April 28, 1998 Contact Gaye Vandermyn (541) 346-3133 NOTE TO EDITORS: Mark Trahant and Jerry Ceppos are available for media interviews while on campus. To arrange an interview, please call the Office of Communications, (541) 346-3134. EUGENE--Jerry Ceppos, considered one of the most ethical newspaper editors in the nation, on May 14 will reveal "The Secret Rules of Journalism" at the 1998 Ruhl Lecture presented by the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. As part of the annual Ruhl Symposium, Mark Trahant, newly named Seattle Times columnist and former editor and publisher of Idaho's Moscow-Pullman Daily News, also will speak to journalism classes May 4-5. Trahant was the first Native-American publisher of a mainstream daily and is former publisher and owner of Navaho Nation Today. Ceppos' free public address will begin at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, May 14, in the Adelaide Church Memorial Reading Room in the Knight Library, 1501 Kincaid St. The Society of Professional Journalists this past fall gave Ceppos, executive editor and senior vice president of the San Jose Mercury News, its first national Ethics in Journalism Award. Ceppos' May 1997 column acknowledging the shortcomings of a controversial Mercury News series won him the respect and the award from his colleagues. Ceppos' integrity also has been noticed by others. Last June, the Anti-Defamation League honored him with its Torch of Liberty Award for service to journalism and to the community. In 1996, he received a Knight-Ridder Excellence Award, presented by the company that owns the Mercury News, for efforts to promote diversity in the newsroom and in the pages of the newspaper. "We are pleased to have one of the most highly respected editors in American journalism speak at our school," said Tim Gleason, dean of the UO School of Journalism and Communication. "Jerry Ceppos has played an instrumental role in making the San Jose Mercury News one of the best regional newspapers in the U.S. His handling of the controversy over his newspaper's story linking the CIA to drug trafficking gives him incredible insight into the ethics of journalism in the print and online world." After 14 years of service, mostly as managing editor, Ceppos in 1995 became executive editor and senior vice president of the San Jose Mercury News. Before joining the Mercury News, he held a number of positions at the Miami Herald, including assistant managing editor for news, and was reporter and editor at the Rochester (n.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle. "As an editor and now a columnist, Trahant takes very seriously the role of a newspaper in its community," says Gleason. "Trahant has demonstrated his commitment to community journalism through his involvement at the Navajo Nation Today and most recently at the Moscow Daily News." Ceppos and Trahant are the latest in a long line of distinguished national and Northwest journalists the Ruhl Symposium has brought to the UO campus since 1975 to discuss journalism ethics and media performance. The Ruhl Symposium is supported by an endowment established by the late Mabel Ruhl of Medford in memory of her husband Robert W. Ruhl, who died in 1967. He was the Pulitzer Prize-winning editor and publisher of the Medford Mail Tribune. For more information, call Jennifer King, (541) 346-3738. -30- #P-1150/Local,OrDailies/PDX,Special