No. 446: The People's Paper

"Mom and Mark," by Tom Wills, pencil, commissioned by Mark Sweetwood, Vindicator managing editor, August 2019

I saw Betty Jagnow and Mark Brown in the newsroom nearly every day for much of my 34-year-plus career at The Vindicator in Youngstown, Ohio. Going one-on-one with your CEOs is unique in these troubled days of American newspapers. That is one benefit of an independent, family-owned venture. But there is also a toll.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine wishes Mark and Betty the best and thanks them for a great newspaper.

Mark Brown, right, talks about our closing, warns people that  news should come from reputable sources.

When the bottom fell out here on June 28, 2019, we got the bad news in person from Mark, the general manager -- and publisher Betty’s only child. The paper had just turned 150 on the 25th and now would close Aug. 31 after four generations of proud family ownership.

That night, while helping Mark to assemble his letter to readers for the print edition, I asked just one question: “How’s your mom?”

Betty Jagnow became publisher after the death of her husband, William J. Brown. April 1 marked her 71st year of working here — April Fools' Day also was my 34-year benchmark — while Mark had 38 years.

They'll be out of work, too, among many of my colleagues.

Vindicator's old building, August 2019, commissioned by Kalea Hall.

In my view, neither the ownership nor the staff failed the community, and we tried for as long as possible to keep the beast alive. We tried all sorts of things to keep good people working  in downtown Youngstown.

Newspapers, including ours, employ some of the brightest people you’ll ever meet and yet we could not work up a winning formula to defeat the F word: FREE. It’s human nature to grab what we don’t need to pay for, and online news — from sources both legit and sketchy — trips over itself to be first at giving away print's lifeblood.

There is no buyer for this business and its debts.

Storm clouds brewing.

According to the Pew Research Center: “From 2008 to 2018, newsroom employment in the U.S. dropped by 25 percent. In 2008, about 114,000 newsroom employees – reporters, editors, photographers and videographers – worked in five industries that produce news: newspaper, radio, broadcast television, cable and “other information services” (the best match for digital-native news publishers). By 2018, that number had declined to about 86,000, a loss of about 28,000 jobs.

Bad news.

“The number of newsroom employees at U.S. newspapers declined by 47 percent between 2008 and 2018. This decline in overall newsroom employment has been driven primarily by one sector: newspapers. The number of newspaper newsroom employees dropped by 47 percent between 2008 and 2018, from about 71,000 workers to 38,000.”

Vindicator General Manager Mark Brown chose to personally edit and proof the final Page One story.

Initially I was going to write in this space about what we did, or didn't do, in the last 15 years to right the ship. But at this juncture no purpose would be served -- and I don't want to go out like that.
At The Vindicator, there was a valued sense of loyalty from the very top to bottom.  If you stuck by the company, it stuck by you for as long as it could -- until it couldn’t. We kept showing up and doing the work and were very good at it.  I never missed a paycheck.

Friday night, Aug. 30, 2019, about 9:45 p.m., hot off the press.

Fortunately, and unexpectedly, I was thrown a life raft and will stay in local journalism, and can continue with newsroom management from closer to home.

Mark Brown was a real gentleman about it and was relieved that someone swept me up, at my age.  I am grateful too.
On our final day the newsroom presented the drawing to him, signed by all of us. I told everyone we can leave with our heads held high.

They saw it through to the very end, despite the heartbreak.

That night, before the press run, I hugged his mother -- so formidable in her earlier years --  and kissed her cheek, and I told her, "thank you." 
… And I didn't shed a single tear until I typed that sentence.

Vindicator alumni who didn't stick around for these worst of times are planning a reunion for the Sunday after our closing.

Come back to Youngstown and have your dinner, and look back on the better days. Venerate our name or poke a stick in us, however you feel.

I have no interest in further revisiting the life and death of this place. Many of us who stuck it out are too wrung out to party.

I'm taking with me a wealth of knowledge shared by people such as Paul Jagnow, Tony Paglia, Emily Webster Love, Bill Hawkins Jr., Carl Basic, Ernie Brown Jr.,  Robert Yosay, Matt Arnold, Robert McFerren, Bill Lewis, Cindi Rickard, Bertram de Souza, Todd Franko and Mark Sweetwood — again, among the brightest people you’ll ever meet.  

Unleashing the power, one last time.

For those subscribers who stuck with us to the end, you have all of our gratitude.

Your local successors in Warren, and I, will work hard to honor The Vindicator's good name.

To the people who believe out-of-town money and short-term experiments in community coverage will change the face of Mahoning Valley news: I hear it hurts when the lab monkeys get their eyes poked.

For those pointers and clickers with short attention spans who get their “facts” from Facebook, Twitter and all sorts of free sites: You are killing the legitimate messengers.

Cheap rhymes with sheep, you know.