On Monday, October 12, our LLC (Brown Warrior Publishing, LLC) will celebrate its 11th year of ownership of the Vancouver Business Journal. Now into our second decade as owners, we’ve held the journal longer than founder Al Raines, and Dolan Media, who we purchased it from.
When it comes to our length of time in the publishing business, we’re youngsters. However, another local publication has an anniversary this month that is worthy of recognition.
Celebrating 125 years of family ownership and covering the local news for Clark County and the region is The Columbian. Positioning to transition to its fourth generation of ownership, it was my honor to work for both the second and third generations of Campbells – the family that owns and publishes it.
I spent 26 years at the “daily” from June of 1975 until March of 2001. While at The Columbian, I saw the newspaper industry adopt developing technology to its advantage, all the while media prognosticators were busy making prognostications of its impending death. Though newspapers had already survived the introduction of radio and television as news breakers, I remember when Ted Turner told an early convention of cable TV execs that newspapers were dead. Then came “zoning” by carrier route and zip code from the U.S. Postal Service, which shifted the rules of insert distribution and put newspaper advertising revenue at risk. Through it all, the ‘printed’ version of the Fourth Estate prevailed.
It was only when the method of news delivery and core advertising classifications were simultaneously threatened that the financial sustainability of newspapers became fatal for some in the industry. To the credit of Scott Campbell and his management team, necessary and gut-wrenching decisions were made to preserve the independent and dedicated news agency for Vancouver, Clark County and Southwest Washington.
When I began selling advertising for The Columbian in the ’70s, I could walk into one business and hear the daily being criticized for being far too liberal and then on the same block hear from another merchant that the paper was too conservative. It gave me confidence to believe the Campbells’ newspaper was taking exactly the right positions on issues for the community. The comments I hear today about The Columbian aren’t much different, truth be told.
When challenged by a disgruntled reader, I was fond of comparing the only newspaper in a community like Vancouver to a situation I ran into in my first job. I worked at the county hospital kitchen. Let me tell you, unlike the gourmet menu items – let alone the room service ordering options in many hospitals today – NO ONE liked hospital food. It was the only option. Consequently, it was bad – even before it was tasted. When the only option isn’t an option at all, it’s assumed to be bad.
That’s how it is, I would tell folks, when there is a single daily newspaper in a community. Because there was only one choice, the assumption was there’s no way it, or the owners, could be good. Having had the opportunity during my career at the Columbian to study mid-sized daily newspapers from across the country, it became obvious to me that the Campbells invested more in their paper and their community (while producing a far better product) than most.
I am not writing this to defend any specific position or coverage. Rather, I simply want to commend Scott, his father Don and his grandfather Herbert for their ongoing dedication to the city and community – assuring not only the preservation of a local independent voice, but also of the 1st Amendment, which so many today call on so recklessly.
