Jay Smith
President, Cox Newspapers

	Photo by Joey Ivansco

As editor of three Cox newspapers, Arnold Rosenfeld understood the relationship between a newspaper and its community. Each desperately needs the other. Arnold also understood that Cox's newspapers could improve if our journalists worked together better. Good people and good journalism can serve more than one Cox newspaper.

The two themes highlight this year's Best of Cox Awards as we name the first Arnold Rosenfeld Editor of the Year honoree and recognize collaborative editorial efforts that include coverage of the 2000 Presidential race.

A record 498 entries produced 38 winners whose work makes up this collection. It's fun to look at a year's work. It speaks volumes about the kind of newspaper company we are and the men and women who are its heart and soul. And speaking of women, please note how many captured top prizes.

For the first time, we invited a distinguished panel of journalists from outside Cox to serve as judges. They came from some of the top newspapers in the U.S. Several complained that it was often difficult to select a single winner because of the high quality of the entries. That is as it should be.

Jan Tuckwood, associate editor of the Palm Beach Post, lives the values that Arnold taught so many of us during his three Cox editorships, which is why she was named our first "Rosenfeld" winner, a recognition that pleased Arnold greatly. Her colleagues at the Post paid her the highest compliment in their nomination. They listed the many impressive projects she has led, but also said: "She thinks like a reader and insists on making the presentation of news readily understandable to readers. For example, when the newspaper wrote about changes in Florida's standardized testing for school children, Tuckwood made sure the newspaper ran sample questions from the new test, so parents could gauge what their children would be facing."

It was a little thing, the kind of thing a 44-year-old mother like Jan, with four daughters, might want to know. But it was also the kind of thing good editors do every day.

Our judges also gave a special award to Carl Rauscher of our Washington bureau, who led a Cox-wide effort to cover what proved to be an historic presidential election. Carl inspired an unprecedented level of cooperation between and among our newspapers. That proved especially rewarding, given the prominent roles Austin and Palm Beach played in the election story.

While Mike Schwartz, with the usual able assist from Tom Bennett, picked up the leadership of the Best of Cox Awards from Arnold, it remains essentially what it has always been — a family album of our best work.

It's only appropriate that Arnold's presence plays such a large role in the 12th edition.