It Ain't Pretty, But It Reads Well
The Fight for The Fourth Estate and Public Health | Jeremiah Ariaz Captures the Ghosts and Relics of Community Newspaper Graveyards Across the United States by Kimberly J. Soenen
(Photo by Jeremiah Ariaz.)
As a young woman, when I landed in New York to start my internship with Harper’s Magazine, walking through the doors of that address on Broadway was everything.
On my first day, I was given a first-iteration Mac to work on in my office nook, a nook which also served as a storage closet. First released in 1984, the computer had a keyboard that was attached to the screen. It was known as the Apple Macintosh.
My office nook was near the corner office of the publisher, John R. MacArthur, known as “Rick.” I listened to every hallway argument about editorial decisions between Lewis Lapham and Rick. It was in that nook that I received my Master of Arts in Journalism, by eavesdropping. Lapham, always waving around a Parliament Light, and Rick, pacing up and down the hallway wringing his hands and hair, and sometimes sweating visibly, while yelling about the debate or controversy of the hour.
Nobody had mobile phones. Email was a new thing. As a group of interns, we’d sell review galleys from the top publishing houses and agents to The Strand for beer money to spend at KGB and Marion’s on The Bowery. The Harper’s library was tiny. It had a black faux-leather sofa where I sometimes slept in between apartment surfing while working three jobs to afford my internship and journalism ambitions. Every issue of Harper’s that had been printed since its founding was shelved in that library.
In 1997, long form portfolios were 20 pages in length. Blue Lines were still a thing. Lead time was expected. The 750 word count limit was not even a consideration. At that time, Lewis Lapham was still writing his famous front-of-the-book Notebooks in long hand on a yellow legal pad and his longtime Executive Assistant would transcribe the columns from an audio cassette while wearing an ear piece. She’d do it manually while typing at a rate of 70-80 words per minute. She’d argue with him in the hallway over one sentence.
Because we were tethered to our landline phones, the interns and editors ate at our desks. When issues “hit,” as we used to say, there’d be a surge of public response: Sally Tisdale writing about pornography; Ted Fishman writing about the Morality of Foreign Investing; Michael Pollan writing about making heroin tea with poppy seeds…What is Whiteness, the First Amendment, Mass Incarceration, Modern Day Slavery, Police Brutality, Domestic Militarization, Consolidation of Wealth on Wall Street? Even the always-nourishing and hilarious Readings section frequently got the phones ringing with uproar.
During my eight months at Harper’s (I stayed on long and picked up freelance jobs) I visited the Museum of Modern Art with my friend, and fellow intern Aida Edemarium, who is now a culture editor and acclaimed author. We went to see an exhibition on technology. At one point, Aida looked at me silently across the gallery while smiling. She was crouching down with her hands wrapped around her knees pointing to something inside the exhibition installation glass. I approached her to look. Inside the case was the first iteration of the 1984 Apple Macintosh. The computer being exhibited as a thing of the past in the arc of technology was the same model we were working on at Harper’s. We felt back then that time was shifting in a new way. The bridge between old and new started moving at lightning speed.
We were now all expected to keep up.
(Photo by Jeremiah Ariaz.)
Over the last 25 years, as reverence for the peope who produce high caliber journalism and reportage has been dismantled, The Fourth Estate—a fragile pillar of our aspirational democratic experiment— has been incessantly challenged. At the same time, diminished ethics standards and accountability has created a vacuum for haste, speed and greed which has damaged both Public Trust and Public Health.
Since my time working within the smoke-stained walls of 666 Broadway, the bar for media literacy, fact checking and journalism ethics has moved. As community and local newspapers have closed across the United States in record numbers since 2017, so, too, have clinics and hospitals. The parallel is undeniable as Freedom of the Press and access to healthcare go hand-in-hand in the stabilization of any society.
The Fourth Estate is the name of an ongoing project by Jeremiah Ariaz, a full professor of photography at Lousiana State University. The project features small-town newspaper offices across Kansas. The publications they produce play a critical role in our shared democracy. His photographs celebrate the civic function, labor, and technology at the heart of local newspapers’ production, while also documenting an industry in free-fall. Faced with the gutting of local journalism facilitated by digital news, social media, and diminishing profit margins, the newspapers that are still operational often struggle as they continue to serve their communities.
Jeremiah and I had a long conversation about where the United States is headed as a society and how photography has the power to stop time. What follows are highlights from our conversation.
Soenen: What was the one moment or interaction that compelled you to photograph dying community newspapers across the United States, and eventually narrow your focus to your home state of Kansas?
Jeremiah Ariaz: I didn’t begin with the intention to photograph dying newspapers, though I was acutely aware of the challenges the industry faces. I sought to celebrate these publications as stewards of our democracy. I was aware, statistically, that a quarter of the nations’ newspapers had closed over the last fifteen years. It wasn’t long before I found myself in a newspaper office on their final day of operation. Then, as I was attempting to photograph all the newspapers in Kansas over a five-month window, I found myself again and again staring into the window of a recently-vacated office, usually with the sign still hanging in front of the building. Sometimes the newspaper had been downsized and moved to smaller office, in other cases the newspaper had closed altogether. The ghost-like offices—often with desks, printing equipment, and various ephemera remaining—became critical to the project.
The speed of the closures also injected a sense of urgency into the work as these intuitions were beginning to disappear. Most of the shuttered offices I photographed had closed earlier in the year. One of the last offices I photographed, the Spearville News (since 1899), would close weeks later at the end of the 2022.
Soenen: When you were traveling during election season most recently, what did you discover about divisiveness and people from swing state to swing state?
Ariaz: I discovered the country was a tinder box, ready to erupt.
I was first traveling at the height of the Covid pandemic, before a vaccine had been released, so direct contact with people was limited. My second night on the road, it was reported Donald Trump had been infected with the virus. There was a palpable sense of fear in the country.
I visited the sites where Breonna Taylor and George Floyd had been killed by police. I walked city streets concealed under plywood, shuttered from summer Black Lives Matter Protests. I drove through landscapes transformed by an unprecedent number of natural disasters, from derecho in the Midwest, to hurricanes in the South and wildfires in the West. I explored along the militarized Texas / Mexico border days just prior to the election in 2020. I felt it important to bear witness, and to create a record of the country at this moment in history. The photographs are often ambiguous, made at the periphery of events. They are intended to ask more questions of a viewer than to confirm one point-of-view or another.
(Photo by Jeremiah Ariaz.)
Soenen: You have photographed hundreds of newspaper offices and have more to shoot. What is motivating you to document these environments and places?
Ariaz: I began photographing newspaper offices in the swing states for “Battleground Blues.” The subject matter was so rich and varied, I felt it should stand alone as a body of work. Initially, I expanded coverage across the nation before ultimately deciding to focus the work on Kansas. There, I sought to make a complete record of the Kansas newspapers hoping they could be a representation of newspapers nationally. I have now photographed 125 offices in Kansas but hope to return and complete the project. I’ve also felt an urgency to photograph these places before they disappear.
Soenen: As a professor now, what is your relationship to your own town paper as a kid growing up and what did the newspaper mean to you?
Ariaz: I confess, growing up my hometown newspaper was not at the forefront of my attention. However, my mother saved clippings I was featured in. Sometimes a story would end up on the refrigerator. Individually, these are trivial but the opportunity for citizens to see themselves in the community’s newspaper is important. It’s the story of a town, the fabric of a community.
(Photo by Jeremiah Ariaz.)
Soenen: One newspaper office closed after 160 years of operation recently. How did witnessing that day impact you personally, emotionally and professionally?
Ariaz: Occasionally, a newspaper I visit to photograph will interview me for a feature. A reader of one of those stories reached out to me to say her hometown newspaper, published since 1864, was about to close. I contacted the editor and asked if I could visit the day they published their final issue.
I arrived in the morning as the husband-and-wife team, Darryl and Liz, co-publishers of the newspaper, were editing the stories of the day. They worked with a small staff in a humble office. Once the stories were approved, Lee the printer, prepared the presses. Lee began working there when he was 15 years old. After 65 years in the industry, this would be his last day.
I watched the final newspaper come off the press. I read the headlines, but it wasn’t until turning the paper over did I see a brief “Notice of Termination” below the fold in the bottom left-hand column. I told the editor before leaving that it seemed to me he buried the lead on his final issue. He looked uncertain for a moment, then understood what I’d meant. He leaned back in his chair and told me, “We’re not the story.”
This might have been the moment I was convinced these newspapers are the story and that I would focus an entire body of work on community newspapers.
Soenen: As an artist and educator, what do you feel is the most important aspect of local newspapers as it relates to Public Health and Safety?
Ariaz: It’s important for people to have a local source for information. The voices most people read and hear now are national, and hyper-polarizing. Local newspapers are often a more trusted news source. If you grow up knowing someone, maybe your kids go to school together, it becomes more difficult to demonize the person. You and the newspaper editor are more likely to have shared experiences. You might not agree with everything written in the paper, but you are more likely not to dismiss information out of hand.
With the outbreak of Covid, conspiracy theories abounded on social media. Just as local newspapers were more important than ever to Public Health, they were closing across the country. That’s the parallel between The Fourth Estate and Public Health.
(Photo by Jeremiah Ariaz.)
Soenen: You choose to work in medium format. That format accentuates details in each frame—the ink on the hands of typesetters and printers, old newspaper dispensing machines, cigarettes, dark rooms, phone cords. Why did you choose this format?
Ariaz: I photographed the newspaper offices using a medium format digital camera. The 100-megapixel sensor, when used with a tripod, allows superior detail so one can see, for example, the viscosity of printing ink on a knife, the stitching of a bound archive, the dust atop a printing press. Many of these photographs will be enlarged so that subjects approximate life-size in exhibition prints. I want to transport a viewer into these spaces and create a human connection.
Soenen: You’ve achieved this aim. The texture, smells and spirit of each office is palpable. You were given a special book as a gift by one newspaper. Tell us about that exchange and why it was so important to the core motivations for this work?
Ariaz: David Powls, editor of the Holton Recorder, reached into his wooden desk and pulled out a fragile book, “History of the Kansas Newspaper” written in 1916, with tape across the spine holding the front and back together. David said it was in his desk when he bought the newspaper. The desk had likely belonged to the first publisher when the paper was started in 1869; the book likely belonged to him, as well. He generously offered for me to take it to better understand the how consequential newspapers were and are. The book provided a first-person account of Kansas newspapers dating back to 1854, the territorial days when battles were waged to determine if Kansas would be a slave or a free state. The decision would tip the Union in either direction ultimately leading to the Civil War. The history of the Kansas press, the book argues, is tied to the fact the state was founded on the ideal that all men should be free.
Before statehood, some of the brightest minds, including editors, preachers, and abolitionists, came to Kansas Territory to fight. They came with guns and ammunition, but the most powerful “weapon” was the press. They founded newspapers in places not yet settled, thus, becoming the first businesses even before there was a town or readership. Think about that for a moment. The book ties the identity of the state and its quest for freedom to the newspapers.
(Photo by Jeremiah Ariaz.)
Soenen: Do your students understand the importance of media literacy, fact checking, high caliber journalism and journalism ethics? Do they know writers, reporters, editors and publishers by name?
Ariaz: I have seen a marked difference in my students regarding health and wellness. I hesitate to comment because the change also seems to be cultural. That, in addition to the global pandemic, has brought numerous challenges to the classroom.
I teach in a Fine Arts program, not journalism. I can’t say how they engage with the news, or even unfortunately, if they engage with the news at all. They are training to be cultural creators so hopefully they understand it takes people, and very hard work, to put something creative out into the world.
Soenen: Are you hopeful for the future in the context of Public Health and this aspirational democratic experiment that we call the United States? What are your fears as a professor and artist and what gives you hope?
Ariaz: I have witnessed systematic failures of Public Health, especially in the state of Louisiana. In national rankings, we fall to the bottom of numerous rankings in US. News and World Report: Public Health #47, Education #48, Crime and Corrections #50.
I live in a very fragile place, especially considering how vulnerable we are to environmental change. This continuous “life on the edge” mode may also be why there is so much celebration and reverie in the state. We, here, are grateful to have gotten through another day.
Organizing groups, such as Together Baton Rouge, that builds coalitions to create a base of power to address issues at the local and state level, give me hope. Louisiana artists give me hope. You can’t listen to Jon Batiste and others and not feel both joy and hope.
Soenen: What do you read for reportage, news and story? Are there any newspapers in Louisiana or Kansas that you would like to recommend to readers?
Ariaz: I try to get information from a range of sources. Starting with the hyper-local publications and moving out to the University newspaper The Daily Reveille, The Baton Rouge Advocate, and The New York Times. I already spend too much time on a computer, so I prefer print whenever possible. I also spend considerable time on the road so I’ve been especially grateful for the explosion of podcasts that bring a mix of long-form investigative reporting, interviews, and storytelling.
(Photo by Jeremiah Ariaz.)
Soenen: What is the most moving moment that you witnessed at a local newspaper during all of your travels?
Ariaz: There is one newspaper I’ve visited more than any other, The Western Star in Coldwater, Kansas, population 672. I’ve made three visits. It’s essentially a one-person operation in the southwestern part of the state. Dennies Anderson is at the helm as editor and owner. Near the entrance, below eye-level on the wood paneled wall is a newspaper clipping cut with zigzag scissors with a headline that reads, “The Star still shines: Town Saves Local Newspaper” with a photograph of Dennies standing on the main street of town. That was 1980.
Two months before my second visit in the fall of 2022, Dennies had a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital in Wichita 139 miles away. Susan Edmonston, editor of The Protection Press in the neighboring town, contacted Cindy Vierthaler of The Spearville News which printed The Western Star. The United States Post office only allows weekly newspapers to miss two editions in a calendar year to maintain a second-class permit. It wasn’t clear if Dennies would be able to continue the paper, but they were going to make sure he would have the chance when he returned to Coldwater.
The paper was completed and released on time. One of the articles was headlined “It Ain’t Pretty, But it Reads Well.” In the next edition the following week, after open heart surgery, and a quadruple bypass, Dennies wrote an article of appreciation in which he said, “It was pretty…damned pretty in fact.”
His colleagues had come together and in Dennies’s words, “viola, a Star was born.”
I had expected to find competition between neighboring newspapers, and maybe there is, but I only heard, time and again, stories of camaraderie and the feeling that “a rising tide lifts all boats.”
(Photo by Jeremiah Ariaz.)
Soenen: Up for a little flavor?
Ariaz: Always.
Soenen: Mardi Gras. Optional or Essential?
Ariaz: Essential, at least once. Mardi Gras is a month long, not just the Fat Tuesday finale. So, my insider tip would be to drop in early in the season for the lesser-known parades where you’ll find a local crowd. If you need to be here for the blowout weekend, start early, before sunrise, with the Skull & Bones. Then, make sure you have a costume, and roll into the St. Anne Parade. You’ll feel like you’ve participated in something special rather than watching from the sidelines.
Soenen: What artists are you following now and what are you reading now?
Ariaz: My project photographing newspaper offices in Kansas has me thinking of photographers from the state, especially those who practiced photojournalism. W. Eugene Smith was instrumental in developing the editorial photo essay. Jim Richardson photographed around the world but spent 40 years making pictures in Cuba, Kansas. Gordon Parks, especially his work, “Back to Fort Scott,” in which he returned to his hometown and photographed former classmates to discover what happened to them in the 20 years since his departure.
I’m usually reading for my research, then fiction through the summer. Margaret Sullivan’s “Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy” clearly and urgently outlines the threats to the newspaper industry, and what’s at stake. In between, poetry provides a balance to the nonfiction. Ada Limón’s, “The Carrying” and Mary Pinard’s “Ghost Heart” are resting on the bedside table. I highly recommend both.
Soenen: Northern vs. Southern food?
Ariaz: Southern.
Soenen: Best thing / Worst thing about being an educator?
Ariaz: Both as an artist and an educator, you must have a certain amount of idealism. Being an educator in the arts gives me an opportunity to be in continuous conversation with that which I care about and have dedicated myself to. The worst thing is having that idealism met with indifference.
Soenen: Civil War ahead in the U.S. or no way?
Ariaz: I’ve been thinking about this considerably since traveling for my project “Battleground Blues.” The other night I read a related story that literally had me up all night. I’ve been so unsettled by the potential. As terrible as the pandemic was, I initially hoped it would bring the country together. Of course, it only proved to push us further apart. Now, I don’t know that anything can unite us. I can’t provide an answer, but in my work, I struggle with the question.
Soenen: Favorite band?
Ariaz: Shovels and Rope.
Soenen: Preservation Hall or Tuba Skinny?
Ariaz: Preservation Hall.
Soenen: For once and for all, please end the centuries-long debate: Do people born and raised in Kansas have a regional accent, or no?
Ariaz: As a native Kansan, I don’t have the perspective to make the definitive ruling on this debate.
Soenen: Bierock or Po Boy?
Ariaz: Po Boy. The BBQ shrimp Po Boy from Liuzza's by the Track in New Orleans will prove this to be the correct answer.
Soenen: Thank you Jeremiah.
Ariaz: Cheers.
*Readers can view more photographs, portraits and full captions at The Fourth Estate
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SPECIAL EVENT
Jeremiah Ariaz is presenting Wednesday, March 8th at 6:30pm (CST) at the Kansas Historical Society as part of their Museum After Hours Speaker Virtual program. His program is called: “The Kansas Press: The Fourth Estate in the Heart of America.”
The presentation and talk will be streamed live on YouTube here.