Episode 57 - Bob's Goodbye
This episode of the Top of Main Podcast marks the end of one chapter for the News Letter Journal — and the beginning of another.
Publisher Bob Bonnar is joined by Editor-in-Chief Alexis Barker and photojournalist and videographer Walter Sprague for a candid conversation about some significant changes taking place at the newspaper. After nearly 40 years of telling Weston County’s stories, Bob announces that he is stepping away from most of his day-to-day NLJ responsibilities — including hosting this podcast — as he begins a new career teaching digital media at Durango High School. He’ll remain the newspaper’s owner and publisher and continue working to sustain its public-service mission through grants and the Unabridged Fund, but the daily work of covering Newcastle and Weston County is increasingly being handed to the next generation.
And the timing makes the transition particularly interesting. Alexis is preparing for maternity leave, leaving Walter, Kim Dean, Katie Williamson and the rest of the NLJ crew to keep the newspaper, website, NEWC Now, social media and meeting coverage moving forward. The three talk openly about the difficult economics facing a small-town newspaper, why the NLJ simply cannot afford to temporarily replace Alexis, and why readers may notice some differences over the next several weeks.
But this isn’t a funeral for the News Letter Journal — or Top of Main. Walter and Alexis intend to keep the podcast alive, and the conversation becomes a reflection on why it was created in the first place: to pull back the curtain on how the newspaper covers difficult stories, provide context that doesn’t always fit into a traditional news article, connect the dots between public meetings and decisions, and give readers a better understanding of what their local newspaper does and why it does it.
There’s plenty of uncertainty ahead, but there’s also confidence in the people who will carry the work forward. After seven years of proving the News Letter Journal could survive without Bob physically living in Weston County, it’s time for another experiment: discovering what the newspaper — and this podcast — can become when he finally lets go of the microphone.
Check us out at newslj.com to keep tabs on this story, or for more news from Newcastle, Weston County and the Black Hills of northeast Wyoming!