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Guest Column: Determining how to use (and not use) AI By Kevin Slimp
Arkansas Press Association
Publisher Weekly Vol.19 | No. 28 | Thursday, July 18, 2024 | Serving Press and State Since 1873
Mike Wallace embraces retirement after 40-year news career When looking back over Mike Wallace’s 40-year career in the community newspaper business, perhaps it was the words and attitude of “Uncle Robert and Aunt Bess” that best captured the essence of his philosophy and purpose.
take yourself too seriously and, second, give everyone a fair chance to do right – some people won’t, but most will.” Wallace used the column and other writing in his long career to deliver “pearls of wisdom” himself – “at least I thought they were.”
That was the title of a column he wrote for 13 years while serving as editor of the Montgomery County News in Mount Ida. Wallace worked at that newspaper for a total of 16 years, with the remainder of his tenure at the neighboring Glenwood Herald, where he first started and then recently retired.
But he also found Uncle Robert’s approach was practical in his own manner of dealing with people in his newspaper work over the years. “The vast majority of people were really great to work with,” he said. “Of course, there were a few that were kind of full of themselves, but you get that in anything you do.
The characters in the fictitious column lived on a farm in northern Montgomery County. Uncle Robert, named after Wallace’s grandfather’s brother, was proud of his huge garden and the couple essentially relied on it for their sustenance.
“It was interesting work. I really enjoyed meeting people and taking pictures at the various events over the years. I ate a lot of meals at fire department fish fries and community chili suppers.”
The couple adopted a stray dog and named him Retch, in reference to Aunt Bess’ comment that he was “the most wretched looking dog she had ever seen.” Aunt Bess cleaned up Retch Mike Wallace and made him more presentable, despite the fact he had one blue eye and the other yellow. He turned out to be a pretty good dog, even though he occasionally liked to bite people.
After his time at Mount Ida, Wallace returned to the Glenwood Herald and retired from there earlier this year. He had planned to work until July, but health concerns led to a slightly earlier conclusion to his career. Wallace began his journalism career in 1982 at Glenwood, employed by the Graves family, which had newspapers in their hometown of Nashville and several other communities in Western Arkansas. He later worked for John Robert Schirmer, who purchased the Graves newspapers.
Wallace said some readers had a difficult time understanding the characters were fictitious and even tried to find the location of the farm. On occasion, Cousin Steve “would come down from Danville” to visit Uncle Robert and Aunt Bess. That led to some residents of that neighboring town actually telling Wallace they were confused as to which Steve that might be.
“As the editor, they pretty well left me alone to do my work as long as I got the newspaper out each week,” Wallace said. “I liked that, because it allowed me to do things like playing golf on Thursdays. I enjoyed the freedom of being my own boss and making the decisions about what went in the newspaper each week. Nine times out of 10 it seemed I was putting in the paper things that people wanted to read.”
Uncle Robert’s garden was indeed magnificent, largely because of the ingenious irrigation system he developed by drawing water out of the nearby river using a 500-gallon tank and an elaborate network of pipes. The couple had a nice old farmhouse that featured three porches. The back porch was for cleaning muddy feet before entering the house. The front porch was for hosting visitors, sometimes to prevent them from coming into the house. And the side porch was where Uncle Robert often delivered his pearls of wisdom.
Wallace saw the staff decrease over the years at both newspapers. At the end of his career, he was the only employee at the Glenwood office. He did appreciate receiving regular ad sales assistance from a representative of the Nashville newspaper.
Wallace said Uncle Robert had a simple philosophy – “first, don’t
See WALLACE Page 2
Arkansas Publisher Weekly
He said circulation was in a steady decline over the past several 1
July 18, 2024