Why the First Amendment still matters: the story of the little newspaper that could

[mloutre]

A dictionary definition of the term "iconoclast" says that it refers to "someone who challenges or overturns traditional beliefs, customs, and values." By those standards, W. Leon Smith definitely chose the right name for the small-town Texas weekly newspaper he launched seven years ago.

You've probably never heard of Leon Smith, but the odds are pretty good that you've heard about his paper. The Iconoclast pole-vaulted into the national spotlight on September 29, 2004, when it had the audacity to endorse John Kerry for president.

The Iconoclast is based in tiny Crawford, Texas (pop. 705 as of the 2000 census, though that number has now grown due to an influx of new residents that include Cindy Sheehan and a certain individual by the name of George W. Bush.) And when The Iconoclast published its editorial endorsement titled "Kerry Will Restore American Dignity", the locals didn't take too kindly to what the paper had to say during the deeply divisive election cycle of 2004.

When news of a small-town Texas newspaper from Crawford endorsing a Democrat for president over the who bought a ranch there for photo-op purpses hit the wires, it went national in minutes and global in hours. Leon Smith's little small-town weekly newspaper, with a grand total of 920 copies sold each week by subscription and on the local newsstands, suddenly found itself in the center of a firestorm of epic proportions.

Local residents were up in arms. Subscriptions were canceled. All three newsstands in town refused to carry the newspaper any more. Most advertisers pulled their ads at once; those who didn't were boycotted. Hundreds of angry letters and emails poured into The Iconoclast's offices, threatening to overwhelm Smith and his three-person staff. (Some of those letters and emails threatened to do a lot worse than just overwhelm them.) Not everyone in town turned against Smith's paper; like the rest of the country at the time, Crawford was sharply divided. But the majority of residents in President Bush's adopted hometown were seriously up in arms.

Smith's associate editor disassociated himself from the paper's endorsement of Kerry, but he and his other employees refused to back down. They expected to be driven out of business by the vitriolic anger of Crawford's citizens that resulted from the editorial statement they published that day in September. But a funny thing happened on the way to the bankruptcy court: bloggers came to The Iconoclast's rescue.

Some say it started with some diaries on DailyKos; others insist it started on Democratic Underground, or on any of a hundred other progressive blogs that picked up the story and ran with it. The blogosphere being what it is, there's no way to know for sure. But once the ball started rolling, that didn't really matter anyway.

Bloggers everywhere wrote impassioned posts and sent out action alerts to their followers. Emails and letters supporting the newspaper's position started pouring into Crawford. Online purchases of subscriptions skyrocketed. Other Texas newspapers took notice. The mainstream media chimed in and carried the story far and wide. And within a matter of weeks, The Iconoclast had gone from being an imperiled small-town newspaper to an internationally-known entity.

Smith stuck to his guns back in 2004, and he's still sticking to them now. While he's no left-wing bleeding-heart liberal -- Smith describes himself as a conservative Democrat who ranks Ronald Reagan as one of the best presidents ever -- he is still every inch the classic Texas iconoclastic gadfly (here's looking at you, Molly!) and his ongoing support of speaking truth to power has never wavered. Instead of going under, The Iconclast has overcome adversity and gone on to prosper. What started out as a small-town weekly newspaper now attracts readers and writers from any place on earth that has an internet connection, including regular contributions from London-based Indian journalist Kapil Komireddi.

In an appropriate example of recursivity in action, last week Komireddi wrote an extended commentary about the man whose name put a small-town newspaper from deep in the red-state heart of Texas called The Iconoclast on the map when it bucked the odds and courageously endorsed him for President back in 2004, titled "The Long War of John Kerry.,

Leon Smith is still as stubborn as ever, and still just as determined to speak up and say what need to be said no matter who tries to stop him. And his little-newspaper-that-could, The Iconoclast, survived the firestorm to come back stronger than ever. And informed citizens everywhere can take heart to know that both will still be with us for many years to come.

[ProSense]

1. Excellent post! n/t

[troubleinwinter]

2. Thank you for this!

For quite some time, my sig line was:

"The time is now to draw a line in the sand — to give not one inch, one millimeter, one vote toward the cause of skewing this election." — W. Leon Smith and Don M. Fisher, Lone Star Iconoclast

I didn't subscribe, but did send a small donation when they were fightin' hard. I am delighted to hear they are doing well.

[babylonsister]

3. And this is the little post that could. Excellent, thank you, NOM! nt

[pnorman]

4. I recall contributing a modest amount to that paper a while back,

when it was discussed here on DU (in connection with Camp Casey). But I had completely forgotten about it until you reminded me of it right now. Thanks!

pnorman