LETTER TO THE
E DITOR More to the story
To the editor: Congratulations to the O’Leary family on your completion of fifty years as newspaper publishers in central Wisconsin.
You have accomplished a great deal in that length of time, both in your professionalism as weekly newspaper publishers, and in your service to the communities you serve; in your personal involvements in the various affairs of your towns, and in the promotions and boosts your papers have given to the entire area.
Central Wisconsin is a better place because of the contributions you and your papers have made, and you deserve the accolades you have earned, as well as the personal pride that goes along with the recognition.
Our hope is that you, and central Wisconsin, continue to prosper. Vibrant community newspapers and development and progress go hand in hand.
I enjoyed reading the article in the Dec. 29 Tribune-Phonograph but there were a couple of statements that raised my dander, and I would not be writing the following comments were it not for them. One is the statement that we were “still publishing using archaic typesetting methods” and the other is that “before this, it was some guy putting lead type on a line.”
As a little background information, my parents, Robert and Maracella Janda, moved to the Abbotsford area during the 1930’s, and I grew up in Abbotsford in the weekly newspaper business. I had developed some ideas about what community journalism could be but it required more resources than this single weekly could provide. However, there were many other small town weeklies in the nearby area that could be combined.
I acquired a degree in journalism from Marquette University in Milwaukee and further honed my ideas. Following an obligatory two-year stint in the Army, I returned to Abbotsford in the early 1960’s, and assumed operation of the Tribune newspaper; my father kept the commercial printing operation and my mother continued writing for the paper.
My first acquisition was the Edgar Record, and I began to add staff. The major step was when I purchased the
at Colby from Rod Marcus; the name incidentally is a reference to ‘the machine that talks.’ I combined the Tribune and the Phonograph into one paper, and began operation in Colby, and our staff continued to grow. I also added the Athens Record and combined that with Edgar.
We were a letter press operation then, as was most of the weekly papers in Wisconsin and most of the dailies, including the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and even slick magazines like The National Geographic. Our equipment was old by nature; no one was making new linotype machines anymore.
However, the equipment was still viable and we were turning out good products of which a community could be proud, even doing the occasional process color in our job printing department.
We were then at the leading edge of a movement that was starting to take place around the state to consolidate nearby weekly newspapers to make their operations viable. We were among the very first in the state to do so, and certainly the first in this area, and I might add, among the most successful.
We were a whole lot more than ‘some guy putting lead type on a line’ using ‘archaic methods.’ However, it soon became obvious that the limitations of letter press printing would curtail major developments for us; one failure, for instance, was a practical inability to process photographs. My options were to try to learn a completely different printing technology that would require a whole lot more effort, time and resources, or else sell to someone who could do so and still carry out my ideals.
After a couple of unsuccessful sales efforts, I had become determined to do what was necessary to make the necessary changes, and then Jay O’Leary showed up. I think he saw the value of what we had done, and sensed the opportunity for the next steps.
I clearly remember the date: Dec. 8, 1970. I spent considerable effort in determining that he had the resources to continue the operation, and more importantly, the desire and belief in the value of community journalism; I would not have sold the operation to him without that.
And time has proven the value of the O’Leary contributions to the entire area; more, even, than I had thought. Jay and family dug in, made the necessary investments and sacrifices, converted the letterpress operation to offset, and became involved in many aspects of community life. The rest of the details are outlined in the Dec. 29 article. It could be pointed out as an aside that the first equipment that Jay brought in soon had to be replaced as it too had been outpaced by continuing new technology.
I can’t let this go without offering praise for Peter Weinschenk. He is the penultimate journalist in every sense of the word, he is a good writer, his editorials are well-thought-out and wellexpressed and he has raised The Record-Review, as we knew it, to a high level. He is a fine asset to his community, and to your operation.
As a parting comment to Kris, all I can do is urge her, when the time comes to disperse the operation, to resist the call of the major corporate publishers. They will be tempting with nice offers and provide the chance to ‘go out’ in comfort. But they will destroy everything you, your parents, and we, have worked to build up.
If you need examples, look at the evisceration of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, or the Green Bay Press-Gazette which has been reduced to a purveyor of Packer news and obituaries, or once-fine papers like the Door County Advocate, which do nothing more than circulate their mastheads.
In any event, congratulations to the O’Leary family and staff on a half-century well done; given heartfeltly with the assurance that the quality, growth and development will continue.
Louis Janda Former publisher Tribune -Phonograph and Record Review Sturgeon Bay
