InkBlots

Evelina Shmukler arrived in Pass Christian for the first time on Sept. 5, 2005, a week after Hurricane Katrina. The storm destroyed or damaged almost every building in the city of about 7,000; many of the residents who remained were clustered in a tent city.

Shmukler, a freelance journalist, had been dispatched to Pass Christian by The Wall Street Journal to write about the effects of the storm on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. But the tragedy and near-total devastation she found transformed her from a journalist into an advocate.

Five years later, Shmukler is the editor and publisher of the Pass Christian Gazebo Gazette, a weekly newspaper that began as a photocopied newsletter and has grown into full-fledged newspaper.

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Tom Andrews, publisher of the Picayune Item and The Poplarville Democrat, will retire Tuesday after spending 32 years at the newspaper, rising through the ranks to become the ninth publisher over the 106 year history of the Item. He is a past president of the Mississippi Press Association.

William “K.B.” Thompson died this week, two years after retiring from a 53-year career at The Star-Herald in Kosciusko. Past and present members of the staff at the newspaper paid tribute to him in a recent edition… Randy Turner, 51, of Leakesville, died Aug. 26 after a brief illness. The Turner family publishes the Greene County Herald.

Maybe what journalism needs is warning labels…

Former Jackson-based correspondent Marshall Fine, writing in The Huffington Post, remembers being one of the first to see the King in his coffin 33 years ago…

“In the summer of 1977, after the King ingested that last deep-fried peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich, I was among the first to see Elvis in his coffin in Graceland. I was reminded of that this week, when the 33rd anniversary of his death rolled around, by my then-girlfriend Anne Hurley, who accompanied me on my journey…

“When Elvis fell off a toilet and straight into rock’n'roll heaven, I was the reporter the paper called to drive up to Memphis to cover it.”

American’s trust is newspapers is near a record all-time low. But, chin up: It’s even lower for television. These views have hardly budged since falling more than 10 percentage points from 2003-2007.

In the scramble to find new business models for newspapers, some see charitable foundations as the way to keep newspapers afloat. But in what may be the poorest region in the nation’s poorest state, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal is one of the financial engines of a foundation that’s helping improve the lives of its readers.

The Daily Journal’s help in supporting the foundation that owns it, which now helps to fund some 600 initiatives in 16 Mississippi counties, may account for its seeming paradox: sustained readership and advertising support in a region of low educational attainment and income.

Writes Ronnie Agnew, executive editor of The Clarion-Ledger, in a recent column:

“(The newspaper is) charged with being relevant, with being compelling, with being on the cutting edge of technology. There is an expectation that we will be wherever our consumers are. If we aren’t, believe me, someone else will fill the void.

“Our business has never been more competitive, and either we meet competitive pressures head on, or we won’t come close to being what our readers expect…”

Ruth Ingram writes of the difficulty involved with shuttering the print edition of The Clinton News:

“After 60 years, The Clinton News ceases to publish…as a “paper” paper. I am profoundly sad. I understand the business decision; I’ve been newspapering since my junior year in high school. I’ve interned or worked for four dailies that either closed or merged with other papers.I understand the decision, but that doesn’t change my emotions. I’ve been in love with The Clinton News since moving here in 1986…

“And, now that I have cried and mourned as only as old newspaper lady can do, I am ready for the tomorrow…”

Ricky Mathews, longtime publisher of The Sun Herald who departed last year to take the reins of the Mobile Press-Register and supervision of Advance Publications newspapers in Alabama and Mississippi, rode out Katrina at his home in Biloxi five years ago. Think twice when a storm approaches, he writes in a blog post this week.

“Mobile has not taken a direct storm-surge hit in recent history, but it will eventually. When it does, I implore you: Don’t base your evacuation decision solely on your experiences with Katrina or Ivan. I am here to tell you, it can always be worse…”