Media
Weekly, Strongly
Why do small-town Texas newspapers survive–– and thrive? Read all about it.
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Ownership is part of the problem. Of the dozen largest papers in Texas, only one—the Morning News—is owned in-state; meanwhile, papers in Abilene, Corpus Christi, Plano, San Angelo, and Wichita Falls were recently sold by San Antonio’s Harte-Hanks Communications to Cincinnati-based E. W. Scripps Company. Of course, being part of a chain, out-of-state or otherwise, doesn’t necessarily consign a newspaper to mediocrity or disconnection from the community, but it does increase the likelihood that the paper is at the mercy of stockholders who read annual reports, not daily news reports. “Companies trading and buying six and eight papers at a time often end up attempting to squeeze those papers for everything they can so they’ll look good on the market,” says Fred Blevens, the chair of the department of mass communication at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos. Chains own small papers too—Westward Communications has 34 in Texas and Granite Publications has 16—but the best weeklies are either owned locally or their publishers operate under what newspaper broker Berger calls “a loose set of reins.”
Independence doesn’t guarantee quality. To sit at a table in the back room of the Texas Press Association in Austin and go through a four-foot-high stack of Texas weeklies is to see that many are little more than unimaginative ad sheets with a smattering of canned and local news. Quite a few, though, show a serious commitment to good journalism. Take The Canadian Record. The Panhandle weekly, which has a paid circulation of 1,639, earned its reputation under legendary publisher Ben Ezzell, who presided over the paper from 1948 until his death in 1993. Ben Ezzell’s widow, Nancy, is now the editor and the publisher; their daughter, Laurie Ezzell Brown is the co-editor and the photographer, in keeping with the all-in-the-family aesthetic at work in small-town journalism. Along with high school football coverage, livestock reports, and oil industry news, a recent issue of the 28-page Record included a thoughtful, gracefully written editorial by Brown comparing Princess Diana and Mother Theresa. On the same page was Brown’s column about a hotly disputed local issue: corporate hog farming [see Reporter: “Hog-tied,” page 26].
Or take the Zapata County News. A bit scruffy like its brush-country South Texas community, the News (“Viva Zapata”) may not be the state’s best small paper, but it’s a respectable read. Bob McVey and his wife, Kate—she’s the co-publisher and the managing editor—are aggressive, enterprising reporters, and with a staff of only two other full-time employees, they manage to fill a 18- to 30-page paper every week with local advertising and hard news. The paper is fatter in the winter months, when winter Texans migrate back to the RV parks along the shores of Falcon Reservoir.
Bob McVey, who bought the News for nothing down in 1985, remembers the first time he covered a Zapata County commissioner’s meeting, which was held in an anteroom of the county judge’s office. When he walked in and sat down, the commissioners were lounging in chairs around a table. They were congenial enough, but they grew puzzled when he didn’t leave after a moment’s casual conversation. “Something we can do for you, Bob?” the judge asked. A reporter covering the public’s business was a foreign concept in Zapata County—and occasionally still is.
Most days the McVeys and their one full-time reporter, Jon Sagester, a retired Navy photojournalist, are out scouting for news. Consistent with South Texas’ reputation, they’ve occasionally uncovered courthouse shenanigans; a few years ago three county officials were arrested on the same day on drug-related charges following a federal sting operation. Last year the McVeys used open-records laws to examine the county’s drug-seizure and forfeiture funds, which led to the county attorney’s resignation after he pleaded no contest to a felony. These days, they are looking into a proposed steady-level dam on the Rio Grande upstream at Laredo, a project that could cause serious water-quality problems for the drought-depleted reservoir. And, of course, they’re regularly covering how the bass are biting, the athletic exploits of the Zapata High School Hawks, and the weekly tidbits from volunteer correspondents in outlying communities and RV parks. In Zapata County it’s news that a local woman’s granddaughter was Miss Connecticut in this year’s Miss America contest.
The McVeys are proud of the fact that they print, on average, three thousand papers a week—even though there are only approximately 2,700 homes in Zapata County. “We mail some out of town,” Bob says, “but how many papers do you ever hear of that are getting more than ninety percent penetration?”
“I think the reason we have the penetration we do in this county is not just our isolation,” Kate adds, “but because of the fact that we do fill the paper with locally generated news. With CNN and the Internet, people can get their state and national news; that’s easy. What is difficult is finding out what’s actually going on in your own community.” But printing what’s actually going on doesn’t always sit well with local officials, as Bob’s run-in with the late sheriff illustrates. “We’re not supposed to worry about whether we violate people’s sensitivities,” he says. “We’re supposed to give them the news.”
McVey thought it was news in 1992 that a member of the water board had an unauthorized tap on a water pipeline that crossed his property. The water board member thought otherwise. He sued for more than $3 million in damages, claiming negligence because McVey, he said, relied on information from the local water plant manager instead of searching the records personally. Kate McVey told the water board member during a hearing that she didn’t carry libel insurance—“The best protection in the world,” Bob says, “is not carrying insurance”—and that the newspaper building and equipment were mortgaged to the bank, so the water board member wouldn’t get a penny if he won. “If you win,” Kate said, “and if you can run a newspaper, you might make a living, but you’ll never make a profit. And if you win—well, Bob and I will just have to move up to Austin, find comfortable jobs with the state, and never have to worry about payroll and printing costs and keeping a business afloat.”
The suit was dismissed, of course. And the news goes on.
Austinite Joe Holley is a contributing editor at Columbia Journalism Review.
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