By BROCK WENDLANDT
Alumni News staff
Joe Starita is passionate about the core values of journalism.
Starita, city editor of the Lincoln Journal Star newspaper, was recognized April 9 as an outstanding alumnus by the NU Journalism Alumni Association at the college’s annual J-Days celebration.
Starita graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1978 with a double major in English and journalism. While at the university, he was a stringer for United Press International and campus correspondent for the Lincoln Evening Journal.
Starita learned the power of journalism his senior year at NU, and he will never forget the particular moment that defined it for him.
The moment was a simple interview with a downtown Lincoln tailor. The tailor, a German immigrant who was in his 80s, had lived in Lincoln since the 1920s. As he grew older, his only wish was to get back to Germany so that he could be reunited with his sister and die with her.
Starita wrote the story of this man’s dying wish and submitted it to his UPI chief. His chief put the story on the “A” wire, and within several days people contacted Starita from all over the country about the story. Letters and money began to pour in. It was enough to send the German tailor back to his native land.
“There has probably never been a more powerful moment in my 20-year career than that first jolt,” Starita said. “That lesson was overwhelming.”
The lesson, he said, showed him the ability of journalism to change and shape lives.
“We have an awesome responsibility to use this great power to benefit the many,” he said.
Starita took that lesson with him as he began his professional career at The Miami Herald in 1979. From 1983 to 1987, as The Herald’s New York bureau chief, he covered the Bernhard Goetz subway shooting, the space shuttle Challenger explosion, the Los Angeles Summer Olympics, a World Series, the Wall Street Crash, Baby M, John Gotti and the downfall of presidential candidate Gary Hart. He then went on to become a member of The Herald’s investigations team for four years.
Through his work as an investigative reporter, Starita further learned the responsibility of journalists.
“As a journalist, you need to be zealous, passionate and highly motivated,” he said. “You need to find the nugget of a story when many don’t want you to learn the story. Journalists should try to preserve the basic tenets of democracy. We need to provide that check and balance, and you can’t do that unless you believe in that responsibility.”
Starita returned to Lincoln in 1992 and completed the master’s degree at NU in 1995. He taught several classes at the journalism college before being appointed city editor of the Lincoln Journal Star in 1997.
Although Starita has honed his skills and sense of responsibility during his years as a professional, he already exhibited the qualities of a fine reporter in college, said Michael Stricklin, director of graduate studies and professor of news-editorial in the College of Journalism and Mass Communications.
“Joe wanted to be as good a writer and reporter as he could be — that was his passion,” Stricklin said. “He really took great care with the stories he worked on.”
Starita returned to NU in 1992 to begin work on his master’s degree. His book, “The Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge — A Lakota Odyssey,” served as his master’s thesis. The book’s account of the people of the Pine Ridge American Indian Reservation in South Dakota was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
Starita has nothing but praise for the NU faculty that guided him through his undergraduate and graduate studies.
“I learned very high ethical standards from the journalism faculty,” he said. “That strong sense of being fair and professional was a weapon in my arsenal. It is essential that you carry those qualities into the work arena.”