Whatchamacolumn: Poignant film depicts the demise of a newspaper
Texas newspaper publisher Laurie Ezzell Brown and filmmaker Heather Courtney were in McMinnville this week to present “For The Record,” a beautifully produced documentary about the demise of a 130-year-old community newspaper in Canadian, a small town in the northeastern Texas Panhandle.
The Canadian Record, owned by the Ezzell family since the late 1940s, closed its doors this year, soon after completion of Courtney’s poignant production. Together, Brown and Courtney are touring America to present film showings such as this week’s event sponsored by Linfield University, the News-Register and the Oregon Public Information Partnership.
Local viewers of “For The Record,” many with deep personal ties to newspaper journalism, were drawn into the reality that thousands of community newspapers have closed nationwide. Among those viewers were event panelists Chelsea Marr, publisher of the Columbia Gorge News and current president of the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association, and Jennifer Rauch, Linfield University professor and chair of the Journalism and Media Studies program. Also present: ONPA Executive Director Laurie Hieb; Andrew DeVigal, director of the Agora Journalism Center at the University of Oregon; News-Register editors and reporters; and many subscribers who support the local newspaper through membership in the N-R Press Club.
McMinnville-based OPIP is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping independent Oregon newspapers find financial stability through development of new revenue streams. That mission took a step back earlier in the day when news came that Mississippi-based Carpenter Media Group had acquired another 22 Oregon publications, including 15 newspapers. Combined with its June acquisition of 25 publications in the former Pamplin Media Group, Carpenter now owns nearly half of ONPA’s general member newspapers.
During the evening, I had several flashbacks of my own: The offices of the Canadian Record were a vintage variation of those for the Comanche (Texas) Chief newspaper, long-serving the community where my great-grandparents raised their family; the sale of EO Media eliminated one of just two Oregon family newspaper ownerships longer-lived that ours in McMinnville; the documentation of a broken newspaper business model described many conditions in our company and so many others.
“Business model,” of course, conjures only images of dollars. While that need is urgent for sustainability and survival of locally owned community newspapers, there’s an even more worrisome reality: The very structure and mission of traditional community journalism may be irrevocably broken, if not completely then perhaps as “print.”
Expensive newspaper printing production may disappear, or may become a super-premium product offered only to those who understand, value and can afford the virtues of communications printed on paper. That’s one reason why — to the discontent of many subscribers — we have added e-editions and reduced days of printed newspapers.
Thanks, on behalf of Linfield, OPIP and the N-R, to journalist Laurie Ezzell Brown and filmmaker Heather Courtney for bringing their message to McMinnville. We hope to stay in touch with the impact that national film tour might have on other communities.
Meanwhile, there won’t be a documentary about the demise of the News-Register. At least, not this year.
Jeb Bladine can be reached at jbladine@newsregister.com or 503-687-1223.
Comments