Not ‘all those newspapers are gone’

    Loftis

Sometimes, I take criticism personally. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. I use it as motivation to do better. I attended a meeting recently where someone I respect stood up and said, essentially, “there’s not much in the county paper.” I reached out after that meeting, as I’m prone to do, and he explained that he didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Still, I haven’t forgotten it and likely won’t anytime soon.

Not long after that, another gentleman who attended that same meeting, said in a Facebook comment that “no one under 60 reads the paper anymore.” That’s a pretty broad statement, and I don’t believe it’s anywhere close to accurate. But again, it’s stuck with me.

Not long after that, I attended yet another meeting at which an older gentleman talked about how people used to read newspapers to find out what was happening in their communities.

“Now those newspapers are gone!” he said.

Well, not quite. Yes, a lot of newspapers are no longer around. There are a lot of reasons for that.

It’s a tough business these days. That hasn’t always been the case. Forty years ago, newspapers were very profitable. Or so I’m told. There was much less competition for advertising revenue without the worldwide web. There were no social media platforms. There was no one typing gossip on a cell phone and passing it off as legitimate news.

The newspaper industry made a huge mistake in its reaction to the internet. Not sure what to do, many publishers decided to publish their content for free online. The result was that they trained their readers to expect that content for free. They devalued their own product at the worst possible time.

With revenue declining and public apathy growing, newspapers reacted the way most other businesses would: They looked for ways to reduce expenses. Too often, that meant reducing staff, slashing payroll. That in turn led to less local news — which only served to increase reader apathy.

I’m proud that our newspaper is still here. If I’m being perfectly candid, that probably wouldn’t be the case if it were still owned by an out-of-state corporation. That model wasn’t working and it wasn’t going to continue long-term.

Now, of course, this paper is 100 percent locally owned. It’s my baby, and I’m proud of it. I’m proud of the newspaper we produce each week, and I’m proud of the dedicated staff that makes sure that gets done.

When I came here in 2014, our staff numbered more than 20. Now, there are six of us. Only two of us work full time. Still, my goal is to produce newspapers at least as good as those we produced with a staff three or four times as large. Sometimes, I don’t think the general public realizes how small our staff is these days. That’s both a good thing and a bad thing. We get a lot of work done, but some folks expect more from us.

As sensitive as I am to outside criticism, no one is more critical of this newspaper than I am. I’m constantly thinking about how we can improve, what we can do better and how we can do more with less. But I also take pride in the work we do. And at the risk of sounding self-serving, seven first-place awards for general excellence over the past eight years in the Arkansas Press Association’s annual Better Newspaper contest tell me that we are doing something right.

I believe that a good newspaper is a reflection of the community it serves. I hope that’s the case with this one. We’re still here, we’re still working hard and we’re still committed to making sure that Carroll County has the kind of newspaper that it deserves. Thank you to everyone who has helped in that cause, whether it’s by advertising, sharing news tips, subscribing or just dropping a few quarters in a paper rack every now and then. We appreciate you and we sure hope you appreciate us.

••• Scott Loftis is the editor, publisher and majority owner of the Carroll County News. His email address is SLoftis@Carroll-CoNews.com.