The “Live Free or Die” state is small, but it’s journalism has always been raucous and consequential. Even in an age when newspapers are in retreat, trying to navigate technological change, the Manchester Union Leader and Concord Monitor remain. A former congressman publishes the Bow Times. The Weirs Times remains a healthy hard copy newspaper, with a roster of prominent right wing syndicated columnists. The New Hampshire Gazette bills itself as “The Nation’s Oldest Newspaper.” The progressive populist journal is run by Steven Fowle. His distant ancestor, Daniel Fowle, published the Gazette from 1715 to 1787. The current publisher took the jersey out of retirement by filing for the trade name, after a wealthy owner had neglected to renew it
The best known alternative newspaper in the Granite State is the Hippo. It started as a political blog by Jody Reese, at the turn of the century, and is now thriving enterprise with an entertainment focus.
(Full disclosure, four years ago I was retained to sell advertising for the Hippo, on straight commission. Illness prevented the launch of the project, but I spent an afternoon with Jody, who is delightful, hearing stories about his days as a reporter for the Union Leader, as well as insights about how the Granite State is adapting to changes in media.)
The GSO will frequently examine the history, the evolution, and the out-sized personalities, who retain disproportionate influence in public affairs, in a state famous for it’s disproportionate influence on American history.
Among the colorful people and enterprises that contributed to this raucous history:
Ben Bradlee would become the famous editor of the Washington Post during Watergate. A youthful adventure in the wilds of what Bradlee called an “odd little state,” was a preface to a storied career. Bradlee had just concluded naval service in the Second World War, while he lived in a one room schoolhouse near Manchester. It had no indoor plumbing, and was attached to an old cobbler shop. From there he helped launch a Sunday newspaper that led in circulation, and won journalism awards, but could not survive financially. They closed up shop, selling to the Union Leader proprietor, after not quite three years in business. Bradlee recalled in his memoirs, that he was tossed down a flight of stairs by the Manchester chief of police, after publishing stories, and asking questions, which the chief deemed insufficiently deferential. The newspaper dug into the wrongful homicide conviction of a young woman repeatedly raped by her father. The girl lacked the resources for competent legal defense, self defense not even raised during the one- day trial. The NH Sunday News helped secure her freedom. The story became part of the basis for the novel and TV serial Peyton Place.
William Loeb was the son of Theodore Roosevelt’s chief of staff, and the godchild of the 26th president, whose later losing third party run for president remains a key touchstone in the history of liberal American political action. Those who recall Loeb for his pugilistic (many thought mean spirited) front page right wing editorials, and out-sized conservative influence in state and national politics, might be surprised to learn that he raised money for the California gubernatorial bid by Upton Sinclair, the most formidable democratic socialist in American politics, until Bernie Sanders.
Ambassador James (Cap) Langley was the epitome of the Concord establishment. His rival, Loeb, called him “old sourpuss.” Brusque and self assured, Langley was was at the helm of the leading newspaper in the state capital, for the middle half of the twentieth century. Past publishers rose from this perch to statewide office, and national attention. The highest office Langley ever held was on a city planning board he played a key behind the scenes role in establishing. He was instrumental in establishing Concord Hospital, and in promoting the 1952 New Hampshire presidential primary victory of an absent Dwight Eisenhower, which may well have propelled the General to the presidency (Langley would be made ambassador to Pakistan in the late 1950s). There was not a mayor or city council member Langley could not ring up. In 1965, a populist working class Irish catholic was elected mayor in an upset. Recently deceased, Herb Quinn had his own ideas about how to run the city. What followed was a pitch battle between Langley and Quinn, between “Langley’s Monitor” and Quinn’s supporters at the Concord Shopper News, with numerous hilarious twists and turns, which also also raise serious questions about power, journalism, democracy, and demagoguery.
The story of Phyllis Bennett and Dudley Dudley is masterfully told by David Moore, in his book, Small Town, Big Oil. Dudley was a young state legislator. Bennett the publisher of a community newspaper called Publick Occurances. Moore’s book tells the story of how an effort to establish an oil refinery on the NH seacoast in Durham was blocked by community journalism and grass roots action. This involved beating the Governor, the Loeb press, and Aristotle Onassis. This took some doing.
We will revisit these stories, and their connection to current events in the Granite State, in coming editions and it more detail. They are stories worth remembering.