Death of first publisher brings back flood of memories
By Roy Ockert Jr.
Many memories of my newspaper career came flooding back with news of the death of my first publisher, Dr. O.E. Jones III of Batesville.
After graduating from Arkansas State University, earning a master’s and teaching a couple of years at a small college, I returned to ASU in 1970 to follow in the footsteps of my mentor, L.W. “Tex” Plunkett, founder of the best journalism education program in Arkansas.
Indeed, I spent three years sharing an office with Tex before he retired.
But the newspaper business, in which I had some experience as a reporter and sports writer, was changing with the advent of computers. To succeed in education, I would need to follow the rules of the academy and get a doctorate. To teach journalism, I needed to know more about how computers could help newspapers.
I chose to pursue a newspaper job. After learning the editor of The Batesville Guard had resigned, I submitted my resume and got an interview with O.E. Jones.
O.E. was not a full-time newspaperman and may not have been officially the publisher. He was a dentist whose office was next door to the Guard building, but as one of three principal owners (with his mother and sister) he had a strong interest in the newspaper’s success.
Family-owned newspapers weren’t unusual then. By family-owned, I really mean locally owned. Today they are rare. With the sale of the Forrest City newspaper in late 2016, the Guard is Arkansas’ only local daily newspaper owned by a family. The owners of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette would argue with that, but it’s part of a family-owned chain of newspapers.
O.E.’s dad and older brother had been career newspapermen, but both died young. His goal was to avoid the same fate so he pursued a less stressful career, retired early and spent much of his leisure in outdoors activities.
My interview went well. O.E. had a vision for the Guard. He wanted the newspaper to be more aggressive in covering local news and to modernize it by using the latest technology — in news, production and business.
The Guard news staff had fallen into some bad habits. Only the City Council and the police were covered; otherwise, the staff relied on people to bring the news in. That included even local sports.
Council coverage was a folly. The reporter for the only radio station in town left the 7 p.m. meeting at 8:30, and the Guard’s reporter did, too. Therefore, the mayor waited until they departed to handle any controversial business.
Because the Guard was (and still is) a weekday-only afternoon newspaper, coaches called or came in the day after a game to provide a report.
I broke in with Hot Springs newspapers, which were more diligent in covering local news but gave national and international news most of the attention and space. In college I worked for The Jonesboro Evening Sun, where I learned that a good local newspaper covers local news and sports as thoroughly as possible because that’s what readers want most.
O.E. hired me, and I started in the summer of 1975 to make that happen. Imagine the mayor’s surprise when I covered a council meeting for the first time and didn’t leave at 8:30.
My first hire was one of my best ASU students, who replaced the sports editor as a full-time staff member (his predecessor had been half-time typesetter). The three of us were joined by a retired Farmers Home Administration executive, who was paid by the inch for what he wrote. Together, we started covering anything and everything we could, which meant many days started at 6:30 a.m. and ended at 10 p.m. or so after covering a night meeting.
Meanwhile, O.E. and I began studying and acquiring the technology needed to bring computers into our newsroom. The Guard was already into phototypesetting and layout so writing and editing on computer was a natural extension.
He also allowed me to begin building a staff, which grew to eight full-time within five years. Over the years we became a training ground for many fine young journalists.
Then came Jan. 3, 1981. That Saturday night two young thugs broke into our building, stole some cash out of our safe, then dropped a lit match into a barrel of newsprint. I was on call that night for “breaking news” so I got the first report and scurried to the scene.
The fire slowly spread, and firefighters couldn’t stop it. Jones family members and our staff huddled in the cold and watched our workplace burn to the ground. The next day we met to determine how to get out the Monday edition. We did it and continuing publishing for months in laborious, makeshift fashion that would take another column to describe.
The newspaper had been profitable but was underinsured. Starting from scratch was expensive. Our resources were never the same, but the Jones family resisted overtures from outside companies that wanted to buy the Guard.
I stayed on as editor for 13 years, then as a columnist for another seven. O.E., who also became my family’s dentist, and I didn’t always agree, but he always supported us, even when friends wanted to influence coverage. That’s perhaps the hardest thing for a business-owning family lacking the resources of a big company.
I spent the rest of my career as the editor of chain-owned newspapers. The trend away from locally owned businesses and into corporate ownership is certainly not confined to the newspaper business. Some of the differences are good, some not so good.
Most of all, I remember the Guard’s family atmosphere — picnics, team sports and games, parties at the Jones house, laughing and sometimes crying together. May the Joneses keep their great community institution in the family.
Roy Ockert, a resident of Jonesboro, is a retired editor of The Jonesboro Sun. He can be reached at royo@suddenlink.net.