Liebling said, “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.” My father gave his newspapers plenty of freedom but only if they came through on the bottom line.
Montgomery Curtis, retired vice-president of Knight-Ridder Newspapers, says, “Park had a reputation in New York State of being a very, very clean and highly ethical man about money. There was nothing unethical ever, but he’s shrewd. I recall he did not oppose his newspapers doing anything good, but neither did he encourage it, unless it helped him make money….There’s nothing wrong with that as long as you put some of the money back in the paper.”
“A lot of people are greedy,” my father said, “They want to make money at somebody else’s expense. I think what you have to do is put up as many safeguards as you can that you don’t make money at other people’s expense. Or by making your product less desirable by raising advertising or circulation price, for instance, or by cheapening the product.”
As Gaither reported in the Tulsa Tribune: Park also makes no apologies for his newspapers, and claims that one of the chief criticisms of chain operations—namely that they are just out to make a buck—is just so much nonsense, at least in his case. “Last year, 1982, we won upwards of 50 awards for editorial work and community service. From my farm background, I remember the statement that ‘You can’t starve a profit out of a cow.’In many cases we lose money on these properties for two or three years.
Sure you can go for the short buck, but it is better in the long run to strengthen the paper. We try to build the community, because that is the best way for the newspaper to grow. Show me a dormant community and I’ll show you a dormant newspaper. We encourage and motivate growth in every way we can.20 As my father told Clifton Metcalf, Jr., writing for the UNC Journalist, when he “buys a paper, he tries at first to keep the staff as it was before the sale. ‘We don’t go in, and lop off heads,’ he said. ‘Instead, we just let attrition take its effect. At first, we don’t know who the good people are.’ Park said, ‘This initial stability was a responsible business practice. It is also something responsible owners were often concerned about.’” 21 When Pops asked a former owner to stay as general manager during a transitional period, however, he was expected to live strictly by budgets approved in Ithaca. The Ithaca office also expected detailed records and reports, down to the disposition of every copy the presses ran off. He retained decision-making power over capital purchases. His management style was not to send many corporate directives to his newspaper executives except when the profit picture seemed to be getting dim. “Veto power over major business decisions is held in Ithaca, but day-to-day operations are under individual control. These are subject only to precise reporting and business decisions which measure accountability and ensure good performance,” he said.
My father was well-known as an entrepreneur who knew how to read a financial statement. He was a patient and relentless builder, not a reformer, and he didn’t use his papers or stations to advance any political or ideological cause.
Known for his hands-on management style in running his newspapers, he showed no apparent interest in using the power and influence that might come from newspaper ownership. He supported editorial autonomy and encouraged his editors to maintain each paper’s local identity and image, from typeface to editorial content. As reported in Business Week in 1977: Unlike other owners of multiple broadcasting or newspaper properties, Park has not attempted to give the components of his empire a single look. Headquarters supplies market research, pointers on salesmanship, and capital for improvements in facilities, but says little about editorial viewpoints, program choices, or how news should be covered.
“Park insists on local autonomy,” the article reported, quoting Babcock as saying, “That’s more than just a slogan with us.”22 It was the same policy he established from the beginning with his broadcast properties. His belief in local autonomy was confirmed by setting up a separate corporation for each newspaper and broadcast station. His headquarters staff provided leadership, motivation and financial guidance and capital but rarely, if ever, interfered with editorial viewpoints and content. As he told Gaither during his interview for the Tulsa Tribune: The fear among some people that chain newspapers will “control” the news or dictate editorial positions is completely unjustified. We have Republican newspapers, Democrat newspapers, and Independent newspapers. Wherever possible we retain the original owners of the paper to operate it. Our only instruction to them is to serve the community as best they can. We do not send out editorials to our newspapers. We never send out an article saying “use this,” he said.
As Jim Dumbell of the Charlotte Observer noted in his 1982 interview with Pops over lunch on the enclosed porch of his home: We were high above Cayuga’s [lake] waters, as the words of nearby Cornell University’s alma mater [song] go, [the melody would be familiar to North Carolinians, but in Chapel Hill the verse is “Hark the sound of Tar Heel voices”], when Park [again] said, “I never said to my newspapers anything that was to be printed. I never urge them to write editorials that agree with me. We’ve got Democratic, Republican and Independent newspapers, but we’ve got no Communist papers—at least I hope not.”
For lunch there was barbeque Park had brought back from Parker’s Barbeque in Wilson during a recent trip to North Carolina.
Park discussed his view of the mission of a community newspaper. “We do try to build our communities,” Park said, “and tell our people to support things that are good for the community, such as jobs, and less crime. We want decent living, good government and all the things that make an area a nicer place to live.” He asked that each of his newspapers devote more than 50 percent of their front-page space to local news, and make their editorials local.23 My father felt strongly about emphasizing local news coverage, with more than 50 percent of the front page covering feature stories about people and events in the community, and plenty of local sports coverage. Where larger newspapers had circulation in Park markets, he wanted “nobody to beat us with local news.” He said, “We write on subjects people can do something about, rather than put in two columns of canned stuff from some [wire] service.”
My father told UNC Journalist reporter Metcalf his emphasis was on the time-tested and home-grown staples of small-town journalism—lots of news about churches, Boy Scouts, high school football games—saying, “If your kid is playing, you’re going to watch it.” And he expected his reporters to get into that. He told Metcalf, “One of the most important characteristics a reporter could have was a broad background and an interest in a wide variety of subjects. You can’t be dull and be a good reporter,” he said.24 As reported by Byrd in the Winston-Salem Journal: His chain of papers is often overlooked in the industry because of its niche: “community newspapers,” the world of small-town publications where who came to dinner can sometimes make the front page. In the aggregate, Park’s chain is large. But individually, the papers are small, all under 20,000 circulation. And the subjects he insists they cover don’t necessarily excite.
Group [picture] shots are supposed to be taboo,” he says of most newspapers’ practice. “But how are you going to get all those people in? It’s not uncommon for us to have the faces of 100 people distinguishable in one issue. Some journalism schools say that’s pretty bad, but it sure helps you at home where the people are reading the paper.
He knows big-city newspapers scoff at so-called “chicken-dinner journalism,” but it doesn’t bother him. “They do a good job of covering the big stories, but they don’t cover the stories we cover in our newspapers,” he says. “We think a small businessman remodeling his store or taking in a partner, we think people ought to know about that.”25 My father did not go after rundown newspapers or papers in communities lacking growth potential. He wanted his newspapers to be good community newspapers. Al Neuharth said the Park properties’ reputation is topnotch: “It’s considered generally that he took a small handful of communications properties and parlayed them to what’s now a substantial and growing institution— quite highly regarded everywhere.”
Pops did hire professionals to critique his newspapers but did not have an overall editorial director because he felt that would tend to stereotype them. He also did not see the critiques until after they were shared with the managers. As reported by Dumbell in the Charlotte Observer, one of the consultants my father hired to critique the papers to his managers was: Ken Byerly, a former professor at the UNC School of Journalism, and then publisher of his own newspaper in Lewiston, Montana. “After Roy buys a paper it becomes a better paper,” Byerly said. “There’s no question about that. When he’s needed an editor I’ve had him ask me, ‘Can you help me find one who’s good, and good for the community?’ He’s always after quality and services to the community, but he watches the bottom line like a tiger.”26 Apart from fanatical attention to financial details, Pops was about as laissez-faire as he could get. (Of course, the papers were in distant parts, so the managers did not have to endure the ordeal of the 8 AM meetings.)
Ten years after Pops purchased his first newspaper, the Daily Sun, in Warner Robins, Jim Dumbell of the Charlotte Observer interviewed Foy S. Evans, who started and operated the newspaper for twenty-three years. At the time, Evans had become the mayor of Warner Robins, and he said, I stayed on for 18 months during the transition. The paper was five days, now it is Sunday too, and advertising-wise it has grown a lot. The subscription price is up too. There was some staff turnover, but I won’t say it was Park’s fault. I had held together a staff that was better than the newspaper deserved. There was no wholesale firing or housecleaning.
Park gives you,” Evans said, “as a general manager, guidelines where money is concerned, but as for editorial directions he leaves that to the local people. He gave me no editorial direction whatsoever.
Asked if the guidelines were aimed at making more money, Evans laughed. “I’d say yes. He has his own ideas with the budgets and reports. But he lived up to the contract, and as a lawyer I have come to know what is in the contract that counts.” Evans did not elaborate.
As Dumbell reported, If Evans has unspoken reservations having sold to Park, there are none where the former owners of the Statesville Record and Landmark, purchased in 1979, four years before the interview took place. The owners were Chester Middlesworth and his mother, Pauline Middlesworth, who together owned 50%, along with former editor and general manager, J.P. Huskins, who had 12%.
Middlesworth was later named Pops’s regional coordinator for his North Carolina newspaper.
Park had courted him for five years before completing the deal, which is not his longest courtship. It took him twelve years to persuade the owners of the Robesonian before they would let him buy it. Middlesworth said he was “comfortable with my father,” and “For the first year to two we didn’t even talk business during our negotiations. We had offers from six buyers, including the New York Times, Harte Hanks, and Freedom Newspapers. A couple of them offered more than Roy did, but we checked him out and he appealed to us.
“One reason,” Huskins added, “was that Park was a native of this State. I am as pleased as can be with the new ownership, and I can’t see any change in the paper. Really, the employees are better off in that as a group you are less affected by adverse things in the economy,” Dumbell reported.27 Huskins also told Byrd of the Winston-Salem Journal: “Park doesn’t fit the image of a newspaper mogul who uses his properties to mold public opinion.” J.P. Huskins, the former majority owner of the Statesville Record & Landmark, decided to sell his paper to Park in 1979 partly for that reason. “I don’t think he is trying to build a communications empire where he can wield great influence like a lot of them think they can,” Huskins said.
“I don’t think that’s on his mind at all.
“I worked on the paper as publisher for two years after we sold it. And I never had a letter advising me to do one thing one way or another thing another way or a telephone call [from Park] the whole two years I was there.”28 In McAlester, OK, Pops actually bought two competing newspapers, the McAlester News-Capital and the McAlester Democrat and consolidated them into one, the McAlester News-Capital and Democrat. As Gaither reported in the Tulsa Tribune: The two newspapers had been bitter enemies up until the time of the sale about a year ago and, according to residents, created quite a bit of dissension within the community. Now, according to Delmer McNatt, manager of the McAlester Chamber of Commerce, there is peace in the valley.
“We came out on top of the deal,” McNatt said. “They [Park] have improved the quality of the newspaper, and have done a real service for McAlester.” The people of McAlester are very well satisfied. They have very high-caliber people and are doing a super job of editorializing.
It also has assisted our advertisers. The rates are a little higher, but the coverage is better and the merchants don’t have to advertise in two newspapers so their ads have much better impact.29 In another case, as reported by Ken Allen of the Charlotte Observer on February 11, 1980, Cyril “Shorty” Mebane of Newton, NC, about 45 miles northwest of Charlotte, is a typical seller. The Newton Observer-News-Enterprise had been in his family since 1904. He was the third generation publisher and feels his family would have wanted him to sell.
Under conditions today, they would have figured it was the smart thing to do. “I’ll tell you about my ancestors: They were all interested in putting out the best paper in the county. I feel like Roy Park can do a better job than I can do.”
In this case, Pops had some difficulty proving it.
“Unlike other papers, where the publisher has kept control,” Allen reported, “he put in a consultant until he could name a general manager. The general manager didn’t work out, the consultant came back, and last month Bob Coppage was brought down from New York to run the paper. In the shuffle, the paper dropped its daily stock listings and the weekly roundup of district and superior court news. It also dropped about 400 of its 4,500 subscribers. Coppage has replaced the stocks and court news and is after the drifted-away subscribers.”30 This was an exception. A spot-check of other people where Park bought North Carolina newspapers showed that few detected changes after the sale. Belie Banks, a former editor of the Mecklenberg Gazette, published in Davidson, said, “I can’t see any change,” and Tom Williams, who sold the Gazette to Park in 1980 and remained general manager until 1982, said, “If their payroll check wasn’t from a different office, nobody here would know the difference.”
And former Senator Sam Ervin, one of the three trustees of the News Herald in Morganton, said he thought the decision to sell it to Park in 1978 was the secret of Roy Park’s success—that he allowed the local newspaper to determine how it presents the news and editorial opinions. “I really haven’t noticed any changes,” he said.