern in the eight-week long internship sponsored by the Anna Fisher Clark Memorial Fund, in memory of a Chestnut Hill resident who strongly believed in helping young people get experience in their selected field. He remained at the Local during the following school year as a reporter while he was finishing his degree at Temple. He was named associate editor in June 2003 and relocated to New Jersey the following August.

Sturdivant was interviewed twice by a search committee that included Maxine Dornemann, CHCA president; George Parry, chairperson of the publishers committee; Leigh Filippini, an executive committee member who is a co-owner of an executive search firm; and Douglas Doman, vice president of operations. Parry chaired the committee. The executive committee approved Sturdivant’s nomination in executive session on August 12.

“The person who we are presenting to you is a person who is youthful, vibrant and cares about the community,” Dornemann told members of the board who attended a special meeting on August 19. “We want a person who has passionate dreams.”

Dornemann said, “we don’t want a cupcake newspaper or one that writes about what is happening in Iraq or on the stock market. We want to be faithful to who we are, to have an editorial policy that has integrity. We’re not the paper that we were 50 years ago, or who we will be 50 years from now.”

Parry told the board that Sturdivant was one of a number of candidates interviewed and that any one of the four finalists could have done the job. However, he continued, Sturdivant brings strengths the other candidates did not have as well as praise from current Local staff. The new editor will report to the publishers committee, the executive committee and to the board of directors, which has the power to hire and fire, Parry said.

[The publishers committee, formed in the amendments to the Community Association bylaws at the CHCA annual meeting last April, stipulates that it represents the publisher in matters regarding editorial, financial and business management of the Local. It succeeds the Local business management committee, which had no responsibility for editorial department management.]

Board member Jane Becker endorsed Sturdivant as editor, noting that she and her husband Dick knew him as a neighbor and that he has an outgoing and positive outlook on Chestnut Hill.

Other board members were concerned about the fact that Sturdivant had not been invited to attend the meeting and about the role of the proposal to dissolve the Lentz policy, which describes the mission of this newspaper — to anticipate community problems, to present possible solutions and to present responsible points of view — on the selection of editor.

Mary Anna Ross-Cowper, a longtime board member, said that the board should meet Sturdivant and that that was why she came to the meeting. Board member Mark Keintz also was “annoyed” that the board had no “face time” with Sturdivant.

Jane Becker recalled that a top contender for another position within the organization was lost because of the length of time required by bringing the candidates before the board.

Dornemann said that the executive committee felt that Sturdivant and the Local would be better served by not bringing him to the meeting and because of the distance he would have had to travel.

Board member Lawrence Walsh asked if the search committee meetings and discussion about the Lentz policy coincided. Walsh said that if the Lentz policy were dissolved, the Local would be gutted. Ross-Cowper pointed out that Lentz policy protects the vitality of the newspaper.

Parry replied that the subject of the Lentz policy came up after the search committee meetings and that the timing was his decision. He said that the policy was difficult to explain to lawyers, and the problem with the policy was with how it is applied, rather than the policy itself.

Dornemann said that the Lentz policy was referred to the publishers committee by the executive committee on August 12, and that the subject came up because articles were printed that some people thought were libelous. At the board meeting, she said that publishers committee wanted to look at the wording of the Lentz policy.

Keintz was also concerned that a decision made at the June CHCA board meeting to name a professional journalist to the search committee never happened. Dornemann did not say why it did not.

Sturdivant was approved unanimously, with one abstention from Ross-Cowper. He later told the Local that issues pertaining to the Lentz Policy, such as editorial page policy, came up during the interviews, but not the policy itself.