Was it luck or accident or bashert (fate)? Milwaukee native Stuart Wilk doesn’t know for sure, but whichever, he has made a name for himself as a professional journalist at one of the country’s largest daily newspapers.
Wilk, vice president and managing editor of The Dallas Morning News, was recently elected national president of the Associated Press Managing Editors, a network of 1,700 senior editors in the U.S. and Canada.
This week, he will head to New York to conduct his first meeting as president of the 23-year old organization, which has as its mission to give feedback to its members, heighten professional development for its editors, and be a voice on issues like First Amendment rights.
Wilk’s goal as president is to help his fellow editors focus on increasing readership, specifically to find ways to reach young readers.
“We need to re-tool to attract a younger and more diverse audience without, and this is important, alienating our core readers. I think this is the biggest challenge facing the industry — for any size newspaper,” he said.
During a telephone interview from his Dallas office, Wilk reflected on his career path, noting his humble start as editor of the Elad Elpam. Though it may sound like it should have its roots in some Middle Eastern country, it is actually the backward spelling of “Maple Dale,” the Fox Point middle school he attended.
After graduating from Nicolet High School in 1964, he headed to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to major in English. “I thought I might teach or possibly become an architect until I learned I had to take a lot of engineering classes, which didn’t seem like a lot of fun,” he said.
History in the making
After his freshman year, he was looking for a summer job and was hired as a copyboy at the Milwaukee Sentinel. “While the work was menial, just running copy around the building, I loved the atmosphere, mission, being witness to interesting things and the idea of getting paid to write about it. So, I became a journalism major.
He transferred to Marquette University and kept his foot in the door at the Sentinel, writing movie and theater reviews. “Theater has been my passion since I was a kid, so being a critic seemed like an appropriate profession.” Still devoted to the arts, he serves on the board of directors of the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University.
He returned to the Sentinel the next summer as an intern in 1967 — one of the most tumultuous times in the city’s history. “I was covering hard news when the race riots erupted. The civil rights reporter was on a fellowship at Stanford, so I got thrown into the fire and covered Father [James] Groppi leading open housing marches for most of the summer. It was an incredible opportunity for me to see history in the making,” he said.
He continued his studies, including a stint at NYU, but didn’t graduate. He explained, “I was working part-time at the Sentinel when a full-time spot opened up in 1971. I promised my editor I would finish my degree, but I never had time.”
He launched his career writing obituaries, which “is a great way to learn precision and accuracy, and how to interview people in stressful situations,” he said.
By the time he left the Sentinel in the late 1970s, he was an investigative reporter as well as an assistant city editor. “While I missed being on the street, editing has it’s own rewards. I’m still challenged by the task of working with reporters to make their stories better,” he said.
He took a short detour to the National Enquirer, an experience that, he insists, started out to be a month trial but lasted three years. “It was really a lark. I never intended to stay that long, but I was working in Palm Beach and Milwaukee is cold in the winter,” he laughed.
When he decided it was time to get back into “real journalism,” he sent his resume to the Dallas paper which was put into the “reject” file “presumably because of the Enquirer job,” he said.
“However, for some reason, the editor in charge of hiring took another look at that file and saw my application. Turns out he had been at The Capitol Times in Madison and knew my name. I was hired as a night city editor in 1980 and, as the saying goes, ‘the rest is history.’”
Staying fresh
He said his key challenge is “to stay fresh, innovative and focused on the reader. As an editor, I can’t perpetuate old habits just because that’s the way we’ve always done something.
“There is a young audience out there where the newspaper is not their primary source of news. USA Today was originally scoffed at, but it taught all news people to be more respectful of a reader’s time.”
Further, Wilk said that the Internet has been huge for newspapers. “Previously, newspapers could never catch up with broadcast news. We were always a day late. But, in this age of technology we get our news out instantly.”
Wilk believes that most readers of daily newspapers already know the news before they pick it up and are looking for more information. “That’s what sets us apart,” he said.
And he doesn’t view television, even the 24-7 news networks, as being his competition. “People have to watch those shows on the network’s timetable and in the order it gives the news. I feel the newspaper is still the most portable news source. [Readers] can read it at their convenience and only the items that interest them,” he said.
In what little free time he has, theater is still his passion. In addition, labeling himself “a gourmet,” he enjoys hosting small dinner parties. Further, he loves to travel, including Milwaukee to visit his mother Rose and other family.
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