NEW YORK (April 30, 2013) – Long-time U.S. publisher Michael Phelps was presented the International News Media Association (INMA) Silver Shovel Award today in New York for volunteer service and lifetime achievements in the media industry.

The award was presented at the closing dinner of the 83rd Annual INMA World Congress at the Marriott Marquis in New York.

A past president of INMA, Phelps is publisher, president and chief executive officer of the Washington Examiner, a free home-delivered daily newspaper in Washington, D.C.

Phelps was cited by 2012 Silver Shovel Award recipient Paulo Mira of PHD Mobi for a “career of excellence that has advanced the causes of journalism, finding new ways to pay for journalism, and positioning INMA in the middle of that great debate.”

The Silver Shovel Award represents INMA’s highest individual honour for unselfish dedication to the association, which today has more than 5,000 members in 80+ countries. INMA is the leading provider of global best practices to grow revenue, audience, and brand of news media companies.

Phelps first became involved with INMA in the 1990s as a volunteer conference moderator, later joining the association’s Board of Directors in 2003. He served as INMA president from 2009 to 2011 and will soon step down from the INMA Board. During his time with INMA, Phelps helped guide INMA toward being a repository of revenue best practices to help fund great journalism disrupted by technological change.

With his news publishing career including time as a journalist and editor, as well as time as a publisher and an advertising sales executive, Mira said that Phelps “has an advertising sales brain with a journalist’s heart.”

Phelps has been CEO of the Washington Examiner since 2006, and he was the launch publisher for the Baltimore Examiner, the first of Philip Anschutz’s Clarity Media newspapers to be started from scratch. He joined Clarity Media in 2005 after nearly six years with Lee Enterprises, where he was vice president, publishing for newspapers and their Web sites in Iowa, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina, as well as publisher of Lee’s flagship newspaper, The Quad-City Times, in Davenport, Iowa.

Previously, Phelps worked as a reporter, news editor, managing editor, newspaper owner, and consultant to newspaper publishers.

Earlier in his career, Phelps was an adjunct faculty member for the Michigan State University journalism school. He also directed the master’s programme in media management at Emerson College in Boston.

Throughout his career, he has dedicated himself to continuing education of media executives. In addition to INMA, he has led seminars for the American Press Institute, the Inter-American Press Association, the International Media Fund, and The Freedom Forum. In the early 1990s, Phelps visited countries of the former Soviet Union on five occasions to train and consult for newspaper industry executives on the path to free market operations.

Phelps served as an office in the U.S. Navy and later retired as a lieutenant colonel from the Massachusetts Air National Guard.

INMA is the world’s leading provider of global best practices and marketing ideas for news media companies looking to grow amid profound market change. The International News Media Association (INMA) is based in Dallas with offices in Antwerp and New Delhi. INMA has more than 5,000 members in 80+ countries constituting a unique and valued community of news industry executives committed to maximizing revenue and honing business models to support great journalism and strong news media companies.