LAWRENCE, Kan. -- John C. Quinn, chief news executive of Gannett Co. Inc. and editor of USA Today, will receive the 1987 William Allen White Foundation Award for Journalistic Merit Tuesday at the University of Kansas.
The award annually is presented to a journalist who mirrors the late Emporia Gazette newspaper editor in service to profession and country.
A panel of White Foundation trustees selected Quinn for the award last summer.
Quinn, in charge of one of the nation's largest news organizations, will receive the award medallion and give the annual William Allen White Day speech at a noon luncheon.
The award will be presented by W. Davis Merritt Jr., White Foundation president and executive editor of The Wichita Eagle-Beacon.
As executive vice president of news for Gannett, Quinn works with editors and publishers of the 93 Gannett group daily newspapers and with executives of Gannett's eight television and 18 radio stations.
After 23 years at his hometown newspaper, the Providence (R.I.) Journal-Bulletin, he joined Gannett in 1966 as director of news for the company's two newspapers in Rochester, N.Y., the Democrat and Chronicle and the Times-Union.
