Here - Lamar University

News extraBy Louise WoodThe space shuttle Columbia was breaking up over EastTexas, while, in a San Antonio newsroom, Brett Thacker’83 was agitating for an extra edition.“It was early in the morning, and I had been straddlingthe fence. But I saw we had the people to get itdone, so I said, ‘Let’s do an extra.’“It was one of those adrenaline days,” says Thacker,then an assistant managing editor at the San AntonioExpress-News.Thacker remembers it as one of those magicalmoments in the news business that makes editors theirmost proud – the news-gathering is tough, if not nearlyimpossible, but the result makes it all worthwhile.14 | Cardinal Cadence September - November 2005JERRY LARA“We had so much fun (at theUniversity Press). We wouldstay up there all night, literally.We were pouring our heartand soul into that publication.We were really clicking.“The shuttle was our first extra since 9-11.We covered the unfolding of the event in EastTexas,” Thacker says. “We yanked it together,and the excitement, the palpable energy in theroom – it’s kind of like Friday night football insports. You have all these people, and everyone’sdoing their own thing, but, somehow, it magicallycomes together.“That day was amazing. You’re coordinatingwith circulation to get the extra out and productionto book the press time, and you’re tryingto add pages for the next day, and you’re tryingto get the stories in and edit them and makesure the headlines and the photos strike the rightchord. Sept. 11 was like that, and capturingSaddam was like that, but this topped them all.”Thacker likes to think that extra edition ofFeb. 1, 2003, helped him cinch his position asmanaging editor of the one of the nation’s majornewspapers. With a circulation of 240,000weekdays and 355,000 Sundays and an editorialstaff of 280, it is the third-largest in Texas.In April, the Express-News earned its firsteverNewspaper of the Year honors from theTexas Associated Press Managing Editors. TheExpress-News was honored the best daily paperin its big-city circulation category, topping competitorsin Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth andAustin.Thacker and his staff had another opportunityto practice over-the-top journalism whenHurricanes Katrina and Rita ravaged the NewOrleans and Southeast Texas-SouthwestLouisiana areas in August and September. (Seestory, page 51)“Throughout the ’80s and early ’90s, for amajor metropolitan daily, this newspaper wasnot held in very high esteem,” Thacker says.“When Hearst purchased us in 1993 – it ownedthe rival San Antonio Light, and it bought usand closed the Light – the company infused us”with resources to have more people, a betterbuilding and raise the quality of our journalism.”Thacker’s career rise has been newsworthyin its own right – beginning with his years inthe Beaumont Enterprise sports department,where, as a 17-year-old rookie still in highschool, his primary daily duties were to answertelephones and call the bait camps to see if thefish were running. “The main question was,‘How is the fishing?’ and the final question was,‘You got any bait?’” Thacker recalls.There were all-nighters at the UniversityPress. “We had so much fun,” he says. “Wewould stay up there all night, literally. We werepouring our heart and our soul into that publication.We were really clicking.”For more than two decades, he and theExpress-News have been clicking in a major way.In a field not known for long-term associations,Thacker has been with the Express-News 22years. He joined the paper in 1983 as a copyeditor – two weeks after graduation fromLamar. And, he says, “Here I remain.”Thacker became assistant sports editor in1988, sports editor in 1997, assistant managingeditor for weekends in 1999 and deputy managingeditor in early 2003. In August 2003, thenewspaper named him its managing editor aftera nationwide search.He supervises the news operation, runningthe news meetings, determining the lineup forthe front page and supervising the different sectionsof the paper with their planning, personneland procedures – “just your chief administrator,basically.”Thacker figures his interest in journalismbegan when, at age 8 or 9, he produced his firstnewspaper on a notepad. “It was two or threepages, and it was called The Unknown News.I could not tell you what the content was orwhat it was all about. It was essentially, here’s aSeptember - November 2005 Cardinal Cadence | 15