Local editorial wins international honor

Steve Bagwell, editorial page editor at the News-Register, has been honored with a Golden Dozen award for editorial writing by the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors.

This is the sixth time he has been so recognized since he began writing editorials here on a regular basis in 2014. He also won the society’s highest award in 2023 — the Golden Quill, honoring the best single English-language editorial of the previous year.

The Golden Dozen awards recognize the best 12 editorials submitted for judging. The awards are presented at the society’s annual conference, held this year in Cardiff, largest city and seat of government in Wales.

The society represents the global community of weekly newspapers published in English. Most, but not all, are based in countries recognizing English as the official language, led by those of North America, the British Isles and British Commonwealth.

The winning editorial, published on Oct. 31, 2025, was titled, “Expecting the unexpected and solving the unsolvable.” It explored the challenges local governments face in responding to emergencies big and small, and the role newspapers play along the way.

Bagwell has been involved in the editorial process at Northwest newspapers for more than 50 years.

After several years working as a reporter, he held editorial management posts at the Statesman Journal in Salem, Idaho Statesman in Boise and Bulletin in Bend during the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. He had his first taste of editorial board service in Salem, and later served for a time as editorial page editor in Boise.

He joined the News-Register as managing editor in 1997. He continued in that capacity until 2018, when he narrowed his focus to the paper’s weekly Viewpoints section.