SC Press leader, journalism advocate Bill Rogers to retire in July after 33 years
Bill Rogers, who sat at the helm of South Carolina’s leading journalism organization for 33 years as a fierce advocate for newsrooms and its reporters, will retire in July.
Rogers made the announcement in the South Carolina Press Association’s newsletter on Friday.
“Not to bury the lead, I am retiring in July after 33 years as SCPA Executive Director,” Rogers wrote in the newsletter, accompanied with a head shot wearing his iconic round glasses and hat. “I think it has been a good run and I want to thank our members for their support. I can think of no other group I would rather have worked for. Your support has helped us build one of the strongest press associations in the South and nation.”
Rogers said a transition committee to help find his successor met Thursday.
Before coming to the Press Association, Rogers began his career in journalism at the Asheville Citizen-Times in 1966, when, he recalled, “newspapers were a different animal.”
“Editors and reporters were respected in their community. There was no fake news,” Rogers said. “We had to count headlines in our heads to be set on a Ludlow machine. There was no shrink it so it fits. There was no leading out a story to fit. We sized pictures with a wheel. Stories were typed on a manual typewriter with carbons and carried to the city desk .There were proofreaders. Wire stories came in on punched tape and were clipped to the printed stories with clothespins. Type was set on Linotypes.”
After a tour in Guam as a photographer with the U.S. Navy, Rogers went to the afternoon daily Roanoke World-News and then became the sports editor of the Waynesville Mountaineer, he wrote. Later on, Rogers took a job as editor and general manager for two years over the White Sulphur Springs STAR in West Virginia.
It would become his final newspaper job, before stints at Marshall University, the University of Alabama and the South Carolina’s four-year flagship school, the University of South Carolina where he taught senior semester for five years.
“I am proud to say a number of my students are still in the business,” Rogers said. “It has been a good ride.”
In his work at the South Carolina Press Association, Rogers represented the interests of more than 100 daily, weekly and college outlets operating today in the state.
Rogers often went to bat for newsrooms, including The State newspaper, a Press Association member, and its reporters in court or in front of the state Legislature.
“Bill Rogers at @SCPressAssoc was great for news, newspapers and folks like me in South Carolina,” tweeted Jeffrey Collins, a veteran news reporter with The Associated Press in South Carolina. “He never backed down from a justified fight, but he also understood a drink and a little talking could help work things out. Happy trails!!”
