‘Today’s Catholic’ editor sweeps CMA top awards

Scott Warden, editor-in-chief of Today’s Catholic newspaper in the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind., captured three All-member Individual Excellence Awards at the Catholic Media Conference in Phoenix in June. He was named Photographer of the Year, Writer of the Year and Editor of the Year, sweeping the best-of-the-best awards.

At the awards banquet, Warden looked surprised and then a bit embarrassed. In this Member Spotlight, meet Scott Warden, the man of the hour.

What was it like to have been nominated for several individual awards and to have won so many of them?

The evening of the awards in Phoenix was surreal, honestly. One of the real joys of becoming part of the Catholic media is the sense of community and getting to know so many amazing and talented people. At the awards dinner, we were all surrounded by incredible editors, writers and photographers whose work I admire. These are the best of the best in our profession.

Now, I don’t want to be disingenuous and say that I never imagined that I’d win one of the major awards — I was proud of the work, and a guy can dream — but I certainly didn’t expect to win any of them, let alone three.

The night is a bit of a blur, but as I recall, photographer of the year was awarded first. As I said above, I really love making photos, so I was thrilled that the judges liked my work as much as they did. I was shocked at winning writer of the year and even more so editor of the year.

By the end, I felt a little embarrassed by the whole thing, but very grateful, again, to all the judges who affirmed that we’re doing great work in the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend at Today’s Catholic. It’s certainly a night that I’ll never forget, and, as I’ve said a few times since, 48 seems to be an appropriate time to have peaked career-wise. But while I might not win another of those major awards, we’ll keep trying to do the absolute best work that we can in order to give our readers as many opportunities as we can to love their local Catholic media as much as I do.

Tell us about your background and how you ended up working in Catholic media.

My dad was a sportswriter and columnist at our hometown paper for more than 50 years, so I grew up around newspapers. While I was in college, I worked part time on the agate desk (for those of us who are of a certain age, that meant taking box scores from high school coaches, etc.) and eventually began covering high school sports. I loved the writing aspect, and my first job was, again, covering high schools at a small daily paper in Florida. While I was there, I got engaged to my beautiful wife and needed to move back to Indiana, so I took a job as a copy editor on the sports desk. I worked in daily secular newspapers for 19 years.

I converted to the faith in 2006, but it took longer for me to really fall in love with Christ and his church. When I did, I started to get a little disillusioned working in secular media. My hometown of Fort Wayne, Ind., is 20 minutes away from the headquarters of Our Sunday Visitor. While job searching, I found that OSV was looking for an associate editor. The incredible Gretchen Crowe really took a leap of faith in hiring me, and when I came to OSV, I felt overwhelmed in the fact that everyone I worked with seemed to know everything about the faith. At that time, I didn’t know the difference between an encyclical and exhortation, but with the help of Gretchen’s mentorship and patience, I really found a home in Catholic media.

Tell us your title, how long you have worked there and a little about your work.

After nearly 10 years at OSV, I had the opportunity two years ago to join the communications team of my hometown diocese, the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, as editor-in-chief of its newspaper, Today’s Catholic. OSV was great training for diocesan work, and everyone here has really embraced me and made the chancery feel like home.

What is a typical day like for you?

Much of the work of editing a weekly diocesan paper is in the fostering of relationships — with diocesan leadership, with freelance writers and photographers, with local clergy, with members of your own staff, with leaders of Catholic apostolates and schools, etc. I’ve learned that doing that well takes time, so a large amount of time is spent communicating with all these folks. We have to know what’s going on in our parishes and schools and the wider community to communicate those things to our readers. The work of an editor, I’ve found, is really in the planning — finding stories and assigning stories. In the actual production process, much of my time is spent editing copy, coordinating photos, working with our designer — all the typical things.

What is your favorite part of the job?

Aside from the people in our office, who I genuinely love to be around, the truly great thing about my job is having the ability to take on multiple roles and sharpen my creative skills. While a great majority of my career was spent exclusively editing, writing has always been the thing that I’m best at, work-wise. While I wrote the occasional column or small news piece from time to time in my previous couple of stops, being part of a small team here at Today’s Catholic has allowed me the opportunity to exercise those writing muscles again, and I’ve loved it. The same can be said about photography. Before coming to TC, I had no photojournalism experience at all. I knew my way around a camera only because I was too cheap to pay a professional to take our family photos. But now, the opportunity to capture the people and places of the diocese in fun and interesting ways is what most excites me.

What is the most challenging part of the job?

Making sure we’re covering the things that need to be covered. We have one full-time writer, who is excellent, but otherwise we rely on a limited staff of talented freelancers who all have other jobs and responsibilities. We also have a fairly large diocese, geographically speaking, which makes this a challenge as well.

Why do you think Catholic media is important?

Catholic media matters because, otherwise, who would tell the stories within the Church? I’m paraphrasing here, but Pope Francis once said that journalists write “the first draft of history.” I really like the thought of that, because it’s true! And while we at Today’s Catholic (or other Catholic media outlets) might not be focusing on the geopolitics of the day, we are chronicling the history of the Church in our areas — the people, the parishes, the schools, etc. And that matters. With growing secularism and a shrinking of their resources, other local media outlets certainly aren’t covering these things, so there is an important duty to share all the ways in which God is working through our bishops and priests and teachers and everyday Catholics we cover.

Is there anything else you would like people to know about you?

I’ve been married to my incredible wife, Erin, for 24 years. We have six kids — our oldest is 22, and our youngest is 6. Each one of them is an absolute delight (most of the time). While I love my job, being a husband and father is the most rewarding experience of my life.