AUJRNL 4970
The Alexander City Outlook
One of five newspapers printed at Tallapoosa Publishers Inc. in Alex City
What is TPI?
Tallapoosa Publishers Inc. publishes five newspapers and three magazines. Initially the company produced The Alexander City Outlook, which prints Tuesday–Saturday, a weekly called The Dadeville Record and two monthly magazines titled Lake Magazine and Lake Martin Living. After purchasing Price Publications Inc. in 2012, TPI expanded to The Wetumpka Herald, The Eclectic Observer, The Tallassee Tribune, Elmore County Living and Gallery of Homes.
GIVING READERS A FRESH OUTLOOK SINCE 1864
Alexander City, Alabama, a town of 14,875 people, sits snug in between Dadeville and Sylacauga. Its geographical center is Lake Martin, the body of water that most locals watch the sun set over in the evenings.
But it’s not all peaceful days at the lake for local residents. They still have issues and concerns to voice about the goings-on in their city.
Steve Baker, president and publisher of The Alexander City Outlook, spent his first day on the job in May 2015 hearing the mayor took a swing at a City Council member.
Managing editor Mitch Sneed recalled another recent story he reported about the county probate judge’s online relationship with a woman half his age, which included sexting and nude pictures.
After The Outlook, the community paper, shed light on the issue, a judicial inquiry was launched, and the judge was suspended for six months.
It’s situations such as these that make community newspapers vital as they hold city officials accountable.
Local, local, local. Sneed said that’s the true difference between small, community papers and big city, metro publications.
He said people can get that news anywhere, but community journalists report stories on a local level that readers can’t get anywhere else.
The Alexander City Outlook is a daily newspaper published five days per week, Tuesday–Saturday. Sneed said they started a weekend edition, adding more leisure content to their usual publication, but they just didn’t have the advertising dollars they needed to continue that.
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Published by Tallapoosa Publishers Inc., The Outlook is only one of five newspapers produced by TPI. Three magazines — Lake, Lake Martin Living and Elmore County Living — also join the list of TPI publications owned by Kenneth Boone.
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Baker recognizes the work put in by the TPI team and said it requires passion. He said he can see it in Sneed and Betsy Iler, managing editor of the magazines.
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He also describes Alex City as resilient. Originally from up near the Canadian border, he said people warned him about culture shock when he took the job in May 2015.
“There’s no culture shock with nice people,” Baker said.
In the wake of the Russell Athletic/Fruit of the Loom Mill closing, Iler said residents came together to figure out how to create more jobs. They didn’t let the 6,000–7,000 positions lost stop the growth of their community, according to Baker.
The Outlook on Social Media
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With the takeoff of social media, the industry continues to find ways to reach audiences online just as much as in print, something Sneed and Baker said The Outlook is expanding upon as well.
“I think we do a little bit better job covering news, and we present it online in a way that you have to go print first,” Sneed said.
TPI tries to keep up with the digital age and increasing social media activity, newsroom leaders said.
The Alexander City Outlook has a Facebook and Twitter. Their Twitter account has 2,434 followers, and Facebook has 11,080 likes.
Baker said even though people visit Facebook to get information, readers still look to print editions.
“Our business model is strong, and it’s going to continue to be,” Baker said. “Whether it’ll be in the digital version in years to come — could be.”
He also said they are still working to build their social media presence and readership.
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Building on rich history, TPI continues to expand
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The Outlook started in 1884 when Adolphus Longshore wanted to promote his hometown and created The Beacon, Alex City’s first paper.
After multiple ownerships, the name was changed to The Outlook in 1892 when Capt. J. D. Dickson purchased the newspaper.
Next Fitz O. Hooten was the owner, editor and publisher for more than 20 years. Boone Newspapers Inc. purchased The Outlook in 1974 and, in 1991, Kenneth Boone bought it from Boone Newspapers Inc.
Today, Tallapoosa Publishers’ press, an early 90s model, runs hot every day producing the freshly printed 12-pager.
Two people operate the press. Sneed said they bought different pieces of their press as newspapers closed over the years. He said the entire press costs approximately $300,000 to $400,000.
Right next to the pressroom, there’s a door entering the “morgue” where Doug Patterson oversees the preservation of old papers.
Sneed said they keep up to two years of daily papers, but they also have bound editions where people can come see who won that high school football game years ago.
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According to Sneed, the courthouse buys a copy of the paper to keep for legal records. Of course, there are archives online, but papers dating back before 2006 aren’t saved digitally.
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Sneed said the editors and designers at the Alex City location lay out The Alexander City Outlook, The Wetumpka Herald, The Tallassee Tribune, The Dadeville Record and The Eclectic Observer.
Before, each paper was designed in their respective cities and then sent to TPI to be printed. To make production smoother and design elements standard, a small team of a few designers compiles the papers.
The Outlook has three staff writers — Cliff Williams, David Granger and Corey Arwood. They write the bulk of the stories in the newspaper along with bylines by Sneed, Iler and sports editor Cathy Higgins. The paper organizes news content toward the front with sports in the back. They print obituaries on page two along with a Dear Abby advice column, and there is also a community calendar on page six.
As a team, Baker suggested, the staff all works hard to tell the stories of the community.
“You can make a difference in people’s lives,” Baker said. “That’s the one thing I never forget or take for granted here is we can change people’s lives. We don’t make the stories, we cover the stories.”
Q & A
Mitch Sneed's journey in journalism
Mitch Sneed answers a call at work on a typical Monday morning in the office.
EE: How long have you held positions in newspaper management, such as editor? What other positions have you held?
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MS: I have been an editor in one way or another since 1990. Part of that was in sports, and then in news. I was a publisher for three years before returning to what I love most. I have worked for small papers and large papers including the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. I served in positions from sports writer to sports editor, editor and was a publisher for a few years. But my passion is for reporting news.
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EE: What does community journalism mean to you?
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MS: It is the purest form of journalism. By that I mean there are many ways for consumers to get national and state news. But for local news in smaller communities, a newspaper is still the lifeblood for those seeking information.
We have the opportunity to make a difference in our communities through information, education and driving opinion. We also serve as a valuable tool for businesses to get their message out to consumers through advertising.
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EE: How has The Alexander City Outlook changed since you’ve been there?
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MS: We work harder, and we go the extra mile to cover news, digging below the surface to get to the facts and information that readers want. Many papers write for sources, but they ignore what the readers want.
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EE: Have there been any crazy situations?
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MS: More than I can count. We had a story recently about unauthorized pay raises that the mayor in Alexander City gave to some employees without council approval. The public outcry led the council to nullify the increases.
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EE: What kind of advice would you give a student pursuing a career in journalism?
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MS: Learn as much as you can about every aspect of the business. Develop every skill imaginable to tell a story.
Today storytelling is a lost art. Let the writing drive you, but you have to learn to visualize using graphics, photographs and video. So don’t limit yourself to any one aspect of the job of being a journalist.
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EE: What’s your favorite aspect of journalism?
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MS: The interaction with people that leads to stories, which make a difference in their lives. Not only that, but that interaction also helps make community be a better place.
Longtime journalist Mitch Sneed knows the importance of community newspapers. Head honcho of news curation at Tallapoosa Publishers Inc., he strives to report the issues his readers care about most.
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EE: How did you choose your career path and how did get to where you are today?
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MS: My love of sports is what got me started in journalism. I played four sports in high school and wasn’t great at any of them. But I knew that I wanted to be around sports some way as a career. When I was 15, my local paper in Jonesboro, Georgia, had an ad asking for students to help them cover sports. I jumped at the chance and loved it. I got paid 25 cents [per] column inch for stories, and I kept stringing for them all the way through college.
After going into sales briefly after college, I went back to covering sports for a local paper and have been in the newspaper business ever since. This is my 40th year being involved in newspapers in one way or another.
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EE: Where did you go to school? Where are you originally from?
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MS: I was born in Chicago, but lived in Georgia from the time I was 2 years old. I grew up in Riverdale, Georgia, just south of the airport in Atlanta. I went to North Clayton High School and studied journalism at the University of Georgia.
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EE: How did your career path lead you to Tallapoosa Publishers?
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MS: Kind of a crazy story about how I ended up here. In 2014, I was working for Paxton Media and was the editor of a paper in Douglasville, Georgia. A former publisher there was a friend with the owner here at Tallapoosa Publishers, Kenneth Boone.
When Kenneth mentioned to him that he was looking for an editor, I was recommended. I was working on my truck one Friday evening with grease up to my elbows. My phone rang, and Kenneth Boone's name popped up on the screen. I met with him, and a few weeks later, I was on my way here to take over as editor of all of his papers here.
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EE: Is it hard being the editor over multiple papers? What do you do for each, specifically The Alexander City Outlook?
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MS: It is very hard. You have to be locked into what is happening in five very different communities so you can put out a product that is representative of those areas. It means very long hours and the ability to multi-task and manage people despite distance and other hurdles. I think the papers are better since I have taken them on, but we still have a long way to go to get them to the level that I would like.
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EE: What’s a day in the life for you at work?
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MS: I typically start my day at the office around 5:30 a.m. I start by archiving the previous day’s work, and I work on the editorial page during the time that no one is in the office. I then try to sketch out the day for me, the reporters and our designer to make sure that when they arrive, they can get moving quickly.
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Typically I write stories, take pictures and edit copy from about 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. or later if there are meetings or events. Our designer comes in around 11 a.m., so I try to make sure that she has enough copy early to help keep her working and pages flowing.
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From 3 p.m. until usually about 7 p.m. we are finishing layout and design and proofing pages. All the day’s duties also have to be done around breaking news and things that pop up throughout the day.
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