A True Leader   

Lee Hills was the quintessential newspaperman, and it’s memories of those qualities that the journalist, who died February 3 of congestive heart failure, leaves behind.

Lee Hills "had scruples; he had principles... He had moxie," says former Miami Herald Executive Editor John McMullan .

Hills was the quintessential newspaperman, and it's memories of those qualities that the journalist, who died February 3 of congestive heart failure, leaves behind. The former Knight Ridder CEO and Miami Herald and Detroit Free Press executive editor is remembered fondly by friends and colleagues who were part of his incredible climb through journalism's ranks--from a $6-a-week job with Utah's Price News-Advocate at age 14 to editorial chairman emeritus of Knight Ridder at his death at 93.

"I think he was an absolutely remarkable man," says Larry Jinks, longtime Knight Ridder editor, publisher and news executive. "He understood in his gut what journalism is all about."

Hills, a North Dakota native, led the Herald to its first Pulitzer Prize, a 1951 award for public service for an investigation of organized crime. He then won a Pulitzer in 1956 for reporting on labor negotiations between auto manufacturers and the United Auto Workers union, while simultaneously serving as executive editor of the Free Press and the Herald.

Hills joined the Herald as city editor in 1942, after a stint with Scripps Howard. In four months, he was the ME.

McMullan, one of Hills' Miami hires, says Hills had a gift for matching people to jobs. "He had so much passion for detail and for knowing, learning what kind of person you were and what would turn you on," he says.

Hills played a large part in the 1974 merger of Knight Newspapers and Ridder Publications and served as the new company's first chairman and CEO. He urged the Knight brothers to form the philanthropic John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, of which he was chairman until age 90.

But above all else, Lee Hills is remembered as a reporter. "He was a person who was curious about everything..whether at work or at play... He was constantly a reporter," says Al Neuharth, who worked with Hills in Miami and Detroit. And his "splendid shorthand" made him more accurate in the days before minicassette recorders, adds Neuharth, the former chairman of Gannett and of the Freedom Forum.

Hills, says Jinks, is the "best example of how an editor, an executive in a news organization, can truly be a leader and keep in mind journalistic values. [He's] the best example of that I've ever seen."