It is National Newspaper Week. Yes, this one belongs to us. Please read the column to my left written by Dean Ridings. It is excellent and it explains the value of newspapers.
I am a veteran newspaper person. I’ve been told that I started at the age of four so I’ve been at it for 80 years.
It was during World War II and my dad found work helping to build Oak Ridge, Tn. That was in 1943. Living quarters were scarce and my family found an abandoned restaurant across from Magnet Mills in Clinton, Tn. and we made it our home.
The shifts would change each day at 3 p.m. for the Mill workers. My mother would buy a stack of Clinton Couriers and she would sit with me in front of our quarters while I would bark out, “Buy your Clinton Courier” as the workers walked by.
How could they resist buying a newspaper from a four year old blonde headed boy who was trying to help out his family by selling newspapers? We sold out every week and those few dollars helped.
Actually, I have been a part of the newspaper world for just over 50 years. I started out in radio. For the last 36 years I have been the publisher of this newspaper.
It has been a long and rewarding road. In 1987 Terry Forcht hired me as publisher of the Whitley Republican in Williamsburg with the idea that we would start a sister paper in Corbin called Corbin! This Week.
We merged the two editions in 1992 and changed the name of the newspaper to the News Journal. We have gone from being the smallest newspaper in circulation in the tri-county area to being the largest and then becoming a weekly newspaper with the largest circulation in the state.
Over the last decade newspapers fell victim to the Internet and circulation started to drop. Several newspapers had to shut their doors.
Here at the News Journal we felt the effect also. But this year I am happy to report that our paid circulation has started to climb up again. We’ve added many news subscribers. Thank you to our old and new subscribers alike for your support.
