Contact: Ralph Derickson

The five new honorees will join 130 other journalists inducted into the Hall of Fame since its 1981 inception. Selection of honorees is made by a committee representing the state’s media, the UK Journalism Alumni Association and the University. Nominees must be either Kentucky natives or outstanding journalists who have spent the bulk of their careers in the state.

Glen Bastin

Maria Braden

John Egerton

Jon Fleischaker

Eliza Piggott Underwood

LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 12, 2004) -- Four journalists and a Louisville media attorney will be inducted into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame at a luncheon ceremony Tuesday, April 6, at the University of Kentucky Hilary J. Boone Center on Rose Street.

That same day, the UK School of Journalism and Telecommunications will hold the 26th annual Joe Creason Lecture at 6 p.m. in Memorial Hall. This year’s Creason lecturer is Earl Caldwell, a former New York Times reporter whose refusal to reveal a source’s identity led to additional legal protections for reporters. Caldwell was also the only journalist present when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

The Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame is housed in the Enoch Grehan Building at UK. The 2004 Hall of Fame inductees to be recognized at the luncheon sponsored by the UK Journalism and Telecommunications Alumni Association are:

• Glen Bastin, a veteran of three decades in Kentucky broadcasting and a former news director at WHAS in Louisville. Under his guidance, WHAS-AM received nationwide acclaim and numerous major journalism awards for coverage of events ranging from the 1974 tornadoes to school desegregation. Bastin began his broadcast career in Somerset in 1964 and has worked at stations in Bowling Green, Glasgow and Morehead. Additionally, he has originated two syndicated daily broadcasts that have been aired on numerous Kentucky radio stations.
  
• Maria Braden, a former UK journalism professor, Associated Press reporter, and free-lance writer and editor. Braden, who retired from her UK faculty post in December 2001, was a popular and award-winning professor and productive researcher. She gave freely of her time for various public service programs and projects. Her books include “She Said What? Interviews With Women Newspaper Columnists, Women Politicians and the Media” and “Getting the Message Across: Writing for the Mass Media (co-author).” A 1968 graduate of Canada’s McGill University, Braden was also a reporter for the Worcester (Mass.) Telegram & Gazette.
  
• John Egerton, a career free-lance reporter-writer. His quality work and versatility illuminated readers’ awareness and understanding of the South. Egerton, who holds two degrees from UK, was among a small group of journalists in the early 1960s who began focusing the nation’s attention on the civil rights struggle. He is the author of more than 300 columns appearing in many of the nation’s outstanding newspapers and several books, including “Generations: An American Family” and “Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South.”
  
• Jon Fleischaker, a leading media attorney. He has been actively involved for more than three decades in litigation and the creation of legislation to protect the press in Kentucky. He was the chief author of the Kentucky Open Meetings and Open Records Acts and the Retraction Statute. He has litigated most major media cases in the state, including defamation issues, invasion of privacy, access to information, and source protection.
  
• Eliza Piggott Underwood, a journalistic pioneer. She was the first female state editor of a Kentucky newspaper in 1919 when she was named to that position at the Lexington Herald. She was also UK’s first female journalism graduate and first woman editor of both the UK student newspaper and yearbook.

The five new honorees will join 130 other journalists inducted into the Hall of Fame since its 1981 inception. Selection of honorees is made by a committee representing the state’s media, the UK Journalism Alumni Association and the University. Nominees must be either Kentucky natives or outstanding journalists who have spent the bulk of their careers in the state.

"The professional range of this year's group of inductees is truly impressive,” said Beth Barnes, director of the School of Journalism and Telecommunications. “From a trailblazer for women in journalism to a universally-respected female journalism educator, a writer who championed civil rights to an attorney vigilant about protecting journalists' access, and a broadcast news director who made his station pre-eminent in its market,” she added, “this is an outstanding group, and the School of Journalism is honored to welcome them to the Hall of Fame."