by Ed Rogers
Bill Donavan, thank you for your piece regarding the loss of open and informed news reporting in America. It hit the bullseye and should serve as a warning to all Americans. We have seen that loss in America for years as newspapers are purchased and eventually shut down with the usual excuse “not profitable”. This has happened not just in America but in numerous other countries. A prime example is the UK, especially London.
Your piece reminded me of a small Kentucky newspaper which had the guts to stand up to powerful corporations, politicians and narrow-mindedness. I shared this story with a local newspaper here about ten years ago hoping it would make a difference in the level of news coverage in Chaffee County. In my opinion it did not.
The newspaper I refer to is the Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Kentucky and it is one of the smallest papers in America. However in a critical period in America’s history it had a major influence, not only on Kentucky but on America.
The owner-publisher was Tom Gish and he died on November 21, 2008 at the age of 82. The newspaper is now run by his son who will carry on that tradition. When Gish purchased the paper in 1956 its masthead was a fluffy, feel good “A Friendly Non-Partisan Weekly Newspaper.” Under Tom Gish, the slogan became “The Mountain Eagle. It Screams.”
Gish was not afraid to print the truth and to cover controversial issues giving the readers on all sides and at all levels of the social strata coverage. He considered that the purpose for a newspaper’s existence. He did not consider the primary purpose to be generating ad revenues and pandering to special interests by only publishing feel good stories. After all, in reality we do not live in lah-lah land.
In 1975 the masthead of the newspaper changed. It read “The Mountain Eagle It Still Screams”. Why? The newspaper was firebombed. The papers determination to accurately cover issues from Frankfort, the capital of Kentucky to Washington D. C. had threatened powerful entrenched interests.
Gish covered issues important to citizens in Kentucky including poverty, illiteracy, strip-mining, poor and unsafe conditions in coal mines, poor school systems with unresponsive school boards, corruption in government and even ineffective federal programs. In other words The Mountain Eagle did its job. It did not print fluffy feel good news, it printed the news that the citizens needed to know. It printed the truth. President Lyndon Johnson was influenced by the newspaper. The papers description of horrid living conditions, illiteracy and poverty in Appalachia was a key factor in Johnson’s declaration of a “War on Poverty.” Having been in some of those coal mines in Kentucky (also WestVirginia) and driven through Kentucky during the 1970s I can attest to the conditions. Gish printed the truth. You could not put a label of liberal or conservative on him. The truth does not wear a particular label. Maybe that is what troubled so many people.
This newspaper became a pillar to miners and also a part of the history of coal mining in Kentucky. Coal miners in the region still talk about Tom Gish: “They tried burning him out, and I don’t think they missed an issue of the paper. They printed it anyway.” His description of conditions in coal mines helped lead to numerous mine safety acts. That cost big mining money and they struck back by burning his offices.
The newspaper was not threatened once but several times for printing the truth. Gish took on the police for mistreatment of young people. His paper was barred from public meetings, businesses withheld advertising and he was personally threatened many times. He still did not back off from printing the truth.
Over time the Mountain Eagle stories and threats made as a result of those stories received global attention. Reporters from the biggest newspapers and networks traveled to the hamlet of Whitesburg. Why? Gish was considered the authority on Appalachian issues and the papers followed up on his stories.
Tom Gish persevered despite the threats and loss of ad revenues. The paper had set a standard for everyone in journalism. To bad that standard has disappeared and been replaced by quarterly ad revenue statements.
The Gish family suffered financially. At one time the boycotts by advertisers cut the paper down to four pages but the family continued by having the entire family including the five kids pitch in to get the paper out. This was only 40 years ago. What has happened to this type of courage? When did the almighty dollar replace the desire for accurate reporting and the truth?
In an interview in 1969, the famous reporter Charles Kuralt asked Gish why he didn’t leave the threats and boycotts behind, and get out . Gish responded: ”That would amount to a kind of surrendering that I just can’t do.”
Where has this type of courage gone?
You do not see it in newspapers at any level and I include what the right calls those leftist papers, the New York Times and the Washington Post. They only print controversial issues when those issues are politically acceptable. Both are timid newspapers. After all for those papers you might lose your spot at White House briefings or for all newspapers you might lose those sacred ad revenues.
What is the answer to this problem of inaccurate news reporting or no news reporting on certain issues? I do not know the answer to restoring full and accurate reporting in America. It seems that if the media is subsidized by government, then the media could become a trumpet of the government. I do not want that and neither should anyone else. I do know that if this trend continues we all will lose.
The first step toward a theocracy or tyranny is the loss of a free and open press. Adolf Hitler knew it and his first step on taking power in 1933 was crushing what remained of Germany’s once proud and diverse newspaper industry. That industry was replaced by Hitler the same year with Joseph Goebbels, the Reichs Minister of Propaganda and National Enlightenment who had total control of all media in Nazi Germany. His influence was incredible. He knew that if you controlled the press, you controlled the citizens. Hermann Goering, Hitler’s President of the Reichstag knew how dangerous a free press was: “Education is dangerous – Every educated person is a future enemy” or ”Whenever I hear the word culture, I reach for my Browning!”. His best quote: “If you tell the people the same lie often enough it becomes the truth”.
The only way to preserve a democracy is a free and open press which prints the truth and all sides of an issue. Forget the fluff, I believe the citizens of America can handle the truth and an unbiased press. Bring it back or lose democracy.
Keep up the good work Salida Citizen. You are a beacon of light, not just for Salida but for the county.
Love many, trust few, and always paddle your own canoe.
Geepers, Mr. Kent, that story about Tom Gish would make a swell movie!
I don’t know what business you’re in, Mr. Rogers; but I’m going to go out on a limb here… uh, you’re not in the newspaper business?
One of the best written stories I’ve ever seen locally was right here on Salida Citizen a few days ago… the one Ann Marie Swan wrote about Friend Ranch. But you can bet she had a lot more time to research and write it than any of the reporters at the Mountain Mail would have had.
Trust me. I’ve been known to disagree with the Mail’s editorial policy and I’ve nipped at their heels many times. But the romantic notion you describe isn’t practical.
Maybe you should stop doing whatever it is you do for a living, start a newspaper that meets your ideological expectations, and raise your Sword of Purity in defiance of the need to pick one’s battles.
Perhaps you’d be a little less harsh if you had to do better, yourself.