Tom Gish, tenacious Kentucky newsman, dies at 82

Tom Gish, who shined a spotlight on corruption and environmental degradation in his corner of southeastern Kentucky as publisher of The Mountain Eagle of Whitesburg for a half-century, died Friday. He was 82. Mr. Gish and his wife, Pat, overcame floods, threats, arson and attempted suppression to deliver news in the weekly publication with the slogan, "It Screams!" The Gishes took on previously untouched issues, including strip mining and police corruption. They endured advertising boycotts, faced violent threats and had their newspaper offices firebombed in 1974. The Gishes churned out another issue a week after the episode, with the masthead stating, "It Still Screams!" The Gishes were recipients of the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award for Courage in Journalism and a lifetime achievement award from the Society of Professional Journalists, among others. In the difficult early years, Mr. Gish recalled, public officials would pass resolutions banning Mountain Eagle staff members from attending their meetings. "It's hard to run a weekly paper and be aggressive and know that every time you go to the grocery store, you're going to bump into someone who may not think you're the greatest guy at that time," said a longtime journalist, Bill Bishop, who worked at the newspaper from 1975 to 1977. "But they were just fearless and knew their job and did it."