Telling the Story of Giving in Arkansas

AtArkansas Community Foundation we engage people, connect resources and inspire solutions that help build local communities. We’ve partnered with newspapers for 45 years to spread the word about grants and programs available to nonprofits in all corners of our state.

Thank you for helping tell the story of local giving that helps meet community needs forever.

Since 1976, the Foundation has provided more than $318 million in grants and partnered with thousands ofArkansans to help them improve our neighborhoods, our towns and our entire state. We want to help you tell your readers how smart giving can improve communities.

Jessica Ford Chief Communications Officer jford@arcf.org

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“It’s a tough go, but I don’t want to sound like I’m whining because we are still doing better than many other papers,” he said. Fraser cited three reasons for continuing success:

1. Free classifieds for subscribers. There was limited classified revenue to begin with and this provides great readership interest. The classifieds normally run about five pages. “We’ve been doing this for 35 years,” he said.

2. Exceptional dispatch involves delivering the newspaper directly to rural post offices to avoid delays of several days in readers receiving the product. “Country postmasters will work with you on this,” he said.

3. News is 100 percent local. Fraser regrettably recalls an early editor who wanted to use news services for an eight-page paper. The Leader now has all local news in 20-24 pages. “Define news,” Fraser said. “I’ll be happy to put a photo of an eight-pound turnip in our paper.”

Fraser believes smaller newspapers can remain successful with the all-local philosophy and publishing a quality product with a talented staff. “If we stick to the fundamentals and recognize that we have the exclusivity of local coverage, we can survive,” he said. “Of course, we also have the continuing challenge of trying to find new ways to generate revenue.”

He does think technology has helped small newspapers. “I used to spend a fortune on film and chemistry,” remembering a photographer who once shot and developed 34 rolls of film at the Ozark Folk Festival and used six photos in the newspaper.”

“We’ve got to make some rules on this!” he said at the time.

“Looking back at the old ways of doing things, I sometimes wonder how we ever got a paper out,” he said.

Fraser began his association with the Arkansas Press Association in 1976 and served as president in 2015, during a period in which he was being treated for colon cancer. He thankfully is now cancer-free.

He cherishes his connection with the organization, remembering his relationships with such legendary publishers as Fred Wulfekuhler and Jay Jackson. “I learned a lot from my newspaper friends, and they were all like a second family to me,” he said.

Fraser said the recent Arkansas legislative session was one of the most challenging in history, with repeated threats to legal advertising in newspapers and to the Freedom of Information Act. He praised the work of APA executive director Ashley Kemp Wimberley and her staff. “They thought we would lose them all, and we won them all,” he said, while noting such challenges will continue in future sessions.

He was involved in such a fight earlier in his career at Mountain Home when he won an FOIA case before the Arkansas Supreme Court involving access to records at the publicly owned hospital in that community.

Fraser recently underwent corrective eye surgery and the nurse looked at his age and assumed he is retired.

“Why would I be retired?” he asked. “I’m only 81.”

“I love what I do, and I look forward to coming to work every day,” Fraser said. “It’s exciting and it’s still a lot of fun.”

Fraser plays a little golf and is involved in some gardening. But essentially, he has been and continues to be – a proud old-style newspaperman through and through.