15/02/2024
Two tales of retired journalists becoming news entrepreneurs
Asheville, North Carolina, is an attractive community for retirees. Some arrivals before the pandemic were retired journalists, many of whom had won or been nominated for Pulitzer Prizes and had distinguished careers at The Miami Herald, The New York Times, The Washington Post and other major news outlets. By happenstance, several of them were guests at a party hosted by the general manager of the local public radio station.
During their conversation, several of the former journalists agreed there was a lack of in-depth news coverage in Asheville. The Asheville Citizen Times is the major newspaper in the city, but being Gannett-owned, the staff has been reduced so much that there is no time for investigative reporting.
Four of the retired journalists, Sally Kestin, Tom Fiedler, Peter Lewis, Barbara Durr and Kestin's husband, Bob Gremillion, recognized an opportunity to contribute their journalistic expertise and their available time to the community and launched the Asheville Watchdog in April 2020.
Bob Gremillion, publisher, chief executive officer and co-founder of the Asheville Watchdog, “The community has embraced us incredibly. Our story about the city trying to clean up downtown received many comments crediting us with bringing the problem to light, as investigative reporters do, and caused the city and the county to react,” Gremillion said.
The retired journalists are all volunteers, and The Watchdog is free — without a paywall. Initially, the Citizen Times published The Watchdog’s stories, but that collaboration ended when the Citizen Times wanted to put those stories behind a paywall, which conflicted with The Watchdog’s mission.
Peter Lewis, former senior writer, editor and columnist at The New York Times and with tenures at many other newspapers, joined The Watchdog as its managing editor. He and the other volunteer retired journalists quickly realized they needed new and younger journalists to boost The Watchdog’s reporting and prepare for a future without the retirees.
Peter Lewis, reporter and former managing editor of the Asheville Watchdog
“We’ve hired two paid, full-time reporters, one of whom is John Boyle, a well-known reporter at the Citizen Times. We have recently hired Keith Campbell, the retired vice president and managing editor of The Dallas Morning News, as our full-time managing editor. The board named me executive editor, a volunteer position that will give more time opportunities to report and write,” Lewis said.
A similar tale is being written in Greenup, Kentucky, a small town on the Ohio River. Cathie Shaffer was the editor and general manager of The Greenup News-Times since 2004, the longtime hometown newspaper in Greenup. The loss of advertising during the early days of the pandemic forced The News-Times to close, and Shaffer suddenly was unemployed. She had planned to retire at age 72 and become a freelance reporter and editor for other newspapers in the area.
Her son, who is also in the newspaper business, his wife and Shaffer decided Greenup still needed a paper and launched The Greenup Gazette in July 2020. Mason Branham, who had been the sports and features writer at The News-Times, is the other member of the staff.
“There had been a newspaper in Greenup County for 150 years, and people considered it a utility. They didn’t realize it could be shut down. I started The Gazette with my stimulus money and some of my unemployment. From the first day, we had many people come to the office and subscribe,” Shaffer said.
Cathie Shaffer, founder, publisher and editor of The Greenup Gazette Shaffer added The Gazette is a countywide newspaper with subscribers throughout the county and the largest number in Greenup. Even before the first issue, many local advertisers said if she started the paper, then they would advertise. The plan is for her son to leave his current position and assume many editorial duties while Shaffer focuses on selling advertisers until she is ready to retire.
When asked what advice she would share with other longtime journalists who might consider launching a newspaper, she said, “We don’t do it for the money or the glory. We do it because this is what we do, and age should not stop us. If you still want to be a journalist or editor, then you should do it.”
