Blog offers new view on demise of Arkansas Gazette

As our local newspaper war seems to be coming to a close, the historic war between the Arkansas Gazette and the Arkansas Democrat is again being relived. This time, though, through the voice of an apparent former Gazette ad man.

The accounts come by way of a new blog titled “The Arkansas Newspaper War: The untold story of how the Arkansas Gazette lost the battle” located at demgazwar.blogspot.com.

From the opening post:

The newspaper war between the Arkansas Gazette and the Arkansas Democrat has been documented largely from the editorial perspective while the more relevant story has yet to be told from the vantage of those responsible for generating the revenue.

The blog’s author, “Gazette Adman,” appears to have worked in classified, retail and management and offers a first-hand look at life inside the newspaper from 1970 to the closing of the doors in 1991.

A story not untold

The story of the Arkansas Gazette has been told many times over.

Shortly after the newspaper’s demise, Arkansas Business published a two–part series of essays by longtime Arkansas Gazette writers and editors in response to the fact that no formal final edition of the newspaper was allowed to be printed.

In 2006, Donna Lampkin Stephens, a former Arkansas Gazette writer and current journalism lecturer at the University of Central Arkansas, unveiled a documentary film titled “The Old Gray Lady: Arkansas’s First Newspaper.” Stephens produced the Kevin Clark-directed film which follows the newspaper’s history – from its founding to its buyout by the Arkansas Democrat.

Earlier this year, former Arkansas Gazette reporter Roy Reed released a book, “Looking Back at the Arkansas Gazette: An Oral History.” Reed is also the project director of the UA Special Collection Department’s Arkansas Gazette Project which includes over one hundred interviews with former Gazette employees collected to preserve the history of the newspaper.