From those surveys, I discovered some patterns that remained consistent from year to year throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
Only one-fourth of the readers are particularly interested in sports. And while that was much lower than some other areas of the newspaper, there were still excellent reasons to offer extensive sports coverage.
Though the number of those reading sports was low, a large percentage of that group kept taking the paper only because of the sports.
It was also an audience that was attractive to certain advertisers and sports always included a number of events that could be used for special sections or pages filled with advertising, such as salutes to championship teams, tournament previews and homecoming pages.
The same thing was true with food sections. Though they were not widely read, those who liked them liked them a lot and attracted advertising.
Local news always did well on these surveys, but different people looked for different types of news. Some wanted to read news about local city or county government, while others gravitated toward the crime and courts coverage.
Strong local columns were always at the top of the list. Mine usually ranked as the most liked and the most disliked, but about 95 percent of the readers were reading them.
The most widely read regular feature in both newspapers, survey after survey, was the obituary page, followed closely by news of the major events in our lives including weddings, anniversaries, births, marriage licenses and dissolutions.
There was a time when there was a story in the newspaper on every person who died and those stories kept readers returning day after day, year after year.
The Joplin Globe was the first newspaper in this area, if memory serves correctly, to start charging for publishing obituaries. Instead of obituaries being news, they were only news if the family of the deceased had money or if they were willing to pay.
It was not long before nearly every other newspaper began charging, not just for obituaries, but for birth announcements, weddings, engagements and everything else that once provided steady readership for newspapers.
Many reasons have been given for the decline in newspaper readership, but this one has to be one of the top reasons. As newspapers began to charge for the news of everyday life, the number of obituaries, wedding announcements and engagements running on their pages dropped and so did the connections people have with the newspapers.
People who used to eagerly await the Globe Sunday edition to see the weddings and engagements, not only had no reason to look unless they were among those who had friends and neighbors willing to pay an excessive amount so their news can be printed.
The Sunday edition was no longer that special.
In their quest for another way to milk a few more dollars out of their customers, the Globe and other area newspapers drove a permanent wedge between themselves and their communities.
The beginning of Inside Joplin Obituaries
After the Joplin Tornado, I made an immediate decision that I would print every obituary of those who died that day or who died from injuries suffered during the tornado.
It was something that I felt was important to do because the lives of these 161 people needed to be recognized, as well as their passing. Considering my previous experience with surveys showing the readership on obituaries, I shouldn't have been surprised by the positive reaction these stories brought, but I was.
It was at that point that I began thinking about creating a blog to cover area obituaries, a place where every obituary could run free of charge and not one dime would be taken from grieving families. At that time, however, it was not feasible for me to do this due to the time it would take. I was still teaching at Joplin East Middle School and would be for almost another two years after the tornado.
When my teaching career ended and I had to decide what I would be doing, I eventually decided to create a series of blogs that would correspond with the different areas of a newspaper.
In November 2013, I launched four blogs to join the Turner Report, which had been around since October 2003.
Inside Joplin was designed to be a repository for bulletin board type news- press releases, police blotter information, records like marriage licenses, dissolutions, bankruptcies, and police, sherfif's office and Highway Patrol arrests. The blog initially covered news from Jasper, Newton, Barton and McDonald counties and has now expanded to cover southeast Kansas.
Inside the Ozarks (now Inside Springfield) covers the area outside the Inside Joplin area into the Springfield and Branson region
Turner Resports has primarily become a place to chronicle Missouri Southern athletics, but it is also used for other sports items that I come across while making my internet rounds, or which are sent to me.
The fourth blog was the one I had been thinking about since after the tornado. I started Inside Joplin Obituaries, at first thinking I would restrict it to just that- obituaries that were connected to Joplin- but I changed my mind even before it began publishing.
I decided to include obituaries connected to all of Jasper County, plus Newton, Barton and McDonald counties. Eventually, I added Lockwood in Dade County because I lived there in 1979 when I was the last editor of the Lockwood Luminary-Golden City Herald . Eventually, I started the Inside Pittsburg Obituaries website to cover southeast Kansas obits, even though some of those will run only in Inside Joplin Obituaries if there is a connection to the four southwest Missouri counties.
As this is being written, Inside Joplin Obituaries has featured the life stories of 8,621 people in five years and four months.
At first, I was signing up right and left for e-mail lists from funeral homes and kept adding homes from southeast Kansas, northeast Oklahoma and northwest Arkansas to get some of those I missed.
I faithfully read the weekly KOM League newsletter from Carthage native John Hall and picked up on obituaries of people who briefly became a part of this area when they played for Carthage or Jopln minor league baseball teams in the 1940s and 1950s.
I was surprised when funeral homes began contacting me and asking if they could put obituaries on the blog. A couple even asked how much I charged and were surprised to learn I did it for free. I received some obituaries directly from the families.
As I read through 8,621 obituaries, I recognized the names of a lot of people I was grateful I had the opportunity to meet. More often, I found out about people I never met, but after reading about them, I realized how much I would have liked to have met them.
Sometimes I have reached slightly outside of my coverage area to bring obituaries of people who were not necessarily connected to people in the four counties, but maybe to something that happened here.
I ran obituaries of the two Barry County residents who were killed by a drunk driver in Granby and another Barry County man who was executed by the state of Missouri for a murder he committed.
He was not one of those I would have wanted to meet.
As much as I like doing the investigative stories and the political coverage on the Turner Report, I wonder sometimes if what I am doing with Inside Joplin Obituaries may eventually be considered a more valuable service.
When I first began posting the links on Facebook, I had a person drop me as a Facebook friend that day, complaining that she did not want all of these stories about dead people cluttering up her news. I was afraid others were follow her example, and perhaps they did, but she was the only one who ever complained.
It takes a good amount of time each day trying to make sure I get as many of these obituaries as possible, but it is something I plan to continue doing.
Amanda Sharp and Edna King
Two of this week's 10 most visited obituaries offer examples of people who made their most of their time, though in entirely different ways.
Amanda Sharp, a teacher at Stapleton Elementary, was only 35 when she died, but she had a profound impact on so many lives during her short time. Often Inside Joplin Obituaries readers are drawn to stories of people who died much too young.
But it is not always the young whose stories interest the readers.
Edna King was one of those obituaries that I normally would not have printed. She was from neighboring Barry County and had no connection to the four-county area, but she had a compelling story. Mrs. King lived to be 105 years old, said her biggest regret was retiring at age 90 and was survived by an older sister, who is 106.
Who could resist that story?
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The Turner Report, Inside Joplin and Inside Joplin Obituaries, provide news, opinion, investigative reporting and free obituaries. If you appreciate what these websites do, day after day, month after month, year after year, consider making a donation of any amount at the PayPal button below or send your contribution to Randy Turner, 2306 E. 8th, Apt. A, Joplin, MO 64801
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The Victoria's Secret, Foot Locker, Old Navy closings
I apparently created a bit of a panic earlier this week when I ran a story detailing the decisions of Victoria's Secret, Foot Locker and Old Navy to close stores across the U. S.
As of yet, they have not announced which specific stores will close, so I ran a post on the Turner Report noting that no information had been given on whether this would affect the stores at Joplin's Northpark Mall.
Unfortunately, I ran a photo of Northpark Mall with the post and when I posted the link on my personal Facebook page and on the Inside Joplin Facebook page, the whole headline did not show up so many people began sharing it with the idea that those stores were all closing at the mall.
I apologize for my contribution to the rumor mill. That was definitely not what I intended.
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The most visited posts this week on the Turner Report, Inside Joplin and Inside Joplin Obituaries and links to those posts are featured below.
Turner Report
1. Victoria's Secret, Old Navy, Foot Locker announce store closings, no word on whether Northpark Mall stores to close
2. Joplin man pleads guilty to molesting 12-year-old Oklahoma girl
3. Bank employee who embezzled $94,000, gambled, had hair done, planned to flee to Mexico, indicted, pleads guilty
4. Diamond church director charged with felony child molestation, statutory sodomy, claims "the devil uses me"
5. The truth about my latest 911 call
6. Joplin R-8 Board splits 4-2 on accepting high school principal's resignation
7. Remembering Amanda Sharp
8. Hurts Donut CEO indicates plans to remain in Joplin despite local franchise closing
9. The tips that led to the Larry Edens and Tiffany Alaniz stories, 1,200 pages of Joplin R-8-FEMA documents and this week's top posts
10, Judge orders man with 25-year-history of sexually abusing children held without bond
Inside Joplin
1. Ozarks Drug Enforcement Team arrests three at Lamar home, meth, marijuana, gun confiscated
2. Woman arrested on Jasper County felony warrant learns valuable lesson- Never give police a fake identity who also has outstanding warrants
3. Man arrested for DWI, meth possession after rear-ending Joplin Police Department vehicle
4. Diamond man arrested in connection with burglaries in the McDonald County area
5. Jasper County Dissolution of Marriage Petitions
6. National Weather Service advisory- Wind chills to dip to 10 to 15 below zero tonight
7. Woman airlifted to Freeman after being found in ditch on U. S. 69, driver claims she jumped out of vehicle
8. Joplin Police Department Arrests March 5-6
9. Newton County Dissolution of Marriage Petitions
10. Highway Patrol Arrests March 2-3
Inside Joplin Obituaries
1. Irine Hight
2. Katie Calvin
3. Amanda Sharp
4. Edna King
5. Deanna Grotheer
6. Wayne Adkins
7. Bert Holloway
8. Steve Glover
9. Richard Ott
10, Maria Hernandez
1 comment:
I appreciate your reporting, including the obituaries.
Thank you
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