Arkansas Publisher Weekly: January 2, 2020

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Arkadelphia Dispatch applies for APA membership Guest Column:

Research in old community newspapers shows value of the printed page

Arkansas Press Association

Publisher Weekly

By Al Cross

Vol. 15 | No. 1 | Thursday, January 2, 2020 | Serving Press and State Since 1873

Remembering those our industry lost in 2019 The Arkansas Press Association joined the state’s newspaper industry in mourning the loss of many people associated with Arkansas newspapers or the state’s journalism community in 2019.

We remember and pay tribute to those we lost over the past year:

Jim Bailey, 86, Little Rock, Jan. 2. Bailey was a sports writer and columnist for the Arkansas Gazette and Arkansas DemocratGazette. For more than five Jim Bailey decades, Bailey covered boxing and the Arkansas Travelers and co-authored three books. A member of the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame, he was the Arkansas National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association sportswriter of the Year 16 times.

Camilla Nadine Cox, 95, Piggott, Jan. 3. A former linotype operator for the Piggott Times, Mrs. Cox wrote a weekly column published in the Clay Camilla Cox County Times-Democrat on county history and genealogy. She helped establish the Clay County Genealogical and Historical Society and was church clerk at First Baptist Church of Piggott for more than 40 years.

Maxine Baker Kemp, 92, Fayetteville, Jan. 13. Mrs. Kemp, a retired educator, was the mother of past Arkansas Press Association President Ron Kemp and Maxine Kemp grandmother of current APA Executive Director Ashley Wimberley.

She was a frequent guest at both APA

and National Newspaper Association conventions and a strong supporter of newspapers.

Thelma (Louise) Ellis, 87, Jonesboro, Feb. 3. Mrs. Ellis was one of the original employees of the Piggott Times in 1967 and remained at the newspaper until her Louise Ellis retirement. As a reporter and photographer, she contributed to hundreds of editions of the newspaper.

Mary Frances Farabough, 88, Dumas, Feb. 8: A longtime employee of the Dumas Clarion, she worked as a linotype operator and in the newspaper’s front Mary Farabough office. She also authored a book of local history titled “Memories of Dumas.” She worked for the Clarion from the 1940s until 1970.

Terry Hawkins, 66, Dumas, Feb. 24. Hawkins was publisher of the Dumas Clarion. He worked for the Clarion from 1974 to 1981 and 1982-1986 before Terry Hawkins returning to Dumas in 1992.

During his time away from Dumas, he was managing editor at the Nashville News and Blytheville Courier-News. A native of Monticello, Hawkins was secretary/ treasurer of Arkansas Press Women and he won numerous journalism awards, including the National Press Women Communications Contest sweepstakes award in 2007.

Matt DeCample, 44, Little Rock, March 3. DeCample, former press secretary

to Gov. Mike Beebe and broadcast journalist, died of a rare form of liver cancer.

A Washington native, he worked for Little Rock television station KATV Matt DeCample before joining Beebe’s staff initially while Beebe was attorney general.

After the governor’s term expired in 2015, DeCample was an independent public relations and communications consultant.

Guy Unangst, 75, Jacksonville, Florida, March 8. Unangst was a retired Sunday editor, Washington editor and special projects editor for the Arkansas Guy Unangst Democrat-Gazette.

A Pennsylvania native, he was an editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer and Fort Worth Star-Telegram before he moved to Little Rock. He also served as a radio operator in the Army Air National Guard.

Dwane Powell, 74, Raleigh, North Carolina, April 14. Powell was a retired editorial cartoonist and Arkansas native who spent decades as a Dwane Powell cartoonist at the Raleigh News and Observer. Powell was raised near McGehee and got his start drawing cartoons for the Advance-Monticellonian.

A distinguished alumnus of the University of Arkansas at Monticello, he earned national awards for his editorial cartoons and published of four collections of his work.

Linda Seubold, 76, Fort Smith, June 8.

She was an award-winning journalist and co-founder of the popular Entertainment: Continued on Page 2

Remembering those our industry lost in 2019 Continued from Page 1

Linda Seubold

Fort Smith magazine. She served as editor-in-chief of that magazine, which started in 2000. Before that, she was a reporter and editor for the Times Record in her native Fort Smith.

Hazel Ashcraft Jump, 90, Jonesboro, June 23.

Mrs. Jump and her late husband, Fred Ashcraft, were owners of Marked Tree Publishing Co., publishing the Marked Tree Hazel Jump Tribune and Lepanto News Record for 18 years. She later joined the staff of the Jonesboro Sun and wrote feature articles for Occasions magazine in Jonesboro after retirement. The Vermont native began her decades-long newspaper career at the Burlington Daily News in Vermont.

Melba Jean McCormick Reed, 86, Story, June 29.

Known as “Miss Melba” to the staff of the Montgomery County News, Mrs. Reed was a long time contributor Melba Reed to the Mount Ida-based newspaper, where she authored the ”Story News” column. She also provided contributions to the Yell County Record in Danville.

Wesley Pruden, 83, Washington, July 17.

Pruden, a Little Rock native, was a firebrand conservative columnist and editor of The Washington Wesley Pruden Times. He held the title of editor-in-chief emeritus at the Times from his 2008 retirement until his death. As a teenager, Pruden was a copy boy and sportswriter for the Arkansas Gazette.

He was assistant state editor at that newspaper before going to work at the Commercial Appeal in Memphis, then serving as a foreign correspondent for the National Observer.

Debra Ann Stevens, 47, Fort Smith, Aug. 24. Mrs. Stevens was a newspaper carrier for the Times Record in Fort Smith. She died tragically after her vehicle Debra Stevens was swept away by flash flood waters while she was out delivering newspapers. She attended East Side Arkansas Publisher Weekly

Baptist Church in Fort Smith, where she was a preschool teacher.

Jeff Brasher, 47, Fort Smith, Sept. 9. Brasher was a former page designer for Stephens Media and the Times Record in Fort Smith. A Greenwood native, Jeff Brasher Brasher worked for the Times Record for 23 years. He left in 2016 to be a graphic designer at Consolidated Printing in Van Buren.

Billy Moore, 79, Rogers, Sept. 14. Moore was a newspaper industry veteran who was president and general manager of the Rogers Daily News in the Billy Moore early 1970s and operated the Benton County Daily Record when it converted from weekly to daily publication.

Moore was recruited by Sam Walton in the 1970s to establish a publishing company in Bentonville to take over the growing printing requirements for Walmart. Moore was an early investor in the Northwest Arkansas real estate market, a member of the Arkansas Air National Guard and president of the Bentonville Chamber of Commerce.

George Henson Wells, 81, Little Rock, Sept. 29.

Wells was a longtime reporter and editor for the Arkansas Gazette and Pine Bluff Commercial. He was a George Henson copy editor at the Gazette early in his career before returning to the Little Rock-based newspaper to report on the federal judiciary and federal agencies.

He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1982.

Charles Francis

Rita Barthol

Charles Wayne Francis, 71, Argyle, Texas, Oct. 25.

Francis was the co-owner and publisher of the White River Current in Calico Rock. He was a Texas native.

Rita Rose Barthol, 86, Little Rock, Oct. 18. Mrs. Barthol was a reporter for the Camden News who went on to work in Little Rock for The Guardian, which later changed its 2

name to Arkansas Catholic. She was a member of the Our Lady of Holy Souls Church in Little Rock.

Jack Moseley, 82, Fort Smith, Nov. 15. Moseley was an award-winning reporter and columnist who served as editor of the Times Record in Fort Smith.

Jack Moseley He served as managing editor of the Fort Smith newspaper for 25 years and previously was managing editor of the Fort Worth Press in Texas. He won numerous national awards, including two gold medals for the advancement of human rights from the National Conference of Christians and Jews. He authored two nonfiction books and contributed to high school and college journalism textbooks.

Maretta “Garnette” Duncan Traylor, 80, Brinkley, Dec. 14. Mrs. Traylor was a former staff member for the Monroe County Herald in Brinkley Maretta Traylor and the grandmother of Herald Publisher Hayden Taylor.

LET US KNOW We want to know about your new hires, retires and promotions!

Send your staffing changes to info@arkansaspress.org to be updated online and included in the Arkansas Publisher Weekly.

ARKANSAS

press ASSOCIATION

January 2, 2020

APA selects Gilmore Strategy Group as contract lobbyists Gilmore Strategy Group, a Little Rock-based government relations firm, has been retained by the Arkansas Press Association to provide government relations lobbying and consulting services for 2020. The group will assist APA’s staff in efforts at the state Capitol to protect the interests of newspapers and strengthen the state’s Freedom of Information Act. The APA Board of Directors selected Gilmore Strategy Group from among several firms who submitted proposals to the association.

APA Executive Director Ashley Wimberley said the Gilmore group is the best fit for the association given the current political climate as the association moves toward a pivotal 2021 legislative session.

“Gilmore Strategy Group brings a track record of success at the Legislature and a team with the ideal political experience to best navigate the halls of the Capitol,” Wimberley said. “We look forward to introducing them to our members and ensuring they know our priorities as we

Hutchinson’s campaign manager in 2014, was a White House intern under President George W. Bush, and worked for both the Republican Party of Arkansas and the Republican National Committee. move toward what we expect to be a contentious legislative session next year.”

Jon Gilmore, the president and cofounder of Gilmore Strategy Group, said his team is eager to begin working with the APA. “Our approach to lobbying is built on trust and integrity,” Gilmore said. “Relationships are critical to the success of your lobbying efforts, but those relationships only come from trust and integrity. We are delighted to partner with the APA. The press plays such a vital role to the citizens of Arkansas and we looking forward to partnering with the APA on the critical issues to the industry.”

Gilmore is a former deputy chief of staff for Gov. Asa Hutchinson and he continues to consult Hutchinson as his chief strategist on political affairs. Gilmore was

Gilmore’s partner at the firm is Rett Hatcher, a licensed attorney and CPA. Before joining Gilmore, Hatcher was the director of legislative and agency affairs for Gov. Hutchinson. He managed a staff of 15 policy analysts and agency liaisons who worked to develop Hutchinson’s policy proposals into legislation.

Just last year, Gilmore Strategy Group added J.R. Davis to the team. Davis, Gilmore’s senior strategist, was the communications director and chief spokesman for Hutchinson. Before that, he was a morning anchor and political reporter for Fayetteville television station KNWA. He has also served as communications director for Rep. Steve Womack.

Arkadelphia Dispatch applies for APA membership

The Arkadelphia Dispatch, a weekly newspaper in Arkadelphia, has applied for membership to the Arkansas Press Association. The APA Constitution and Bylaws require three notifications of the application to APA membership. This is the first of those three notifications.

The Dispatch, owned by APA board member John Robert Schirmer, was established in late 2018 following

the closure of the Siftings Herald in Arkadelphia.

The newspaper has published weekly since then and is now eligible for full APA membership.

In addition to the Dispatch, Schirmer operates the Glenwood Herald, the Murfreesboro Diamond and the Nashville News-Leader.

Any APA member who objects to the

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From journalism I learned to write under pressure, to work with deadlines, to have limited space and time, to conduct and interview, to find information, to research, and above all, to use language as efficiently as possible and to remember always that there is a reader out there.

—Isabel Allende Arkansas Publisher Weekly

Dispatch’s membership in APA may provide a written letter of objection to APA Executive Director Ashley Wimberley, 411 S. Victory St., Little Rock AR 72201 or email ashley@arkansaspress.org

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January 2, 2020

David Meadows steps down at The Courier in Russellville City, Missouri-based Central Missouri Newspapers Inc. (CMNI), according to a report in the Courier.

CMNI is owned by Little Rock-based WEHCO Media.

Meadows will oversee daily operations at three newspapers, one lifestyle magazine and CMNI’s commercial printing facility, The Courier reported.

David Meadows, publisher of several Paxton Media newspapers in Arkansas including The Courier in Russellville, left that position at the end of 2019 to serve as general manager for Jefferson

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Fred P. Graham

“Bittersweet is overused at times like this but it is the appropriate word to describe my feelings,” Meadows said. “It is a difficult decision to leave but the timing seems right, and this is a great opportunity professionally.”

Meadows started working at The Courier in 2008 after holding posts at newspapers in Kansas and Georgia. Most of his newspaper experience has been in either general manager or publisher roles.

Meadows told the newspaper that The Courier staff seemed like a second family.

“I’m most proud of our team’s ability to find new ways to serve readers and advertisers, like starting our quarterly magazine editions, podcasts and a strong social media presence,” he said. “All of these pieces help to keep our community better informed, which is at the heart of what we strive to do.”

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Ann Elizabeth Carroll Ann Elizabeth Carroll, a former editor of the Pocahontas Star Herald died Monday, December 30, at age 97. Born in Pocahontas August 29, 1922, she was a daughter of Warren L. and Thelma Martin Blankenship.

Fred P. Graham, a Little Rock native, died Dec. 28 in Washington. He was 88.

Graham was a Supreme Court correspondent for the New York Times and a founding anchor for the television network Court TV, according to an Associated Press obituary. He was born in Little Rock and attended elementary school in Texarkana before his family moved to Nashville, Tenn.

A Marine Corps veteran, he attended Yale, and he earned his law degree at Vanderbilt University while he was employed at the Tennessean in Nashville. He joined the Times in 1965 and then moved to CBS News as a legal reporter, where he worked from 1972 to 1987. He was one of the first people hired by cable startup Court TV in the early 1990s, according to AP. Arkansas Publisher Weekly

The Pocahontas Star Herald was established in 1902 by Mrs. Carroll’s grandfather, L.F. Blankenship. She and her husband William D. Carroll purchased the newspaper in 1963 from her family, at which time she became editor and manager. She went into semiretirement in 1988, but continued for several years to write “Here and There”, a personal column established in 1930 by her father W.L. Blankenship, under the pen name Ann Blankenship Carroll (A.B.C.) In 1993, Mrs. Carroll was presented with

the Golden Fifty Award, a newspaper service recognition by the Arkansas Press Association.

She is survived by three children, Miss Carol Ann Carroll, William N. Carroll and Dr. Patrick W. Carroll all of Pocahontas and two sisters, Martha Murph of Tyler, TX and Mary Williams of Pocahontas.

Services were held on Thursday, January 2, 2020.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR March 12 & 13, 2020 APA Advertising Conference Winthrop Rockefeller Institute Petit Jean Mountain

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January 2, 2020

Guest Column:

Research in old community newspapers shows value of the printed page

By Al Cross When Jim Phillips of Lexington, Kentucky, started poring through microfilm copies of old newspapers to research his family history, he thought it would be “a legacy to be left for my family and others, documenting the world of my parents’ youth and their home Pulaski County, Indiana,” as he wrote in a research paper for an independent-study course I supervised at the University of Kentucky.

But Phillips experienced something that may make printed newspapers last longer than many think: the serendipity that often manifests itself in scanning the pages of a newspaper, discovering and digesting information that you aren’t specifically seeking.

He also discovered a fundamental element of community newspapers that may also make them survive, in whatever form: the granular coverage of individual lives that weave together to form a community.

That led him to expand his work to the independent-study course in journalism.

“When this project started, I was merely looking for items mentioning my family, but it soon expanded to other items that interested me,” Phillips wrote. “This occurred – as my journalism professor, Al Cross, aptly pointed out – because of the wide variety of information displayed on each newspaper page.”

Newspaper serendipity was well described in The New York Times by Bill McKeen, chairman of the Department of Journalism at Boston University, when he held the same job at the University of Florida (after teaching at my alma mater, Western Kentucky University).

Bill required students to read the Times in print, not online, when you “find only what you’re looking for,” he wrote. He defined serendipity as “the ability to make fortunate discoveries accidentally” and

Arkansas Publisher Weekly

called it “a historian’s best friend, and the biggest part of the rush that is the daily magic of discovery.”

As Phillips scanned the pages of the Pulaski County Democrat and the Winamac Republican, he found not only things that he didn’t know about his family, but many other happenings -- some of which constituted narratives about individuals and families, and economic, technological and cultural trends from 1924-25 – the years his parents were born – to 1947, the year he was born. It’s all there: the Ku Klux Klan, Prohibition, the Great Depression, World War II and so on.

The project showed the value of newspaper archives in researching trends, some of which Phillips notes with striking examples, such as Chet Reynolds, who wrote a letter to Santa Claus in 1925, when he was 7, asking for “an electric moving picture machine.” In October 1947, as manager of the Home Appliances and Radio Store, he ran an ad announcing that it had a “telivision,” and in May 1948 one of the papers pictured him installing the antenna for “the first home television set in Pulaski County.”

Phillips’ paper is online at http://www. u k y. e d u / C o m m I n f o S t u d i e s / I R J C I / JimPhillipsStalking.pdf. He wrote in the first paragraph, “I came to know my hometown just before my birth, because the reporting of these weeklies was relentlessly local.”

And granular. He found no enterprise reporting, but plenty of personal reporting.

“Births, marriages, deaths, and courthouse reports were front-page staples,” he writes.

“In each issue, Sunday dinners, family visits, short trips and parties were routinely reported by correspondents for each of the county’s five to eight communities and their adjacent farms. Hospitalizations and

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long trips were also announced, without concern for confidentiality and burglaries.”

This amounted to a lot of information. “The number of people mentioned in an issue was about 2,500,” Phillips estimated, including as one of his many illustrations a house ad that bragged about 2,630 names in one edition. “Although it included visitors from outside the county, that number is significant in a county with a population of about 11,000.”

Community correspondents are much less common today, but are still seen in some rural newspapers. I wish there were more of them. Times have changed, and most of the information a weekly correspondent might report would already be known, but the best correspondents also include insightful personal observations and valuable background knowledge of their communities.

I like to say that every American has the First Amendment right to commit journalism. Note that verb; it connotes responsibility for your actions. At a time when every American has the ability to publish, without understanding the responsibilities of journalism, it would serve us well to have a cadre of correspondents in every county, citizen journalists, serving as connectors to the local newspaper and helping their neighbors identify with it.

Al Cross edited and managed weekly newspapers before working 26 years for the Louisville Courier Journal and serving as president of the Society of Professional Journalists. For 15 years, he has directed the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky, where he is a professor of journalism.

January 2, 2020