A version of this conversation aired during Morning Edition on WVIA Radio.
The Wellsboro Gazette, a weekly newspaper in Tioga County, celebrates a rare milestone this month - 150 years of publication.
As newspapers around the state and country shut down or decrease staff and publication days, the Wellsboro Gazette has remained.
WVIA's Kat Bolus spend a few days with the staff in Wellsboro.
—
SARAH: So, Kat, how significant is it for a weekly paper like the Wellsboro Gazette to reach 150 years of publication?
KAT: I think it's pretty significant. I mean, they're based in Wellsboro, which is a small community in rural North Central Pennsylvania. You know, when they talk about news deserts, they talk about these small communities that are losing their newspapers. It's not necessarily your big cities or even like your medium sized cities, it's these smaller communities...where your townships and your Borough Councils are kind of making decisions, and there's no one keeping them in check or reporting on what's happening. So I think it's pretty significant for a paper in a small town to kind of reach 150 years you know, especially when those are the types of papers that are disappearing.
SARAH: Neither of us are strangers to the newspaper world, especially weeklies.
KAT: That's true.
SARAH: I am curious, was there anything that you learned from the staff down at the Wellsboro Gazette that was surprising to you?
KAT: I was surprised at the amount that they're covering. You know, both Sarah and I ... worked at the Times Shamrock newspapers, the Times-Tribune and the Citizens' Voice. And I think when you worked Saturday shifts or Sunday shifts, like you were often doing one or two things, you were sitting there listening to the scanner. But I sat through their through their story session ... when they were kind of plotting out what their next week looked like. The amount of things that the reporters were doing on Saturdays and Sundays was astounding to me. So Donna LeSchander, she's one of the reporters there. She was talking about how she was making this big loop around Tioga County and going a bit into Potter County, because they're not just writing for the Wellsboro Gazette. They're writing for two other papers too. So she was talking about, she's making this big loop, and she's like, it's okay, I'll hit this, this, this and this, and then I'll come back and I'll write it. But they're not just going out and interviewing people, they're taking photos, and then at the end of the day, they're paginating the pages. They're making the newspaper look the way it's supposed to look. So it's it's not just like a couple people go out on a Saturday and interview a couple people and write a story. They are responsible for the almost entire production of the paper. You know, they're not printing it. I think that's like the only thing they don't do.
SARAH: Can you imagine having your hands in literally everything of this paper, except for printing it?
KAT: No, I mean like when we started here at WVIA, we were responsible for putting photos into our stories, and that was new to me. You know, when we were at the Scranton and the Wilkes-Barre papers, like the editor put the photos in, or the copy desk put the photos in and we didn't have to worry about it. Then they're laying out the pages. That was the one thing that I never learned. And there's a staff of four full time people, and Natalie Kennedy is their Managing Editor, and she does it all too. So she's not just their Managing Editor. She's also out in the field and taking photos, and, you know, on those Saturdays, covering three or four things.
SARAH: And speaking of Natalie Kennedy, I love this term that she brings up in your story, that idea of refrigerator journalism.
KAT: Yeah.
SARAH: So how much does that term and that idea motivate this really small staff, this really dedicated staff?
KAT: What I've found is that small papers like the Wellsboro Gazette that are in smaller communities, they're the hyper-local papers, so they're the ones that are covering like school plays and, you know, small events that like really, deeply matter to the people within those communities. So I think you know, when she uses the term refrigerator journalism, what she means is that people are going to buy the paper, they're going to cut the picture out of their kid or their relative or their friend, and they're going to hang it on the refrigerator, and it's going to be there forever. And I think that when we lose newspapers, we kind of lose that really important ... like everyone kind of gets to be a star for a day when you're in a newspaper. When she used that term, I laughed because there's a picture of me in the Scranton Times when I was in high school playing soccer, and my friend's mom cut it out, laminated it and gave it to me, and my parents had it hanging on the refrigerator for like, 20 years.
SARAH: I have something similar, actually. There's a clipping in my house from (when) a letter of mine was used in Highlights Magazine, and my local paper wrote about it, and that lived on the fridge.
KAT: Yeah, so the second they said refrigerator journalism, I'm like, wow. Like, that's one of the things that we really lose when we lose newspapers, is kind of that recognition that your everyday person may get, you know, in a newspaper.
SARAH: Now, one thing that I know about you as a person is you are a big nerd for newspaper archives.
KAT: That's very true. I love newspapers.com.
SARAH: So what were some of the interesting things that you found in your research on this story, and, you know, digging into the Wellsboro Gazette's archives?
KAT: So the Wellsboro Gazette archives I couldn't really find on newspapers.com, but I did find an article from a Lancaster paper in 1874 so the year that the Wellsboro Gazette, you know, came into being. It called it a spicy little daily. And it's just like, we don't use language like that anymore, especially in a newspaper. I don't think you would see something called a spicy little daily ... and that made me laugh. And then there was a big article when the Wellsboro Gazette bought out its rival in 1962 called The Agitator. It was the Wellsboro Agitator, and the current staff at the Wellsboro Gazette just laughs about that name. They love that name. And I think The Agitator, it's a pretty funny, you know, title for kind of what news people do. We are aggravating.
SARAH: Definitely in the eyes of some of our public officials.
KAT: But it was a perfect name and and I feel like they honor, you know, The Agitator's legacy, by just kind of continuing what they're doing.
