[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 1]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 626-627]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       A TRIBUTE TO HOWARD WEAVER

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. DORIS O. MATSUI

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, January 13, 2009

  Ms. MATSUI. Madam Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Howard 
Weaver's 40 years of service and journalistic integrity in the 
newspaper business. Mr. Weaver is retiring from the McClatchy Company 
leaving a lasting legacy in Sacramento where his leadership and 
expertise will be deeply missed. I ask all my colleagues to join me in 
honoring one of our Nation's finest journalists.
  After earning his bachelor's degree in social and behavioral sciences 
from Johns Hopkins University and his masters in philosophy from 
Cambridge, Mr. Weaver has spent more than three decades in the 
newspaper industry. He began his career in 1972 as a reporter for the 
Anchorage Daily News. In 1977 he founded the Alaska Advocate, a 
statewide weekly newspaper. After the closure of the Alaska Advocate in 
1979, Mr. Weaver returned to the Daily News as an editorial writer. He 
was named managing editor in 1981 and assumed full editorial 
responsibility in May 1983.
  During his tenure at the Anchorage Daily News, the newspaper won 
numerous awards including being named one of the world's 25 best 
designed newspapers, best sports section, and best feature writing. Mr. 
Weaver twice led the Anchorage Daily News to win Pulitzer Prizes. He 
was one of three reporters whose coverage of the Alaska Teamsters Union 
during construction of the trans-Alaska pipeline, ``Empire: The Alaska 
Teamsters Story,'' won the Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Public Service 
in 1976. In 1989 he again was awarded prize for his work as editor and 
a lead writer on the Daily News' ``A People in Peril,'' coverage of 
alcoholism and suicide among Alaska Natives and has served as a 
Pulitzer Prize juror at the invitation of the Pulitzer Board four 
times. Mr. Weaver is the past president of the Alaska Newspaper 
Association and the Upper Yukon River Press Club and was a 
Distinguished Lecturer in Journalism at the University of Alaska, 
Fairbanks.

[[Page 627]]

  In 1995 Mr. Weaver moved to Sacramento to assume the position of 
assistant to the president for new media strategies at McClatchy 
Newspapers and was named editor of the editorial pages for the 
Sacramento Bee in 1997. Most recently he served as vice president of 
news and is senior editorial executive for the McClatchy Company. In 
addition, his writings have been published in the New York Times, the 
Washington Post, and Time Magazine. While at McClatchy Newspapers, 
which publishes 31 daily and more than 50 community newspapers and 
related Web sites, the editorial pages in the Sacramento Bee were named 
best in California by the California Newspaper Publishers Association 
and individual editorials won the Best of the West competition. Mr. 
Weaver was primarily responsible for the opinion content at the 
Sacramento Bee and for many years he chaired the editorial board 
meetings at which the paper's editorial positions were decided. His 
excellent writing and years of expertise has ensured that Sacramento's 
residents continue to receive up-to-date accurate information about 
pressing issues in our communities and across the Nation.
  Madam Speaker, I am honored to pay tribute to Howard Weaver's 
distinguished commitment to the newspaper industry and keeping 
Sacramento's residents informed. Mr. Weaver's outstanding leadership 
and dedication to journalism has allowed the McClatchy Company and the 
Sacramento Bee to embrace new venues of media and the Internet. As Mr. 
Weaver's wife, Barbara, colleagues, family, and friends gather to honor 
his career, I ask all my colleagues to join me in wishing him continued 
good fortune in his future endeavors.

                          ____________________