Fighting Hard to Save Clarksville’s Graphic

From left, Sharla Norris, events and copy editor; Managing Editor Megan Wylie; Promotions and Accounts Receivable Manager Wanda Williams; reporter Stephanie Baker; Advertising and IT Manager Gerald Sanders; and Assistant Editor and Circulation Manager Janis Penix. (Provided)

Megan Wylie, managing editor of The Johnson County Graphic in Clarksville, has been going without a paycheck since January.

She thinks it’s a small price to pay for striving to save the local weekly, one of the oldest businesses in Arkansas, founded in 1877.

Wylie, the daughter-in-law of the paper’s owner, Margaret Wylie, is leading a quest to add $11,000 in monthly revenue to avoid shutting down. Local newspapers, mostly weekly, have been failing at a rate of two a week across the country, and Wylie is devoted to dodging that fate.

In January, The Graphic published a blank front page and an editorial inside, almost an obituary, headlined “The Johnson County Graphic, 1877-2024?”

“Our intent to raise public awareness with the blank front page seems to have made an impact, as we’ve seen an uptick in our subscriptions and advertising and feel like we are continuing to gain momentum,” Megan Wylie told Arkansas Business last month.

“Businesses, and even a few individuals, have purchased ads with the expressed desire to keep The Graphic going and to help us continue to report the news. We’ve received quite a few donations as well, which has been amazing.”

The paper hasn’t turned a profit for a decade, said Wylie, who described her family’s involvement with the paper for more than 50 years.

Margaret Wylie’s sister and brother-in-law, Christene and Bob Fisher, bought The Graphic in 1971 and brought Margaret and Ron Wylie to Clarksville to work there in 1972.

Margaret Wylie inherited a majority interest in the paper when her sister died in 2014, and purchased the remaining shares earlier this year. For health reasons, she hasn’t been able to work since 2012. Ron took over as publisher and ran the paper from the early 2000s until retiring last year.

“Since my husband, Matt, is an only child, we decided it was best for me to step in and try to keep it going, and here we are,” Megan Wylie said. Matt Wylie is the Clarksville market president for First Security Bank.

The Graphic’s January editorial urged readers to ponder what the town would be like without a paper, something thousands of communities have faced in the internet age.

As part of the rescue plan, the paper raised advertising rates and increased its per-copy price to $1 per copy, its first rise in 22 years. It added QR codes to its news racks to accept digital payments and asked readers to donate. It also appealed to nostalgia and civic duty.

“How many of us grew up with clippings from the paper on our refrigerator or on our grandmother’s, or in our scrapbook?” the editorial asked.

Towns without professional reporters suffer, Wylie said. They tend to have poorer health, slower economic growth and higher interest costs for bonds.

“Is that what we want for Johnson County?” she asked.

Residents responded by encouraging the staff, which hired an extra reporter, Stephanie Baker, last year to beef up coverage. Advertisers stepped up to become regular supporters, and more residents are stopping to buy copies.

“The community is showing us every day that what we do matters,” Wylie said in an email exchange. “We are humbled by that and are intent on finding ways to continue to improve our publication and report what’s happening around Johnson County.”

But the newspaper’s staff of six also realizes the heavy task ahead in saving the business.

“We are just taking it a week at a time and making incremental changes,” Wylie said. “The bottom line is, everyone here loves the paper and our county, and recognizes the role of the paper in the health and prosperity of our community.”

Readers want “hyperlocal content,” Wylie said, particularly coverage of public meetings. “We’ve had many people tell us they wouldn’t know what was going on in these meetings if it weren’t for reading it in the paper. They’ve told us they want us to distill it down to the important details and present it in an easy-to-understand, abbreviated way.”

Readers are also concerned about government accountability, she said, and The Graphic has offered residents help with Freedom of Information Act requests.

One lifelong resident who subscribed about a year ago told Wylie he had never felt more connected to the community. When neighbors ask how he knows so much about local issues, he answers, “I take The Graphic.”

The paper offers positive news to counteract what Wylie sees as a trend toward polarizing and depressing material, particularly on TV. “We try to include some entertaining, uplifting content to celebrate achievements in the community.” It might be a feature on a local nonprofit, coverage of youth sports, recognition for first responders or an item about grants to the city. A new page filled with puzzles and cartoons proved popular.

“We recognize that a significant part of our value proposition is the long-term franchise value of a ‘trusted source’ for local news,” Wylie said. She hopes the public appreciates the difference between a professionally reported and edited story and an unverified post on Facebook.

“We prioritize accuracy over speed, recognize there are real people behind these stories and, as a weekly, we sometimes have a little more time to dig deeper,” she said. ”We occasionally hold a story until the following week just to give ourselves time to do it justice and make sure we have it right.”

The paper is doing better, but the future isn’t settled, Wylie said.

“We continue to make improvements, increase coverage as much as we can, and explore new revenue streams. We aren’t trying to make money from reporting the news, but in order to report the news. The way things are looking now, we can sustain things a little longer than originally thought.”

Revenue in January and February was up from last year, and March was continuing the trend.

“If that holds out through the remainder of the year, we might come close to breaking even this year,” Wylie said. “But it’s still early and we have already had to dip into our reserve funds to make payroll. We’ve applied for a few grants, and if we were to get those, it would really help us achieve our goal. This isn’t a quick fix though, and we continue to pursue opportunities for ongoing support.”

Wylie recalled a recent remark that to lose newspapers is to lose democracy. “We want to do our part to keep democracy alive and make our community a better place,” she said. “We want to encourage anyone who will listen: Please support your local newspapers … you need them as much as they need you.”