If you don’t know how important a newspaper is to a community, proceed to a town that has lost one and ask around. “The people will tell you how much they miss it,” Gretchen Hunt says.
Local coverage, the kind that provides constant watch over local events, politics and business, has been a constant through Hunt’s 23-year career. It seemed fitting that she was recently named the top editor at four community papers: The Jonesboro Sun, The Daily Press of Paragould, The Times Dispatch of Walnut Ridge and The Newport Independent. The Sun publishes five days a week, The Press three times, and the others weekly.
The nation lost basically a quarter of its 9,000 daily and weekly newspapers from 2004 to 2020, when about 6,700 remained, according to University of North Carolina research. More than a dozen Arkansas papers have shuttered since 2000.
Hunt, who majored in community journalism at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, knows the trend all too well. A former editor of The Times Dispatch, she joined Paxton Media of Paducah, Kentucky, when it bought the Walnut Ridge paper in 2019. Now she’s overseeing staff and content as regional editor of the four northeast Arkansas Paxton properties. She said her lean staff will coordinate resources and that the company has been saving money by printing at Paxton’s Paducah headquarters and trucking the papers three or four hours back to Arkansas for post-office distribution.
“There’s not a physical newspaper building anymore in Newport,” Hunt said. “There’s not one in Paragould.” The Times Dispatch gave up its spacious digs in the old Walnut Ridge Post Office for a far smaller space.
“When I graduated college in ’98, people asked if it was smart to go into the newspaper business,” Hunt said. “Some were saying newspapers would be gone in five years, but 23 years later I’m still in the newspaper business.” She admits journalists are fewer and farther between. U.S. newsroom employment has plunged from 71,000 in 2008 to just 31,000 in 2020. “It’s hard to convince young people to work in the industry now, because it’s certainly not thought of as a hot career choice. But the work is essential to keep these towns informed.”
She’ll look to share some content while keeping up beats on local boards, schools, criminal justice and sports.
“Community content is crucial, because local news providers are the only source,” Hunt said. “People can’t get it anywhere else. We’re going to publish as much original content as we can.”
Hunt’s right hand will be Stephen Gillespie, now regional managing editor for the four papers. Together they will lead a staff of about eight. The one casualty of the realignment was Chris Wessel, The Sun’s editor since 2012. He is no longer with Paxton Media, Hunt said.
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