Masterson

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In recognition of that work, Masterson received the Robert F. Kennedy bust in Washington for best reporting in the country on problems of the disadvantaged.

“All of this hadn’t come without threats to the reporters,” Masterson said, “which prompted me to do something admittedly over the top when I borrowed a page from Buford Pusser’s story and had bat-sized poles cut and inscribed, ‘For self-protection while telling it like it is.’ Then I handed one to each staffer. I was proud of them and concerned for their welfare after the dedication they had shown toward telling the truth.”

Masterson’s journalism career turned a remarkable page when, in 1975, he received an Alicia Patterson Fellowship, enabling him to spend two years traveling America in a motorhome with his family and writing about the people “beside the highways” and their mood during the nation’s Bicentennial Year. Some 33 daily newspapers carried those accounts weekly in a column form.

His daughter Anna was born in 1977, and three years later the Los Angeles Times offered a reporting position in San Diego. “I knew if I passed it up, that opportunity to enter the world of big-time journalism likely would never come again,” Masterson said. Working alongside a dozen top-flight journalists helped him mature and become seasoned in several ways. And he did cover numerous significant stories, including finding evidence that a 21-year-old man who had escaped prosecution for homicide was indeed guilty. He was charged and convicted, leading staff at the paper to comment, “’you’d better watch yourself when he gets out.’”

Masterson quickly tired of the longerform feature style of the Times and was ready for a change when an offer came from the Chicago Sun-Times. “The paper had an international reputation for first rate investigative reporting,” Masterson said in explaining his decision to move.

“Knowing I was in a busy newsroom where six Pulitzer Prize winners worked, I had to begin quickly earning my chops,” Masterson said.

“That first week I turned a page six blurb about a young Black man hanging himself with his shoelaces in a precinct lockup the night before into a major story about more young Black men dying in Chicago’s precinct cells in the past year than the combined total of LA and New York,” Masterson said.

He stayed with that story until the FBI became involved and the Chicago Police Department announced significant reforms.

Masterson was involved in numerous other investigative articles at the Sun-Times, including the misuse of allocated Medicaid funds by the State of Illinois.

The Chicago newspaper was sold to Rupert Murdoch and talented journalists began leaving the staff, resulting in Masterson’s uncertainty as to his future journalism path.

“Once again, Walter Hussman appeared in my career (as he has through today) and offered me the chance to return to Arkansas and work for him doing investigative reporting for his then Arkansas Democrat and other WEHCO Media papers across Southern Arkansas,” Masterson said.

“So, I went home. It was 1982. I was 11 years out of college.”

Right away, Masterson began reporting on what was one of the defining stories of his long career.

His research uncovered evidence that led to the exoneration of Ronald Carden, who had been convicted of murdering a still-unidentified Jane Doe. He was awaiting sentencing when Masterson’s story broke in the Democrat

Then Pulaski County Sheriff Tommy Robinson contacted Masterson about the impending story and warned him not to publish it. Masterson said Robinson told him, “‘If you do, you’ll be going out on a limb so far, it’ll break off behind you.’”

Masterson was confident in his evidence and replied, “well, Sheriff, you do what you’ve got to do, and I’ll do what I’ve got to do.” Three weeks later, Carden was a free man.

Dennis Montgomery, Associated Press Bureau Chief at the time, See Masterson Page 3