Saluting over 4 decades of journalism in Butler County
I have been “on deadline” almost all my adult life.
What that means in the news industry is that journalists must be ready, willing and able to report the latest breaking story, follow complex community issues, keep tabs on government actions and recognize our neighbors’ successes and their children’s achievements.
In real life it means — when the calls come in from reporters, editors or others — the husband’s riveting conversation is put on pause, as is any movie the family is watching. I’ve taken calls outside stadiums, at family dinner parties and even once while soaking up majesty and spray at Niagara Falls.
Back when I started in 1982, the frenzy of activity to publish our reporting was focused between the hours of 7 to 11 a.m. The former Butler Eagle home on West Diamond Street, just across from the courthouse, would vibrate as the presses rolled.
Newspapers would hit Butler’s Main Street around noon. A few hours later hordes of young carriers folded their papers, loaded their canvas bags and set out to toss them on doorsteps.
Most reporters could spend the rest of the afternoon following leads, gathering facts and filing their stories before heading home to disconnect from work. No worries about missing a cellphone call — there were no cellphones.
The job was challenging and, for me, someone who wanted to be a journalist since the sixth grade, it was really “living the dream” — as I have said frequently throughout my career.
As I learned more about our community, I also learned more about the journalistic process. There are behind-the-scenes jobs that are critical to creating engaging and essential journalism. Each step in my career path — from reporter to managing editor — taught me new skills, but it also reinforced the responsibility of telling the story fairly and the importance of public trust.
While the Eagle has embraced some major changes during its 155-year history, changes during my more-than-40-year career altered how this community news organization sees itself, but not the commitment to its mission.
Believe it or not, the Eagle newsroom already had computers when I started as a young feature writer — although the newsroom looked like it was frozen in the 1950s and the computers were designed to sound like typewriters, if a nostalgic staffer needed it.
Within nine years, technology created a new process and changed the way stories were placed on the page. Instead of columns of paper waxed and laid out by hand, copy editors designed and paginated the pages with the computer. As one of the first Eagle editors to use the technology, it offered an exciting and creative way to tell the stories and touch each page of the newspaper.
But behind the frosted glass door on the Eagle’s second floor announcing News Room Reporters, a bigger change started in a small way. In 1998, the Eagle began putting news stories online after they were published in print.
By 2004, the Eagle had its own website where subscribers could read the news and staffers were pushed onto the internet highway. We changed from a newspaper to a news organization.
What it meant to “be on deadline” also changed, as our staff of traditional journalists raced to adapt to a 24-hour news cycle.
The concept of putting up information as it became available in short bursts rather than in-depth reporting was as foreign as trying to post stories that would garner likes. We know that readers need information about their municipal budget or a possible utility rate hike, but odds are they will never shower the news with heart emojis.
While racing to adapt, we were determined to maintain our standards. There was — and still is — great pressure to be first. Being first doesn’t matter if the information isn’t right.
Texts and news tips started popping up on our now-indispensable cellphones at any time of the day or night. Our former publisher liked to text me at 5 a.m. — it was hard to understand how I was the first thought of his day, especially when my day ended five hours before.
Reporters who were used to a pen and notepad were asked to create short videos or take cellphone photos with their stories. One senior reporter took a good six months to stop cutting off the top of people’s heads — she assured me decades of photos of her children were in the same “creative” style.
The news went from changing every day, to every hour. We changed a lot, too.
In 2017, the Eagle flipped our production schedule to print at midnight so the newspaper could be on readers’ doorsteps at the crack of dawn or at the post office for mail delivery. Learning to work second shift was a personal challenge, and my husband, who worked the late shift for decades at two Pittsburgh newspapers, would coach me when to take a nap and explain how cooking at 1 a.m. — even if you just got home from work — was not a good idea.
In 2019, before the pandemic, the Eagle celebrated its 150th birthday by moving into our West Wayne Street production facility. For me, it was putting the band back together.
Somehow, now-publisher Tammy Schuey packed up more than a 100 years’ worth of stuff, and brought the news, composing, advertising and accounting departments into our production facility joining circulation, mail room and pressroom staffers.
While I was sad to leave a building that I had started visiting in my teens during a student journalism program, the move was right. I love to hear the press rolling, see the paper weaving through the towers and watch it carried down from the rafters as newspapers.
In 2020, I started my role as managing editor. Deadline changed again for me, but I didn’t mind staying to work on a sensitive story or spending time training talented young journalists. I also spent a lot time talking with our readers who suggested stories and shared concerns and opinions on everything from politics to the cartoons.
During an elementary school tour of the Butler Eagle, one student asked me what I did. I told her I answer all the hard questions.
Now it’s going to be someone else’s turn.
I am confident that the newsroom and the Butler Eagle are in the hands of people who care about the quality of community journalism, understand the importance of being the public’s watchdog and value the tradition of serving our neighbors. I appreciate the opportunities I have had here and the people I’ve worked with. I plan to continue sharing the love of journalism through the Eagle’s student programs.
Thank you Butler County and dear Eagle readers for your support, years of sharing your stories and thoughts with me, and your trust in our community news organization.
I look forward to being off deadline and joining you all in reading my Butler Eagle.
Donna Sybert, retiring managing editor, started working at the Butler Eagle in 1982.
