The Improbable Life of the Arkansas Democrat: An Oral History

ISBN-13: 9781557286864 / Angielski / Twarda / 2016 / 200 str.

Jerry McConnell

Opis

"The Improbable Life of the "Arkansas Democrat is based on more than one hundred interviews with employees of the "Democrat," including editors, reporters, feature writers, cartoonists, circulation managers, business managers, salespeople, typesetters and others, from the 1930s through the early 1990s, when the Democrat took over the more prominent "Arkansas Gazette" after an aggressive newspaper war.

This new addition to Arkansas journalism history provides vivid details about what it was like to work at the "Democrat." August Engel, who led the paper with focused devotion for forty-two years, was famous for his thrift, creating austere conditions that included no air conditioning in the newsroom and sub-par wages. In spite of these drawbacks, the paper was still home to many dedicated journalism professionals endeavoring to do good work.

Readers who remember the ultimate acrimony between the two papers may be surprised to learn that for many years the "Democrat" and the "Gazette" owners operated under a tacit agreement of civility. The papers didn t raid each other s staff, for example, and when a fire broke out in the "Gazette" pressroom, "Democrat" management offered to loan the use of its press. Staffers recall that when the "Gazette" struggled with an advertising boycott and reduced circulation during the Little Rock Central High crisis because of its perceived progressive editorial stance, which infuriated many Arkansans, the "Democrat" did less than it might have to capitalize. The eventual newspaper war that combined the two rivals saw the end of any semblance of civility when the "Democrat" hired an aggressive and infamous managing editor named John Robert Starr.

Through these firsthand stories of those who lived it, "The Improbable Life of the" Arkansas Democrat tells the story of how the second-place paper overtook the oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi, forever changing not only Arkansas journalism but also Arkansas history."