Alyson Hoge Retiring After 46 Years at Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Alyson Hoge, managing editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, at her home in Woodson (Photo provided by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

Alyson Hoge is retiring in July after more than three years as managing editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

And that was just a small fraction of the 46 years she spent in a rare one-stop career in daily journalism. Hoge, 66, announced her plans on Tuesday, the anniversary of her hiring in 1979.

When she started as a clerk at the newsroom at Capitol and Scott Streets, Jimmy Carter was president, Iran held 52 American hostages and “Reunited” by Peaches and Herb was Billboard’s No. 1 hit song.

The paper was then the Arkansas Democrat, 11 years short of winning a long and bitter newspaper war with the Arkansas Gazette.

Through decades as a reporter, state Capitol correspondent, city editor, state editor and deputy managing editor, she shaped almost every aspect of the paper’s coverage. She took over as managing editor on Feb. 28, 2022.

Hoge rose rapidly during the newspaper battle, and the prolific and bombastic wartime managing editor, John Robert Starr, became a mentor.  The Gazette was shut down by its final owner, the newspaper chain Gannett, in October 1991.

Hoge helped bring that about in 1991, when the Gannett chain shut down the Gazette and sold its assets to Democrat Publisher Walter E. Hussman Jr. for $68 million.

‘Constant Competition’

“My formative years at the newspaper were constant competition,” Hoge told Arkansas Business in 2022. “I started in ‘79, and the newspaper war ended in ‘91, so for the first 12 years it was always a case of what did they have opposed to what we had? How did we get beaten on that story? And so on. We had to have more stories than they did, and more pages than they did. And that competitive drive to be the first to tell the story is still there.”

As Hoge retires, the only staffer on the paper with a longer tenure is critic Eric Harrison, who is pushing 48 years of service.

Hoge met her husband, David, when he joined the paper as a photographer. And in two different eras she led the copy and design desks, where her son, Michael Hoge, now works.

She helped lead the paper through brutal times for the newspaper industry. She also helped usher in a digital era in which most subscribers now read the Democrat-Gazette on iPads. More than 3,200 weekly and daily newspapers have closed nationwide since 2005.

“I hear frequently from readers, especially those that have been readers of other papers in other locations, that they like our product — particularly on the iPad,” Hoge told Arkansas Business.

In an email to colleagues, Hoge said the newspaper would advertise for her replacement.

Hoge’s longtime colleague, Bill Bowden, wrote a heartfelt front-page story on her retirement plans.

Why retire?

“Because I’m 66, in reasonably decent health, and there are other things I want to spend my time doing,” Hoge said in her email. “My husband David has been having a blast since he retired in 2021.”

Faithful Journey

Born in Hope, Hoge moved as an infant with her family to North Little Rock, where she was a top graduate at Northeast High School. She attended the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, but found her calling after her mother urged her to apply for a city desk clerk’s job at the Democrat.

Writing obituaries, she learned newspaper style, and soon proved herself enough for Starr to name her the paper’s reporter for Jacksonville and Lonoke County. The rest is Arkansas journalism history.

Democrat-Gazette Publisher Eliza Hussman Gaines praised Hoge’s long, faithful journey.

“Alyson’s journey from obituary clerk to managing editor is a testament to her passion for quality journalism and her loyalty to the ADG,” Gaines said in the newspaper’s announcement of the retirement. “For years, readers benefited from Alyson’s superb reporting and, later, sharp editing. Alyson has never shied away from asking the hard questions, and is persistent in getting to the bottom of issues that matter to our state. As managing editor, she’s provided valuable guidance to journalists and has made significant progress moving the newsroom forward digitally.

“I’m so grateful for all Alyson has done in her incredible 46 years at this newspaper, and will miss her presence in the newsroom.”

Arkansas Business reached out to Hoge to ask about lessons and reminiscences of her career. She had not responded by early Wednesday morning, but if she does, this article will be updated.

‘Excelled at Everything’

Lynn Hamilton, former president of the Democrat-Gazette, noted that Hoge was just 20 when she joined the paper. She “excelled in everything” she was asked to do, he said.

“At that time, we were hiring a lot of young people — dozens, actually — with little experience,” Hamilton said, describing how newspaper competition molded Hoge. Both the Democrat and the Gazette were losing millions of dollars each year in the late 1980s.

In the five years that Gannett owned the Gazette after buying it from Little Rock’s Patterson family for $51 million and $9 million in debt in 1985, the Gazette lost a startling $108 million. The Democrat lost up to $4 million a year. In the end, the Democrat eclipsed the Gazette in readership. Gannett eventually shut down the paper and sold its assets to Hussman for $68.5 million in 1991.

But as Hoge was ascending, the newspaper competition’s outcome was still very much in doubt, Hamilton said. From Starr, he said, Hoge “learned an attitude and an aggressiveness to news coverage that we really needed at the time.”