Those Who Have Done It Promote, Explain Rural Investigative Reporting to Weekly Publishers

Published by the Institute of International Studies, Missouri Southern State University, Joplin, MO Volume 39, No. 7 • October 2014 Those who have done it promote, explain rural investigative reporting to weekly publishers By Al Cross about it was, the room was packed, so “We don’t The Rural Blog what it told me was there was a lot of inter- carry libel Institute for Rural Journalism est in small-town investigative reporting.” insurance,” and Community Issues Then why isn’t there more of it? For “a lot Helmberger Oct. 4, 2014 of them…it’s just plain fear,” Helmberger said. “That’s said. “It does take a stiff upper lip…We why we “When you think of investigative journal- have had boycotts.” But he said his paper always make ism, you typically don’t think of small also has the largest circulation of any sure what towns.” That’s how Tommy Thomason, weekly in its region, partly because of its we’re putting director of the Texas Center for Community investigative work. in the paper Journalism, at Texas Christian University, “People in our region have learned that is accurate started a challenging panel at the National having a newspaper that takes its watchdog and fair.” Newspaper Association’s annual convention role seriously, though it can be an irritant The person- AL CROSS in San Antonio, Texas. at times, is a community asset.” al nature of After listing the reasons behind his state- He added later, “You’ve got problems community ment – lack of time, staff, resources, tech- that could use some attention from your journalism can help you be certain about niques, training and outside pressures – paper…All it takes is one enterprising per- what you publish, said Horvit and Thomason said, “You can deal with all of son to ask the right questions.” Samantha Swindler, whose investigation of these pressures…You can still do real The Timberjay has revealed much about a Kentucky sheriff when she was editor of investigative reporting.” Then he intro- the school-building scheme by Johnson The Times Tribune in Corbin, Kentucky, duced panelists who proved his point. Controls Inc., which Helmberger said led to a 15-year prison term for the Whitley Mark Horvit, executive director of required “the largest tax increase local res- County sheriff. Investigative Reporters and Editors, noted idents had ever seen.” “You should never print something that that large news outlets have largely pulled The Timberjay’s story shows the impact you wouldn’t say to somebody’s face,” said out of rural America, so “If you don’t do it, that investigative journalism, and the lack Swindler, whose work earned her the Tom nobody’s going to.” Thomason called that of it, can have. Voters in the Timberjay’s and Pat Gish Award from the Institute for "maybe the most important thing I’ve heard part of the geographically bifurcated Rural Journalism and Community Issues this morning.” school district overwhelmingly opposed the for courage, tenacity and integrity in rural The need for such sales pitches was bond issue for the plan, but were outvoted journalism. demonstrated by Marshall Helmberger, by those in the other part, which has no She offered another principle to follow: publisher of the Timberjay in northern local paper and was persuaded by weekly Don’t be so focused on turning over rocks Minnesota. He asked two questions of the Johnson Controls newsletters, Helmberger that you forget the more traditional civic crowd: Did they publish newspapers, and said. functions of a community newspaper. did they do investigative reporting? About Later, the paper exposed shoddy con- “When you print the good stuff,” she said, half as many hands went up in response to struction work on the new schools, and “people will listen to you when you say the second question. fended off the company’s threat of lawsuit something is wrong.” Helmberger said he got a similar by telling it that the paper’s defense would Another Gish Award winner, Jonathan response at a recent Minnesota Press be truth and that it would be happy to put Austin of the now-defunct Yancey County Association meeting, “but the nice thing all its documents in front of a local jury. CONTINUED ON PAGE 3 P AGE 2 | THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF WEEKLY NEWSPAPER EDITORS | OCTOBER 2014 PRESIDENT’S By Gary Sosniecki REPORT ISWNE President Bush Library visit prompts memories of 1991 When tour guide Ronald Kay called upstairs at the George Bush dozen or more 35 mm images shot by official presidential photographers Presidential Library and Museum, telling an archivist that a visitor was David Valdez and Carol Powers. interested in photos from President Bush’s visit to Marshfield, Missouri, The memories flowed back as I turned the pages. the response was immediate: “July 4, 1991.” There was the president on the reviewing stand, standing between Twenty minutes later, wearing a researcher tag and having signed in at Marshfield’s part-time mayor, Wayne Plunkett, who owned a Texaco sta- two locations, I was upstairs in the Bush tion two blocks away, and Janet Ashcroft, wife Library, reliving one of the most exciting days of Gov. John, who a decade later would serve in my 34-year newspaper career: the day as U.S. attorney general when Bush’s son, President Bush came to our county to march George W., was president. in a Fourth of July parade. There was a float with the Marshfield Lady Helen and I had published the Webster Jays basketball team, winners of four-straight County Citizen in Seymour, Missouri, for 3 state championships, with star Melody 1/2 years as summer dawned in 1991. Fourth Howard, a future pro, easily recognizable by of July would be on a Thursday, ideal for us to her signature big hair. close the office for a long weekend – the first There was the president shaking hands long weekend of our ownership – and head with popular State Rep. Tommy Macdonnell, a to my family’s cottage in Wisconsin. physician, the only Democrat in sight, with Dr. Nothing could stop us short of a visit by the Tommy wearing his World War II uniform. president of the United States. The now-91-year-old Macdonnell wore the And that’s what happened. President and same uniform this year when profiled by Barbara Bush came to our county seat, Brian Williams on NBC’s D-Day special. Marshfield, population 4,374, because he There were floats turning the corner in wanted to salute the men and women of just- front of Craig Bell’s Edward Jones office, completed Operation Desert Storm on July 4 which I visited every Monday afternoon to dis- in small-town America. cuss his ad. Bell was president of the I thought of that day last month when I Marshfield Area Chamber of Commerce that made a spur-of-the-moment visit to the Bush Library year and one of my best sources about the president and Museum in College Station, Texas. I had been in coming to town. Texas on business visiting the Waco Tribune-Herald I quoted Bell in the next week’s Citizen repeating and The Eagle of Bryan-College Station. (I also that a TV station had estimated the crowd at 23,000 on dropped by the Temple Daily Telegram to see 2009 the square, 30,000 total, although Sheriff Bill John ISWNE president Jim Painter.) My meeting with The guessed 6,000 to 7,000 were on the square. Eagle publisher and editors ended after lunch, and I Helen and I – the Citizen’s entire news staff – had several hours before my flight home. One of the devoted 2 1/2 pages to the president’s visit, including a editors suggested I visit “The Library.” So I did. page of photos, most taken by Helen after she fought As I walked from the parking lot to the beautiful her way onto a flatbed trailer crowded with national 69,000-square-foot museum and library on the Texas media. We reprinted Bush’s 15-minute speech after I A&M campus, it dawned on me that somewhere it transcribed it from a VCR recording of TV coverage. might have a photo of or memorabilia from Bush’s I suspect that my story on the bottom of Page 1 visit to Marshfield. I asked Kay, a volunteer tour guide attracted just as much readership that week: with 4,000 hours of service, and he promised to call Controversial Sheriff John pulled the deputy’s com the research library to find out. Fifteen minutes later, mission of the prosecuting attorney’s investigator, C.E. he tracked me down in the museum and took me to Wells, and fired Wells’ wife, a dispatcher, the latest meet audiovisual archivist Mary Finch. chapter in a four-year feud between the two lawmen. Mary walked me upstairs, where she already had set out a notebook Despite the big news week, we still made an abbreviated trip to with 31 pages of plastic-encased contact sheets. Each page displayed two CONTINUED ON PAGE 3 OCTOBER 2014 | THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF WEEKLY NEWSPAPER EDITORS | PAGE 3 Those who have from page 1 News in North Carolina, said the availability of of the evidence room and said the records had failed to send to state prison. She got him data on the Internet has made it easier for Swindler was seeking were also taken. That to admit it with a direct approach: a call to his one person in a small town to do investigative got the federal firearms bureau interested, she cell phone.

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