October 2, 2020

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The Criterion celebrates 60 years of excellence and service

Story and graphic by Brandon A. Evans

60th anniversary of The CriterionThe first Friday of this month marks the 60th anniversary of The Criterion.

In those years since 1960, staff members across generations have produced more than 3,000 issues of the Catholic newspaper which serves central and southern Indiana.

Those issues have varied in size and presentation; they have been created with a wide divergence of technology and production methods; they have taken part in the long transition from black-and-white to single color to full color; and they have catalogued local, national and international events, recording the history of the Catholic Church as viewed from Indiana and edited by clerics, religious and lay people.

A lot has changed—in all sorts of ways—since the first issue of this paper appeared in the years that built up to the Second Vatican Council. One of those changes is the size of our staff: at one time about 20 people were responsible for all the different jobs required to produce the largest weekly newspaper in Indiana. They included an editor, reporters, a business manager, administrative assistants, an associate publisher, members of a graphics department and a group of advertising representatives.

Though the staff is much smaller now—just eight people—our dedication to continuing the legacy of excellence passed onto us is the same. The past few years have seen the paper win more Catholic Press Association awards than ever before.

As we look forward to this year that marks our six decades of service, we hope to be able to celebrate in a variety of ways.

Keep your eyes pealed in upcoming editions for the occasional special feature or notation about our history, and watch where our continued endeavors to improve the newspapers layout and design take us.

On our website as well, we’ve begun again to add years of archival content— most recently, all of the issues from 1967 in PDF format. More years will be added soon at www.CriterionOnline.com.

The Criterion has been witness to a great deal of history, with much more to come. †

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