When Mike McNeill decided to resign as managing editor of the Banner-News of Magnolia and start an online local news outlet 16 years ago, the newspaper’s general manager gave him a stiff warning.
“She said, ‘Mike, if you do this, you’re never going to be able to go back to work for a daily newspaper in south Arkansas again.’ She was right. The Camden and Magnolia papers have gone from dailies to weeklies, the Texarkana and El Dorado papers are shadows of their former selves. Arkadelphia doesn’t have a daily newspaper anymore, and neither does De Queen, I don’t think,” McNeill told Arkansas Business.
“So yes, I wouldn’t be able to go back to a daily newspaper. Sixteen years later, I’m still here, and a lot of daily newspapers are history.”
McNeill, who spent more than 30 years in print, will celebrate the 16th anniversary of Magnoliareporter.com on April 7. And his is just one of several local online news sites that have found solid footing in south Arkansas as daily papers have retreated.
Joe Burgess, who spent two decades driving a factory forklift, has been publishing MonticelloLive.com, perhaps the oldest online-only local site in the state, since 2007. Mark Keith, a veteran of decades in local radio, runs HopePrescott.com and three weekly print papers.
Field Walsh started Texarkana’s TXKToday.com after his video of police arresting burglars in his yard drew big audiences online. He quickly shifted from making commercials to covering news, and his Facebook posts drive a million monthly users, delivering revenue of between $3,000 and $4,000 a month.
And Joel Phelps, trained in print news at Henderson State University, lost that career in 2018 when GateHouse Media of upstate New York closed a half-dozen Arkansas papers.
After some years in the wood products industry, his wife persuaded him to start Arkadelphian.com, which has faced little daily competition for news in nearly five years.
“If it bleeds, it leads, you know,” Phelps said. “With this online platform, I’m able to track what people are interested in.” Much of that is police reporting, including news about traffic fatalities.
The Arkadelphian receives donations from some generous users, but like the other south Arkansas sites, most of its revenue comes from banner ads. The higher they appear on the page, the more money they bring.
Phelps describes his operation as a “one-man show,” but he does have a content arrangement with Joe May at the weekly Southern Standard. When school board and city government meetings overlap, Phelps covers one and May the other.
McNeill, who is 69, has a small part-time staff in Magnolia, where he lives and works in a former insurance agency on the courthouse square with his pet, Walter Cronkat.
“I have about four people who perform various tasks for me,” McNeill said. “I have one who concentrates on real estate news and another who concentrates on court news. I have someone who is kind of a sports photography stringer, and I have a drone guy. Ironically, all of these people at one time or another worked for the Banner-News.”
Keith, who owns HopePrescott.com with Amy Sweat, also runs three weekly newspapers, the Hope Prescott News, the Little River Journal in Ashdown and the North Webster News in Springhill, Louisiana.
He said the newspapers outperform the website in revenue, but that online news “is still a very viable business.”
Keith, who is approaching 63, found his calling more than four decades ago on a tour of the campus radio station at Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia, his hometown.
“My media background was always small-town radio,” he said. “I did that full time for 11 years, then worked for the Chamber of Commerce in Hope for 20 years. I had a little furniture store, but it didn’t amount to much.”
When the news broke in 2018 that the Hope Star would cease publication, Keith saw an opportunity.
He told Wendell Hoover, the original owner of HopePrescott.com, that he wanted to start a newspaper.
“He owned HopePrescott.com exclusively, so he and I put up $1,000 each and started the newspaper (of the same name).” In 2024, Hoover was ready to sell out, so Sweat bought his interest, Keith said.
“I think a great business plan is to figure out how to sell something multiple times,” he said. “So I’m selling news online on HopePrescott.com and I’m selling it in print in the Hope Prescott News. The most popular stuff on the website is crime, fire and more sensational things. I suspect the biggest story we’ve had this week is that a venerable old business in Hope, Barry’s Grocery, had its roof collapse [after the winter storm].” Keith also takes pride in covering government boards and entities in Hempstead and Nevada counties.
“I emphasize local, local, local,” he said.
Walsh takes the same approach in Texarkana, where he oversees one full-time employee and a part-time worker. In April, he’ll celebrate 12 years of running TXKToday.com.
“Revenue-wise it’s been pretty steady,” he said. “Viewership numbers have grown a lot in the past few years as we kind of tuned in to what people like and get it out there. And it’s just been enjoyable to change the news scene in Texarkana.”
The site’s Facebook presence is “what’s gone crazy,” Walsh said. “We get a million people a month on Facebook, about 20 million views.” And net revenue? “We can gross $250,000 a year,” he said.
Other online local news players in south Arkansas include Shelli Poole, who leads MySaline.com; Rod Reep, who oversees the Saline River Chronicle; and Sandy Sanford of South Arkansas Now in El Dorado.
For Joe Burgess of MonticelloLive, covering online news for nearly 19 years has been a life changer.
“I got a business-of-the-year plaque from 2010, which shows … that somebody that used to be a forklift driver at a factory can start something new and then end up being recognized,” Burgess said. “And I have found out that Thursday night (Jan. 29), I’m going to be getting a Citizen of the Year for Monticello award” from Mayor Jason Akers.
“I pride myself on shameless self-promotion,” Burgess said, only half-joking. “I’ve had stories picked up by ESPN and by CNN. I’ve been involved with ABC News when they came down because we had a tornado. Let’s just say that some of the major players follow me.”
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