THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINE • Fall 2018 19 TheCoastalBend.com Editor The Eulogy of Daily News Media Fall 2018 S hortly after William Kinney founded Corpus Christi in 1839, the Star and the Gazette began publishing in the 1840’s. The city’s third newspaper was the Caller, founded in 1883 by Eli Merri- man, Ed Williams, and W. P. Caruthers. The paper was named after the San Francisco Call, which survived in print through nu- merous mergers and acquisitions, for 109 years. One of the Corpus Christi Caller’s original shareholders was Richard King, and it was renamed the Caller and Daily Herald after a merger in 1910. The Corpus Christi Daily Democrat was purchased by state legislator and local developer W. E. Pope in 1917 and renamed the Times. Newspapermen Houston Harte from San Angelo and Bernard Hanks of Abilene formed a partnership called the Harte-Hanks Company that first purchased the Times, and then the Caller from the King Ranch. The Corpus Christi Caller-Times was established in 1929 and has been pub- lished every day since. After Houston Harte passed control of the paper to his son, Edward, Harte-Hanks Communications rose to prominence as one of the country’s most successful publishers, eventually owning and operating over 30 medium- sized daily newspapers throughout the South, mostly in Texas, and dozens of week- lies throughout the U.S. Even as the company grew, the Caller-Times remained its flagship newspaper and for decades printed both morning (The Caller) and evening (The Times) editions. Our newspaper grew not because it was a monopoly or goliath in the market. It grew because it was a damned good newspaper—it was well-reported, well-writ- ten, well-edited and well-printed. The paper was delivered on time; its distribution systems were efficient and reliable, and; it had a good and professional advertising department, the lifeblood of any media operation. In its heyday, our newspaper boasted a combined daily circulation of over 80,000 and over 100,000 on Sundays. To celebrate its centennial in 1983, the Caller-Times donated Wind in the Sails, the magnificent bronze sailfish sculpture on N. Shoreline Blvd. created by the world’s most acclaimed real-life sculptor, and Corpus Christi resident, Kent Ullberg. As publisher of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Ed Harte was a prominent and outspoken voice in favor of the preservation of coastal environments—he deserves as much credit as anyone for the fact that the vast majority of coastal land, along the Gulf and on the bays and estuaries south of Port Lavaca, is not spoiled with industrial development. Harte led the effort to establish the Padre Island National Seashore and Mustang Island State Park, and even after his retirement from the newspaper in 1987, he continued to write a regular column in support of future preservation efforts. Ed Harte’s commitment to the health of Texas coastal environments reached far beyond his spoken and written opinions. He gave over $70 million to social, educational and environment causes in the Coastal Bend, including a $46 million endowment that established the Harte Research Institute at Texas A&M Corpus Christi. He and his brother, Houston H. Harte, donated their 66,000-acre West Texas ranch to the Nature Conservancy, which became part of Big Bend National Park shortly thereafter. The annual migration of Whooping Cranes to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge led Harte to his involvement with the National Audubon Society, which he eventually led as chairman of its board. He was awarded the group’s highest honor, the Audubon Medal, in 2000. Edward H. Harte died at his retirement home in Maine in 2011, at age 88. By 1997 Harte-Hanks Communications sold the last of its newspapers to com- panies that included News Corporation and E. W. Scripps, which purchased the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. Its digital edition was launched in 1995 and by the end of the century, daily circulation averaged 66,000 with 88,000 on Sunday. Over the ensuing two decades, the digital media revolution, fueled by the evolution of broad- band technology, has had as great an impact on print media as on any industry—and the speed at which existing print operated seemed to match the speed of its decline. That is to say that daily news was replaced first with desktop websites, and then mobile sites, mobile apps and social media. Traditional glossy magazines took it next. As ad dollars had more places to go, and the impact of digital media became increasingly cost-effective, glossy monthlies had to adjust their content and their pitch to advertisers or face extinction. Magazines like the one you are reading now have to deliver great, free content and wide distribution in order to attract and maintain an audience of readers. You are not expected to pay $2 for this publication, but we are counting on you holding onto it for a while, and that you will find a business or two within our pages that you will support with your dollars. For the advertisers, as long as we provide a good service and new customers at an affordable cost, they will continue to advertise, and we will continue to grow. More than one source has told us that the average circulation of the Corpus Christi Caller- Times daily edition is now less than 7,000, and we cannot find anyone who seems surprised by that number. We can tell you that our personal experience as a brief (very brief) printing client this past summer was a remarkable one indeed. It is hard to imagine how more amateur mistakes could be made on one simple printing job than those of the Caller-Times these days, but the sad feeling is that the folks who remain there have all but checked out—as though a dark cloud is loom- ing, and the villagers know what’s coming next. The decline and anticipated demise of the Caller-Times can be chalked up to corporatization. As the pressures of digital began to eat up ad dol- lars in the 2000’s, Scripps-Howard Newspapers did their best to adjust, and where their efforts failed, they just starved the beast. To a company that was growing by leaps and bounds via its cable TV division (Food Network, DIY, HGTV and others), Scripps put their limited newspaper investment into major markets big enough to save, and Corpus Christi was not among them. Today the Caller-Times is owned by Gannett and is part of the USA Today network of newspapers and websites. Local service, from advertising sales and marketing, to subscriptions and even obituaries, are handled at corporate offices far from here. Editorial is created by a small band of hardy, local reporters taking their own photos and doing the best they can with what they have. Any metro area of our size is expected to have a good, daily newspaper—but there are no guarantees, and after a decade or more of very little love from its owners, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times could very well be headed the way of the Dodo. The one function that it does somewhat well is perpetual, daily news, via its website and mobile app—but it’s really hard to tell what is being missed because there is no inflow of information from the community via social media, which is how news becomes news these days. More news, not less, could be generated by thousands of amateur reporters spread across the Coastal Bend, eager to tell their stories to a clearing house that then disseminates it to the masses. Wow—there might be a decent idea wedged in there somewhere. —The Editor Edward H. Harte Caller-Times Publisher 1962-1987