Celebrating the Past • Planning the Future
Summer Convention June 17-19, 2004

USA Today reporter lives by small-paper roots

Tom Squitieri has traveled the world covering wars and conflicts in far away places as a foreign correspondent for USA Today but he still remembers the words of his first editor.

“You are the eyes and ears of the people who cannot be there.”

“Your opinion should never enter a story.”

“If you see a man digging a hole, find out why.”

“A newspaper is the voice for the voiceless.”

Squitieri still carries that dictum mimeograph from his first job as a reporter at his hometown paper outside Pittsburgh in 1971 and he referenced it during a speech at TPA’s 125th Summer Convention June 19.

Squitieri has reported on the invasion of Panama, strife in Northern Ireland, the Gulf War, the coup in Haiti and many other international hot spots since joining USA Today in 1989, but he still remembers his roots stem from community journalism.

“I may have been raised in a small town and started my career at what is called a small-town newspaper, but there is nothing small town about the values, the work ethic, pride and instruction I received,” he said.

Squitieri said when USA Today was founded in 1982, 65 percent — 141 of the initial 218 reporters and editors —  came from Gannett’s small-market newspapers.

Squitieri encouraged newspapers to continue to tell the “good” stories and  to not be afraid to be alone in their aggressive reporting.

“Sometimes newspapers in smaller towns don’t have any competition but they’re under immense pressure from local interests,” Squitieri said.