Carl West, 74, Campbell County native and former Kentucky Post reporter, who earned a reputation as a “giant of community journalism,” died Sunday at the University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital.
He had been ill for some time and recently suffered a stroke.
West was Frankfort correspondent for The Kentucky Post and Washington correspondent in the Scripps Howard News Service bureau. He became editor of the Frankfort State Journal in 1979 and was “editor emeritus” of the newspaper since 2012.
Last fall, he received the Al Smith Award by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and the Bluegrass Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
West was also founder of the Kentucky Book Fair. The fair, in its 35th year, has raise thousands of dollars for libraries across the state.
In the nomination for the Al Smith Award, his good friend and colleague Richard Wilson, retired Courier-Journal reporter, wrote, “Carl oversaw numerous improvements (at the State Journal) and frequently became a mentor to young journalists, many of whom have gone on to distinguished careers in journalism and other endeavors.”
West, who lived in Frankfort, was a 1966 journalism graduate of the University of Kentucky. He reported for The Kentucky Post in Northern Kentucky, Frankfort and Washington before joining Scripps Howard News Service as an investigative reporter in 1973. He reported on the Watergate scandal and was named by Washingtonian magazine as one of the capital city’s leading investigative reporters. In 1976 he won the Scripps Howard Foundation’s Raymond Clapper Memorial Award for exceptionally meritorious Washington-based reporting.
“Carl West helped fledgling writers like me have a chance to get our words out there,” Steve Flairty wrote on Facebook. “He founded the Kentucky Book Fair, now annually attended by thousands. He was a great journalist and won high-level recognition for his work during Watergate. Like me, raised in Grants Lick and a Campbell County High School graduate. I know to whom I will dedicate the next Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes book. I am saddened, but inspired by his life.”
Funeral arrangements are pending at Harrod Brothers Funeral Home in Frankfort.
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You may also be interested in this NKyTribune story about Carl West’s Al Smith Award.