50 Editors for Small Weeklies Share Wisdom in New Book

By: Barbara Bedway History can be writ large in small community newspapers. That's one reason Tom Riordan, with 37 years as a newsman ?16 of them publishing weeklies in Ohio and Michigan ? set out to profile many of the country's small-town editors back in 1978. For more than 15 years, he and his wife drove their travel trailer more than 50,000 miles to interview 92 editors in every state but Hawaii.

Now Riordan, 88, has collected 50 of the profiles for his book, "Our Paper: Lessons in Newspapering from America's Weekly Editors." Many of the profiles appeared in Publishers' Auxiliary and Editor & Publisher, whose then-editor, Robert U. Brown, "was always interested in small town papers as well as dailies," Riordan says. "When he said he'd pay us for the profiles, it gave us a goal."

Riordan found his candidates first by calling the state press associations and consulting other editors and friends who knew editors. "When we picked an editor as a good possibility, I'd ask them to send us three to four editions of their paper," says Riordan. "I could tell how well the editor was doing from the advertising, and what kind of coverage he or she was giving the community." Most weeklies had by then converted to offset, but Riordan also looked for "old-timers still working with hot metal and Linotype machines."

The book was shepherded into print by Bill Whiting of Whiting Writing, who got his start in journalism working at Riordan's weekly, the Tecumseh (Mich.) Herald, and found Riordan an inspiring mentor. "Tom was an expert at enlivening his papers and connecting with his readers," says Whiting. "My own weekly experience springboarded me into a 25-year career with The Miami Herald and Knight Ridder, as a reporter and editor." He notes that Tom's stories reminded him that "newspeople always have coped with change in their business and communities. Some have made out better than others, but always they left a mark on their towns ? usually for the better, and often with great flair."

Or as Riordan puts it: "If once-loyal readers ever stop calling it 'our paper,' that's when a country editor is in deep trouble."

The deep involvement of small-town editors in their communities?whether the issue is school bond levies or school integration ? can make for high drama. "We particularly liked stories of people who'd gotten into struggles with elements in their community," Riordan recalls.

Into that category falls Charlotte Schexnayder of the Arkansas Dumas Clarion (later the National Newspaper Association's first female president), who editorialized against Gov. Orval Faubus calling out the National Guard in 1957 to halt integration of Little Rock schools. Her stand on integration cost the Clarion thousands of advertising dollars and resulted in threats by a delegation of irate townspeople to break her husband's other leg (Mel, who ran the business side, was on crutches at the time).

The book also includes M. Dickey Drysdale, editor of the White River Valley Herald in Randolph, Vt., who spent two days covering the Watergate hearings because he wanted his readers to see this event through eyes of a fellow citizen from White River Valley. He ended up sitting beside famed writer Mary McCarthy, "who assured me she, too, was writing for a weekly newspaper, in her case the London Observer."

A 16-word editorial on capital punishment by Sam Ragan, editor of The Pilot of Southern Pines, N.C., reflects a Twitter-esque brevity, with far more gravitas: "Is North Carolina a better place today for its killing of Velma Barfield last Friday morning?"

And while Sarah Palin may be able to see Russia from her house, Nancy Maguire, editor of the Alaskan weekly The Nome Nugget, tells Riordan she routinely met Russians ? among them, a Soviet minister of propaganda ? when they began visiting after the Iron Curtain fell.

"One guy asked me, 'Who tells you what you can print in the paper?' I told him, 'No one. I print what's happening.' It was then that I saw the concept of a free press register in the eye of a Soviet minister of propaganda. It was a moment that will stay in my mind forever, and I'm so thankful for the good old First Amendment."

Riordan, whose daughter Carol Ann is now vice president of programming and personnel at the American Press Institute, believes the "community paper is always going to be there," even if it's in a form ? say, digital ? with which he won't have much familiarity. "It's still one of the truly great industries, but with a different delivery system. I don't look at computers," he acknowledges. "I like a publication I can hold in my hand."

Whatever the papers of the future look like, Whiting believes the profiles in Our Paper "are uplifting reminders to reporters and editors today, struggling to redefine their business, that it's worth the fight."

For a copy of "Our Paper," send $20 for the book plus $5 for shipping and handling to Whiting Writing, 1699 Juana Road, Boca Raton, FL 33486.