I grew up in a Springfield dominated by the Journal and Register (later the Journal-Register). Not only in newspaper terms but sociopolitically as well.
The paper was owned and directed from San Diego by Jim Copley and his Copley Press, a very conservative operation. It was a classic case of absentee ownership. The J-R had a stranglehold on Springfield-area print advertisers, with frequent rate increases. And its publishers (Jack Clarke during the early IT years) were major cogs in the Republican machine which dominated much of the capital city’s politics.
Copley not only fended off second newspaper attempts to invade his turf – there had been 20-some through the years – he crushed them. Nonetheless, or maybe because of the situation, I had the dream since high school of returning to Springfield to launch an alternative newspaper.
In the mid-1970s, I left a career as a correspondent with Time magazine to do that. I returned to Springfield with too little money and moved in with my parents. A week later I packed my car and spent two months on the road, visiting alternative newspaper publishers from Maine to Tennessee to northern Minnesota. They were all generous with time and information. I returned to Springfield with a plan.
I then met Barb Donohue, who had a fine reputation as a graphic designer and later became IT’s first make-up editor. Barb put together a series of “story boards,” which developed the paper’s design, sections, etc. – and I began six months of taking them around to possible advertisers, attempting to sell advertising space in a nonexistent newspaper in a tough media market.
Friedman at home recently in Shelter Island, New York.
I also took every public and private speaking opportunity I could find to talk about the plan. All the service clubs (Rotary, Lions, etc.) and church groups, including “Presby Pairs” at First Presbyterian. Any group that would listen, and many in time wanted to. I began to feel perhaps I had hit a chord.
My advertising pitch was simple. “Our rates are very low, but if we succeed,” I suggested, “the J-R will be less inclined to continue squeezing you.” So, in so many words, “Throw us a bone.” The pitch appealed. At the end of four or five months I had enough signed ad contracts to take us through the first year of publishing.
I took my stack of contracts to Bob Saner, president of the Marine Bank. On the strength of them (the Marine had earlier turned me down), the bank loaned me the money to buy (or lease, I can’t remember which) our Compugraphic photo-offset typesetting equipment. This new way of setting newspaper type made it possible for us to enter the newspaper business. (Chris Skoczynski became our super-fast typesetter.) The bank also threw in a derelict house it held in an estate at 512 S. Eighth Street, two doors from the Lincoln home. (That on the proviso we would fix it up and install a new furnace.) I moved in above “the shop.” From then on, my phone line was an extension of the paper’s. No call ever went unanswered, no matter when it came in.
Convinced we were “a go,” I began thinking about a partner and staff. The best advice I had received from publishers in my travels was, “If you want to be successful, you need to be the publisher, not the editor. Everyone wants to edit their own newspaper. But you need to be the head business guy and chief ad salesman. Find a good editor.” So I went to my friend Alan Anderson, a colleague from Time who was then science editor of Saturday Review. For some reason which I have never fully understood, Alan agreed to come to Springfield. He was an extraordinary editor. Victoria Pope and Claudia Dowling followed. Photojournalist Jessie Ewing came out from Boston as IT photographer. Jessie set up our in-house photo processing lab/darkroom in one of the bathrooms. Then Penny Freeman joined the crew as advertising director, bringing on two additional ad salespeople. Alan began assembling writers and contributors.
About this time the J-R finally began to take notice and poured on the heat. For example, their ad guys began showing up at my service club presentations, shouting from the audience, “Don’t pay any attention to him. He’ll never succeed.” Looking for a printer at that point, no one in the Springfield area would even talk to me. The J-R had printing business with all of them. I was forced to go as far away as Peoria to find a printer. Which meant driving our layout sheets to Peoria weekly (in dead of winter, a real trial), to have the presses rolling for our four-a.m. slot, so I could then drive the printed paper back to Springfield for mailing by noon. It was an ordeal.
But the more the J-R pushed, the more I thought we were on the right track. This was confirmed when J-R publisher Jack Clarke suggested I pay him a visit. Very cordial. Jack offered me the job of assistant J-R publisher at an interesting salary.
I wanted our inaugural edition to come out at the beginning of the lucrative Thanksgiving-to-Christmas advertising season. When the first IT issue appeared, it was jammed with Springfield’s blue-chip advertisers. We never looked back. In every single month thereafter, we operated in the black. Granted, paying ridiculously low salaries and sharing phone lines. But we had a great esprit de corps. And, I think, a feeling of family. Those were heady days. I enjoyed every one of them. Especially when I could catch up on my sleep.
Following the sale of Illinois Times, Bill left Springfield for the Middle East to work as a “stringer” (freelance reporter) for several publications, including the Boston Globe. He returned to New York to become trustee and director of a North American philanthropic foundation. Bill retired in 1998 to Shelter Island, New York, where he was an active open water sailor. Today Bill divides his time between Shelter Island and Klosters, Switzerland.
This article appears in 50th Anniversary special section.
