Editor's Note: 30 years in the life of The Suffolk Times
(On Thursday, May 25, I was invited to speak at a meeting of the Stirling Historical Society in Greenport. Following are excerpts from my remarks, entitled: “Editor’s Note: 30 Years in the Life of The Suffolk Times.”)
Good evening.
I’d like to first thank Barbara Moorhouse for extending the invitation for me to speak tonight and for providing a very helpful outline for my remarks – including such tough topics as why in the world did The Suffolk Times ever decide to move from Greenport. But I’ll get to that later.
I’d also like to thank my wife and partner, Joan Gustavson — who’s sitting right over there — for helping with research for my remarks tonight, and for being with me every step of the way, and often a step or two ahead, for the 30 years we have owned the newspaper. Also, thanks to Poppy Johnson at Floyd Memorial Library for helping with the research, which is based largely on “Greenport Yesterday and Today — the diary of a country newspaper,” written in 1972 by Elsie Knapp Corwin, wife of longtime publisher Fred Corwin.
It’s particularly fitting that we take a look back at The Suffolk Times at this time because the paper will mark its 150th anniversary next year. It was founded here in Greenport as The Suffolk Weekly Times on Aug. 27, 1857, by 27-year-old John J. Riddell. His first editorial indicated that the newspaper would be founded on Republican principles, including a strong commitment to the abolition of slavery, and he went off to serve in the Union Army in the Civil War while he still owned the paper...
In 1863, The Times office was located on Front Street near Railroad Avenue. And it apparently had several other locations in the village before moving in the first decade of the 1900s to 429 Main St., where it remained until 1988.
Under Riddell, in 1863, an annual subscription cost $2. It was mailed free anywhere in Suffolk County. We found a historical reference to mailing outside Suffolk costing 13¢ a year, but we obviously need to double check that questionable fact. (By way of comparison, an annual subscription to The Suffolk Times now costs $35 in Suffolk County and $44 out of county.)
We don’t know as much about subsequent publishers as we know about John Riddell, but we can tell you their names and their years of ownership:
Bill Davis and William Duvall published the paper jointly from 1868-1874.
Lucius Young, 1874-1875.
Llewellyn F. Terry, 1875-1906.
John L. Kahler & C.W. Van Nostrand, 1906-08.
Kahler broke ground at 429 Main St. in 1909 and owned the paper until 1919.
Ralph W. Thomas, 1919-1920.
Margaret Thomas (his daughter) 1920-1922.
F. Langton "Fred" Corwin & Lewis Gladding, 1922, after which Corwin took over for the next 47 years, until 1969.
In 1925, Corwin was warned that his newspaper would fail because he was not a member of the Klu Klux Klan, which was active on the North Fork at that time. (The editor of the Traveler-Watchman was a member of the KKK.) One anecdote about Fred Corwin that I heard repeated many times was that he had four great loves in life: his wife, Elsie; The Suffolk Times, Rotary and his daily martini at the bar at Mitchell’s — and not necessarily in that order.
Barbara & Stuart Dorman, 1968-1977
Under the Dormans in the late 1960s, the paper changed from an eight-page broadsheet to a tabloid. They established an offset printing plant in Flanders with the publishers of The East Hampton Star and The Southampton Press, and also began to broaden the paper’s focus from Greenport to Southold Town. That transition was aided by several large planning and environmental battles, most notably the one over LILCO’s proposed Jamesport nuclear power plant, which The Suffolk Times opposed. Long-time Suffolk Times contributor Ronnie Wacker, who passed away recently, was the lead reporter on that story.
The Dormans bought The News-Review of Riverhead (est. 1868) in 1976, and the added burden of publishing two papers and Stuart’s declining health caused them to sell in 1977. That’s where the Gustavsons and Joan’s brother David come in... (David subsequently sold his interest in the company to us in 1980.)
I thought it might be interesting to look back at our first editorial, which was published on January 5, 1978. It was entitled "What We Stand For," and reads as follows:
"The changing of the guard at The Suffolk Times hopefully will be taken for what it is: a natural evolution. Newspapers are bigger than their owners, and the Times will be here a long time after we've all played out our part in its life.
"Nevertheless, the community has a right to know what we stand for. And that will be up to you — our readers — to determine over a period of time. What follows is offered to help you keep score in the months and years ahead.
"We stand for truth. The truth will always be our guiding light.
"We stand for excellence. There is always room for improvement, but we intend to build upon the record of excellence that has become the standard at The Times.
"We stand for fairness. If we fail to be even-handed in our reporting and editorial policy, we hope it will be because we are human and not in the business of grinding axes.
"We stand for self-determination. The right of the individual to determine his own fate — beyond the influences of outside forces — is supreme in our eyes. And that goes for outside forces who would over-develop our diminishing farmland, supply power to points west by despoiling the North Fork's natural resources and endangering its people, or bring interstate ferry service to a village that has serious reservations about that service.
"We stand for non-partisanship. It doesn't matter to us whether someone is a Democrat, a Republican or an Independent. Honesty, integrity and performance are what matters.
"That is what we stand for. Now it's up to you to determine whether we live up to our word."
I am perhaps proudest of The Suffolk Times' support for farmland preservation, two-acre and five-acre zoning, historic preservation and architectural review, and the 2% land transfer tax, which has generated hundreds of millions of dollars for farmland, open space and parkland preservation on the East End. And I’m also proud to say The Suffolk Times started talking about that before anyone else, more than a decade before it became a reality in the 1990s.
I'm also very proud of the recognition the paper and its staff members have received from state and national press associations over the years — including being judged the best community weekly in its circulation category statewide and nationally... (At this point in my remarks, I acknowledged four Suffolk Times staff members/columnists who have been with the paper since before we came on the scene in 1977: Staff photographer Judy Ahrens, "Focus on Nature" columnists Paul and Barbara Stoutenburgh, and "North Fork Outdoors" columnist Martin Garrell.)
The hardest decision we ever had to make was to move our office from Greenport to Mattituck in 1988. We love Greenport and wanted to stay. We loved the sense of community, being able to walk to the bank, post office and lunch. But we dould not find an existing building large enough, and we also were serving a readership that extended from Orient Point to Wading River. We decided on Mattituck because it is halfway between Greenport and Riverhead, the the move eventually allowed us to add two more community weeklies, The Shelter Island Reporter and The North Shore Sun, which covers the area between Wading River and Port Jefferson. At the time we moved, we asked out readers to judge us not by our address, but by the paper we put out each week, and thankfully they did.
Over the decades, I hope we proved that we were not fly by night and are dedicated to the preservation and betterment of this community we, our children and grandchildren are proud to call home...
Finally, there have been many dire predictions in recent years about the future of the newspaper industry. But I'm bullish on the future — particularly the future of community weeklies — with or without the presence of the World Wide Web. As long as we continue to do what we do — focus exclusively on the people of Southold Town, I believe there always will be a place for The Suffolk Times — even if the paper eventually is delivered every Thursday via satellite to your wristwatch...
Good evening.
I’d like to first thank Barbara Moorhouse for extending the invitation for me to speak tonight and for providing a very helpful outline for my remarks – including such tough topics as why in the world did The Suffolk Times ever decide to move from Greenport. But I’ll get to that later.
I’d also like to thank my wife and partner, Joan Gustavson — who’s sitting right over there — for helping with research for my remarks tonight, and for being with me every step of the way, and often a step or two ahead, for the 30 years we have owned the newspaper. Also, thanks to Poppy Johnson at Floyd Memorial Library for helping with the research, which is based largely on “Greenport Yesterday and Today — the diary of a country newspaper,” written in 1972 by Elsie Knapp Corwin, wife of longtime publisher Fred Corwin.
It’s particularly fitting that we take a look back at The Suffolk Times at this time because the paper will mark its 150th anniversary next year. It was founded here in Greenport as The Suffolk Weekly Times on Aug. 27, 1857, by 27-year-old John J. Riddell. His first editorial indicated that the newspaper would be founded on Republican principles, including a strong commitment to the abolition of slavery, and he went off to serve in the Union Army in the Civil War while he still owned the paper...
In 1863, The Times office was located on Front Street near Railroad Avenue. And it apparently had several other locations in the village before moving in the first decade of the 1900s to 429 Main St., where it remained until 1988.
Under Riddell, in 1863, an annual subscription cost $2. It was mailed free anywhere in Suffolk County. We found a historical reference to mailing outside Suffolk costing 13¢ a year, but we obviously need to double check that questionable fact. (By way of comparison, an annual subscription to The Suffolk Times now costs $35 in Suffolk County and $44 out of county.)
We don’t know as much about subsequent publishers as we know about John Riddell, but we can tell you their names and their years of ownership:
Bill Davis and William Duvall published the paper jointly from 1868-1874.
Lucius Young, 1874-1875.
Llewellyn F. Terry, 1875-1906.
John L. Kahler & C.W. Van Nostrand, 1906-08.
Kahler broke ground at 429 Main St. in 1909 and owned the paper until 1919.
Ralph W. Thomas, 1919-1920.
Margaret Thomas (his daughter) 1920-1922.
F. Langton "Fred" Corwin & Lewis Gladding, 1922, after which Corwin took over for the next 47 years, until 1969.
In 1925, Corwin was warned that his newspaper would fail because he was not a member of the Klu Klux Klan, which was active on the North Fork at that time. (The editor of the Traveler-Watchman was a member of the KKK.) One anecdote about Fred Corwin that I heard repeated many times was that he had four great loves in life: his wife, Elsie; The Suffolk Times, Rotary and his daily martini at the bar at Mitchell’s — and not necessarily in that order.
Barbara & Stuart Dorman, 1968-1977
Under the Dormans in the late 1960s, the paper changed from an eight-page broadsheet to a tabloid. They established an offset printing plant in Flanders with the publishers of The East Hampton Star and The Southampton Press, and also began to broaden the paper’s focus from Greenport to Southold Town. That transition was aided by several large planning and environmental battles, most notably the one over LILCO’s proposed Jamesport nuclear power plant, which The Suffolk Times opposed. Long-time Suffolk Times contributor Ronnie Wacker, who passed away recently, was the lead reporter on that story.
The Dormans bought The News-Review of Riverhead (est. 1868) in 1976, and the added burden of publishing two papers and Stuart’s declining health caused them to sell in 1977. That’s where the Gustavsons and Joan’s brother David come in... (David subsequently sold his interest in the company to us in 1980.)
I thought it might be interesting to look back at our first editorial, which was published on January 5, 1978. It was entitled "What We Stand For," and reads as follows:
"The changing of the guard at The Suffolk Times hopefully will be taken for what it is: a natural evolution. Newspapers are bigger than their owners, and the Times will be here a long time after we've all played out our part in its life.
"Nevertheless, the community has a right to know what we stand for. And that will be up to you — our readers — to determine over a period of time. What follows is offered to help you keep score in the months and years ahead.
"We stand for truth. The truth will always be our guiding light.
"We stand for excellence. There is always room for improvement, but we intend to build upon the record of excellence that has become the standard at The Times.
"We stand for fairness. If we fail to be even-handed in our reporting and editorial policy, we hope it will be because we are human and not in the business of grinding axes.
"We stand for self-determination. The right of the individual to determine his own fate — beyond the influences of outside forces — is supreme in our eyes. And that goes for outside forces who would over-develop our diminishing farmland, supply power to points west by despoiling the North Fork's natural resources and endangering its people, or bring interstate ferry service to a village that has serious reservations about that service.
"We stand for non-partisanship. It doesn't matter to us whether someone is a Democrat, a Republican or an Independent. Honesty, integrity and performance are what matters.
"That is what we stand for. Now it's up to you to determine whether we live up to our word."
I am perhaps proudest of The Suffolk Times' support for farmland preservation, two-acre and five-acre zoning, historic preservation and architectural review, and the 2% land transfer tax, which has generated hundreds of millions of dollars for farmland, open space and parkland preservation on the East End. And I’m also proud to say The Suffolk Times started talking about that before anyone else, more than a decade before it became a reality in the 1990s.
I'm also very proud of the recognition the paper and its staff members have received from state and national press associations over the years — including being judged the best community weekly in its circulation category statewide and nationally... (At this point in my remarks, I acknowledged four Suffolk Times staff members/columnists who have been with the paper since before we came on the scene in 1977: Staff photographer Judy Ahrens, "Focus on Nature" columnists Paul and Barbara Stoutenburgh, and "North Fork Outdoors" columnist Martin Garrell.)
The hardest decision we ever had to make was to move our office from Greenport to Mattituck in 1988. We love Greenport and wanted to stay. We loved the sense of community, being able to walk to the bank, post office and lunch. But we dould not find an existing building large enough, and we also were serving a readership that extended from Orient Point to Wading River. We decided on Mattituck because it is halfway between Greenport and Riverhead, the the move eventually allowed us to add two more community weeklies, The Shelter Island Reporter and The North Shore Sun, which covers the area between Wading River and Port Jefferson. At the time we moved, we asked out readers to judge us not by our address, but by the paper we put out each week, and thankfully they did.
Over the decades, I hope we proved that we were not fly by night and are dedicated to the preservation and betterment of this community we, our children and grandchildren are proud to call home...
Finally, there have been many dire predictions in recent years about the future of the newspaper industry. But I'm bullish on the future — particularly the future of community weeklies — with or without the presence of the World Wide Web. As long as we continue to do what we do — focus exclusively on the people of Southold Town, I believe there always will be a place for The Suffolk Times — even if the paper eventually is delivered every Thursday via satellite to your wristwatch...
posted by Troy Gustavson at 5:54 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home