The Daily News in Longview will never be the same after the retirement Friday of Andre Stepankowsky, who covered Southwest Washington news for 41 years, first as a reporter and then as city editor.
He’ll still be writing occasional columns and helping on a part-time basis until the newspaper finds someone to fill what are bound to be big shoes.
After leaving The Daily Chronicle in 1987, I worked as a reporter alongside Andre, an energetic man with a New York accent who helped The Daily News win a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of Mount St. Helens’ 1980 eruption.
Call him Mr. Volcano, because whatever happened to Mount St. Helens, he wrote about it — for decades. And, if you ever rode in a car with him, he could erupt like a volcano when other motorists maneuvered into his path.
Later, when I served as assistant city editor, Andre remained tireless in pursuing stories, pinning down sources, and asking questions to ferret out the truth. I learned a lot from him as a reporter, editor, colleague, and friend before leaving the newspaper in 2000 to start my personal history business.
During the past two decades, Andre has shepherded newspaper coverage with a constantly dwindling staff and mentored eager young reporters fresh from college, launching them into their journalism careers. Many of those he mentored shared their appreciation for his guidance during a Zoom retirement party Saturday.
When I started at The Daily News, when the late Ted Natt served as publisher, the newsroom consisted of nearly 35 people, including three photographers. By last fall, when I prepared a workshop presentation for the Southwest Washington Writers Conference, Andre told me the newsroom staff had dwindled to 15.
The same holds true at other newspapers. Editor Doug Barker at The Daily World in Aberdeen recalled when 23 people worked in his newsroom; last fall that number had dropped to eight. When I worked at the Chronicle, the newsroom staff topped 20 compared with the handful working there now. It’s not just Washington either. Newsroom employment nationwide dropped 40 percent between 1994 and 2014, according to The Washington Post.
Smaller newsrooms are training grounds to launch people into journalism careers. My old professor, Bill Johnston, said reporters should keep moving every 18 months to two years to keep climbing the career ladder.
Unless you fall in love with your community, as Andre did, or marry someone who stays put.
Andre described his view of journalism in his farewell column Sunday.
“This is no mere job,” he wrote. “It is a sacred trust so essential to our freedom. It’s also something of a narcotic that you love and hate, crave and resist. It embraces you with self-satisfaction and squeezes you with despair and self-loathing — often on the same day — if you’re lucky enough to have a passion for it.
“You have to give it everything you’ve got. You must accept the stress, the deadlines, the uncooperative sources, the angry readers, the dense editors and the sleepless nights wondering about your latest story in exchange for the thrill of seeing your work and byline in print and knowing that, somewhere, it makes a difference.”
I admire Andre for sticking so long with the newspaper industry. His passion and pursuit of the truth never wavered. As he said, “Journalists often say they want to change the world for the better. I’ve always hoped that my stories made people better and more informed. And in turn I feel like they have made me a better and wiser person.”
He quoted Thomas Jefferson saying that if he had to choose between government without newspapers and newspapers without government, he would choose the latter.
As staffs shrink and newspapers shutter doors, I worry about what will happen to the traditional watchdog role of the press. The Chronicle’s editor, Natalie Johnson, did a terrific job in that role as a reporter and continues to question sources as an editor. I don’t know if she’ll stay 41 years, though. Columnist Brittany Voie asked tough questions of Commissioner Bobby Jackson and his refusal to wear a mask during a pandemic, despite Gov. Jay Inslee’s mandate to do so, jeopardizing the health of coworkers and putting the county at risk of receiving a fine from the state Department of Labor and industries.
It’s a tough time for the newspaper industry, especially small community newspapers, which are indispensable for providing adequate local news coverage.
That’s why I found it so disconcerting to read recent posts on Facebook from Alicia Bull, executive director of the Centralia-Chehalis Chamber of Commerce, criticizing The Chronicle, which pays dues to the chamber, for the contents of one of Voie’s recent columns. She’s entitled to her opinion, but publicly criticizing a chamber member seems contrary to the purpose of her job.
When I was a reporter, I kept my opinions to myself in an effort to maintain objectivity in news stories. When first asked to write a column, I couldn’t imagine voicing my opinions publicly. After more than a dozen years, it’s become much easier although I prefer to share local history tidbits.
Most of the editors I spoke with a year ago held a pessimistic view of the future of newspapers. Circulation peaked in the mid-1980s and dropped 50 percent from the 1950s to 2018, when it hit the lowest level in seven decades, according to the Pew Research Center. In 1961, 80 percent of people said they read a newspaper; by 2012, that number had plunged to 29 percent.
If newspapers disappear, who will hold public officials accountable? The news media’s mantra has been to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Who will perform those roles in the future with the passion Andre exhibited for decades at The Daily News?
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Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo who worked 20 years as a newspaper reporter and editor, may be reached chaptersoflife1999@gmail.com.
