Blue Highways Journal

By Jock Lauterer
Fulbright Senior Specialist

CHINA JOURNAL

Day one, Weds. May 16, 2012

The familiar sound of a basketball bouncing on concrete – the last sound I ever expected to hear on the first morning in China.

In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the first sound you may hear in the morning is the holy man calling the faithful to prayer. In Mexico City, the first thing you may hear is the mournful cry of the newspaper peddler calling “El Sol!”

So on how comforting to be 7k miles away from home and hear something so homey, and then to watch a father and son laughing competitively over a simple game of hoops.

China is like that; from what I can tell so far, a complex contradiction, a meshing of the ancient and the outrageously new; of zoomy new buildings towering over a wizened old man peddling a dusty bicycle cart.

Last night I wrote this about my challenging arrival here:

So it is a quarter of four in the morning in Beijing, where i arrived at midnight, too happy and jazzed to sleep yet, quaffing some quite acceptable local vino, and set up with my Mac in the International Scholars Hotel here at Communication U. of China, which ain’t too shabby, a suite of rooms, complete with two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and bath. Don’t know how I rate this posh digs, but I’ll work like a junkyard dog to make it up.

When I arrived here in Beijing at the immense, modern sprawling airport, my Chinese colleague missed me, and there was an anxious hour of me wandering around the expanse, watching incoming Chinese passengers being joyfully embraced and showered over, while I wondered what the heck I was doing here, with no Yuan and no Mandarin, and a phone number for my contact that seemed to be invalid. I felt very alone, different and sweaty.

Then I put on my Journalist hat, along with my Anthropologist hat, and talked myself in off the ledge; it was quite a lovely experience, watching those tearful and joyful reunions there at the arrival gate, as if I had been beamed down from the planet Xorax to study these things on this planet in this particular country called China…and soon, a solution came to me, and I was able to navigate an airport free phone and connect with my host, who, it turned out, was only 100 yards away, but lost in the hordes of happy comers and goers.

“Stay this moment,” is what Sam Abell would say, and so I memorized that delicious moment of knowing I had conquered my fears, figured out the puzzle of being the alien, and knowing that in a couple of seconds, Order had Been Restored.

Being lost like that, with masses of Chinese staring at me: a tall, skinny, bald, white guy, will stay with me for some time. It’s good for every citizen of the world to push the envelope of his or her comfort zone. For only there, across that bright line, is there growth. I can only imagine what our forebears must have felt queuing up at Ellis Island.

“Lauterer? What kind of name is that?”

Well, I suppose I should try to go to sleep, so that tomorrow I will not entirely embarrass Tar Heel Nation.

by Jock Lauterer
Director
the Carolina Community Media Project

It’s not called “the Blue Highways Journal” for nothing.

As many of you already know, the name comes from the title of the book by William Least Heat-Moon in which “blue highways” are honored as the narrow, winding two-lane roads where real America can be found.

Most of the newspapers I visit each summer on the Community Journalism Roadshow are off the beaten track, far from the numbing sameness of the interstates.

Last week I had a wild hair (the only kind of hair I have) — to attempt to drive from Chapel Hill to Marshville, sans GPS, map — or heaven forbid, stopping to asking for directions (which no self-respecting GUY would ever do!)

And all this on backroads. No four-lanes, no interstates just blue highways. I was doing just fine, driving through the rolling hills of the Uwharries south of Asheboro, feeling my way into Union County, past the endless fields of corn and soybeans along highway 138 to a place called Aquadale — when almost to my goal, I became hopelessly lost in tiny Oakboro. Shame upon this so-called Tar Heel, I had to admit defeat and look at the map, only to discover I was just 18 miles from my goal. I had driven three hours across the state by dead reckoning and was so close!

VIGNETTES FROM SMALL PLACES

So here are snapshots from where the Roadshow went this summer:

• To The Home News of Marshville, where owner John Edmondson has run the 2,300 circulation weekly since buying the paper in 1997 and where he is pretty much a one-man band — though he is quick to point out that he couldn’t do it without the services of Brenda, the veteran office manager, who knows everyone in town. Edmondson writes most of the stories, takes the photos, sells the ads, and much more. In addition he notes, “I collect all the quarters out of the boxes – and I fix them, too.”

• To the Spring Hope Enterprise, where unstoppable editor-publisher Ken Ripley put on his teacher’s cap this summer as he mentored two high school kids who worked with him as interns. The tradition of community papers serving as “learning newspapers” is one Ripley really believes in.

• To the Sanford Herald, where we toured the tornado-ravaged neighborhoods that withstood the April 16 storms, and saw a town vigorously rebuilding.  And driving past the destroyed home of special projects editor R.V. Hight, we listened as R.V. described living through the storm, huddled with his wife in a closet. Yes, he’s as cheerful and buoyant as ever. Moving into a new place soon, and planning on writing a book about the harrowing experience.

• To the Fayetteville Observer, where fourth-generation publisher Charles Broadwell sent a reporter to Greece this spring to do an in-depth feature series on the Greek-American community in Cumberland County. Repeat: they sent a reporter to Greece for a feature story. Not too shabby in these tough times, methinks. Staff Writer Kim Hasty was the winner of this year’s Pat Reece Fellowship, which honors the work, life and legacy of the late long-time Observer-Times reporter Pat Reece. Broadwell called the series “community journalism with international flavor.”

• To the Carolina Weekly Newspaper Group in Huntersville, where indy owner/publisher Alain Lillie bought the Huntersville Herald and launched six other free weeklies in the last decade in South Charlotte, Union County, Matthews-Mint Hill, Mountain Island, Mooresville and most recently in Denver on Lake Norman. Total audited circulation of these seven is 114,000. Not too shabby for a start-up.

It’s a phenomenon that DTH general manager Kevin Schwartz calls “ring around the metro,” and it’s gotten McClatchy’s attention: in the last two years the Charlotte Observer has launched their own string of neighborhood weeklies, including the South Charlotte News, the Union News, the University City News, the Mooresville News, the Lake Norman News and the Cabarrus News – a move I seriously doubt Sacramento would have approved without Lillie’s aggressive start-ups.

What I like about the Charlotte newspaper wars is that both outfits are hiring UNC community journalism grads. The Carolina Weekly group has four kids, fresh out of my class: Courtney Price, Tori Hamby, Will Bryant and Sarah Gilbert. And it should be noted, Courtney, editor of the Denver paper, and Tori, editor of the Mountain Lakes paper, are both only 23 years old! You go girls!

Recent UNC J-school grads writing for the new Charlotte Observer community weeklies include Caroline McMillan, Elisabeth Arriero, Sergio Tovar, Corey Inscoe, Elizabeth Templin and freelancer Lauren Bailey. Go Heels!

• To the Montgomery Herald in Troy, where, after my workshop, the seven women in the newsroom, led by editor Tammy Dunn, put on a sumptuous made-from-scratch lunch spread (homemade chicken salad, potato salad, strawberry cake for cryin’ out loud) that made me want to curl up on the rug and take a nap, or shake my head in delight and disbelief like old Bob Garner of WUNC-TV’s North Carolina Weekend (a man who never met a meal he didn’t like).

• To the Caswell Messenger in Yanceyville, where dynamic editor Angela Evans is spearheading a vast improvement in the looks, reach and sales of the Womack group weekly. Located right on Main Street just down from the distinctive county courthouse, the paper office is like Cheers (Where everybody knows your name), says Angela. Folks just come in to chat on a regular basis, which pleases Angela.

How well are they doing at the Messenger? Recently, when the newspaper delivery truck wrecked on the way back from the printer, thus delaying delivery by hours, a bunch of people phoned or came to the paper office demanding to know “where’s MY paper?!”

What’s that again about the death of newspapers?

• To the Butner-Creedmoor News, where editor/co-owner Fat Harry Coleman wears mismatched black cowboy boots, carries a bad-ass knife on his belt and has a shotgun hanging on his office wall above an engraved plaque reading: LIBEL INSURANCE.

Harry says that when angry readers storm into his office to confront him, and they spy the shotgun and its sign, it tends to dampen their enthusiasm considerably.

And Fat Harry ain’t fat. He gave himself that moniker after a New Orleans bar by that name struck his fancy. He signs his e-mails simply, “Fat.”  If that isn’t enough of an intro to a most unconventional small-town newspaper guy, then there’s this: Harry also presides over a fabulous museum of Tar Heel farm artifacts, gee-gaws and doo-dads that is housed above the main street offices of the weekly Butner-Creedmoor News, where literally thousands of 19^th and 20^th century farming and pioneer relics are on display.

• And to Gary Cunard’s Franklin Times of Louisburg, where 84-year-old associate editor Asher Johnson doubles as an EMT with the local rescue squad. Asher, a WWII vet and something of a local celebrity, told me about the time he answered an emergency call to a terrible car accident. As Asher bent over to aid the bloodied young man, the boy looked up at his rescuer and cried out, “Asher Johnson! Oh my god, I’m gonna be in the FRANKLIN TIMES!”

Long live community journalism!

The following is the foreword I wrote for a groundbreaking book at press this summer in China, titled “An Introduction to Community Newspapers in the United States.”

The author, Associate Professor Chen Kai of the Communication University of China in Beijing, was a visiting international scholar here at the J-School all last year, and this summer she is in N.C. again for a follow-up research visit.

Professor Chen Kai’s book, an exhaustive collection of case studies of many North Carolina community papers, resulted from a year’s worth of visits and interviews with the following generous Tar Heel newspaperfolk who we hereby acknowledge and thank: Ken Ripley of the Spring Hope Enterprise, Bill Horner of the Sanford Herald, Robert Dickson of the Carrboro Citizen, Mark Schultz of the Chapel Hill News, Kevin Schwartz of the Daily Tar Heel, David Woronoff of The Pilot of Southern Pines, Alain Lillie of the Carolina Weekly Newspaper Group of Charlotte, Megan Ward of the Shelby Star, Jeff Byrd of the Tryon Daily Bulletin, Ray McKeithan and Brownie Futrell of the Washington Daily News, Charles Broadwell of the Fayetteville Observer, Gary Cunard of the Franklin Times, and Lynn Wagoner of the High Point Enterprise.

As you read this, keep in mind it is addressed to a Chinese audience which is utterly unfamiliar with the concept of “community” and the newspapers that serve them.

FOREWORD

When I inform my students that 97 percent of all U.S. newspapers are small* newspapers, they are invariably surprised. Some are openly skeptical. Like most Americans, they subscribe to the stereotype that the American newspaper landscape is dominated by only the big-city daily newspapers with spacious offices on the top floor of some urban skyscraper. And perhaps the Chinese reader will also hold to this simplistic notion. But as you will read, in the United States, nothing could be further from the truth. Small newspapers, which we call “community newspapers,” are the heartbeat of the country. They are located in practically every village, hamlet, small town — and even in some cases, urban neighborhoods. Whether they are weeklies in the state of Maine, twice-weeklies in North Carolina, or even dailies in California, they all share a common, often unspoken purpose — beyond being merely profitable: to TELL the LOCAL news, to SERVE the community and to help BUILD that community by instilling, nurturing, reinforcing and encouraging a “sense of place.” We call this “community-building,” and the local media is the primary engine driving that train.

OUR BEGINNINGS: COUNTRY WEEKLIES

As you doubtless realize, the U.S. is a very young nation. Certainly compared to a Chinese culture that stretches back 5,000 years. A mere 200-plus years old, our country is a baby! But out of that “newness” grew a new form of media. Remember that the European settlers of the 1600s found this land to be a vast wilderness. And as exploration and development moved from the coasts into the interior, small farming and market towns sprang up. These “start-ups” were not unlike new businesses: someone had to be the leader, or leaders. And very often among the vital institutions and facilities that town leaders deemed absolutely necessary would be a hometown local newspaper!

Cody, Wyoming, is the perfect model. When legendary cowboy “Buffalo Bill” Cody built the town in the 1800s, he proclaimed that the first establishments built in his new town would be a school, a hotel, a bar and a newspaper! To this day, Buffalo Bill’s newspaper, the Cody Enterprise, thrives.

These so-called “country weeklies,” many of which were started in the 1800s, developed, grew, were bought and sold, merged and evolved quietly, out of view of the big city major metro press and mainstream journalism academics — until the late 1950s when a seminal book was written that changed the landscape. “Community Journalism,” written in 1960 by Ken Byerly, a former country weekly editor/publisher turned university professor, changed the way we thought about so-called “country newspapers.” Byerly was the first author/scholar to delete “country” and substitute the word “community” to brand and to differentiate the style of journalism — distancing community journalism as a concept, style and practice that was wholly separate and apart from “big-city journalism.” Byerly was also among the first to grasp and articulate the “sense of community” as being vital to the newspaper’s raison d’etre — vital to its core mission. From the ‘60s through the ‘90s and until 2001, American community newspapers multiplied, grew, thrived and flourished. Only the events of 2001 and the subsequent recession have slowed that growth. But even in the economic downturn, community papers weathered the economic storm far better than their big-city media cousins.

So now, as a new age dawns, community journalism is once again resurgent. Ironically, the slow demise of the major metro daily has led to a new respect and desire for all things local. So we have this expression, “What is old, is new again.” And community journalism in the U.S. is now widely accepted and respected, both in media and academic circles alike.

FROM THE NEWSROOM TO THE CLASSROOM

In many ways, my own professional history reflects the trajectory of U.S. community journalism over the last 50 years. Educated in college by Professor Byerly and inspired by great local community newspaper editors in my college hometown, at the age of 24, I launched the first of two community newspapers. After 15 years of hard and rewarding work, I sold my interests and turned to the classroom, where I now teach community journalism, produce two lab newspapers and nurture the state’s 181 community newspapers from a center at my university’s school of journalism and mass communication. So I am a community newspaper editor/publisher turned professor. I have seen all sides of both the newsroom and the classroom. In 1993 I wrote the first edition of my book, “Community Journalism: the Personal Approach,” because Ken Byerly’s original book needed and deserved to updated and expanded. My book, now in its third edition, titled, “Community Journalism: Relentlessly Local,” was published in 2006.

I am often asked, “Why don’t you do a new edition?”

I reply, “Because of China.”

THE CHINESE WAY

When, in 2008, I first heard that a Chinese scholar was interested in studying American community journalism, I was not particularly surprised. After all, my book had been translated into Romanian and Korean  — so why not Chinese? But what did surprise me, and pleasantly, was the level of scholarship, vision and intensity that Associate Professor Kai Chen brought to her project.

Although I am almost old enough to be Professor Chen Kai’s father, it became immediately clear that I would be the student as well. Soon after we began our studies together in August 2009, I would learn the term “the Chinese Way,” which quickly led me to realize that a literal translation of my book would never work for China. Even as my Chinese visitor plunged into her case studies of a dozen excellent North Carolina community newspapers, she was subtly instructing me, inculcating me, acculturating me into Chinese history, customs, philosophy, politics, thought, culture and social mores. It was as if I spent one entire year in China without ever leaving the United States!

If you want to see your world in a totally different light, try looking at it through the eyes of someone from another world. As we toured my home state, visiting the best community newspapers for her study, I found myself being asked repeatedly about the most basic of American cultural and journalistic tenets, “What is the meaning of this?” she would ask — forcing me to think critically and to articulate clearly the very foundations of my culture and profession.

Many times, as we struggled to communicate effectively, we would both realize the chasm of cultural differences that lay between us. But always, humor provided the bridge — and we learned to laugh about the American professor speaking “Chicken,” while the Chinese professor was speaking “Duck.” We were both “birds of a feather,” using the same words, but those words weren’t having the same meaning.

It was as if our communication challenges served as a metaphor for the larger issue — that of our two home nations, the U.S. and China — attempting to make sense to, and of, each other. Sometimes succeeding and often failing, but always trying.

Through all our discussions and debates (some quite heated!) I came to realize and appreciate the fact that American community journalism could not simply be overlaid or beamed down or “cut and pasted” onto China…but that China would have to examine and dissect our “best practices” and then adapt, adopt, modify, mold and shape a version of community journalism that will be wholly and thoroughly Chinese. Again: the Chinese Way.

NORTH CAROLINA AS AN AMERICAN LABORATORY

As a result of my book, I was able to organize in 2005 a national cadre of 200-plus like-minded university professors from across the U.S. who study, conduct research and teach community journalism. That has led to speaking engagements in half of the states in America. This exposure entitles me to say: I have studied community papers all across my country, and can attest that the North Carolina newspapers that Professor Chen Kai studied serve as a perfect laboratory, a representative sampling of and for U.S. community newspapers in general.

And finally, a word about Professor’s Chen Kai’s level of scholarship. I can promise the reader that her multiple interviews with key personnel from each newspaper she studied were thorough, comprehensive, in-depth and at times exhaustive. In fact, through her hard questioning of editors and publishers, she uncovered facts about my state’s newspapers of which even I was unaware!

TO THE FUTURE

I am excited about the future of China and about the growth of community journalism in your country. If for no other reason than China’s sheer size, it is thrilling to contemplate the positive impact that community newspapers could bring to such a dynamic nation. Thus I commend the groundbreaking work of Professor Chen Kai; it is my humble opinion that this pioneering field guide will serve as a first-of-its kind roadmap for students and editors wishing to explore the wonderful, challenging but ultimately rewarding world of community journalism. It has been my honor to share a small role in this journey. I will be watching with great anticipation.

–Onward and upward.

Jock Lauterer

Chapel Hill, N.C.

USA

* According to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, newspapers with print circulations below 50,000 are defined by the industry as “small newspapers.”

­

“Nothing could be finer
Than to be in Carolina
In the morning…”

As I head out on the road again for the first visit of the 11^th Annual Community Journalism Summer Roadshow, the sweet lyrics of that old tune come unbidden into my head.

And it’s true: nothing could be finer, because frankly for this old newsie, visiting community papers from Murphy to Manteo is a privilege and a treat.

As to the name of the roadshow mentioned above — it doesn’t really capture the sheer fun that this Perfesser Roadie has each summer, so from the outset I began calling naming each summer’s project after some road-tested, road-invoking, road-worthy namesake, going something like this:

Johnny Appleseed (for the wandering nurseryman)
1. James Taylor (“Put me on a Country Road”)
2. Charles Kuralt (CBS: “On the Road”)
3. Jack Kerouac (“On the Road”)
4. Willie Nelson (“On the Road Again”)
5. John Steinbeck (“Travels with Charlie”)
6. Johnny Cash (“I Been Everywhere, Man”)
7. William Least Heat Moon (“Blue Highways”)
8. Robert Frost (“The Road Less Traveled”)

10.  ‘Possum Dodgin’ (in honor of Bubba Dickson of Raeford who offered to take me out to lunch for some local fare)

11. Woody Guthrie (“Goin’ Down This Road Feelin’ Bad”)

If you string it all together, (take a big breath) it’s gotten way too cumbersome. I discovered this after about the fifth summer (The Johnny Appleseed, James Taylor, Charles Kuralt, Jack Kerouac, Willie Nelson Summer Community Journalism Roadshow) Since then, I reverted to just the plain old CJ  Summer Roadshow.

For last summer’s roadshow, I was often joined by a visiting Chinese community journalism scholar, Associate Professor Chen Kai from the Communication University of China in Beijing. Under my guidance, this visionary Chinese scholar spent the academic year 2009-2010 visiting, studying and documenting some of the best community papers in N.C. The result will be a groundbreaking book titled “An Introduction to Community Newspapers in the United States” which will be published in Mandarin later this summer.  It was my honor to write the preface for Professor Chen Kai’s pioneering field guide and text, which of course, will be in Mandarin. I predict it will be a game-changer in that vast country.

The papers she studied and visited included the Fayetteville Observer, the Pilot of Southern Pines, the Charlotte Weeklies, the Sanford Herald, the Spring Hope Enterprise, the Chapel Hill News, the Daily Tar Heel, The Carrboro Citizen, the Star of Shelby, the Washington Daily News, the High Point Enterprise, the Tryon Daily Bulletin and the Daily Reflector of Greenville.

Additionally last summer I led workshops at the Greenville Daily Reflector, the Cooke Newspapers out of Greenville, the Alain Lillie-owned Charlotte Weeklies based in Huntersville, and the Franklin Times of Louisburg and Nashville Graphic.

EASTERN NORTH CAROLINA PRESS ASSOCIATION MEETING

MAY 13-14, 2011

For the last two years I’ve been privileged to participate in one of North Carolina community journalism’s best-kept secrets: the Eastern North Carolina Press Association annual gathering at Carolina Beach.

Remember growing up and going to Scout, church or Y camp – and sitting around that evening campfire with your buddies, perhaps by the lake with the frogs going full tilt…

It’s not often that newspaperfolk get a chance to share in that “campfire” experience. But that just the way it felt at this May’s annual get-together at the Clamdigger Inn at Salter Path.

The ENCPA dates back to the ‘30s, so I’m told, with a membership that has always leaned heavily toward the indies, with past presidents names, Harper, Lassiter, Tanner, reflecting that dynamic.

Attending this year were (and I hope I haven’t left anyone out!): Gary Cunard of the Franklin Times, JoAnne Cooper of the Nashville Graphic, Brinn and Jerry Clayton of the Roxboro Courier=Tribune, Bob and Todd Allen of the Wake Forest Weekly, Harry and Bebe Coleman of the Butner-Creedmoor News, Ken and Vickie Ripley of the Spring Hope Enterprise, Ed Harper of the State Port Pilot, Al and Mary John Resch of the Chatham News and Record, Rick Stewart of the Kenly News,  Mark Wilson of Cooke Communications, and NCPA Executive Director Beth Grace.

The annual event is a healthy combination of social and business, with an opening workshop or two bracketing something that smacks of a never-ending reception. The coolest thing about ENCPA is the Saturday morning “Roundtable” — a gloves-off airing and sharing of issues particular to small newspaper management and publishing:

• how’s your print circulation doing?
• What are you doing with online?
• How has social media impacted your approach?
• How’s advertising?
• Are you hiring?
• How are salaries?
• What are you issues with the local post office?
• How are you dealing with local government and law enforcement offices that want to deny you public record info?
• What are you doing out-of-the-box that’s working?

For the second year in a row, I observed a distinct air of cautious optimism (Imagine that. Optimistic newspaper publishers!) running through all the discussions of the weekend.

Furthermore, there is a sense that this retreat serves as a healthy support group for newspaper editors and publishers. I encourage all NC community publishers from the Piedmont to Down East to put May 18-19 on their 2012 calendar and contact Rick Stewart (rstewart@kenlynews.com) at the Kenly News to get details and sign up to attend next year’s ENCPA weekend at the Clamdigger.  This year’s all-beachfront rooms ran $85 a night; you can’t beat that!)

The following figures come from the 2010 North Carolina Newspaper Directory, and the statistics reflect ONLY the membership of the NCPA, to which the vast majority of NC papers belong; but it must be stated that there are many newspapers (approx. 20), which do NOT belong to the NCPA, and thus go uncounted.

In the Tar Heel State where I teach, North Carolina’s statistics on community journalism mirror the national figures:

173 out of the 179 newspapers, or 97 percent, are community newspapers by my definition.

The breakdown goes like this:

• 135 weeklies, semi-and tri-weeklies all with circulations well under 50k. (75 percent of the state’s papers are weeklies)

• 44 dailies, including:

• 2 “major metros,” with circulations of 100,000 or more (the Charlotte Observer, 220,000; and the Raleigh News & Observer, 180,000)

• 4 “big regional dailies,” with circulations of 50k-99,999, (which still pay considerable amount of attention to local news, even if “local” is 10 to 30 counties): Greensboro News and Record, 96k; the Fayetteville Observer,  61k; the Wilmington Star-News,  50k; and the Winston-Salem Journal, 75k.

• 38 “community dailies,” with circulations of under 50,000 (By these standards, 86 percent of the state’s dailies are “small.”

ONLINE STATS

Of the 179 newspapers belonging to the NCPA, 175 have Web sites, of which 171 (or 98 percent) belong to “small” newspapers.

OWNERSHIP

• DAILIES: Only 3 of the state’s 44 daily newspapers are independently and locally owned. (The Fayetteville Observer, the Goldsboro News-Argus and the Wilson Daily Times). 93 percent of the state’s dailies are chain-owned.

• WEEKLIES: Of the state’s 135 weeklies, 72 are still family or independently owned. 53 percent are still in local hands — a fairly remarkable figure these days.

Updated, March 2011. Figures obtained from the NCPA Directory for 2010

By Jock Lauterer
Director
Carolina Community Media Project

The April 16, 2011, tornadoes that raked North Carolina took practically everybody by surprise. Twenty counties were hit, and in each community, local readers depended on their hometown community newspapers for in-depth compassionate coverage that doesn’t flit away at the Next Big Thing. This is the story of one such community newspaper caught in the crosshairs.

In Sanford, pop 30,000, a tornado ripped a swath a half-mile wide and 10 miles long through the Lee County city, killing two and leaving a path of destruction unprecedented in the Piedmont’s history. But the small yet dedicated staff of the 9k circulation community daily Sanford Herald rose to the occasion, and many media observers are saying, set the standard of excellence for coverage of the disaster.

How did they do it? Less than a week after the storm, Herald Publisher Bill Horner III and Editor Billy Liggett spoke to my journalism class on April 21. Then a week later, Horner and Liggett, joined by staff photographer Wesley Beeson and reporter Billy Ball, presented their retrospective at the North Carolina Newspaper Academy

THE LITTLE NEWSPAPER THAT COULD

How does a community newspaper respond?

When disaster strikes your community…when your town is in the eye of the storm…when the state and national media descend on your coverage area…and you have a primary mission of serving your community, yet your newsroom totals five full-time staffers…?

How do you respond?

“We must be relevant,” says Sanford Herald Publisher Bill Horner III.

And relevant they were. Horner says much of the credit goes to the leadership of Editor Billy Liggett, 34, who got his sea-legs covering Hurricane Katrina for the Lafayette Daily Advertiser in 2005. “I watched my editor there handle that emergency, and that experience prepared me for this,” Liggett explains.

Liggett, who lives only two blocks from the downtown Herald office, says when he heard that afternoon around 3 p.m. that tornadoes were coming, “I got my wife (seven months pregnant), my one-year old and my two dogs and went to the paper,”  — as safe a spot as anyone could think of. There he met other staffers including photographer Wesley Beeson, reporters Billy Ball and Sports Editor Jonathan Owens.

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By Jock Lauterer
Director
Carolina Community Media Project

Publishers have no business whining about lost youth readers if they aren’t aggressively nurturing reciprocal relationships with local middle and high school administrators, teachers and students.

It’s called “Growing your own Readers,” and I’ve long preached that such pro-active “schoolwork” leads to “Growing your own Newsroom” as well.

So it was with great satisfaction that I discovered one of my favorite community newspapers thinking way outside the school lunch box, if you will.

Ed Harper’s State Port Pilot, one of the state’s most decorated weeklies (27 ad awards and 21 news awards in this year’s NCPA competition) — and arguably the finest weekly you’ll ever see — partners each summer with Brunswick Community College’s program, “Career Ready,” linking teachers with vital local service businesses.

This summer, the celebrated South Brunswick High School English teacher Michaela Birdyshaw, honored as a “21^st Century Teacher” and SBHS Teacher of the Year, spent one week in an intensive immersion internship at the Pilot.

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by Jock Lauterer
Director
The Carolina Community Media Project

Summer, 2010

When I came back to Carolina in January 2001 and launched the Carolina Community Media Project, the primary goal was to make free, on-site journalism workshops available to all 190 North Carolina community newspapers.

In the spirit of playful adventure, I dubbed it “the Johnny Appleseed  Community Journalism Roadshow.”

I estimated it would take 10 years for this ol’ publisher-turned-perfesser to reach all 190.

Silly me.

In this, the 10^th summer of the Roadshow, I’ve reached only 150 papers — 40 shy of my lofty aim.

So there’s plenty of work yet to be done and papers to visit. And since my 401K is now a 201K, I ain’t quittin’ any time soon.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

As to the Roadshow’s name, the tradition evolved to add one road warrior each year to the iconic “Johnny Appleseed” handle.

To date, the honorees include,

Charles Kuralt (On the Road With…)

James Taylor, (Walkin’ on a Country Road…)

Jack Kerouac (On the Road…)

John Steinbeck (Travels with Charlie)

Willie Nelson (On the Road Again..,)

Johnny Cash (I Been Everywhere, Man…)

And when Raeford publisher Robert “Bubba” Dickson suggested ‘possum for lunch when I came to his paper, that led to the “’Possum-Dodgin’” addition.

So if you put the whole shebang together it reads like this (take a deep breath):  The Johnny Appleseed, Charles Kuralt, James Taylor, Jack Kerouac, John Steinbeck, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, ‘Possum-Dodgin’ Community Journalism ROADSHOW.

Yes, that’s right. We need two more honorees to make 10. Any suggestions? At year eight we ran out of ideas and breath, so just reverted to Mr. Appleseed for our namesake.

FROM MURPHY TO MANTEO

Since the first Roadshow in summer ’01, I’ve led workshops literally “from Murphy to Manteo.” (That’s from the Cherokee Scout to the Outer Banks Sentinel.)

I’ve been to papers as small as Ken Ripley’s redoubtable 2k-circ weekly Spring Hope Enterprise (where I gave my pitch to one lone intern in a converted darkroom)…

I’ve brought my community journalism dog ‘n’ pony show to several of the state’s major metros where a roomful of glum staffers dutifully sat through my rant.

The most unusual newspaper I visited was James McDougald’s Maxton Times, housed in and run in conjunction with his Laundromat. Repeat, Laundromat.

The most unusual roadshow visit was with Al Carson of the Oxford Public Ledger, who, instead of listening to my stump speech, regaled me with a two-hour comprehensive essay on where to find and how to judge the state’s best hot dogs.

Along the way I’ve met the Yam Man of Tabor City (a marching sweet potato in the annual Yam Festival), a human newspaper in the form of the Mint Hill Times life-size marching newspaper (also used in parades), eaten mind-numbingly good barbecue in Lexington, and driven THROUGH a rainbow during a summer downpour in Scotland Neck, and been given a kiss on the top of my bald head by veteran editor Sammie Carter of the Wallace Enterprise.

Not one to just observe, over the past decade I’ve helped cover two US Open golf tournaments for the good folks at the Pilot of Southern Pines… and the annual Barbecue and Bluegrass Festival for Jeff Byrd’s crew at the Tryon Daily Bulletin.

Along the way I’ve met the legends of North Carolina community journalism: Pulitzer Prize-winning Ashley B. Futrell Sr. of “Little” Washington, Pulitzer Prize-winning Horace Carter of the Tabor City Tribune,  ­­­­Hoover Adams of the Dunn Daily Record, Virginia Rucker of the Forest City Daily Courier, Sarah Campbell of the Davie County Enterprise-Record, Sammie Carter of the Wallace Enterprise, Margaret Harper of the State Port Pilot.

I’ve also taken the Roadshow to spunky little indie upstart papers with the grit and gall to attempt a start-up in the 2000s: to the Smoky Mountain News in Waynesville, The Citizen of Garner, the Roberson Journal in Lumberton, the Surry Messenger in Mt. Airy — and right in my own backyard, the Citizen of Carrboro.

And there have been places that have given back to the ol’ perfesser — from mugs, umbrellas to ballcaps — even an old enlarger from the Daily Southerner of Tarboro. But my most prized thank-you gift was a “pig” (you old-timers will know what I’m talking about here) — a doorstop-weight hunk of printer’s lead left over from old hot-type days — awarded to me following my roadshow at the Wallace Enterprise.

There have also been roadshow stops that have been sentimental journeys: to the Alleghany News of Sparta where I was a green-as-grass 22-year-old editor fresh out of Chapel College; to the Transylvania Times of Brevard where I interned one college summer and fell in love with a local girl and local journalism; to the Wake Weekly of Wake Forest where Bob and Peggy Allen hired me for the summer of ’84 (after Orville Campbell had fired me for the second time). I slept on a cot in their screened-in porch and became an honorary “Allen boy.”

I’ve only had one “speedbump” on the Roadshow: when I called to offer a workshop to the publisher of one of the Heartland papers, he hung up on me.

Guess he didn’t like my haircut.

In this, the 10^th summer of the Roadshow, I’ve been to Alain Lillie’s string of Charlotte Weeklies and Charles Broadwell’s venerable Fayetteville Observer (the oldest continuously-running paper in the state!) with projected stops later this summer in Greenville, Lake Lure, “Little” Washington and Louisburg — and who knows? — your paper might be next.

So let the Roadshow roll on. Here’s to another 10 years.