When State House reporter Katherine Gregg’s byline shows up in the Providence Journal, you can bet that local politicians will take notice. Some may even run for cover. She has broken and/or covered some of the biggest political stories in the state during her nearly 40-year career first as a reporter in the East Providence and Newport bureaus, then as a city hall reporter in Providence and beginning in 1986 as a State House reporter. She has amassed national, regional and local awards for her work uncovering greed, hidden conflicts of interest, ethics violations, and wrongdoing in government.     In the early 1980s, during Mayor Vincent Cianci’s re-election campaign, Kathy went house to house in South Providence knocking on doors to verify fraudulent mail ballots. The abuses the Journal team uncovered led to action at the State House that required strict verification of mail ballots. In 1985, she reported that the Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corporation was making mortgages intended for low-income, first-time home buyers available to families of politicians and the well-connected. Her stories led to the agency’s director going to prison. The series won the prestigious Sevellon Brown public service award for “meritorious public service.” In 1991, her “Set for Life” series revealed how Rhode Island lawmakers secured special pension deals for themselves

and their cronies. This series helped to force open previously secret records and sparked pension reform. She was part of the Journal team that exposed widespread corruption within Rhode Island’s courts, resulting in the resignation of the Supreme Court’s chief justice and the court system’s top administrator. These stories won the newspaper a Pulitzer Prize in 1994.

     In 2001, Gregg reported on Rhode Island’s legislative leaders abusing hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds to pay for meals at pricey restaurants, wedding and Christmas presents, country-club dues, limousine rides and airfare for winter trips to sunny climates. The series disclosed how the legislature kept those outlays from public view and allowed no independent audits. In 2003, she reported on secret business deals between then-Sen. John Celona and CVS and Blue Cross. These deals resulted in Celona’s resignation from the Senate and a prison sentence. In 2012, Kathy broke the Dan Doyle story, uncovering and chronicling the misuse of public funds at the Institute for International Sport at the University of Rhode Island.

     Gregg is the recipient of the Master Reporter Award, a lifetime achievement honor, from the New England Society of Newspaper Editors. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and began her journalism career as a stringer for the Burlington Free Press in Vermont in 1973, eventually covering the Vermont legislature. She is an outstanding example of a first-class journalist who digs broadly and deeply to make sure the readers are informed of some of the most important stories in Rhode Island year after year. Her work has had a serious impact on those who serve in government.

Inducted into the R.I. Journalism Hall of Fame April 2018

     Malinowski quickly demonstrated the rare ability of getting people to talk – to tell their side of a story. He would listen to the official police account, and then seek out the accused to hear their version. In this way he taught other reporters the vital importance of making one more call; of knocking on one more door.

     Working alone and as part of an investigative team, he covered the municipal scandals of various local and state administrations, including those of former Pawtucket Mayor Brian J. Sarault, former Providence Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr., and former Gov. Edward D. DiPrete. He helped to explain the complicated finances of Central Falls, the first city in the state’s history to declare federal bankruptcy.

     But Malinowski may have been best known for his coverage of crime, and was a frequent speaker at colleges and conferences. He explored gangs and gun violence in Providence, and became an expert in the state’s organized-crime culture. His many honors included being named “master reporter” by the New England Society of Newspaper Editors in 2014.

     In 2015, Malinowski – a dedicated runner and athlete – was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The courage and determination he demonstrated after receiving this devastating news may be his most lasting contribution.

     Bill Malinowski died in August 2016. He was 57.

Inducted into the R.I. Journalism Hall of Fame April 2017

Class of 2016

     One of Jim Baron’s journalistic colleagues wrote of him after his death: “In an environment where reporters are often confronted with spin, Jim was refreshingly on point. Not blunt, but insistent on asking the question you were being steered away from. … Jim was unabashedly Jim. No matter who or what he was covering, he wasn’t trying to impress you or anyone else. But he did care about what he wrote, and the observations he made.” Another wrote: “They just don't make reporters like Jim Baron today. Those comments encapsulated the professional life of James F. Baron, who covered state politics for the Pawtucket Times for almost three decades and earned the respect of his journalistic associates and (grudgingly) of the politicians he covered.     

     A native Rhode Islander, James F. Baron graduated from Lincoln High School and received a degree in journalism from Syracuse University. He began working for the Pawtucket Times in 1981 as a correspondent covering Lincoln. In 1985 he joined the Times staff full time and covered Pawtucket municipal government. In the late ’80s he took over the State House beat. His passion for politics found an outlet in his reporting and in his weekly column, “Politics As Usual.” He also found time to be active in the

Pawtucket Newspaper Guild, of which he was a past president.

     Baron received many awards for his work, including several from the Rhode Island Press Association. As is the norm for reporters working for smaller papers, Baron was noted for his prodigious output. A former colleague at the Pawtucket Times said of him that he “could do the work of three or four people,” and added, “He had an ear and sympathy for the underdog. He had no patience for artifice or people that were full of themselves. He could deflate them in a few quick works, often with a great sense of humor.”

     Baron was married to Denise Perreault, a former reporter and editor at the Woonsocket Call. He died on January 5, 2015. 

Inducted into the R.I. Journalism Hall of Fame April 2016

     The author Salman Rushdie wrote, “A poet’s work is to name the unnameable, point at frauds ... start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.”

     Had Rushdie substituted “journalist” for “poet,” his musing would have retained its pungency: A number of poets spent years in newspapering, including Walt Whitman, whose style was forged in the smithy of journalism.

     Laurence J. Sasso Jr. is the embodiment of the poet-newsman. For nearly three decades he guided hometown publications, knowing that if the world is indeed to be shaped, the task is best initiated in one’s own neck of the woods.

     A Smithfield native, Sasso brought context and insight to the Observer, the town’s weekly newspaper, as its editor from 1987 to 1998. He cast his influence even further as managing editor of Observer Publications – also including the North Providence North Star and the Johnston Sun Rise – from 1998 to 2006.

     When he left, Sasso created Your Smithfield Magazine, which, with its monthly features, columns, and photos, quickly

Class of 2014

     Richard McGowan traded a half-hearted career in the business world for an outstanding career covering sports in Newport County.

     Readers of the Newport Daily News shared the insight of a writer who won the state’s top sportswriting honor 14 times from 1976 to 2011, as well as a pile of state and regional writing awards. Readers had the pleasure of learning from a writer with an encyclopedic knowledge of sports across the county and the state.

     Rick loved the sports he covered, from the traditional to the offbeat. He covered 35 years of school sports, to the point where the players he once wrote about became his friendly bartenders.

     He was on hand for 35 years of tournaments at the International Tennis Hall of Fame, rivaling the legendary Bud Collins in duration and, to a milder degree, in wardrobe -- combinations of Master’s green jacket, Kennedy prep and a dash of Liberace.

     A natural people person, Rick cultivated friendships ranging from tennis star Pam Shriver to Uncle Sam lookalike and global eccentric Love-22. 

     Rick was a sportswriter in the purist sense. He loved sports and writing with equal ardor. During his semi-occasional dances into the newsroom, he would often plop a copy of The New Yorker or Sports Illustrated in front of a colleague and say, “Read this. This is elegant writing.”

     In addition to well-crafted magazine features, Rick enjoys crime novels. In his retirement, he happily gained more time to read both novels and magazines. His readers, sadly, lost the chance to read his stories and columns.

Inducted into the R.I. Journalism Hall of Fame May 2013

     With compassion and talent, Ray Clayton creatively captured in images the people and history of southern Rhode Island for 35 years as a premier news photographer.

     A native of Oberlin, Ohio, Clayton found opportunity limited there and joined the Navy, a decision that had a profound effect on the course of his life. One of the places that interested him in his travels was Rhode Island, where his ship was homeported, and upon discharge he answered an ad for a news photographer for Wilson Newspapers, later known as Southern Rhode Island newspapers. Clayton was at the end of a line of 20 prospects and the weary interviewing editor perked up when Clayton opened his refreshing portfolio of photos of people rather than landscapes and still lifes.

     Clayton was hired the next day and began a photographic career that netted him hundreds of awards, including Rhode Island News Photographer of the Year several times and New England News Photographer of the Year in 1998.

     Accompanying reporters and editors on assignments, Clayton had a knack of capturing the right photos for the assignment, 

always working unobtrusively in a manner that put his subjects at ease. Working in a small-circulation market, Clayton became well known as a news photographer and many of his subjects became friends over the years. Clayton’s passions reached far beyond photography. An accomplished musician (he was once signed with a recording studio), he enjoyed classical music—Mozart or earlier—and he had a compassion for humanity, being a Big Brother for many years and also a regular blood donor.

When photography was transformed into the computer age, Clayton dove into the intricacies of the digital age with relish and became so accomplished that he ended up coaching new hires to the photographic staff. As a steady, experienced presence in the newspapers, Clayton found himself often “breaking-in” reporters who were long on enthusiasm and short on experience.

Clayton’s love for news photography, his innate gifts of compassion for humanity and technical prowess constitute a significant legacy for photojournalism.

Inducted into the R.I. Journalism Hall of Fame May 2012

Class of 2011

     The publishing career of Frederick J. Wilson III was marked by a devotion to editorial quality and a commitment to the communities he served. Publisher, entrepreneur, decorated veteran, “Rick” oversaw the editorial expansion of the weekly Wilson Newspapers in Wakefield, Rhode Island, over three decades, molding them into some of the best in New England. After the newspapers were sold to a chain, he started a pair of weeklies known as Independent Newspapers.

     In 1946, his father, Frederick J. Wilson Jr., purchased The Narragansett Times in Wakefield from the Gillies family. Rick grew up in the pressroom, writing for the newspaper when he was as young as 12. After receiving a degree in English from the University of Wisconsin in 1964 and serving with the Marines, including a tour of duty in Vietnam as a helicopter pilot, Rick returned to the family business in 1971 as advertising manager. He expanded the classified department and was named assistant publisher. After his father’s death in 1978, Rick became publisher, for a time sharing the duty with his brother, Jaime Wilson.

     Rick’s tenure marked an unprecedented expansion and improvement of the local paper. He hired more reporters, emphasized 

quality photography and created sections for the arts and sports. In addition to The Standard-Times of North Kingstown, which the company had purchased in 1969, Wilson Publishing Co. bought the Rhode Island Pendulum in East Greenwich and launched the Chariho Times in Charlestown, Richmond and Hopkinton. At its height, The Narragansett Times circulated more than 14,000 papers a week, and The Narragansett Times and The Standard-Times became twice-weekly in 1988.

     After leaving The Narragansett Times in 1995, Rick found investors and opened his own newspaper in 1997, the South County Independent, a weekly modeled on The Narragansett Times in its heyday. Two years later he started a second paper for East Greenwich and North Kingstown.

     Enthusiastic, unflappable and devoted to his employees, Frederick J. Wilson III presided over a new age for weekly newspapers – an age of cold type and digital photography, award-winning reporting and expanded local coverage.

Inducted into the R.I. Journalism Hall of Fame May 2010