After the company that produced iconic reporter's notebooks closed, Iowa journalist launched his own line

Nic Garcia's new reporter's notebook closely
echoes the iconic Stationers Inc. notebooks.
(Photo from First Draft Notebooks)

Nic Garcia, 36, is the politics editor of the Des Moines Register, but he recently picked up a new side gig: producing and selling reporter's notebooks, Bill Lohmann reports for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

It came about after Garcia learned last year that Stationers Inc., a Richmond office-supply store that produced iconic reporter's notebooks, was closing following owner Tom Edwards' death. "Stationers notebooks weren’t the only brand of notebooks reporters used, but they became popular, in part, because of their spirals at the top, the good quality paper and their sturdy covers — better for writing on as you stand and talk to someone and scrawl notes with one hand while holding the notebook with the other," Lohmann writes.

Garcia "soon began working on the idea of starting his own notebook business early last year and in October launched First Draft Notebooks, which bear a resemblance to the Stationers notebooks. Full disclosure: The Times-Dispatch placed an order in January."

Lohmann takes a deep dive into the role that reporters' notebooks in general, and Stationers notebooks in particular, have played in history, and reminisces about their practical and nostalgic pull.

It's a sentiment Garcia shares. He first noticed the distinctive mustard-yellow notebooks when watching "All the President's Men" as an aspiring journalist in the sixth grade. "He started calling around to different newspapers — remember: he was in the sixth grade, which, I guess, proves he really was a budding reporter — and asked about the kind of notebooks they used," Lohmann reports. "All roads led to Stationers, and his grandmother mail-ordered his first two dozen Stationers notebooks, which he found to be as high-quality as they appeared on the big screen." He's been using them ever since.

The notebook is still a quintessential part of journalism, Garcia told Lohmann: "It’s a tool of our craft ... Any reporter knows having your notebook in hand is an invitation to talk to anybody about anything."