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Ellen Soeteber
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Ink by the Barrel
By Kevin Kipp
Ellen Soeteber
St. Louis Native shines as editor of Post-Dispatch
Even though Ellen Soeteber has been its editor just since January,
the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was already in her hands some
40 years ago.
“I was a political news junkie by age 10,” she says, “and an avid
Post-Dispatch reader, especially Marquis Childs.”
Her parents, Lyle and Norma Soeteber, let her watch a little TV,
too: “I remember the 1960 elections were the first time I got to
stay up all night.”
More recently, staying up late with the news has provided bitter
memories. When “unspeakable bastards” (words of Miami Herald
columnist Leonard Pitts) murdered 6,000 innocent souls in September,
Soeteber worked past midnight.
“There hasn’t been a more momentous story since the JFK assassination,”
she says, “and before that, Pearl Harbor. We tried to play it straight
and responsibly, addressing people’s fears, not adding to them.”
Veteran Post writer Harry Levins says, “When I came in that
day, the atmosphere was calm and purely professional. If it had
been 15 years ago people would have been running around with their
hair on fire. It starts at the top. I credit Ellen.”
(With standing at the Post resembling university tenure,
Levins doesn’t need to flatter.)
Having parents who both taught school might explain Soeteber’s early
inclination to read. What’s more, she says, “I always liked to write.
“Father always had a strong insistence that his three daughters—he
had no sons—all be able to support ourselves, never having to be
dependent on a man,” she says.
“Mom and Dad expected us to be school teachers, too,” she continues,
“but journalism was a way I saw to make a living by both writing
and following politics.”
Win-win-win.
After graduating from East St. Louis Senior High School (information
that we were delighted to see in a top St. Louis executive’s bio!),
Soeteber attended Northwestern University’s prestigious Medill School
of Journalism.
Good move. As an intern in Chicago, she met her husband, Richard
Martins, then a vice president at Burson– Marsteller, an international
PR firm. He is now a novelist. They live in the Central West End.
Her first professional ink spot was at the old Chicago Daily
News. Next she went to a now-defunct Tribune Co. property. “Chicago
Today was on its last legs when I was hired,” Soeteber says.
“But you could do just about anything you wanted as long as it didn’t
cost any money. That taught me some creativity.
“When Chicago Today folded,” she says, “I was in the fortunate
half that the Chicago Tribune hired.”
Besides creativity, Soeteber also practiced risk management. She
hung hand-sewn needlepoint in her Trib digs proclaiming,
“I root for two teams—the St. Louis Cardinals and whoever is playing
the Cubs.”
Sound judgment and Redbird loyalty didn’t hold her back. She served
as deputy editorial board editor, associate managing editor, metro
editor and TV/media editor.
Along the way she completed a journalism fellowship at the University
of Michigan and an advanced newspaper executive program at Northwestern.
After 20 years in Chicago, Soeteber took the managing editor’s job
at Tribune Co.’s South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale.
Among her innovations during six years there were providing content
to Internet, TV and radio newscasters, and a leadership role in
opening the first U.S. newspaper bureau in Cuba in 30 years.
Back at the Post, Levins appreciates how Soeteber handles
the news, a welcome change from the “public journalism” of her predecessor,
Cole Campbell.
“I called Cole ‘The Dear Leader,’ like the fellow from North Korea,
because he ran the newsroom with a certain ideological rigidity,”
Levins explains. “Ellen on the other hand has reinvented the newspaper
in the traditional form, dismantling the team approach and reinstalling
a traditional city desk.”
In other words, different sections of the Post have editors
again.
“It was Ellen’s first big operational change,” Levins says. “I think
she did a phenomenal job.”
“I have some comprehension of most of the jobs at a newspaper,”
Soeteber says. “I’ve worked most of them and every lousy shift there
was.”
Another change came in July. Sunday’s Imagine St. Louis became
NewsWatch. It’s news analysis, and it includes information
on how to contact the editors.
She has more changes planned. Some are as broad as improving the
quality and consistency of the newspaper, she says.
Some improvements are finer points, like establishing a regular
schedule for syndicated columnists on the Commentary page. Read,
for example, Charles Krauthammer on Friday, George Will on Sunday.
The Post prints liberal opinion, too.
David Broder (Mondays) is Soeteber’s favorite columnist. “He’s balanced,
insightful and thoughtful,” she says. “His writing is rooted in
excellent journalism and hard work. He’s the model I wish all columnists
followed.”
Asked what other tenets she’d have writers follow, Soeteber offered
a three-part canon:
“Read. Read a lot. And read a variety of subjects.
“Learn one or more subjects in depth so you can write with authority.
“Always remember the readers. Put their interests first.”
Even if they root for the Cubs.
Kevin Kipp runs Bubble Communications, a creative services and
community relations firm in St. Charles.
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