Mr. D was a decent human being and a good publisher
Image by Del Stone Jr.
We had a memorial service for Marvin DeBolt on Saturday.
Maybe you remember him. He was the publisher of the Playground Daily News, then the Northwest Florida Daily News, from 1980 to 2004.
Mr. D was known for many things – for instance, he loved golf. They named a golf tournament after him. He was responsible for the Empty Stocking Fund, which continues to this day and has raised millions of dollars for The Salvation Army. He loved his big boat, which he sailed from his home in Cinco Bayou.
And of course, he loved being publisher of the Daily News. In the 24 years he worked there, he doubled the newspaper’s circulation and oversaw a redesign and name change. Not many people know this but he was also responsible for the creation of The Walton Sun, which for a time was the most profitable newspaper in the Freedom Communications portfolio.
He was a large presence in the building, and I think I was a little bit afraid of him. He sat in that office up front like Oz, part of us yet somehow separate. Sometimes the switchboard operator, Marianne, would ring my phone and say, “Can you come up to Mr. D’s office?” With a sinking feeling I’d tell the people sitting near me, “Well, it’s been nice working with you.” He never fired me, though a couple of times he probably should have.
Sometimes people ask me why I worked at that place for so long. I had my reasons, and one of them was the culture. I’ve held lots of jobs but none of them compared to working at the Daily News. It wasn’t just a place where we clocked in at 9 and clocked out at 5. Working there was like working with a family – sometimes a dysfunctional family, a family that didn’t always get along with each other, but a family just the same.
We had a picnic every summer, and sometimes Mr. D gave out prizes, like TVs and microwave ovens. We had an annual Christmas party, and an advertiser appreciation party that even newsroom types were encouraged to attend. One year the staff bought Mr. D a movie theater-style popcorn machine. He’d pop up a batch and everybody in the building would head for the break room, much to the unhappiness of the janitor, who had to clean up that mess. Also, we got Christmas bonuses. I had thought that was a company policy, but no. That was a Marvin DeBolt policy.
We cared about each other.
One day Mr. D walked into the newsroom and asked us, “What’s the Number 1 job of a newspaper in a community?” We, being newsroom types, responded with all the high-minded answers – expose graft and corruption, report the news objectively, speak for those without a voice, and so on.
Mr. D listened patiently, then thundered, “NO! The Number 1 job of a newspaper is to MAKE MONEY! You can’t do those things without first making the money to pay for them!” I don’t think we ever gave a thought about the newspaper being a business, or that our salaries came from all those ads taking up our valuable news hole. We were too busy being high-minded. But it was something I never forgot – the business side of art, the one just as necessary as the other.
Mr. D was a good guy and a decent human being. He represented something that’s missing from the media these days – character. Though we were owned by a large company, he made it feel like a family business, one in which we all had a stake. And he was head of the household.
So farewell, Mr. D. A lot of people are still thinking about you, and that’s about the best legacy a person can ask for.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Image courtesy of Del Stone Jr.
Today marks my 38th anniversary of working at the Daily News.
I have bored you in the past with stories about life at the newspaper in the “olden” days, so I won’t repeat that sin.
Oh, maybe I will. A little.
I remain astounded by the changes that have taken place in the newspaper industry (and society in general) since 1979. We are living in an age of science fiction where the world arrives at our doorstep – live – 24 hours a day.
In 1979 we had primitive wire feeds on primitive monochromatic computer terminals that connected to a twitchy mainframe in a cold room. Today the storage in our phones exceeds the storage of that mainframe by many factors of bytes.
I started at the Daily News when “cut and paste” literally meant cutting and pasting, and I know I’ve related that anecdote before but you’ll have to suffer it again, because that’s what people my age do.
The world was different then, too. I think people were much more civic-minded and had a better understanding of the basic functionalities of their city, county, court and law enforcement systems than people of today, who seem more selfish and less educated than ever.
In 1979 the music world approached the precipice of a revolution which would save us from the ravages of disco, off-key raspy-voiced folk singers and worst, country music. New Wave and MTV. The music of the ‘80s was the best. THE best.
Fashions were as strange as they are every decade. At times I had a mullet, a rat tail, fingerless gloves, rolled-down socks, rolled-up blue jeans and collarless shirts.
I have witnessed and participated in all of the major recent journalism revolutions. The first I remember was the Design Revolution – in other words, newspapers actually started to give a damn about page design. Then there was the writing revolution, which disposed of the inverted triangle in favor of a conversational approach to storytelling. There was the graphics revolution ushered in by USA Today, the color revolution, the story length revolution ( an 8-inch story was an epic), and finally, and continuing, the ever-evolving digital revolution, which began with digital photos and continued with Photoshop, then pagination, the internet, and finally mobile technology.
I started as a page designer and beat reporter, then became the design editor and a columnist. I redesigned the Daily News in 1986 and I’m proud to say that basic design lasted until 2006. At times I was the city editor, weekend business section editor, Monday Focus editor, features editor, projects editor and whatever else they wanted to throw at me editor.
My crowning achievement as features editor was an insane Food page about hot dogs that had people calling the newspaper for weeks asking for copies. We had a lot of fun with that page.
Then in 2007 editor Pat Rice called me into his office and said, “You can put together those feature sections in your sleep. I want you to become our next online editor. You don’t have to know how to make the machine go BING. Just put stuff on the website.”
All because I designed a tropical weather Myspace page, complete with ethereal music playing in the background.
So I got into this website stuff. Our page was doing OK with about 2.5 million page views per month. Then it went up to 3 million. Then 4. Then 5. And 6. It topped out during Deepwater Horizon with an astonishing 8 million, but if you had added in the mobile views it would have been 10.
And that’s where things stand today. I continue to work on the website, and I love trying to figure out ways to get people to click. Not just click, but click in the tens of thousands.
I love trying to put together projects. Year before last I did a massive project on the monarch butterfly, which nobody read or gave a shit about. I interviewed the top experts in North America and wrote what I felt was a definitive summary of the monarch’s plight. I don’t know if it helped, but I do know I saw more monarchs last year.
Right now I’m the longest-employed person at the Daily News. Some people would see that as a failure – he couldn’t succeed anywhere else so he stayed here. I stayed, yes. Because I love Fort Walton Beach, enjoyed what I was doing, and had a rich off-camera life that satisfied me in many ways.
The future is uncertain but that is the nature of the news business. I have prepared for that uncertainty. At this point all I can do is hope for the best and try to do an exemplary job, even if I’m a crusty old geezer with barnacles on my belt.
The Daily News’ website is alternately No. 2 or No. 1 in the company’s retinue of websites, depending on the month. Not bad, for a tiny paper in the Florida Panhandle, in a company with over 300 newspapers to its name. I am only partly responsible for that success, but at age 62 I’m glad to still be relevant and still be playing a role, whatever that role may be.
Newspaper reporters and editors once ended their stories with a “-30-” which had something to do with the old telegraph system, from what I understand. I learned that while researching reporter Jeff Newell’s obit. I wrote an editorial about Jeff, saying farewell to a respected and honorable journalist who passed after a long battle with cancer.
So I will end this digital note with the hope that in two years I will be telling you about the cut and paste, the monochromatic computer screens, MTV, and all that old crap you don’t care about but still mean so much to me.
-30-
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, Ello and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .