Lately, I’ve been hanging out with a few newspaper publishers who remain convinced print journalism is not dead. They are not doomsayers. They are intrepid entrepreneurs.
Otis Brumby, a third-generation publisher, not only has kept the Marietta Daily Journal healthy and viable, but he has acquired additional papers and is not only turning a profit but also providing a service to his communities.
Mark Smith, whose principal publication is The Eatonton Messenger, owns several local newspapers and magazines that are substantial in their communities. He says he’s still having fun as a small-town publisher.
Dink Nesmith, who co-owns Community Newspapers in Athens, has always understood the importance of black ink on the balance sheet in the newspaper business and never takes lightly the role of being the community’s conscience.
Nesmith and his partners, led by former Atlanta newspaper executive Tom Wood, enjoy making trips to the bank with smiles on their faces, while they remain happy to go toe-to-toe with a corrupt politician or public official who needs a comeuppance.
Since most of the company’s publications are weekly papers, they feature a lot of photos and feel-good stories, featuring homecoming queens, the best halfback to come on the scene since Herschel Walker, and the 4-H clubber who bakes the best cake. Weddings and anniversaries are forever a staple of weekly coverages, as are accomplishments at school or through local service clubs, which often result in neat clippings for posting on the refrigerator door.
By the way, what is the appeal of printing off a story from the Internet about your child becoming the valedictorian of his or her class and displaying a printed copy of the paper on the refrigerator? It’s just not the same. Or your son’s Little League team wins the state championship. What is there to clip and save without our local newspapers? Are there scrapbooks anymore?
The Internet is robbing us of recalling our precious memories.
Dink and his wife, Pam, own acreage and a historic farmhouse in Smithsonia, a settlement in Oglethorpe County, which brought about a serendipitous development when Dink learned his friend Ralph Maxwell, longtime publisher-owner of The Oglethorpe Echo, was calling it quits after The Echo’s nearly a century and a half of putting out weekly pages for the community.
Nesmith has been an idea man all his life, dating back to his youth in Jesup, where, as the son of a son of a funeral director, he dated in a hearse.
Still, he became an ink-stained wretch by the time he could pedal his bicycle.
That era brought about a providential emotional merger. Dink would aspire to pursue the sentimental benefits of writing a column, and he would underscore the business side of newspapering. He could smell a story from any vantage point, but early on he also underscored the art of turning a profit.
He made a deal with Ralph Maxwell. Dink would create a non-profit to take over the paper.
He then brought about an arrangement with Charles Davis, dean of the Henry Grady College of Journalism, to give Grady students an opportunity to “run” a weekly newspaper, at least from an editorial standpoint.
Every box you can associate with publishing a newspaper can be stamped “win.” The biggest winner, of course, was the Oglethorpe community.
Studies have shown when a community loses its newspaper, it suffers across the board: economically, socially, and governmentally. It ends up having no official voice. There is no local watchdog to keep tabs on unscrupulous politicians or keep an eye out for those who abuse trust when it comes to handling the public’s money. There is no local outlet for print advertisers or to announce those special school and sports achievements.
There is no local advocacy for new social programs or to keep local governments accountable.
Maybe this model can be a savior of the weekly newspaper business and bring about a stimulant for communities who need such help these days more than ever.
More than likely other publishers will contact Dink Nesmith and the affable dean to find a way to copy this revolutionary model.
Saving newspapers and making them vital means there also remains the opportunity to save communities.