Society of Professional Journalists: SPJ Board

Region 12 Director
Sonny Albarado
Projects Editor
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
121 E. Capitol Ave.
Little Rock, AR 72201 501/244-4321
E-mail
Bio (click to expand)

Born on the bayou and raised on a sugarcane plantation, Lawrence ‘Sonny’ Albarado is news editor of The Commercial Appeal, the largest daily newspaper in Memphis, Tenn.

Sonny, 55, moved to Memphis from Baton Rouge, La., in 1989 to become The CA’s deputy business editor. He had been the financial editor of the Morning Advocate, the daily in Louisiana’s capital city.

He joined SDX in 1979, when he was a reporter at the Advocate. He joined because he believed in the need for an organization that defends First Amendment principles and represents the common interests of journalists. That's why he still belongs.

Albarado has remained active in SPJ because, to use a cliché, "somebody has to do it."

“Somebody has to bird-dog the forces in local, state and national government who see citizens only as sources of votes or taxes. Somebody has to work to convince journalists, regardless of the medium they work in, that they have a common heritage, that despite competitive pressures, they are part of the same family. And somebody has to remember to party because journalists take themselves way too seriously,” he says.

At The Commercial Appeal, Albarado was a newsroom leader in developing investigative and computer-assisted reporting during the 1990s. From 1992 until his appointment as business editor in December 2002, he served as the Appeal’s projects editor. He supervised a team of five reporters who focused on investigative and explanatory journalism.

Among the team’s key accomplishments: Stories that brought about reforms in the property tax appraisal system and exposed corruption in a state program that paid private day-care operators to care for children of mothers on welfare. The day-care project led to federal prison sentences for program officials and a Tennessee Supreme Court ruling that applied the state’s open records law to private entities that receive government funding to carry out governmental functions.

Albarado and investigative team member also helped create one of the first electronic databases of campaign contributions to local and state candidates in the early 1990’s and conducted local and statewide polling on political and social issues.

As business editor, Albarado supervised a staff of six reporters and one deputy business editor. His main achievement as business editor was to increase the amount of local business news and reduce the amount of business wire copy provided by The Commercial Appeal.

As news editor, he has worked with other editors to create a new model for using wire services.

The effort has included new non-narrative story forms.

Albarado has a bachelor’s degree in English from Nicholls State University in his hometown of Thibodaux, La. He has taken graduate courses at Mississippi State University and Louisiana State University. He currently teaches computer-assisted reporting at the University of Memphis as an adjunct instructor.

In addition to membership in SPJ, he is a longtime member of Investigative Reporters & Editors.

He is married to Linda Lanier of Amite, La., who is a page designer at The Commercial Appeal. He has two adult sons from a previous marriage and two grandchildren.