Missouri Press Association
Serving Missouri Newspapers Since 1867
Nothing is worse than a community losing its newspaper. That appeared to be the case in Plattsburg earlier this summer, when Honeycutt Media closed The Clinton County Leader after the June 19 issue.
Publisher Jamey Honeycutt warned of the paper’s demise in his June 12 column. “The paper is in trouble folks,” he wrote. “I’m not gonna pull any punches. Advertising and reader interest have been waning for decades, but I was hopeful that community papers might find success with hyper-local coverage like what Brett and Steve had been providing, despite their struggles.”
Fortunately, the residents of Plattsburg, Lathrop, and Gower missed only one issue – June 26 – before Steve and Sue Tinnen reacquired The Clinton County Leader from Jamey and D’Anna Honeycutt. It was the first time in 130 years that the paper had missed a publication week.
The Tinnens had sold it to the Honeycutts in 2021 in order to spend more time with their children, Liz and Jimmy, and granddaughter, Maddie. Little did they know that they would be getting it back.
“I was in a position to take the paper back over and could afford to get it back on its feet,” Steve said. “We had thought about Brett [Adkison] taking it over, but he wasn’t interested in ownership at the time.”
Adkison, the editor, is a 2014 recipient of the William E. James Outstanding Young Journalist award from the Missouri Press Association. He has worked at The Leader since 2008 and has won close to 50 MPA awards.
Tinnen says Adkison is a workhorse who writes a majority of the stories and produces eight pages singlehandedly each week. He calls him “an amazing human being.”
Adkison returned the affection, writing in his July 3 column: “God bless Steve and Sue Tinnen. Just one week after its untimely demise, The Clinton County Leader is back in your hands, and we have the Tinnens to thank. I won’t dive too far into the details, but trust me when I say it would have been far easier (and plenty lucrative) for Steve and Sue to leave The Leader to its fate.”
But Steve just couldn’t stand by and watch 130 years of history come to an abrupt end. The paper had been in his family since 1969, when his father, Skip, sold his very profitable school bus contracting business and bought The Leader on a whim. Steve and Sue took over the paper in 2001.
“It was the right thing to do,” Steve says of saving The Leader. “People were thankful and responded. Betty Dickinson is coming back to be our bookkeeper and do the legals. Kari and Keith Stayton, retired teachers, will do our circulation and delivery. Autumn Barnett will be doing graphics.”
Steve, a 2021 inductee into the Missouri Newspaper Hall of Fame, takes photos and writes stories and a weekly column, “What’s the Shape of the World?” He has now written 1,360 columns, dating back to when he became publisher in 2001. He continues to operate the Plattsburg License Office as his side hustle.
The Leader will emphasize coverage of Plattsburg (the county seat), Lathrop, and Gower, which have a combined population of 6,150. Previously, the paper had covered Cameron, a city of 8,500 located 25 miles to the northeast on I-35.
“Our readers don’t care about Cameron news,” Tinnen said. “We’re going back to the basics.”
The paper’s circulation was only 300 when he reacquired it. His goal is 1,200 to 1,500 subscribers.
“We’ll go slow,” he said. “We were able to keep the paper’s legal status. I’m proud of that. We’ll see where it leads.”
Hundreds of communities across the country aren’t as fortunate as Plattsburg. They can’t “break glass” and pull out a Steve Tinnen to rescue their papers. We’ll try to figure out if he can be cloned.
