No more. The End. Or let’s just say ‘— 30 —’

Saying goodbye to a newsroom colleague and maybe to local journalism’s glory days as 'Trump 2.0' begins | november14.2024

Classic front pages from the storied days of The Charleston Gazette still adorn the front wall of the Charleston Gazette-Mail newsroom in Charleston, W.Va. | theSTORYistheTHING.com photo | september 20, 2024

---

By Douglas John Imbrogno | theSTORYistheTHING.com | nov14.2024

In West Virginia’s capital city, Franklin Delano Roosevelt has been dying on a wall of the Charleston Gazette for half a century. The ‘EXTRA’ edition of the Gazette’s front page still screams out in massive text the breaking news of FDR’s passing on April 12, 1945. The framed page was there when I arrived as a 31-year-old arts and entertainment editor in June 1988. For many years, this and other classic A-1 fronts and notable staff photos hung in the hallway separating the liberal morning Gazette and conservative afternoon Daily-Mail (which merged to become the Gazette-Mail in July 2015 amid a flurry of lawsuits).

What is that font size seen in FDR’s front page death notice — 200, maybe 300 point? Help me out here, former newsroom denizens and copy editors, who when I landed at the Gazette still used pica rulers to count out the exact spacing needed to situate a headline atop our stories. You hoped for a good one with satisfying wordplay and could offer a ‘Suggested Headline‘ when you turned in that day’s story. The greatest copy desk gurus would wow you in the morning over your first cup of coffee with the savvy of an exceptional headline, which, in its own way, is a kind of deadline haiku.

Old-school newspaper folk will immediately fathom the headline atop this story. Back in the day, that symbol — the number ’30’ bracketed by dashes — meant you had reached the end of a story handed over to the city or copy desk for editing or typesetting. One theory traces the symbol’s roots to telegraphic code used as far back as the American Civil War, as this page notes, signifying “No more – the end,” which came to be presented as ‘- 30 -‘ on a typewriter. You may still find it at the end of press releases to this day.

I am diving deep into newsroom arcana for several reasons. First, this piece partly pays homage to the recent retirement after 43 years of one of my dearest colleagues in newspapering, longtime Gazette and Gazette-Mail photographer par excellence Kenny Kemp. Hence, the “No more – the end” headline references the close to his fine career, as he shutter-speeds off into a deserved and, I hope, restful and satisfying retirement.

In preparing to make use of my cellphone photos and videos from Kenny’s newsroom farewell in late September, during which a bunch of us veterans shared war stories and anecdotes from the glory days of one of America’s finest small papers, something happened.

That guy happened.

Again.

That is to say, if I might slip into Irish bar-speak: a certain eedjit will soon be back in power again.

---

THE REVIVAL

In the heyday of the Gazette and Daily-Mail, the lobby of the Charleston Newspapers building at 1001 Virginia Street in Charleston, W.Va. was a hubbub of coming and going at all hours of the day and night. Now, it’s akin to a windswept train depot in rural Wyoming. | theSTORYistheTHING.com photo | september 20, 2024

---

The shock of ‘Donald Trump 2.0‘ has stirred up a tsunami of despair and heartsickness for millions of us who thought the end had finally arrived for ‘TRUMP NATION,’ as a bumper sticker I noted this week trumpeted, in both senses of the word. Instead, we face a triumphant Trumpian revival and an unhinged man’s assumption of near untrammeled presidential power in late January 2025.

That pickup truck bumper sticker I saw reflects what is most unsettling about the election results. Some of the very worst people in America will soon assume control of one of the most powerful countries in the world, and with no interest in upholding its greatest virtues. The date of Nov. 5, 2024, may go down as one of the darkest days in the country’s history, as the man and his many minions aim at not just forcing a turning point in American governance, but maybe the crumbling of the idea of America itself.

In place of … what, exactly?

‘Trumperica‘?

So, the election’s aftermath sent my attention skittering in several directions after I finally decided to do something with my cellphone captures from Kenny’s farewell. Thus, the “No more – the end” symbol at the top of this essay serves double-duty reference. I felt like I went to bed election night an inhabitant of Earth One, and awoke Wednesday on Bizarro World Earth, a much nastier, deeply unsettling place. It seems like a world where not only the idea of America could turn out to be on its last legs, but also the mainstream journalism to which Kenny and I devoted our careers.

---

Tres Bizarro

I should add that I could only get around to this piece after uncurling from a fetal position in the days after the race was called. Also — true confession — I rapidly flashed the bird at that ‘TRUMP NATION’ truck before coming to my senses. Speeding past the battered vehicle up the interstate, I pondered a few things, then and later:

• Don’t be adding more volatile fuel to Trump Nation’s already angry, hot and bothered, overly armed constituency …

• Did ceaseless Trumpian propaganda, disinformation, endless prevarication, and bumper-sticker provocation win this race for him?

• Does this signal the end — a ’30’ bracketed by dashes — of the mainstream media’s ability to cover political hardball henceforth, when faced with shameless non-stop flood-the-zone-with-crap lying?

• Are we surrendering now to the ostensible news media’s ‘he-said, she-said’ false equivalencies and timidity in confronting Trumpian outrage and falsehood, which is not news as I know it.

• And finally, to borrow from Irish bar-speak once again: ‘Where the feck do we go from here?!?‘

---

It’s a Kenny Thing

CLICK TO VIEW VIDEO

But, first, let me pay homage to something real. The short clip above shows Kenny and former Daily-Mail photographer Craig Cunningham trading stories (after first being photo-bombed by former Daily Mail shooter Tom Hindman). Kenny recounts how he came to the Gazette in 1981 from a stint wearing a suit and tie while snapping photos for former West Virginia Gov. Jay Rockefeller. His sartorial splendor didn’t last long in the informal environs of an old-school newsroom. Kenny got the memo and soon showed up in jeans, if not in the “ketchup-splattered t-shirt …” his mate across the hall describes as being more likely photographer-wear.

The video is deceptive on one significant count. It depicts the Gazette-Mail newsroom bustling with people and chatter, as a chunk of folks showed up to bid farewell to the beloved, amiable, and unflappable Kenny Kemp. (As noted in my own homage at the gathering: the thousands of miles we traveled and countless assignments Kenny and I shared in cities, towns, byways and hollers across West Virginia were among the funnest, happiest times in my own 30-year Gazette career.) The clips above evokes the tenor and energy of a well-populated newspaper as it existed when thriving, noisy, and feisty newsrooms were the essential heartbeat of a city, state or region.

These days, the Gazette-Mail features a much whittled-down staff, some of whom now work routinely from home. More than half the lights are turned off atop the many empty desks that no longer need illumination (as seen in the photo below). For those of us — both staff and visitors — who experienced the Gazette newsroom in its heyday, it can be a depressing place to stop by, even despite the good work under trying circumstances undertaken by the remaining skeletal staff.

LIGHTS OUT

Not many people live here anymore. | theSTORYistheTHING.com photo | september 20, 2024

---

For a point of comparison, see the newsroom photo above shot on September 20, 2024, then view the short video (below) shot by my friend Albert Frank Perrone in May 2010, which records a drop-by some of us made to the bustling, staff-filled Gazette newsroom. Keen-eyed viewers and long-time fans of Ye Olde Gazette can catch glimpses of the great kick-ass-and-print-names investigative reporter Paul Nyden; the sardonic, yet dear Gazette photographer Lawrence Pierce, and others.

The video — it is almost heartbreaking to view — offers a glimpse at what a newsroom felt like in a heyday of newspapering, which is why the visit was brief and we spoke in quiet voices. Everyone was on deadline! Yet even as the newsroom bustled in that year of 2010, Craig’s List had begun leeching away our classified advertising. This thing called the Internet — still heartily resisted by many in that room, while I was an annoying multimedia publishing evangelist — would forever change and disrupt the economic and publishing model that made newspapers work.

SHUSH! JOURNALISTS AT WORK

CLICK TO VIEW VIDEO

Now something else is at work, furthering the diminution and irrelevance of local and national newspapers. You might say it began with Donald Trump’s incessant proclamations of ‘Fake news!!!‘ and his ceaseless denunciation of journalists as part of his vast and expanding rogue’s gallery of ‘the enemy within.’ That’s just one part of the equation.

My theory is that among the several reasons Trumpublicanism triumphed at the polls again in 2024 is that local media gatekeeper/newspapers are far diminished or just plain gone, replaced for many by captured, subservient propaganda networks like FOX and NewsMax. The trusted reporting, op-ed commentary and guidance of a local or regional paper is missing in action for tens of thousands of communities nationwide. In its place we have hedge-fund-owned, bottom-line-focused, play-it-safe corporate media conglomerates. We have the right-wing Sinclair Broadcasting outfit whose editorial outlook might as well re-brand itself as Mouth of Sauron Broadcasting. We have billionaires answering to their billions, instead of to the media operations they now possess.

Consider Jeff Bezos. He bought the Washington Post and so much as said he would not mess with its internal operations, while heartily funding its essential national and political reporting. But when push came to shove — when the editorial page had prepped to launch a Kamala Harris endorsement — he reneged.

Why, exactly? The answer seems straightforward to me.

It used to be that newspapers, however much they are a business and need to make money to survive and prosper, are also a public charge. They need to answer to the city, state, and region they serve. Great local newspapers, like the Charleston Gazette in its glory days, were explicit in this mission. There’s a reason that Ned Chilton, the Gazette’s legendary — as well as ‘haughty and arrogant’ — publisher and its animating crusader, was famous for his line that “sustained outrage” must guide a paper’s coverage. And also that: “Most newspapers have the attention span of a postal clerk.’ No offense intended toward postal workers, but sustained, insistent, and tireless coverage of issues deeply affecting a paper’s readership is at the core of a newspaper looking out for the region it covers.

The best news operations serve their audience in the same way good government serves the governed. When push came to shove, Jeff Bezos served himself, answering to his capital and wealth. It was a masterstroke business move, I suppose, given the election results. Now, he and his Amazon Cloud server business and Blue Origin rocket outfit — at the heart of his wealth, and dependent on government contracts — still retain clout with the president-to-be.

‘Great chess move, Jeffrey!‘

I was among the nearly quarter-million subscribers who canceled their subscription after Billionaire Bezos canceled the Post’s Harris endorsement in his go-along-to-get-along, pre-emptive subservience to Trump. I grew up revering the Post. My own development as a feature writer and editor was deeply influenced by the writing and editorial breadth of its ‘Style’ feature section. I concede that canceling my subscription was a hopeless pinprick gesture on my part, and his Post ownership is pocket change to that bald oligarch. I didn’t, though, know how else to flip the finger at a crappy decision by the owner of one of America’s iconic media institutions.

WHAT IKE SAID

So, where do we go from here? That is a longer national conversation fraught with terrible turns which we must strive hard to avoid. I suggest we first take care of our current roadkill post-election spirits, as considered in this recent post subtitled: ‘A few thoughts on the unshakeability of mind, despair, and solidarity.’ We must gather about us the people, the ideas, the fortitude and the inspiration that support us in countering the despair the new administration will be counting on to maneuver. To that point, see: ’10 other things to think about while thinking about Trump.’

We must hang together (because you know what happens when we don’t). Let us make it a point to lift up the efforts and people doing work that speaks to the best of the human spirit. Support or join with them and be inspired to emulate such work. The Kenny Kemps. The grandmothers, teachers, and workers. The uncompromised leaders and community organizers. The spiritual guides who speak to you. The aspirational, inspirational under-30 humans whose youthful views and votes were not poisoned by the toxic waste spilling from the disturbed ground upon which Donald Trump and JD Vance crouch.

We must seek out non-hedge-funded media upstarts with demonstrated integrity. I commend to your attention the fearless Talking Points Memo (see its level-headed editor Josh Marshall’s Chiltonian firmness in this piece). Support and subscribe to established progressive media stalwarts like the non-profit Philadelphia Inquirer; the butt-kicking, name-naming Pro Publica investigative crew; and the more important than ever ACLU. Help support and grow new media upstarts in your region. In West Virginia, that might mean Mountain State Spotlight; West Virginia Watch; TheRealWV; Black by God WV; 100 Days in Appalachia, among others (including, if I may be so bold, my occasional web magazine WestVirginiaVille.)

Trumpism will peak and pass. Pick your battles. Figure out what you bring best and most usefully to the fray. Choose well and thoughtfully your mates, your organizations, your tribes in the days, months, and years ahead. History’s arc, always remember, has ever triumphed over the hateful, the warmonger, the lout, and the chaos agent.

I leave the final message to Basho, famed Japanese poet of the Edo period. You might substitute ‘deluded politicians‘ for ‘great soldiers.’

May we all touch summer grass as soon and as often as possible.

---

Thanks to Jeff Seager for his editing improvements and grammarian mojo on this piece.