The devil is in the details, the saying goes. In the 11th hour before Moonshine’s inaugural edition, my business partner, Anne Grogan, and I were busy scratching our heads, fumbling for answers to questions that we had never contemplated before or even knew existed: What font should headlines be? How can we get that advertiser to proof his ad? What does the press mean by signatures? The deadline crush had pulled us in abruptly, as if we had swum past a dam’s “DANGER” ropes. The strong, swift, and all-encompassing current swept us toward deadline day, imparting a single message: There is no turning back.
In the Beginning
After developing the business plan, the company logo and branding, the flavor we’d aspire to, and content for the first edition, we suddenly found ourselves in the throes of putting it all together. Getting to press was the goal; we hadn’t thought how we would get the end product back to Tahoe. With two small cars in our armada and a vision of 5,000 papers in a pile as big as a medium-sized bedroom, we scrambled to reserve a moving van, courtesy of the Schaller family real estate office.
There we were, having slept 10 hours in the past five days, rumbling down to Carson Valley in a moving van. When we got to the pressroom, we were led to our first run of Moonshine Ink. One glance told us the stack of papers would have fit in a Subaru Forester. With the papers loaded, there was still room for a disco party in the van. To the surprise of the press employees, we started rolling on the floor, laughing, with tears streaking our tired yet jubilant faces. We had much to learn about this grandiose venture of launching a newspaper.
The Reason
What made you do it? That’s the first question I get asked. It’s also the question I ask myself, almost daily. The answer isn’t static, but not much in life is.
From an early age, I was passionate about the written word and the power of storytelling. It’s incredible that humans can immerse themselves in worlds from millennia ago or thousands of miles away simply by reading some marks on a page, or more likely today, a screen.
An appreciation of the written word started me on this path, but what kept me at it, in the face of a “dying” industry, thriving competition in a small community, and lack of a secure pension plan?
It is an earnest drive, the desire to produce a thoughtful record of the local community that helps achieve self-understanding in an original and innovative format. Media is the fourth estate, the one given the task to oversee the overseers. True, the industry is in a time of flux, and people decry its tendency toward sensationalism, but it still serves a vital purpose in the world. Journalism, done right, is a heady balance of good research, quality writing and production, and an enduring snapshot of time. It gives context to our lives, a periscope outside of our living rooms to understand what the heck is going on out there, and yes, the daring to investigate the people who are given the power to rule.
Through it all, the litmus test is how readers react. Readers know when they’ve read something they can’t forget, when the information presented gives them a new perspective, or when they’ve unearthed a connection to something, or someone, else they’ve never felt before.
A 2010 survey conducted by the University of Missouri, Columbia for the National Newspaper Association reported that more than three-quarters of respondents said they read most or all of a local newspaper every week. Even as the industry recreates the newspaper model, the readership is still there, because we all connect through language and stories.
Over the years, the Moonshine stories that have stuck are the ones not found elsewhere: the 30-year memorial of the Squaw Valley Cable Car accident (by Robert Frohlich, see p. 15), the in-depth look at the high cost of Tahoe living, the multitude of reader-submission-based features, a showcase on Tahoe’s prevalent sticker culture, and most recently, the Tahoe Forest Hospital investigative report.
Why do we do it? The answer is that it needs to be done.
The Future
I ran across a blog recently titled “The Recovering Journalist.” The author spent 15 years as a print reporter/editor before delving into digital media in the early ’90s. During the past six years, he mourned the passing of an era and the stubbornness of an industry resistant to change. After deciding this year to return to journalism, he talks of delivering high quality journalism in “whatever form the audience wants it — from print to online to mobile to email to social networks to tablets,” all with the backing of strong business models.
That is the task before Moonshine Ink — to forge a new journalism while still holding true to the foundation of why we need it in the first place.
A friend sent me an article about an innovative paper, This Land, based in Tulsa, Okla., that is multi-platform, tech-savvy, and seemingly genuine to the core. Here’s what the founder had to say: “What we tend to think of as journalism is more this kind of civic custodian who is helping to rectify neglect and enhance the community through responsible reporting. That’s all well and good, but more ancient, more profound than that is the ability to tell stories.”
Today, after 10 years on the streets, Moonshine Ink now delivers 10,000 papers to more than 200 locations, from Incline Village to Tahoma, up to Truckee, and over to Reno. From the beginning, select articles have appeared in Spanish, a nod to our significant local Latino population and to America’s multicultural heritage. Having Spanish and English articles side by side also serves as a bridge for learning, both ways. Moonshine continues to cultivate an online Website and explore other digital mediums.
One final, important note: Only the place we call home could have summoned Moonshine. The potent combo of astonishing landscapes, hardy, passionate folk, and a ripe ground for new ideas make Tahoe an especially appropriate place for forging new territory.
Here’s to the good stories of the next generation.
