Early July birthdays include the United States, Eureka Springs and us, the Eureka Springs Independent and Ozark Mountains Fun Guide. We’re not as old as the US and ES, but we’re just as committed as they are to bettering someone’s day by kissing their human confusion and making it all better.
We publish 50 newspapers a year because we wanted an alternative to relying on a computer-phone-flashlight-calculator the size of our palm to get instant information.
A newspaper puts people in a community on the same page. Sure, many of us are disciples of the world wide web, but a newspaper focuses on what happened last week or will next week, right here. Also, what’s available, what’s affordable, what’s delicious and what’s on sale.
Editorials in 1881 proclaimed that the population of Eureka Springs could not be excelled for honesty. “No sneak thieves, house pilferers, robbers, fakers, or sure-thing men are allowed. Ardent spirits sold at only three places.”
Six months later a sheriff’s posse arrested 14 men and four notorious women considered a “teamsters lot.”
Things change. Times change. People, not so much. That’s why a local newspaper is like Sunday dinner with the family – you might not always like it, but you will always be welcome, expected and fed.
What we originally thought of as a creation turned into a reflection. So, we chose to veer off onto the path less taken. We realized that peace is more precious than perfection and that there’s no such thing as perfection other than a perfect fit.
Here’s the thing about a newspaper: it’s obsolete. Some people even call print dead. Sure, TV and websites have the biggest cheering sections, but they’re so passive – Sit. Click. Stare.
Phones take a mammoth amount of our waking hours because why wouldn’t we want to be updated on world news, Portuguese weather, political agitators in Congress and Stealth bombers either obliterating or scratching something secret in someone else’s country?
The alternative to anxiety is to read a newspaper. Read an obit about a fine person, find out who’s having a canoe race, where the venues for blues, bluegrass, rock or Carmen are.
With a newspaper you choose among options of what’s happening right here, right now. You pour another cup of coffee, put your feet up, and search for typos. No fee. Pick it up and own it. When you read a local newspaper, you’re inside your own community and your own head.
People ask us how Eureka Springs can support two newspapers, and we tell them that Eureka Springs has traditionally had two newspapers, ever since 1880. Names of the papers changed more than names of the people who put them together. Today, when you call a Eureka Springs newspaper, the owner probably answers the phone, just like in 1895. Two papers aren’t competitors as much as complementary to each other. Different outlooks, behaviors, coverage and attitudes. Just like the rest of us.
We do this work because we want to add value to lives. Sometimes that works.
A woman in Green Forest sends us a nice note with a $100 check when she has it or thinks of it. A man in Manchester, Ohio, re-ups his subscription every year and adds a nice tip to his check. A Vietnam veteran brings us a sweet chunk of his disability check every month. Our families support us with encouragement and acceptance, knowing that to commit to this endeavor will cost them.
We have walls of artwork given us by the artists. We have a wall filled with thank you notes. We also tape up complaints, even the anonymous ones. By the way, the complaints are always about national stuff, not what we’re doing here in town. And in response, we say we not only won’t fire Wolf Grulkey, we offered two-time Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes a job when she was censored by and quit the Washington Post in January. She thanked us and said she’d buy a subscription. Editorial cartoonists were the first to challenge what the 1st amendment really means, long before the camera was invented.
We learned that laughter and desperation feed laughter and desperation. We found that joy springs from our grateful hearts.
We are convinced that if we highlight those who make a difference, those who are timid or rebellious enough to find comfort in reading about people they know or want to, we have succeeded.
This is the first issue of our 14th year. We’re taking a week off, 11 days when you count the weekends (or count the way we do) so we can get caught up with mowing, receive visiting family, get a massage, shave the dog and take out the trash.
Just think, we’re headed into year 14 of this newspaper. In two short years, we’ll be legal to drive.