Our Hanco*ck family home was in rural Waushara County and from first glance we were removed from, as I described it as a boy, “the rest of the world”. I could make the claim because of the newspapers that arrived in our mailbox and all the events that were taking place “somewhere else”. The daily Stevens Point Journal was the paper Dad read in the evening and where I discovered my boyhood cartoon hero, Buz Sawyer. Mom received a weekly newspaper from Yuma, Arizona, and on weekends the parents enjoyed various sections of the Chicago Tribune, which I brought up from Madison for my weekend visits.Each week the Waushara Argus landed in our home, too. But it was the Johnson County GraphicinClarksville, Arkansas that made for the most conversations in a multitude of directions as Mom clipped stories and sent them to siblings.She might have several clippings for family reunion days, as well. She was born in Ozone, a mountain-top home in the Ozarks, located about 17 miles from Clarksville.
So, I took note this morning of a news story in my email about the fragile nature of the newspaper that had so impacted our family as mom recounted updates about former classmates or farms that had been sold or new businesses that were starting in the area. She wrote letters and sent Christmas cards southwards to those who still made memorable impressions decades later. So, it was sad to read this news story located in an Arkansas business mailing I receive once a week.
Megan Wylie, managing editor ofTheJohnson County GraphicinClarksville, has been going without a paycheck since January.
She thinks it’s a small price to pay for striving to save the local weekly, one of the oldest businesses in Arkansas, founded in 1877.
Wylie, the daughter-in-law of the paper’s owner, Margaret Wylie, is leading a quest to add $11,000 in monthly revenue to avoid shutting down. Local newspapers, mostly weekly, have been failing at a rate of two a week across the country, and Wylie is devoted to dodging that fate.
In January,The Graphicpublished a blank front page and an editorial inside, almost an obituary, headlined “TheJohnson County Graphic, 1877-2024?”
“Our intent to raise public awareness with the blank front page seems to have made an impact, as we’ve seen an uptick in our subscriptions and advertising and feel like we are continuing to gain momentum,” Megan Wylie toldArkansas Businesslast month.
The paper hasn’t turned a profit for a decade, said Wylie, who described her family’s involvement with the paper for more than 50 years.
The Graphic’sJanuary editorial urged readers to ponder what the town would be like without a paper, something thousands of communities have faced in the internet age.
“How many of us grew up with clippings from the paper on our refrigerator or on our grandmother’s, or in our scrapbook?” the editorial asked.
Readers want “hyperlocal content,” Wylie said, particularly coverage of public meetings. “We’ve had many people tell us they wouldn’t know what was going on in these meetings if it weren’t for reading it in the paper. They’ve told us they want us to distill it down to the important details and present it in an easy-to-understand, abbreviated way.”
Readers are also concerned about government accountability, she said, andThe Graphichas offered residents help with Freedom of Information Act requests.
One lifelong resident who subscribed about a year ago told Wylie he had never felt more connected to the community. When neighbors ask how he knows so much about local issues, he answers, “I takeThe Graphic.”
Long-form journalism is imperative for a well-informed citizenry. Consider what local television news allows for time spent on a story about city hall or a proposed development. Now consider how much more is gained with background and a fuller perspective on those same news events when reading about them in your local newspaper. There is no way to deny the importance of local journalism. Equally, there is no way not to feel a collective loss when a newspaper, even far away, has financial woes, shutters windows, and turns off the presses.
Walter Cronkite, the former CBS News anchor, known affectionately as ‘Uncle Walter’, stated that his news show only skimmed the headlines, and for the public to get a more complete view of the world they needed to read their morning newspaper. His idea wassound when he first said it, andjust as accurate today. Newspapers should play an integral part in a citizen’s daily life.
Too many Americans in the 21st century, however, gave up reading a newspaper and slipped further into intellectual decay. We know from the events playing out in our nation as to why legitimate news-gathering and reporting operations are important and needed now more than ever. There are many reasons to feel sad and nostalgic over losing reporters and column inches in newspapers in our communities.But I wonder if the country can be as strong and educated without the work continuously undertaken by newspaper reporters, and the printing presses that roll out the daily first draft of history?
