Arkansas Publisher Weekly: January 6, 2022

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Judge denies gag order in Huntsville lawsuit, public access upheld Guest Column: Free training grants

Plus: Avoiding and fixing hard drive crises

By Kevin Slimp

Arkansas Press Association

Publisher Weekly Vol. 17 | No. 1 | Thursday, January 6, 2022 | Serving Press and State Since 1873

Chronicling Arkansas, 100,000 historical newspapers at a time People interested in reading some of Arkansas’s earliest newspapers are in luck.

To date, as part of the federally funded Arkansas Digital Newspaper Project (ADNP), Arkansas State Archives (ASA) staff have digitized 209,854 pages of Arkansas newspapers dating from 1819 to 1926, and are working towards digitizing at least 100,000 more pages.

The uploaded, searchable digital images now live on at chroniclingamerica.loc. gov, a free public database created by the Library of Congress in partnership with the National Endowment for the Humanities, which funds DNP grants for each state.

For casual browsers, exploring the papers found on the Chronicling America site, or “ChronAm” as ADNP Project Manager Katie Adkins refers to it, can be a fascinating internet diversion, a walk through Arkansas history. For researchers, it’s an absolute jackpot of newly accessible historical information about rural Arkansas communities and population centers.

The Library of Congress created the Chronicling America platform specifically to house the converted newspapers in a searchable and customizable Internet database. The site also makes the pages available in downloadable formats; OCR technology can extract the text for readability and use elsewhere, and images of the page can be downloaded as PDFs or as high-resolution photographs.

They are in the public domain, and can be freely used without constraint.

Adkins and ASA staff member Chelsea Cinotto work full-time on the project. With the assistance of the rest of their team,

led by Arkansas State Archivist David Ware, and with the guidance of the ASA board of directors, the two spend their days working on community newspapers largely printed more than 100 years ago. For each newspaper page, they must evaluate the quality of the source material’s preservation, convert it to digital, and read the page so it can be annotated with metadata. The metadata makes the historical newspaper pages searchable once uploaded to Chronicling America.

“You don’t have to have a specific thing you’re looking for,” Adkins says of exploring the website. “I often just browse.

Choose a title, close my eyes and pick an issue, because there’s always something interesting.” Many of those interesting finds, including fascinating figures,

mysteries, recipes and other content also get highlighted in the Department of Arkansas Heritage’s blog.

ASA has completed two cycles of ADNP funding, producing about 100,000 digitally accessible pages each round.

It is now starting on its third cycle, this time specifically seeking to digitize early papers for and by Arkansas minorities, including African-American, women and at least one longstanding German-language newspaper published in Little Rock, Das Echo.

Adkins says another surprising find covering minority populations was discovering a paper that had some columns printed in the Choctaw language.

“We’ll definitely be getting that translated,” she says. “That’s so rare. We have so few Continued on Page 4

Paxton Media Group names Hunt as regional editor Gretchen Hunt has been named regional editor for Paxton Media Group publications in Jonesboro, Paragould, Newport and Walnut Ridge.

In an article published Tuesday, Publisher Reece Terry said that the move is part of a restructuring of the editorial management for the group’s Northeast Arkansas newspapers. “I am confident Gretchen’s experience, education and ties to the communities we serve will be an asset as we work to focus our papers on content that is relevant and unique to the communities we serve,” said Terry.

Hunt will be responsible for the editorial content of the Jonesboro Sun, The Paragould Daily Press, the Newport Independent and The Times Dispatch in Walnut Ridge. She has over 23 years experience in the newspaper industry, and has previously worked as a reporter, editor, managing editor and operations manager for The Times Dispatch, as well as ad sales consultant for The Daily Press, while assisting with production of the Newport Independent.

“I look forward to serving as regional editor for The Sun, The Paragould Daily Press, The Times Dispatch and the Newport Independent,” Hunt said. “These publications are all important resources for their communities and for Northeast Arkansas, and I’m honored to be selected for this newlycreated position.”

Judge denies gag order in Huntsville lawsuit, public access upheld A federal judge has ruled in favor of public access, denying a gag order in a lawsuit against the Huntsville School District.

know how the school district responded to the alleged abuse outweighs the district’s privacy concerns.

Filed in U.S. District Court in Fayetteville, the lawsuit claims the school district knew students on the boys middle school basketball team were being sexually harassed and assaulted by older boys and did little or nothing to stop it. The suit also alleges federal Title IX violations arising from deliberate indifference to and actual knowledge of sexual harassment and sexual assault of multiple students; the district’s failure to promptly and properly investigate reports of sexual harassment; and claims a hostile education environment was created.

In his Dec. 29 ruling, U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks said he recognizes the compelling need to protect both the district’s right to a fair trial and the confidentiality of the students and parents involved, but had to weigh those needs against the participants’ First Amendment right to comment on the case and the public’s right to view the proceedings.

The district has denied liability and allegations in the lawsuit. The district has also denied school officials knew of the abuse and did nothing about it.

The district filed motions to prohibit attorneys and participants in the lawsuit from talking to the media about the case or talking about the case on social media in an effort to limit pretrial publicity. The motion contended attorneys are attempting to try the case in the media, which could taint the jury pool. The school district also asked the court to seal all documents filed in the case and close all live proceedings to the public to protect the identity of the victims and other children involved.

The Madison County Record newspaper had filed a complaint in the case to oppose the gag order sought by the district, arguing that the public’s right to

Arkansas Publisher Weekly

“Given these competing interests, the court will neither prohibit all pretrial publicity nor seal this case in its entirety,” Brooks wrote. “Instead, it orders a solution narrowly tailored to balance the interests at stake.”

Brooks said there are legitimate privacy limitations to the public’s right to access both civil proceedings and judicial records, but reasonable alternatives must be considered.

“Therefore, any solution to protect students’ privacy interests should only be as restrictive as necessary,” Brooks wrote.

“Sealing the entirety of these proceedings, as the school district urges, is overbroad.

That sweeping remedy would bypass reasonable alternatives and unnecessarily infringes on the public’s right of access.”

Instead, the Court’s reasonable alternatives will require the use of an identification key, accessible only to the attorneys and the judge, to mask the names of students and parents involved,

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and will allow redacted filings.

“While the court will not allow on the record identification of minors, sealing the entire case to prevent disclosure of already public facts would be an abuse of this court’s discretion,” Brooks wrote. If future filings would clearly endanger the anonymity of an individual, the sides can ask to file those documents under seal.

Where the editing of names is not possible, documents must be redacted and the document filed unsealed. An unredacted version of the document should also be filed under seal, Brooks said.

Brooks also declined to proceedings at this stage.

close

live

“Much of this case can be heard publicly without identifying the minors involved, and, when specific individuals must be identified on the record, the identification key system will protect anonymity in open court,” Brooks wrote. “There may come a point when identifying facts cannot be avoided and closure of an otherwise public proceeding therefore becomes necessary.”

He continued, “At this point, there is insufficient cause to limit pretrial publicity by the attorneys in this case,” noting the courts have disfavored prior restraints on free speech.

If Brooks considers future comments to the media to be prejudicial, he said, he may be forced to impose a gag order to ensure a fair trial.

January 6, 2022

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Chronicling Arkansas, 100,000 historical newspapers at a time Continued from Page 1

minority newspapers that were preserved.”

representative sampling of daily and weekly community and specialty papers from rural Arkansas and early population centers around the state.

Ware says that the condition of the newspaper can be a challenge for the project.

Ware says by the end, ASA will have converted and uploaded only a tiny fraction of the early Arkansas publications. Some of that is due to the sheer amount of work and funding it would take to digitize everything, and some is because they can only digitize what they have available in a reproducible form. For instance, they have only found one fragment of one issue of the other long-standing German-language newspaper.

“This project represents an interesting combination of old preservation and new dissemination,” Ware says. “For years we’ve relied on microfilm as being the most reliable way to preserve the journalism of the past. The problem with old newspapers, especially early 20th century papers, is that cheap paper falls to pieces.”

Ware explains that while, in contrast, microfilm’s life expectancy can be as long as 500 years, the prospect of going into a dark room at a library or historical society to scan through pages with their head in a dark reader often “puts people into nervous sweats.”

That’s why this project is so important.

“As someone who used to make and proof microfilm for a living, I can say it’s not for the faint of heart or the bad of vision,” Antique newspapers awaiting digitization.

Ware says. “But what we’re doing is Ware says the style of early newspapers making that microfilm image accessible in was markedly different than many today. a searchable form, making that preserved “The papers in many cases were openly image go to work for modern researchers partisan. At the same time, they weren’t and people who want to browse around parochial,” he says, explaining that in the past. I’m hoping this creates more even before wire services papers would interest in just looking at the journalism of exchange clippings with papers across earlier days.” the country. “So you have sort of oddly The journalism of earlier days is often eye- compressed news of the world in the opening or amusing, they say. For instance, columns of a small-town Arkansas weekly Adkins says one of her favorite papers to paper. And you think, ‘What must the people of that time have made of these read is the Arkansaw Traveler (not to be fragmentary reports from way beyond confused with the Arkansas Traveler, the their horizon?’”

University of Arkansas’ student paper). It was written and published by a journalist/ He said, “You read the daily doings, humorist, Opie Read, a contemporary of the local items in these papers, and other journalist/humorists including Mark there’s a sense of immediacy, a sense of Twain and Edgar Wilson “Bill” Nye connection to the community on the part (not the Science Guy) who were part of of the newspaper that you don’t see to the “a really interesting streak in American same degree today.” journalism.”

For copyright reasons, Arkansas’s state “The editor was a real character,” Adkins newspaper of record, the Arkansas says. “We have those papers up on Gazette (now the Arkansas DemocratChronicling America now, so people can Gazette) is not included in the project. look them up. They’re highly entertaining.” Instead, the ADNP is converting a

Arkansas Publisher Weekly

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“It’s taken this project to make us realize (A) how rich what we have is, and (B) how many holes there are in it. It gives us reason to start looking and trying to shake the trees and look for surviving issues, surviving volumes in private hands or in historical societies’ hands.

“We’re waiting to learn Aunt Sue insulated her attic in North Little Rock with copies of the other German-language newspaper,” Ware says, laughing at his theoretical example.

“That would be a windfall.”

Adkins says she is truly excited about the research and education the Chronicling America project makes possible, but that the public needs to know about the new resource.

“You can use it from your home; it’s free.

You can download images. You can then crop or do whatever you want with them,” Adkins says. “Different search functions make it easy to pinpoint what you’re looking for. But people need to use it!”

Adkins says.

When the public heavily uses a resource, Ware says, it’s a lot easier to justify continuing to fund the work. And there’s much more Arkansas newspaper history to share.

A complete list of newspapers that ADNP has digitized is available at arkansasheritage.com/chroniclingamerica-digitized-newspapers

January 6, 2022

Moore retires from Petit Jean Country Headlight After 14 years at the paper in various essential roles, Renae Moore retired from the Petit Jean Country Headlight newspaper at the end of 2021.

Moore’s newspaper career started in 2007 when she took a part-time job stuffing newspapers one day a week. Within a couple of years, she was assisting with the billing. Then, when an employee quit in 2012, she was drawn into the work of building ads and paginating the paper.

Moore typically paginated all the Perry County pages and half the pages for the Conway County edition.

Through it all, she still kept stuffing papers on Wednesdays. She also took on the delivery to all the post offices in Conway County and businesses outside of Morrilton, plus delivering half the papers in Perry County.

Moore’s retirement follows a terrifying stroke she suffered this fall while driving home from the newspaper office one night.

“I only live about 15 minutes from the

office,” she said to the Headlight in a Dec. 29 piece about her retirement, “so I figured I could make it home alright. I thought I was driving OK, but noticed that people kept honking at me.

“I pulled over on the shoulder of the road by the paper mill and started praying that the cops would come get me. I figured someone would call the police because of my driving, and someone did. … When I saw blue lights behind me, I rolled my window down and told the officer I thought I was having a stroke.”

The officers called an ambulance and Moore was transported to UAMS. She survived the ordeal, but decided it was time for a change.

“After working at the Headlight for the past 14 years, I have decided that it’s time forme to retire and go spoil my grandkids,” Moore told the paper, adding, “I’m not going to say goodbye, because I’ll probably start to cry. So I’ll just say I hope everyone has a happy New Year, and I’ll see you around.”

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January 6, 2022

Dunphy retires after Browning, newspaper carrier since 1989, retires 12 years at The Daily Randy Browning, long-time carrier for the Malvern Daily Record, retired on Record in Little Rock December 31. In addition to the Malvern Daily Record, Browning also delivered the Hot Springs Sentinel-Record and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, often at the same time.

Browning has often been chosen as a favorite carrier in reader’s polls. “I enjoyed doing all this, and I’m going to miss the people at the Daily Record and all of my customers,” said Browning. “They’ve been great to me over the years. Most of them know me by name and by sight, and when they see me they wave and smile.”

Daily Record Circulation Manager Kathi Ledbetter called Browning “a reliable and valued member of the MDR staff” and that he would be “a hard one to replace.”

Karen Dunphy, managing editor and production manager at The Daily Record in Little Rock, has announced her retirement after 12 years with the publication. Dunphy joined the real estate, legal and business newspaper’s production department in January 2010. Laurie Beck will be taking over pagination duties.

Dunphy began her career in 1976 as a typesetter at a small local newspaper in Indiana. In 2000 she moved to Arkansas to work for Lockheed Martin as a graphic artist. When that contract expired she joined Magie Enterprises, which at the time published the Cabot Star Herald, Lonoke Democrat, Carlisle Independent, Jacksonville Patriot and the Sherwood Voice. Said Dunphy, “I have some old APA awards from my time at Magie Enterprises. Sadly, that door closed, but another one opened when I landed at The Daily Record.”

“The Daily Record has been a great company to work for,” Dunphy said.

APW contest deadline approaching The entry deadline for the 2022 Communications Contest sponsored by Arkansas Press Women has been set for January 19. Arkansas journalists of any gender identity are encouraged to gather their best work from 2021 and compete for honors in numerous sub-categories for writing and editing in print and online, plus categories for photography, graphics and design, web and social media, podcasts, public relations campaigns and materials, advertising, radio & television, and more.

The professional contest also includes a collegiate section with categories for writing, photography and design for student publications, student public relations campaigns and material, and faculty advisers.

To learn more about the contest or to enter, visit nfpwcontest.secure-platform.com/a/ organizations/AR/home or contact Arkansas Professional Contest Director Helen Plotkin at haplotkin@outlook.com.

INDUSTRY QUOTE “I knew I was going to be a journalist when I was eight years old and I saw the printing pressess rolling at the Sydney newspaper where my dad worked as a proofreader.”

-Geraldine Brooks Arkansas Publisher Weekly

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January 6, 2022

Guest Column: Free training grants Plus: Avoiding and fixing dead hard drive crises

By Kevin Slimp In a couple of recent columns, I touched on two topics that greatly affected my work in the last few days of 2021. They were so significant that I decided to write in more detail about both issues to kick off this first column written in 2022.

Free Training for Your Staff In my end-of-year column last month, I mentioned that newspapers are uniquely positioned to utilize government grants to pay for on-site training. I first became aware of this when Joel Washburn invited me to visit his newspaper for a day in McKenzie, Tennessee, to offer training for his entire staff a few years ago. While there, he shared that the state of Tennessee was funding my visit through a small business grant.

Since then, I’ve worked with newspapers in several states that have received grants to pay the entire bill for my services to offer on-site training. These grants covered the training and costs related to travel and any other expenses.

A few months ago, I assisted a weekly newspaper in another state in creating a report to be submitted to their state in hopes of acquiring a significant grant that would pay all costs related to on-site training for their staff in spring 2022. What a great Christmas present I received when I heard from the publisher of that newspaper to let me know the state approved the grant, and I’ll be heading to their location for several days this spring. Their grant will cover all expenses for travel and training while I’m on-site, plus six months of monthly online training and consulting for their staff afterward. Yes, it was a significant “chunk of change,” but I wasn’t surprised to learn it had been approved.

Having been involved in helping several newspapers receive grants, I’ve learned a few things that are important when applying to states for funds:

• It helps if your newspaper is locally

owned. Most of the small business grants I’ve helped newspapers acquire were designated for locally owned small businesses offering training for their staff.

• It helps if the training benefits every

person on staff. If I remember correctly, every time I’ve worked on-site with a grant Arkansas Publisher Weekly

recipient, it was to work with every staff person, including reporters, designers, editors, publishers, circulation staff, ad reps, and anyone else on the payroll.

Granting organizations tend to fund groups that will most benefit from training.

• It helps to ask for larger grants. It may seem like it would be easier to get a smaller grant than a larger one, but that’s often not the case. I’ve served on boards of several granting organizations over the years and know first-hand that it’s easier to give out money in large chunks than in smaller amounts. This spring, the group I’ll be visiting requested the maximum grant offered and was successful.

• It helps to have a local contact, even though grants might be offered by the state. There’s probably someone in your county government who works directly with small businesses. That’s an excellent place to begin.

Here’s my advice concerning grants for staff training. Contact the person in your county who deals with small businesses. Ask if they can provide information concerning grants provided by the state (or county) for small business training.

Lesson Learned Concerning Backup Drives A couple of months ago, I wrote a column referring to the multiple backup drives on my desk, in addition to the off-site backup I utilize. I mentioned that I keep several drives to back up the computer (and each other), so I won’t lose crucial files in the event of a drive failure. Drive failures are not only a possibility but are likely. A few years ago, a hard drive manufacturer informed me that the average life of a drive was less than three years, so it’s essential to plan for drive failure.

During the last week of 2021, two of my backup drives failed within a day of each other.

Coincidence? Possibly. Perhaps there 8

was a power surge or something along the network that caused the drives to quit working, but whatever the case, they were dead.

I tried several utilities to revive the drives but found only one that worked well for me. It’s called Disk Drill, from 508 Software (cleverfiles.com).

With Disk Drill, I gathered most of the files from the biggest backup drive (4 TB of information) and copied them to another (new) drive. It took about 48 hours for Disk Drill to do its work, then another six hours for me to go through the files and copy them to another drive. Because this was my second oldest backup drive, there were files on it that hadn’t been backed up to other drives, and I couldn’t afford to lose them.

I learned a couple of lessons. One was to make sure everything was backed up in at least three places. I thought I was doing that but learned some of the files pre-dated the backup routines I had set up. The second lesson was to be sure the off-site backup (I use Backblaze) is backing up not just the hard drive and network but the external backup drives as well.

I purchased two new drives. I spent a little extra and purchased solid-state (SSD) drives this time. They have a much longer lifespan than traditional USB drives and are less prone to break due to movement, shaking, etc. One is a 5-terabyte drive and the other a 2-terabyte drive. The larger drive backs up everything on both the computer and other external drives, while the 2-terabyte drive is used exclusively for Apple Time Machine, which backs up everything on my computer every few hours.

It wasn’t an inexpensive lesson, but one well worth learning.

Kevin Slimp is former director of The University of Tennessee Newspaper Institute and founder of NewspaperAcademy.com.

January 6, 2022