Hello, fellow newspaper folk. Welcome to what may be a wild ride. I’m Peggy Scott, publisher at Leader Publications, and I’ll be your tour guide and MPA president as we embark on a series of adventures in 2025. This year may be many things, but I predict it will not be boring.
We start with a big change in the Missouri Press Association team. Chad Stebbins has joined us as the new MPA executive director. Don’t worry. Chad has years of experience in the industry, and you’ll learn more about him in an upcoming edition of Missouri Press News.
Plus, our retiring MPA leader, Mark Maassen, will remain close by to help Chad with the transition and to support us. Mark joins Doug Crews, Mark’s predecessor, to maintain the strength of our organization. It’s a job worth doing right.
Bonus plus, a retirement celebration is being planned for Mark for later this month.
I feel fortunate to follow Amos Bridges as MPA’s president. He deftly guided us through a year and a half of changes and has promised to stick around. He is leading MPA’s new Legislative Committee. Thank you, Amos.
You can read a little more about me in the story that MPA editor Matthew Barba prepared for this edition. I’m always shocked when people seem interested in my origin story. One of the reasons I love being a journalist is because, at heart, I’m really a pretty boring person. Everyone I interview seems far more interesting or more passionate than me.
As a reporter, I get to learn about someone or something interesting, delightful, outrageous or just plain wrong. Then I get to tell everyone else. Often our journalism rights the wrong, stops the bad guy or moves people in the community to make a difference. It’s the perfect job.
Over four decades in the business, my passion for our industry has grown. I’m now steering the ship of a four-newspaper group near St. Louis. I like to say the Leader is the unicorn of newspapers. Few do local news like we do. We are locally owned. Our news coverage is hyper-local.
Our papers are delivered free to readers via the United State Post Office. We utilize a requester mailing permit.
We hold events. We think of things to make our communities better and to make our product stronger, and then we do it. We are a start-up, a rag-tag group of newspaper believers who think doing things a little differently makes sense. Our readers and advertisers agree and have made us a strong part of the communities we serve since we launched in 1994.
As Matthew prepared his story, he asked me for some photos. I pored through pictures from the past and learned something about myself. While I may be a little boring, based on the pictures I found, I also smile and laugh – a lot. Don’t let my grin fool you. Happy doesn’t equal weak, complacent or satisfied. I’m not always pleased with the state of things in our community or our industry. I’m not afraid of a fight.
My MPA friends, I hope we find a way to band together in good humor with strong convictions to face the foes together. Hold on to your hats and let’s get started.
You can get some immediate affirmation about the state of our industry by attending Missouri Press Association’s Day at the Capitol on Jan. 23 in Jefferson City. The day gives news folks the opportunity to meet with legislators on their turf instead of ours.
Often reporters, editors and publishers talk with legislators via email, phone calls and texts, at press conferences or at fundraisers. They come to our offices and to events in our communities. The dynamic is different when we go to the Capitol.
The first year I attended, I was skeptical that spending a day in Jefferson City would be beneficial. I was wrong. The small contingent from the Leader had a chance to see our local legislators in their “natural habitat.”
The legislators representing Jefferson County and our coverage area were genuinely happy that we made the trek. They showed us features of the historic Capitol building, introduced us on the House floor, took photos with us and revealed legislation they were working on that if passed would impact our local community.
We learned the best way to reach our legislators while they are in session, even while they are on the floor. We got a first-hand glance at the pace of work at the Capitol.
It’s important that our state legislators know who we are. We need to tell our own story about the value of local news in our communities. Journalism done by real journalists and delivered by trusted news sources is key to maintaining democracy. The work we do on behalf of voters can’t be replaced by a social media account or a website. We know that. They need to understand also.
The first step is to introduce yourselves to the politicians who govern our state. The Day at the Capitol makes that step easy. In addition to signing up with MPA, I recommend you schedule appointments with your legislators for that day. Bring copies of your papers. Show the legislators what we do and why they should care about local journalism.