Winslow Mail: Killed by a cynical reporter?

The Winslow Mail died seven months ago. "As with many obituaries, the Mail's neglected to mention a cause of death," Dennis Wagner reports in The Arizona Republic. "But in small towns, everyone knows what happened or thinks he does: The publishing chain, Western News & Info Inc., brought in a reporter named John Biancini whose acerbic journalism alienated readers and advertisers." (Encarta map)

"A lot of people just stopped subscribing because he kept writing the same things over and over. Always bad news," Michele Hernandez told Wagner. "The paper was out of touch with the community. There was a lot of negativity." Biancini wrote "nearly everything" from "a cynical perspective," LeeAnn Arganbright, publisher of the Pioneer, which opened in Winslow soon after the Mail died but has accumulated only 300 subscribers. "The town went to Western Newspapers and complained and cried that they needed another writer. But they wouldn't let him go until all the ads were pulled and there was no hope."

Editors at Western, which bought the Mail in 1998, did not return calls, Wagner reported. "Biancini, now a landscaper, concedes he focused more on muckraking than covering the small-town social scene." Biancini told him, "They just want to know who died and where the next garage sale is. They essentially shut the paper down."

Lack of business in the town of 9,500 was a contributing factor, but the closing is counter to a national trend. "I get more calls about people starting up small-town weeklies than I do closings," Brian Steffens, executive director at the National Newspaper Association, told Wagner. But in small towns, "Pressures are greater," Steffens said. "The need to be diplomatic and fair is greater."

Wagner writes, "In that sense, the Mail's fate is an object lesson for publishers who must balance journalism ideals with economic realities. Steffens says that even an established newspaper can fail if it alienates customers. The result is an information vacuum: Advertisers no longer have a trusted forum where they can sell products or services; citizens lose a sentinel for the public interest."

He adds, "Many residents seem unaware that a new hometown paper has taken root. Hernandez says she now subscribes to four northern Arizona newspapers and gets two freebies in a quest to fill in the news gaps." The town is also served by the Tribune-News of Holbrook, 33 miles to the east on Interstate 40, and the Navajo-Hopi Observer of Indian country, a Western publication. "There also is a photocopied newsletter, the Scoop, delivered door to door," Wagner reports. "And Western News still mails an advertising supplement, the Reminder, to local homes." (Read more)