By Fred Steiner
(Photo accompanying this column shows Fred Steiner and Ryan Lowry cutting the Icon’s first anniversary cake in 2010.)
Thoughts on:
• how the Icons came to be,
• journalism in a small town,
Here’s the thing:
You can earn a living working in your profession in a small, rural community. But, along the way, you can’t predict the encounters that hit like insects on a car window at 70 mph.
Want to know how the Icon was born?
The idea was simple.
Create a community news source available to everyone. Put another way, make it a rare medium that’s well done.
It must be website accessible and archived so anyone can view any of the posts at no charge.
(In 2009 newspapers frantically tried to figure out how to create the above.)
There was no owner’s manual for this concept. So, I sat down with Ryan Lowry, then an ONU student. We put our heads together and figured it out a way to make it work.
Ryan had the technical know-how. I had the news background. Chalk it up to Swiss ingenuity.
We invented the Icons.
There were several initial models for our idea. Should we…
1 - Make it available by subscription only
(too labor intensive)
2 - Make it a non-profit
(no money in it for me)
3 - Sell ads and make it available by subscription only
(still, too labor intensive)
4 - Sell ads and make it available to anyone at no charge.
(A gamble, but let’s give it a try)
These decisions flew around like those insects hitting the car window.
Meanwhile, the site's premise remained:
• Its primary focus is local news, written in a professional journalistic style.
• It must be able to step aside from straight news and offer its own opinion, when if feels it is necessary to do so.
• It must develop a kinship with viewers allowing them to feel that they, too, are part of the Icon team.
• It must carry an element of humor, remind the community of its own history, celebrate community milestones, the people making those milestones, and provide a photographic and video presence of the community.
• It must provide a platform for affordably-priced advertising for any business – starting as low as one dollar a day.
• It must promote local advertisers and the idea to shop local.
• It must try to provide the owner a way to make a living on all the above.
Oh, and then there’s the issue of what to call it.
I compiled a list of some of the most god-awful names you can imagine: The Blufftonian, and The Adaite for starters. History lost the other 30.
Next, I did what men aren’t taught to do. I read the names to my wife, Mary. After she picked herself off the floor laughing (actually snorting), I recall her response, something like, “You idiot. Call it the Icon.”
It was as if lightning had struck. That’s the short version…the rest is history.
The Bluffton Icon launched on Sept. 23, 2009, on our youngest daughter, Anne’s birthday, so we could remember the date.
The Ada Icon launched on the Ides of March 2012, so we could remember the date.
Both started with zero viewers. Today the combined Icons experience about 25,000 individual viewers in a 30-day period.
Why journalism?
By profession, I’m a journalist. After graduating from Bluffton High School in 1968 I attended Bluffton College my freshman year and lived at home – to save money.
I bought my first camera, a Mamiya Sekor DTL 500 (film camera) with a shutter speed up to 500th of a second. It came with a 50 mm lens, probably an f 3.2. Total cost around $500. It was a gem. And expensive.
My original plan was to be a radio disc jockey and or/TV news commentator. I wanted to become the next Eric Sevareid. I had a low voice and lots of opinions.
When I transferred to BGSU as a sophomore I met 50 other guys with lower voices than mine and each had more opinions that I had.
The writing on the wall occurred in a 400-level English creative writing course. I wish I could remember the name of the grad student instructor. I owe her because her teaching instructions changed my writing life. The book we used was "Elements of Style," by William Strunk and E.B. White. You know E.B. as the author Charlette's Web.
I graduated from Bowling Green State University in 1972. My career includes editorship of the Pandora Times, Berne (Indiana) Daily Witness and Bluffton News, with side stints at CSS Publishing, Bluffton College, Goshen College and Big Brothers Big Sisters, prior to conceiving the Icons.
Journalism is a noble career, protected by the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A lot of people don’t understand that.
Those who don’t understand it think that anyone can write. They are somewhat correct. Writing is easy. Just stare at a blank computer screen until beads of blood form on your forehead.
But, they also think they know all the rules covering journalism better than I know them. They are somewhat incorrect.
Sort of like, anyone can doctor, teach, farm, or be a plumber.
But, that’s okay because doctors, teachers, farmers and plumbers, like me, understand most non-thinkers think that they, too, can do those jobs. It’s a common mistake. And, sometime we forgive give them.
The late Charles Hilty, who was a Bluffton News editor who rose to become the night editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, inspired my own interest in journalism, specifically community journalism.
The idea of writing about town characters who thought they owned Main Street, and those on the other side of the Riley with letters behind their name, intrigued me. Really intrigued me.
I also like to watch town events unfold. And, I get leads on story ideas whenever I’m in the public domain. Especially at places like the farmers’ market, the sideline of a Bluffton High School football game and while sitting in a church pew.
I’d like to share a sampling of these experiences with you. Some are true.
• I once confronted a Lyndon Larouche supporter. He had a large poster of then-President Obama wearing a Hitler mustache. This guy was seated in front of the Bluffton post office. You probably remember this. He sought petitions for some off-the-wall cause.
It was my civic duty as a journalist to call this guy out by saying that Mr. Larouche was jailed due to tax fraud. His response was: “Martin Luther King was also jailed.” I told the guy to go to #%$$, and walked off.
• Everyone has great ideas for April Fool’s stories. Problems come with these great ideas conceived from the maddening crowd.
For example, a viewer suggested I write that the village will allow residents to shoot Canada geese one day each year.
Can you envision that? Someone would probably end up shot and someone else would end up in court. Either one of the two scenarios would be me.
Parenthetically, I posted a photo of Canada geese swimming in the Buckeye. A viewer asked me how I knew they were Canadian.
Concerning police news
Very early in my journalist career a pizza shop that no longer exists experienced an employee slugfest. Probably over a girl.
• Here’ a paraphrase of the police report: Police broke up a fight between two employees. One bite off a portion of the other employee’s finger. After I read that report I stopped ordering pizza from that establishment.
• Can’t recall where I heard this one – probably in a church pew…way too interesting to forget, and I only believe the first part of the story. I heard that a Bluffton taxpayer, delinquent in paying village income tax, was arrested, taken to the Allen County pokey, strip searched and jailed for an entire weekend. That version claimed the taxes due was about 25 bucks.
• Another version, probably more accurate, stated papers were served to this individual after five certified letters were sent over a two-year period with no response from the taxpayer. And, the amount due was four figures, not two. Quite honestly I never followed up to see if there was really a pre-paid holiday weekend in a large building on Lima’s Main Street.
• I once took a photo of a 20-foot python (a dead one) that two guys claimed was ready to pounce on them while it was alive.
“We were down by the creek and heard a rustle in the bushes and this python appeared, so we shot it.” (Something to that affect).
The only reason I agreed to take the photo was because I worried they might take it to the Lima News where it would show up on the front page.
After posting it, just to ease my mind, I conferred with several wildlife officials. They assured me that these guys probably had the snake in their bathtub. It no doubt outgrew the tub, so they took nature into their own hands.
• A man demanded I write a column identifying, by name, the township snowplow crew who tore up his rural country fence during a heavy snowfall. I suggested, instead, that he take it up with the township trustees. His response: “So, they bought you off, too!” (Without a doubt.)
• I wrote a story about the public library and left off the letter “l.” I think this increased patron visits the next week.
• I wrote a story about a chicken barbecue, but typed the word “children” in place of chicken. That brought the house down.
• I posted a story by an elementary student writing about his summer vacation on Mackinaw Island. The spell checker changed it to “Maniac” Island. Some vacation.
• Someone once suggested I interview a woman who had a newspaper obituary collection saved in wallpaper sample books going back to the 1930s. It wasn’t clear, which was more unusual, the collection or the wallpaper books. I politely declined.
• Another suggested I write an editorial demanding people who place large rocks at the corners of their property remove them. Safety hazard.
• And, another offered to write a story about a guy in town (no longer living) and name him because he was an extremely colorful character and he had a drinking problem. Turned that one down also.
• I wrote a story about a kid who went on a mission trip to Europe one summer. I asked him how much money he raised for the trip and printed the amount in the story. His parents called me. They chewed me out for listing the price of the trip. They thought it was nobody’s business.
• Later that summer I interviewed another youth who did the same thing. I was careful not to ask how much the trip cost. His parents called me and chewed me out for not mentioning how much the kid raised for the trip. They thought it was everyone’s business.
Sure, there’s lots more I could tell, and you’ll have to wait on the creation of my blog.
