A strong season for the ProJo BY IAN DONNIS

The 2003 holiday season seems likely to go down in the annals of the Providence Journal as a particularly momentous time for the newspaper. Members of the Providence Newspaper Guild, which has been fighting a pitched battle with Journal management for almost four years, overwhelmingly voted to approve a new contract. And the Journal, in an effort designed to meet the deadline for Pulitzer consideration, has offered what may stand as the ultimate account of the Station fire disaster with a terrific eight-part series.

As the Phoenix predicted last week (see "Peace breaks out at the ProJo," News, December 19), a better offer from management — including raises, signing bonuses, free parking, and improved retirement benefits — was enough to elicit broad support from Guild members. During daylong voting on Friday, December 19, they backed the pact by a 238-to-15 margin.

"We are pleased by the ratification vote and congratulate the Guild executive committee, administrator, and both negotiating committees," Journal publisher Howard G. Sutton said in a December 20 story that started on the bottom front of the ProJo’s business section. "This agreement will allow all of us to continue our focus on maintaining the Providence Journal as the premier news and information provider and advertising vehicle for Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts."

In a statement, Guild president John Hill said, "We’re pleased to have a contract, but saddened that we had to fight for four years to get what we deserve. The company’s war on the union came at a high price to the newspaper and its readers. Some of our most talented people were driven away by the strife, and energy that could have gone to improving the newspaper was wasted on labor battles that the company initiated. I hope, at least, that the Journal now knows that the Guild is here to stay."

It all marks a quite a chance from December 2000, for example, when the early deterioration in Guild-management relations led the liberal advocacy group Rhode Island Jobs With Justice to peg Sutton as the organization’s Scrooge of the Year.

This holiday season, Journal editors are hopeful that the paper, which last won a Pulitzer in 1994, will net journalism’s top prize for its coverage of the devastating February 20 fire at the Station nightclub in West Warwick, which caused 100 deaths and injured almost 200. Although the Boston Globe and New York Times initially outflanked the ProJo in reporting on the disaster (see "Losing the beat," News, May 2), the Journal has offered the most comprehensive overall coverage. And although a few readers have previously complained about what they see as the paper’s excessive focus on the fire, the ProJo — which previously documented the number of people inside the club at the time – considerably added to the public record with its eight-part series.

Highlighted by sharp writing and deep reporting, each installment has also benefited from a crisp focus, such as the general complacency in updating Rhode Island’s fire code after previous conflagrations, and the literally life-and-death coincidences that brought some people to the Station on the fateful night. The strongest — and most harrowing — story in the "Forged by fire" series, published Sunday, December 21, involved marshaling dozens of staffers to conduct 208 interviews with survivors. The story, preceded by an editor’s note warning, "The content is difficult — too painful, perhaps, for some readers — but essential to the public understanding," offered a painfully vivid account of what happened in the decisive 60 seconds after the blaze began and the ensuing five minutes.

All in all, this series, as well as the Guild pact, and Journal’s ongoing commitment to in-depth reporting, marks a strong point for ringing out 2003.