Customer Reviews

Emus Loose in Egnar: Big Stories from Small Towns

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This just in: journalism is not dead. This is how Judy Muller opens her new book about the newspaper business in small town America.
Muller, a Peabody Award winning reporter, had become weary of hearing - and even contributing to - discussions about the demise of print journalism. She wanted to see if there was a bright spot anywhere in an otherwise dismal landscape. The author, who lives part of her time in the small town of Norwood, Colorado, is a reader of the Norwood Post. She saw that the Post filled a vital need and played an important role in the life of her tiny community. It occurred to her that there may be other papers with similar roles out there in the hinterlands. She set on a journey to find out. The result is her engaging new book, Emus Loose in Egnar: Big Stories from Small Towns.
The quirky title is explained in the course of her discovery that print journalism is, indeed, alive and well, even thriving in places like Boonville California, Huntington West Virginia, Dutch Harbor Alaska, Concrete Washington and Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.
Muller spent time getting to know reporters, photographers, cartoonists, editorial writers, publishers, readers and even advertisers to uncover a rich tapestry of journalism in rural America. She focused on newspapers with circulations much smaller than the overruns of big city publications. A few of the more evocative mastheads include the Telluride Daily Planet, West Virginian Hillbilly, Canyon County Zephyr, Dutch Harbor Fisherman, Tundra Drums and my favorite, Original Briefs, from Hardin, Montana.
The lead story in Emus Loose in Egnar, is that, along with bread and butter accounts of births and deaths, marriages and high school sports, are stories as convoluted, complex and compelling as any on the nightly news. In fact, some of the stories on the nightly news originated from these blue highway dots on the map.
Muller also discovered that it often takes courage to publish the news in places where readers know the people being written about- in fact, may be the people being written about. They also know who did the writing. It's not easy reporting political intrigue, police blotter incidents and hot button issues when the reporter has breakfast at the same coffee counter as his subjects. To make matters worse, the owner of the coffee counter is likely to be an advertiser.
It all makes for great reading. And it is good to hear that journalism is alive and well.

Judy Muller's fine book is a witty and colorful reminder of my own family's history of producing local weekly newspapers. It is with great interest for me to learn how vibrant and useful local newspapers remain and, more important, thrive. Muller's delightful yarns play against the smugly adopted concept that traditional journalism is on the ropes. Telling people the news will never be out of fashion, nor will it be supplanted by personal blogs and opinions tossed off on a whim. Muller has not only detailed the struggles and triumphs of an extraordinary bunch of journalists, but she has, in the process, reminded us of what journalism is all about--why it matters to real people, and why it will be supported over the long run. People want to know what's going on. And journalists, whether reporting for a big newspaper, or working late at night to cover a story for the local paper, seem by all measures to be driven by an impulse that benefits us all. This is a great and heartwarming read.

I wanted to give this 4 stars, really I did, but a few days of thinking about the book left me with this middle of the road rating.

The fact that there is still a place for small paper journalism is encouraging as we see more and more stories about the problems of print media. The author's vignettes provide a look at some papers not only surviving but even thriving in a lot of small towns and cities, and she tells their stories entertainingly and well. These are some feisty people--and families--who are keeping their small papers going, even when circulation is small and barely enough to provide a living wage.

In the end however, the author's political biases (some of which I do share) have given us what seems an unbalanced picture of the complete state of small paper journalism. She obviously sympathizes with those editors who would agree to be called left of center. This is not wrong in and of itself. However, are there no other community papers that remain, telling the basic stories of their towns without having to be rabble-rousers or always against the bulk of the population? I can think of several communities across the upper Midwest where newspapers are serving their readers by providing a local source of information about the schools, civic events, all the mundane news that sometimes is hard to find in the closest urban daily. Maybe their stories would not be so dramatic, though they also are too important a part of American small town and rural culture to be lost.

Emus Lost in Egnar thus ends up being only half a story. It would be great to see a sequel to tell the rest.

Hello Glenn- I grew up in Pacific Palisades!
I picked up this book after hearing Judy Muller (who I've always loved) interviewed while here in Seattle promoting this book. I was expecting a good book, but I have been completely charmed by it. Judy Muller is a terrific writer and the subject matter here is compelling, humorous, and extremely relevant if you are concerned about the state of modern journalism. This book actually gives me hope for the journalism profession, as I read about the tenacious small town journalists and editors out there who are producing content that makes a difference every day. Big time journalism is still in trouble these days but they can learn a lot from these small operations. Thank you Judy Muller, and now I plan to renew my local "fishwrapper" subscription!