St. Louis Post-Dispatch editor Gilbert Bailon (right) receives the National Press Foundation’s Benjamin C. Bradlee Editor of the Year Award “for guiding his news organization through the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and the tumultuous aftermath.” The judges say that “if ever a newspaper and its editor faced a real-time stress test it was the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and editor Gilbert Bailon.”

The press release:

Journalists Win National Press Foundation Awards for Excellence

WASHINGTON — The National Press Foundation has announced recipients of some of the most prestigious awards in journalism. The winners will be honored at NPF’s annual awards dinner Feb. 18 in Washington, D.C.

Gilbert Bailon, editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, will receive the Benjamin C. Bradlee Editor of the Year Award for guiding his news organization through the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and the tumultuous aftermath. “If ever a newspaper and its editor faced a real-time stress test it was the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and editor Gilbert Bailon,” the NPF judges said./CONTINUES Read More

– Bemidji Pioneer photo

Reporter: “This makes me want to stand out by the highway holding a sign that says ‘Don’t eat lutefisk.'”

Reporters in Minnesota and North Dakota have been eating lutefisk for charity. “For those not up on Norwegian cuisine, lutefisk is a traditional holiday cod dish that is famous, or infamous, for its pungent aroma and for its slimy and Jell-O-like appearance,” explains the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer.

* At newspapers, lutefisk stretches the limits of good taste (mprnews.org)
* Pioneer journalists take the Lutefisk Challenge (bemidjipioneer.com)

Wednesday

Thursday

Martin Gottlieb, editor of The Record (Bergen County, NJ), sent this memo to colleagues Thursday after he was told about this Wednesday post:

It was a deadline mistake by a remorseful night desk in sports that we’ve corrected online and run a correction about in print today. Everyone knows it should not have happened. Best, Marty

* Paging NorthJersey.com: Your photo is from 2006 (jimromenesko.com)

New — Comment on my Facebook wall: “I wouldn’t be mad if he said we’re understaffed and doing a zillion things and just pulled the wrong photo. I’m willing to bet his sports staff gets a lot of things right that no one ever heralds.”

Montana’s Republican House leaders came out last week with a controversial dress code that some say targets female lawmakers and journalists. (“Women should be sensitive to skirt lengths and necklines.”)

I asked Chuck Johnson, who has covered Montana politics since 1970, about the dress code controversy and he tells Romenesko readers:

There was no need for an official dress code here. Montana had what amounted to an unwritten dress code in the past. Legislators, reporters and staff have dressed appropriately for the most part. If someone in leadership thought any of them were out of line, they were told.

I remember one photographer was told she couldn’t wear jeans on the House floor and forced to go home and change. But jeans were appropriate dress for her because she might have been sent out next to photograph wildlife in the snow or car accidents on the ice. A public radio reporter didn’t have a tie early in the 2013 session and was told he couldn’t be on the floor unless he had a tie. He went home and got one.

As for your question on how would I judge appearance of reporters who cover the Legislature here, I think nearly all reporters dress appropriately. The men wear suits or sports jackets, dress shirts, ties and either dress pants or khakis and dress shoes or boots. I wasn’t aware of the reporter who got admonished for wearing sneakers, but I can guess who it was. [I told Johnson a story I heard about a sneaker-wearing wire service scribe.]

The female journalists here dress like other young women dress in the workplace. They dress professionally.

* Lessons from Montana’s “sexist” dress code (buzzfeed.com)
* Montana House enacts strict dress code, Twitter goes wild (storify.com)

* Silence from Rolling Stone while editors review their “Rape on Campus” story. (huffingtonpost.com)
* A former Rolling Stone lawyer says her departure from the magazine had nothing to do with the controversial rape story. (observer.com)
* The “indefensible” story “felt like a punch in the gut to anyone feeling hopeful about progress against sexual assault,” writes Geneva Overholser. (genevaoverholser.com)
* An investigation into the death of Cat Fancy magazine. (Spoiler alert: Cat lovers did it.) (nymag.com)
* John Harte tells the story about his bikini photo that the Bakersfield Californian refused to run in 1985. (“Do you have any idea how many phone calls we’ll get?” the editor said.) (John Harte)
* Police union head – upset about a syndicated editorial cartoon – to the Bucks County Courier Times: “Here’s wishing you a bankrupt new year.” (phillymag.com)
* The end of an era at the Pulitzer-winning Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. (urbanmilwaukee.com)
* Conde Nast had a “challenging” 2014. capitalnewyork.com)
* Boston.com pulls a post about a racist email to a Chinese restaurant owner – supposedly from Harvard prof Ben Edelman – because it couldn’t be verified. (dankennedy.net)
* You won’t see “break shit” in the New York Times and other big newspapers. (slate.com)
* “Torture” guidance for NPR employees. (npr.org)
* Enough with “Liking” stuff on Facebook! (dailydot.com)
* “Serial” and “Colbert Report” are competing against each other on December 18. (wsj.com)
* NBC’s Richard Engel recalls the time he volunteered to be a human shield for Saddam Hussein. (mediabistro.com)
* Have interesting hobbies? Do you call your mother regularly? Check out this social media job. (journalismjobs.com)
* JOBS: Wanted – Journalism teachers, editors and reporters. (Romenesko Jobs)