Restrictions to Access

This collection contains additional materials that are not available for immediate or same day access. Please contact Research and Instructional Service staff at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu to discuss options for consulting these materials.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Richard D. Smyser Papers #5237, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Lucy Tashman of Decatur, Ga., in October 2005 (Acc. 100211).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: Jodi Berkowitz, January 2006

Encoded by: Jodi Berkowitz, January 2006

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• American Society of Newspaper Editors.
• Associated Press Managing Editors Association.
• Journalists--Tennessee--History--20th century.
• Mass media and minorities--United States.
• Minorities in journalism.
• Newspaper editors--United States.
• Newspaper publishing--Social aspects--United States.
• Newspaper publishing--United States.
• Newspapers.
• Oak Ridge (Tenn.)--History.
• Smyser, Richard D. (Richard David), 1923-2005.

Richard David Smyser was born on 19 August 1923 in York, Pa. The 1944 graduate of Penn State University began his career at the Chester (Pa.) Times (now the Delaware County Daily Times), and in 1949 became the founding editor of the Oak Ridger. He served as managing editor and editor of the Oak Ridge, Tenn., newspaper for over 40 years, retiring in 1993. Smyser held terms as president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and as president of the Associated Press Managing Editors Association, and chaired numerous committees of each organization during his career, focusing especially on issues of minorities and journalism. He was dedicated to increasing the employment of minorities in the field of journalism and to making publications more inclusive of minorities. As leader of the Minorities Committee of ASNE in the late 1970s, Smyser established the goal of bringing newspaper workforces into parity with the population of the United States by the year 2000.

The Penn State Board of Trustees awarded Smyser its Distinguished Alumni Award in 1985, and in 1986-1987 he held the position of Atwood Professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage Department of Journalism and Public Communications. Smyser is perhaps most well known for being credited, erroneously, with eliciting President Richard M. Nixon's "I am not a crook" declaration at an APME convention in Orlando, Fla., on 11 November 1973. Nixon made this statement at the end of his answer to a question posed by Smyser; however, he was referring to a previous question, in which he had been asked if his income taxes were properly reported. Smyser died on 14 March 2005 at the age of 81.

The collection consists of correspondence, reports, lectures, pamphlets, clippings, notes, and other writings of journalist and newspaper editor Richard D. Smyser, chiefly pertaining to issues of minorities and journalism. The bulk of the material is from 1968-1982; during this time the Kerner Commission released its report detailing problems with employment of minorities in journalism. Smyser was dedicated to improving this situation and revisiting the report in ten years (1978), and he used his position as founding editor of the Oak Ridge, Tenn., Oak Ridger to work towards his goals. A majority of the papers included derive from Smyser's activities with the professional organizations, especially the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) and the Associated Press Managing Editors Association (APME). Also included are materials from numerous conferences addressing the issue of minorities and journalism.