Sack the Journalists and Replace them with Bomber Pilots

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh says we need to "sack 90% of editors in publishing and get back to the fundamental job of journalists which, he says, is to be an outsider." I might add that those outsiders should be former combat bomber pilots.

Hersh went on to say:

“I would close down the news bureaus of the networks and let's start all over, tabula rasa. The majors, NBCs, ABCs, they won't like this – just do something different, do something that gets people mad at you, that's what we're supposed to be doing.”

That’s what the taxpayer trains B-52 pilots to do!

There's much more to this story than I'll reveal here, but my journey into journalism started in 1996 when the Democratic Party in Texas attempted to disenfranchise the voting rights of 800 absentee military voters in Val Verde County. I was a T-38 instructor pilot at Laughlin AFB then, and also a partner in the start-up ISP called DelRio.com.

I went to the local newspaper and asked the publisher if he was going to do anything about this apparent first ever roll-back of voting rights since the Voting Rights Act that was being perpetrated against the very people who are defending the American right to vote. The Del Rio newspaper publisher didn't see it that way and wouldn't do a thing. This was my first brush with a lame, biased media.

Our DelRio.com, the monopoly ISP at the time, had more subscribers than the local paper. So I went to work turning the ISP into an online newspaper in addition to a wireless ISP. Several sales, buyouts and venture capital drama of various companies associated with the ISP business later, I ended up in San Angelo and my wife and I loved it here. But I still had the bug from my experiment into online media.

My second attempt, and most serious, at online media was in 2006 when I launched a total market coverage, direct-mailed magazine in Southwest Texas and San Angelo. Both magazines were tied to online websites, southwestexaslive.com and sanangelolive.com. Though well-financed, the project was flawed because the product mix was too narrow with 100% retail advertising, and the business model had a printing and bulk mailing monthly expense that hung over me like a Sword of Damocles. The recession of 2007-2008 demolished our healthy cash flow and sales fell faster than the financial markets. The Dallas Morning News offered me an opportunity to work on the Yahoo Newspaper Consortium integration, and tired of working 15 hours a day for nothing, I bailed.

I arrived in Dallas with a half tank of gas and $10.43 in my back account. A loaf of bread, package of bologna, and a jar of mustard got me through the first week until my first paycheck.

I don't know who was in worse shape then, DallasNews.com or me. Their sales, year-over-year, were down as a percentage more than my LIVE! magazines. The year 2008 was a wretched year for media professionals.

That experience made me hesitant to try this again now. But Aggies can be hard headed. 

Since 2010, I've built a good reputation and client list building big websites. It has allowed me to have the flexibility to learn more about online media from many of the smartest people in this space across the country.

I slowly built a team of web developers in San Angelo. Then my right-hand man from the magazine days, John Basquez said he was looking for something to do. I hired him on the spot and we plotted the return of San Angelo LIVE!, except this time, we'd avoid the hanging sword and do it all online. Chelsea Schmid was an intern from Angelo State University who wrote for us then. We thought she had natural talent, so when she called from Germany wanting a job, we brought her on too. 

Katelyn Robertson kept San Angelo LIVE! events full for the past two years in between developing websites. Her motivation was that she's also a local singer/songwriter, and she thought it could help the local arts scene. Cheyenne Benson wanted to work on the LIVE! project so much that she emailed me twice a day on a schedule, and called daily to see when she could start. Lauren Lopez, right now a fulltime student at ASU wanted to report about the campus.

With the new team, San Angelo LIVE! v 2.0  started reporting daily news Sept. 4. The first email edition was published a week later. For our first month, we will exceed 100,000 unique visitors to SanAngeloLIVE.com, 5,300 Facebook fans, and 7,500 email subscribers.

Our re-entry into the local news market wasn't 100% perfect and within a week of doing this, we were faced with ethical decisions to make concerning suicide and death threats. Our server was hit with a DDOS attack the first time we sent our morning email. A national chain store manager's wife emailed to me a threat that she would do whatever possible to destroy our business and reputation because we reported that Grandy's was closing (it wasn't Grandy's manager's wife, for the record).

We were blessed with receiving outstanding and timely advice from my circle of veteran journalists and publishing pros that I have cultivated over the years. 

The vision for San Angelo LIVE! is to expose the true narrative about San Angelo by reporting the facts; and to engage new audiences who are otherwise turned off by old, stuffy news reporting style about cozy friends with information driven by PR professionals. San Angelo’s story is largly a positive one, as our reporting suggests.

San Angelo LIVE! would never had endorsed Barack Obama for president in 2008. We will continue to be a positive advocate for the small business person. Someone I view as, to quote Teddy Roosevelt, “The Man in the Arena.”

We want to be controversial, and at the same time our writing has to promote positive deeds and change.

I'll let the body of work we've done so far speak for itself. It is absolutely the best this small team can do with the time, resources, and experience we have.

The question I have for San Angelo is: Was our launch good enough that we deserve the opportunity to rise to the next level with your support?

I'll put it another way: If a team of five people can generate this much buzz, if you were a business in San Angelo, would you consider hiring us to generate that kind of exposure (and grow revenue) for your company?

We're rolling out innovative advertising products and sponsorships now. We're seeking forward-looking business owners and managers who want to win.

If that's you, please email or call me, Joe Hyde at (325) 340-1238 or [email protected]. Let's talk.

We believe we have the most innovative and effective way to reach more customers for any business in San Angelo.