Former Courier-Journal managing editor Irene Nolan dies

Irene Clare Nolan, a pioneer for women in journalism and managing editor of the Courier-Journal from 1987 to 1992, died following an illness Friday at the age of 70.

With Nolan at the helm, the Courier-Journal won a Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for its coverage of the 1988 Carrollton bus crash that claimed 27 lives. The Pulitzer committee lauded the breaking news coverage and subsequent "thorough and effective examination of the causes and implications of the tragedy."

At the time of her death, she was editor and co-owner of The Island Free Press, an online publication serving the Coastal Carolina communities of Hatteras and Ocracoke Islands.

Nolan died after spending recent days in a hospital in Norfolk, Virginia, several hours from her home in Frisco, North Carolina, on Hatteras Island. Her family said that Nolan had been ill with a severe lung disorder.

Nolan worked her way up the management ladder of the Louisville newspaper under the Bingham family ownership and then for most of her tenure held her top managerial post after the paper's purchase by the Gannett organization – and after the folding of the sister afternoon publication, The Louisville Times.

She became one of the first women to manage the newsroom of a major American newspaper. Although one of the first women to achieve that status in the industry, she was not the first woman to be managing editor of the Courier-Journal. That honor fell a few years earlier to the late Carol Sutton, Nolan's mentor.

Courier-Journal contemporaries recalled Nolan's leadership with kind words.

David Hawpe, former Courier-Journal executive editor, now retired, said Nolan "came into journalism when women were overlooked for positions of responsibility and leadership, but she finished her career at the Courier-Journal as a strong, energetic managing editor who oversaw nationally award-winning work.

"Irene's personal imprint was on the journalism that the Courier-Journal produced in those years. Like any family, the paper's staff and leaders had their fights, but Irene and I both thought that Louisville and Kentucky were better for the information and advocacy we provided during those years."

Stephen Ford, Nolan's successor as Courier-Journal managing editor, recalled that Nolan managed the newsroom "during a challenging time, as the Louisville papers made the transition from family to chain ownership and were consolidated into one newspaper with morning-only distribution."

Ford credited Nolan with having "had admirable qualities and temperament for those tasks. She was fiercely determined to preserve the long-standing commitment of the newspapers to hard-nosed, public-service journalism, but at the same time she could be decidedly unsentimental and open to change."

Ford remembered that Nolan "had a particular interest in the weather, which many of us tended to dismiss as not worthy of serious attention, unless it really caused a mess. But Irene ratcheted up the daily weather summary and coverage of unusual weather. And she was right, of course. Everyone is affected by the weather, after all, and readers really do care about it."

Ben Post, a more recent Courier-Journal managing editor who retired several years ago, said he admired Nolan's "outspoken advocacy for the newspaper’s public-service mission.  Just as important, she helped open management doors to women in the newsroom and in the industry itself. Her passion for life and journalism will be missed."

And Keith Runyon, retired longtime Courier-Journal editorial page chief who began his career working with Nolan, said that "in many ways, Irene was the sister I never had. Friend, confidante, sympathizer when I was in trouble. The whole works.

"We shared our lives when I was the first man to work in the women's department of one of America's major newspapers. Our ... friendship was personal, and always, always was supported by the hard work we did when we were in our 20s.

"So much change has occurred in the last 50 years at the Courier-Journal, but the imprint Irene left is impossible to eradicate."

Nolan, a native of Brooklyn, New York, was a graduate of the Indiana University School of Journalism and had a second major in Spanish. She developed some of her newspaper skills at The Indiana Daily Student in Bloomington.

After college, Nolan's first job was a brief stint as a news writer at WAKY radio in Louisville.

She joined the Courier-Journal as a clerk in the women's department in 1969. She soon became a features writer for what was then called Women's World and later with the Today's Living and Accent sections.

Her positions included assistant editor and then editor of the features section and later editor of the arts and leisure section. From 1979 to 1984 she was the Courier-Journal assistant managing editor for features.

Nolan was promoted to the Courier-Journal's assistant managing editor for news and then was briefly the deputy managing editor of both the Courier-Journal and The Louisville Times. She became managing editor of the Courier-Journal in 1987.

As head of the Courier-Journal news operation, she oversaw a staff of about 230 and managed what was then a $13 million annual news department budget.

Nolan was a Pulitzer Prize juror several times and was once chairwoman of the ethics committee of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

Nolan left Louisville for a more leisurely lifestyle along the ocean shore in North Carolina, moving there in the early 1990s after visiting the area frequently for 35 years. She edited The Island Breeze on Hatteras for 16 years before founding The Island Free Press online publication, which made its debut in 2007, according to its website.

Nolan at one time was married to Courier-Journal writer Jim Nolan.

Her survivors include two children, Christopher Nolan and Kathleen Nolan Andres, and nine grandchildren. Funeral arrangements are being handled by Twiford Funeral Home in Hatteras.

Reporter Sheldon S. Shafer can be reached at (502) 582-7089, or via email at sshafer@courier-journal.com.