Reporter
Hail to the Chief
In an era of dwindling circulations and shrinking profits, the weekly newspaper in the Panhandle town of Miami has a different problem: choosing a cover story in a place where nothing really happens.
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The paper’s previous owner, Valda Traughber, cast a long shadow after her nine-year reign as publisher. Traughber wasn’t afraid of controversy, and she didn’t hesitate to stab at local hot-button water and safety issues or voice her opinion on topics such as Medicare reform. In 1997 the Chief’s front page boasted the headline “Top Editorial Award 68th for Chief.” The story read: “Of the public endangerment editorial, contest judges said, ‘Nice job of driving home the risks vs. the obscure benefits of high-speed chases.’ ‘You get to the point and stick to it,’ commented the judges on the curfew piece.” Inside, on page two, Traughber elaborated: “I am not immortal,” she wrote. “I simply occupy the odd position of having thoroughly convinced a lot of people that I am, in my six decades on this planet. I do my thing, finding enjoyment in being an editor and a publisher of a little weekly newspaper, and satisfaction in being reminded occasionally of having done it well. So, yes, I needed to go to Amarillo to receive our awards. I had to go, and we do what we must in this life.”
All told, Traughber won 73 area, state, and national newspaper awards while publisher of the Chief. She also earned a lot of detractors for her contentious coverage. Kathy Thompson, the city secretary, remembers, “When Valda owned the paper, she believed in something like the end of the world was coming.” Former Miami mayor Gene Hodges said tactfully, “She said she had a vision.”
Sandy decided to leave the heated issues to the city officials (in 2003 she and Jim divorced, and Sandy bought the paper outright). This angered some readers. Much to Sandy’s dismay, the disgruntled faction included Traughber herself. Sandy began receiving anonymous letters about every change in the paper, from the reportage to the size of the white space bordering the photographs. Sandy fired back by making a reference to the anonymous letters in her Opinions column, knowing everyone in town would be able to identify the perpetrator. Traughber later moved out of town. Sandy is reluctant to talk much about the dustup out of respect for her predecessor. “Valda and I exchanged words from time to time,” she said. “She did a good job, and someone judging a newspaper would be impressed. But I don’t know that the town was as thrilled.”
Sandy says staying out of the mud is smart business. The margin for survival for a paper the size of the Chief is razor-thin. The weekly has only one thousand subscribers, all of whom pay less than $30 a year for local delivery. Sandy makes the rest of her money through ad sales, charging $2.50 per column inch, and 30-cents-a-word classifieds. After printer fees and postal charges, the revenue is enough to keep the paper afloat, though Sandy works weekend shifts at an Amarillo hospital to help pay for her kids’ college tuition. Any loss of advertising or readership over a heated political issue could quickly kill the paper.
Sandy doesn’t ignore the town’s problems completely. Locals have been battling the Texas Department of Transportation, for example, which threatened to cut down the cottonwood trees along the fall foliage tour on account of their being too close to the highway. The school, which hands over much of its property-tax revenue to the state government to comply with Robin Hood, is in danger of closing because of a lack of students (a death sentence for a town). And in 2005 Rick Roach, the former district attorney for the five counties west of Amarillo, was arrested for shooting up methamphetamines. Roach had been a local legend because of his tough stance against drug offenders, and his downfall was widely reported in newspapers, including the nearby Canadian Record and the New York Times.
All of these events have been reported in the Chief, but the Roach scandal highlights Sandy’s approach to the news. Rather than dwell on the irony of Roach’s personal struggle with drugs, Sandy’s article simply laid out the charges against the DA and left it at that. “In a town this size, you worry about stepping on people from time to time,” Sandy explained. “The sucker needed to burn, but I love his kids and would never do anything to hurt them. So I didn’t rip him like some others did.”
DRIVING ON THE OUTSKIRTS of town, Sandy swerved around a gigantic pothole shaped like Italy. “Ooo, this is bad!” she said, pulling over. “Oil field trucks pound the crap out of these roads.” She took out her digital camera and crouched down in the middle of the road, hunting for the best angle. “I see why everybody is griping about this,” Sandy said. “This one is gnarly!”
By the time we returned to the Chief’s office, she had made up her mind about the cover story. “Why don’t you call TxDot,” she said, turning to me, “and find out what they know about those potholes? Write it up. I’m going to smoke a cigarette outside. Just let me know when you’re done.” Her black Lab, Jake, ran after her, leaving me alone with the cover assignment.
I had time for one phone call, reaching the pothole point man, Scott Brewster, at the local TxDot in Canadian. Brewster was busy and did not sound thrilled to talk to me. “We patch those roads a lot,” he said. “But there’s heavy traffic from those trucks.” I searched my brain for more questions—What kind of materials will you use this time? From where?—eventually getting Brewster to nail down a timeline for repairs. Then I set to writing, armed with my scant new understanding of concrete and asphalt.
“Last Monday, at the commissioners’ meeting, several folks began complaining about the potholes up on 748 and 1268. ‘Somebody’s gonna kill somebody,’ one member said. Another commented that he drove down the road and felt like he was going to bounce into the ditch. The complaints were directed at the sheriff, who could only shrug. . .”
I felt like a punter under pressure as I cranked out four more paragraphs. When Sandy walked in eager to read what I had written, I winced as I gave up my seat at the computer.
She read for a few moments in silence. “Great!” she said, finally. She inserted a few more pictures of potholes in between paragraphs to make up for the brevity of the text. “Let’s add a catchy little saying, just enough to get under TxDot’s skin.” She thought about it a little while, then giggled as she typed, “More Woes for TxDot as Many Roads Are in Need of Repair.”
“That’s not ugly, is it?” she asked.
It was 5:08. After filing a few more stories, including a piece about a local couple’s weekend getaway cottage, Sandy clapped her hands together: “We’re done.” She opened her e-mail and sent it on to the Chief’s printer in Shamrock, about seventy miles away. Then she announced that she was going to take a nap.
SOME TIME THAT NIGHT, 1,070 copies of the Chief appeared at the newspaper’s headquarters like money from the tooth fairy. When I walked into the office the next morning, Sandy was already at her desk with a cup of coffee, wearing an aqua-blue T-shirt and taking stock of the finished product. “The photos of the potholes turned out pretty good,” she said. “Ferguson’s picture turned out nicely too.” We stuck the address labels on the papers going to the post office and then delivered the rest to the Market Square Thriftway and the KNT Cafe, the restaurant once run by Ferguson. The waitress handed Sandy some coins from a Styrofoam cup—proceeds from the preceding week’s Chiefs.
“So what’s in the paper this week?” a customer asked Sandy.
“Potholes,” Sandy replied.
“The ones up on 748?” the man asked.
“Yeah, you know those? And on 1268.”
The man looked surprised that there were more. “I’ll have to take a look at those,” he said.
Before leaving town, I stopped at the sheriff’s office. I was still wondering what had become of Theo, the recurrent escapee I had read about in the blotter. “Theo?” Sheriff Miller responded from behind his desk. “Theo was a donkey that lived across the street from the city pool. He liked to escape from his pen and wander over by the pool to watch the kids swim. Well, one day a week or so ago he got in the neighbor’s garden and that neighbor didn’t like that too much. He came down here to the station and asked me if he could shoot Theo. I told him that I couldn’t very well arrest Theo but that shooting him would be a felony in the state of Texas.” Miller shook his head and smiled. “Good old Theo.”
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