Hi everybody.

I'm Ed Leon.

Welcome to the 260, where we cover life and community in Northeast Indiana.

On this episode, we'll talk about the importance of local journalism with Konrad LaPrade, CEO, Fort Wayne Newspapers, Haunted Tales from Noble County and the Journal Gazette previews the midterm elections.

It's all right now on the 260.

We live in a world surrounded by news on our phones, on our screens, on our feeds.

And that includes local journalism.

But these are challenging times for community reporting.

Fewer sources and fewer resources are available these days as local reporting fights for its place in the attention economy.

Our next guest is on the front lines of this challenge.

He leads our region's primary news and community publications.

Please welcome the president and CEO of Fort Wayne Newspapers and KPC media, Konrad LaPrade Konrad, Welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

You oversee a portfolio of publications.

Tell us.

Tell the folks what they are.

Yeah.

So we have the Journal Gazette, which is our main daily here in Fort Wayne and Allen County.

Business weekly, which is our business publication in Allen County Fort Wayne Magazine, which is our community magazine.

It goes out all around the region.

And then KPC media, which are three dailies Auburn, Angola and Kendallville, a variety of weekly newspapers, monthly and biweekly newspapers region.

All right.

Ed: You are fully invested in community journalism.

Konrad: Yeah.

Ed: Talk about what is so important about community journalism.

What does it actually do for a city or a region like this?

Konrad: Yeah, I'll tell you this.

I was at a town council meeting a couple of months ago, and we had there was a big issue that was being discussed at the meeting.

But prior to that, there was a discussion about roads and whether or not the roads in Allen County were at budget, under budget.

And what was going to happen with that?

What I think is important about local journalism is that we're covering that story.

Yes, we're covering the big one that happened afterward.

There was a whole bunch of fireworks, and there was conversation, all of these things that happened.

But we're covering that.

We're looking at those things that people might not necessarily pay attention to if local journalism weren't there.

Yeah.

What happens if it's gone?

I mean, what if it's not there?

What if you're not there?

What is the what's the fallout?

You know, unfortunately, we have a lot of examples of that throughout the country where local journalism and newspapers have gone away.

There are news.

Deserts is what they're called.

And what you see is increased spending.

You'll see community organizations kind of fall away because there isn't that kind of overarching look at those.

And so we have examples of that where, you know, when the when, when we stop looking into things people or organizations are able to operate.

Right.

There's more darkness around that.

And so we see ourselves as shining a light in that darkness.

Yeah.

The what is it that journalists can do that information aggregators can't do?

I mean, you know, what's the difference between information and journalism, right?

This is a big one.

Yeah.

I mean, and look, I don't pretend to be a journalist in the way that many of our folks are on the front lines.

I come from a family of journalists, but but here's what I would say, which I think is.

My dad used to tell me this all the time.

He said, you know.

And he was in the business.

To my dad was in the business a long time journalist, one of those, you know, one of the editors with a corduroy jacket.

And my earliest, earliest memories are on his shoulders.

And he was taking pictures of the ocean on the Outer Banks.

But but one of the things he said, tell me is that journalists are not afraid to get out their notebook and walk up and ask that person why they're doing that thing and expect an answer.

And yes, the average citizen can do that.

But we have we have the means.

We have the ability to do to do those things.

And ultimately, people know that we're going to write about it the next day.

And when you say, hey, we're going to we just want to have a conversation.

And this may end up on the front page of the newspaper.

There's a big bullhorn that's happening there.

Yeah.

So do you think that the struggles that community reporting is facing?

Do you think it's is just a shift in the audience?

Are people voting with their attention?

Do they care?

Are people.

Do people care less?

Yeah.

You know, I've said this, I think, to you before, but I think what we fight most is apathy.

And, you know, it makes me.

It's the saddest that I get when I talk to to people who say, I don't know who my local officials are.

I don't know what issues are facing the community.

I might know what's happening nationally because I read about it somewhere.

But.

But is it?

How can I find out what's happening in the local economy and in the local local elections, for example?

Is it is is it part of it is that the national news is so amplified?

Is that, I mean, who's who's guilty of that or media's?

Is our media sources guilty of amplifying that too much and not amplifying the local?

Well, I mean, I think there's some of that.

I also think that we end up getting stuck in our feed.

You know, and so so we end up in this algorithm where we're fed the news that we click on.

And if that's national news, then we end up getting a bunch of national news.

The the dirty little secret though is that it's difficult for us to make as big of an impact nationally.

We can make an impact locally.

Right, right.

That's not a dirty secret.

That's that's that's the essential secret.

Well, absolutely.

You're absolutely right.

Right.

I think if you look at some of the past elections, some of the past primaries that just happened, right.

Some of them were decided by six votes.

We know six people, right?

Right.

In Indiana.

We know that we can we can help shape that.

Whereas the national elections are much, much larger than that.

And there's and there are a lot more nuanced, I think, than some of the local ones.

So do you think that the community and you're on the 260.

So you're reaching northeast Indiana?

Do you think that the community owes something back to community journalism?

Is there a symbiotic, you know, give and take that needs to be there that people need to to own?

Yes.

The audience.

Oh, oh.

Something back.

Man, if I could if I could get the average person to spend ten minutes a day reading a newspaper, whether that's online or in print.

And look, we still print in Allen County 24,000 journal gazettes every single day.

So so, you know, if you are, if you're in this community, read a newspaper online, read a newspaper in print, read some stories that are written by local people.

And I think if that and we actually are very lucky because we have a really strong journalistic group here, not just with the newspaper, but we have a really couple of active TV stations and radio stations.

Make sure that you're consuming local media and again, give us ten minutes a day, you know, 15 minutes a day.

If anybody owed us anything, that's the one thing I would say.

Yeah, yeah.

Do you?

There's a lot of conversation about the erosion of trust in media.

Do you think that that's happening here as much?

Do you find that?

Well, I think that people would like that.

I think that people would would like that, you know, like that.

They say that or that there is this kind of conversation around like, oh, you know, it's likely that there's some sort of erosion of trust when it comes to journalists.

But journalists aren't journalists aren't journalists.

Right.

When you're talking about local journalists, people that are here, our folks live in the community, they shop in the community, they coach in this community.

And so, you know, we can go and talk to them and know who they are.

Is the is it a business?

Is the business model an issue like you?

Did you run a, a a nonprofit newspaper?

I worked.

For worked for a nonprofit newspaper.

Is that a model that we should see more?

You know, I mean, I don't know.

I think we're all trying to figure it out.

What I do know is that there's still real juice in local newspapers and media.

We're still seeing results that our advertisers are getting.

We're still delivering value to our subscribers.

Whether that means that there's going to be more nonprofits or there's going to be a different business model of overall.

You know, I don't know what that's going to look like, but I but I do think what I when I look at advertisers and, and we convene a room for an event or whatever that looks like, what I can tell them is that there's value in what we offer.

So leave our audience with one last thing about the community journalism that you're seeing happening at your properties, at your newspapers.

Yeah, there is a lot happening in Allen County right now.

And so if you as a if you live in this community, you owe it to yourself to understand what's going on.

And so, you know, I try not to shape that at all.

We're going to publish an election guide, spend some time reading the guide.

So you know what I would leave them with.

And I know I'm super wordy and I'm sorry, but it's to care.

I want people to care about the community.

Well, we can tell that you care.

All right.

Konrad LaPrade is president and CEO of Fort Wayne Newspapers.

You can find them online.

You're watching the 260.

All right.

Every place in America has its dark corners.

And noble County, Indiana is no different from the Rose Hill Cemetery in Albion to the Strand Theater to the thing in the basement.

There are ghost stories and legends that defy explanation, and they've all been collected into the book Haunted Noble County.

Please welcome its coauthor, Mark Hunter.

Welcome to the 260.

Its nice to be here.

Mark, how did you hear about these stories?

Well, I had already published a book with Arcadia Publishing, which is the big publisher that has the history press within it, and they had me do a book called Images of America, Albion and Noble County.

So they came back.

They asked me if I wanted to do another book for them and I thought the Haunted America series would be perfect because there wouldn't be nearly as much picture taking and research.

Well, you researched, you wrote the book with your wife, Emily.

And what was it like researching all these stories?

It was very interesting.

I had not thought there would be a lot of research, but every ghost story has history.

That's kind of the whole point, right?

And I put out word on social media, and I started getting a lot of people.

The first few said that, well, you'll never find enough ghost stories and Noble County and boy, were they wrong.

It's sort of alternative history.

It it is a kind of alternative history.

Yes.

And I found out a lot of times that it tied into real history.

And I was occasionally able to uncover things that really happened that tied in with these stories.

Did you approach this as a skeptic or a little bit of a believer?

I wouldn't say.... I'm a believer in something that's the best I could do when I came into it.

I'm a lot more of a believer than I was before.

All right.

Let's let's talk about some of these stories.

The Rose Hill cemetery.

Let's start there.

The Rose Hill Cemetery was very interesting.

I had a police officer show me a video he took.

There was one of those little propellers that they stuck in near the graves.

And he had a he had a partner light a cigarette and hold it above this.

And the cigarette was going that way.

In the end, the little propeller was going this way, just like it was being.

Blown by something.

By something other than the wind.

And it wasn't that windy anyway.

So the legend there, though, is about somebody who was killed, right?

There was a man who was murdered for his money.

Yeah.

And that actually is what it says on his tombstone.

And there has been some activity in that area and also some activity in the area of where a child was buried.

Witnesses are talking about what they call orbs, which orbs could be a little decimal floating in the air, or it could be something else.

And also some people were seeing mists that were on the ground, kind of going in ways other than what they should be going.

That kind of thing happens fairly frequently.

I met the officer at midnight, during a full moon.

My wife was with me.

So full, full scary mode.

Yeah, full scary mode.

It was.

It was great.

But cemeteries is where you would think you would go for a lot.

Of the stories, right?

You would.

You would expect some ghost stories in a cemetery.

All right.

Let's talk about there's a figure that appears in the projection room of the Strand Theater in Kendallville.

Some people think that it's Cleon Point.

Who was the manager there for?

I think he worked there for 30 years, and there was supposedly somebody in the projection room.

And when an employee went up to confront the person, there was no one there.

And what made people think that there was somebody up there?

This is classic Scooby-Doo, by the way.

The projection room is always.

The projection room.

Well, a lot of people, they thought someone was there because some employees, family members were there, some of their kids, and they actually saw somebody walk into the projection and they thought, well, there's not supposed to be anybody here.

I'm just cleaning the place.

But there wasn't anybody there when they went up.

Other people have said they'll look up and they'll see a figure in the projection window.

Right.

I saw that myself when I was a kid, but that's where the projectionist would be.

So I don't know if that's a ghost or if that's just somebody seeing the projectionist looking out and check.

Out y'all.

You.

So that was a would you call these ghosts malevolent?

Are they friendly ghosts?

There are some friendly ghosts that you write about too, right?

Sometimes you get both in the same haunting.

There's a lady.

The thing in the basement has three different spirits in it.

As near as I can tell.

Okay.

Yeah.

Let's talk about the thing in the basement that that sounds.

There was a young man who was kind of a nere-do-well who got into an argument with his father.

They lived there.

He.

Where is this basement?

It's in Kendallville.

I don't give the address because people are still living there.

But.

But the place is still standing.

Okay.

And the kid who was, I believe, 19 years old, he tried to kill himself with by swallowing acid in the upstairs.

And he eventually passed away at the hospital down the street.

He supposedly was haunting the upstairs.

And I got I'm talking about eyewitness reports of this happening.

There was also another ghost who was called Izzy by the kid who was attached to the ghost, who was kind of in the downstairs area, and that was a friendly ghost.

But the guy upstairs, he was not so friendly.

He was very menacing.

But then to make matters worse, they started hearing voices coming from the basement, and it got to the point where nobody would even go down to the basement anymore because they were seeing shadows flooding across the walls.

And by the way, you have a great scary voice for for ghost stories custom made.

So the people who are living there now are they be seen anything you talk to them.

As far as I'm aware, the lady that I talked to who lived there for a few decades, she says she has talked to the people who lived there.

So far as I'm aware, they have not experienced anything now.

By the way, does it freak them out that there's all these stories about the place they're living?

I don't know, you know the lady that I interviewed who also hooked me up with a few people that she knew.

They lived there for decades.

They were freaked out and no doubt about it.

But they still lived there.

Yeah.

And maybe they just couldn't move out right away.

I don't know, but you would think so.

Wouldn't you?

And I wonder if possibly some people are more susceptible if there is such a thing as ghosts.

Maybe some people can feel them more than other people can.

All right.

We're going to talk.

I want you to tell me about the sanatorium.

But in in advance of that, you think that places where a lot of people die.

Is that just a natural place for the stories to evolve?

As you know, if they're not actual spirits there?

I think so, yeah.

And we should keep in mind that for much of our history, most people died in their homes, not in hospitals.

Right.

I don't I didn't hear a lot of stories about funeral homes.

A couple, but not very many.

You would think.

But homes.

Absolutely.

Okay.

Why do you think that is?

I think that that's where they passed away.

Or maybe that's where they enjoyed being.

That's where they wanted to be.

Is back at their homes.

Cleon Point at the at the theater.

Apparently he loved his job, so maybe he just didn't want to leave.

All right.

Tell me about the sanatorium.

What did you find out?

Sanatorium?

There was a couple of podcasters that visited by accident.

They just stumbled across the place and they were freaked out.

They were run out of the place.

But there was a nun.

I don't know if it's actually nun or not, but there was a when it was when it was a sanatorium.

There was a nun that was there for a while, and she got visited by the Virgin Mary and was told, you know, was told that there was a fight going on between good and evil at that place.

And that's that's the story that everybody who has has talked about since I've been in the place once before.

And it did have a very it was not occupied at that time.

We were doing a tour for the fire department to to familiarize ourselves with it.

And it was just it was spooky.

It really was.

But I didn't see anything specific.

It was just.

A feeling.

Right.

Yeah.

Which was done.

In common.

All right.

So I recommend do not read your book in the in the Dark by candlelight.

You can read all about these stories in Haunted Noble County by Mark and his wife Emily Jane Hunter, part of the History Press Haunted America series.

Find it at his website: MarkRHunter.com You're watching the 260.

Thanks.

Thanks for being here.

Thank you.

The midterm general election is fast approaching on November 3rd, and if you are still contemplating your ballot, the Journal Gazette has prepared a special election guide to help you navigate your choices.

Here to discuss it is the Metro and Enterprise editor of the Journal Gazette.

Devan Filchak, welcome back to the show.

Devan.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Let's talk about this election guide, which is pretty robust.

What is in it.

Tell me what's in it.

Yeah.

So we have a lot in it, which is great.

We have 19 election previews that are for specific races that will be on Allen County ballots.

And each of those are a questionnaire that the candidates are able to answer in their own words.

And we also have stories that get into the public questions that will be on the ballot, as well as the casino referendum.

It's been a hot topic, and this is the first election with school board races that are nonpartisan, which is.

Yeah, I want to talk about all those things.

And by the way, this is the kind of in-depth local reporting that Konrad alluded to on the on the show.

So what kind of preparation went into making this guide?

Yeah.

So we have been doing the previews like the questionnaires for a little bit of time, but we would just kind of publish them all online before early voting starts, which is something we still did this year.

But to be able to compile that and have the design desk lay it out really nice and have that physical.

Yeah.

And I think when people like really, you know, turn their attention to, okay, I'm going to figure it out.

I think it's great to have it all in one place.

So let's talk about voter turnout.

It's been historically low in this area has it not?

Yeah it has.

Which I mean is an issue in most places unfortunately, just some apathy.

Is it because why is that?

Is it because it's a midterm election?

That's definitely part of it.

The presidential election got quite a few people out to the polls, but even then it was only around half a registered voters.

But yeah, and the primary we only had about 15%.

And if we compare this to the last election cycle four years ago, there was about 38%, I believe, in the general election.

So we might get there.

That's still low, right?

I think so too.

38% even for a presidential... All right.

Well, let's talk about some of the specific races.

The there are the casino referendum is is on in Allen County, Steuben County and DeKalb counties.

They're all voting on a casino.

What what what is tell us about that.

Yeah.

It's been really interesting to see how this even kind of went through the statehouse just to, you know, at one point it looked like it was going to be pretty much out of voters hands.

But now voters do have the chance.

It's a yes or a no.

And what are they specifically voting on.

Their voting on?

If there could be a casino in their.

County, in their county.

So it's like it's like a gateway, like or a gate.

It's either okay, come in.

And now what if multiple counties vote yes.

Yeah.

It will be up to the casino operator at that point.

That is, you know, works at the state and can meet the requirements that they've set out, but they'll be able to pick from any of those three.

So if they all do pass, it'll be interesting.

Are they going to go for more populous county or something a little more rural?

But are you aware of how the polling has been going in those areas?

Not.

Not really.

So what are some of the contested races?

Yeah.

So locally we have the commissioners.

We have two commissioners races.

We have three county council seats.

And actually most races are contested this year.

Yeah.

So you've got yeah commissioners.

You've got recorder clerk of courts and there's a there's a superior court ship judgeship and school board races.

So let's talk about the school board races.

This is the first time that the the party is listed under under the candidate.

Yeah they have the option.

So it's about half of the candidates have selected a party.

And most of those have been Republican, but several have still chosen to to keep the politics off of it.

So why was that not a thing that that was done in school board races before?

Yeah, I think the idea is that it's not a political position.

Political position.

Right.

Which is the Democratic Party has said they are not really a fan because of that reason.

They keep the politics out of school board.

But the same time, the Republican Party has said it's nice for voters to know and to have that party recognition.

So how did it get switched?

Did people vote on that or did how did it get politicized?

That was passed at the state House, and it's an.

Effort at the state level.

Yes.

So we could see a change in the makeup of the Fort Wayne City Council, right.

How so?

County council.

City council?

I'm sorry.

Yes, yes.

Yeah.

So, County council.

There's four out of seven seats up right now.

Only amongst those four races.

There's only one incumbent.

So there could be three new members.

There could be four new members that even came up at this week's county council meeting, where it's like these decisions we're making might have a totally different county council next year.

Or they could choose to make different choices.

Are the state state races covered in the guide?

Yes.

All the ones that appear on the Allen County ballot for the statewide reporting.

We've leaned on Capital Chronicle for that.

Okay.

Awesome.

Are there races that you're going to be really paying special attention to?

We focus on the local primarily.

We will still have information about the state races, specifically on the Allen County ballot.

But yeah, the commissioners and the county council, recorder, auditor, all that will definitely be our main focus on election night.

So talk about election night.

I'm just curious.

Let people in on on how you guys conduct coverage there at the J.G.. Yeah.

So we handle it a little bit differently depending on the year, but sometimes we'll have a reporter stationed at each party just kind of waiting for those polls to come in.

Meanwhile, we have a couple of people back in the newsroom who are gathering all of the results for all 11 northeast Indiana counties so that we can have all those in print, which was very exciting in the primary when the Allen County results did not come in until the next day.

And are you getting those results directly from the Secretary of state in in Indianapolis, or where are you getting those.

From each county.

We make arrangements to them with them before to email them to us.

So they just kind of all come in at different times.

Is it all hands on deck?

Everybody in the newsroom is working that night.

Yeah, it is a big night.

We have the Election Day pizza, which is a newsroom staple.

And yeah, we all just kind of pitch in on it.

So what what what where do you get the election day pizza?

Do you have a special spot or is it.

Is there all varieties of pizza?

Yeah, they do always put up a nice little buffet for us.

It varies a little bit.

It's all up to our publisher.

When do you have to have the paper locked so that it hits the printer?

So our typical deadline is 11:45 We often get an extra 30 minutes on election night.

So yeah, we're working up until that 12:15 usually.

It's kind of a buzz though, right?

It's one of my favorite nights of the year.

It's stressful as it could be.

Yeah, it's stressful, but it's but but it's it's fascinating.

All right.

Let's thank you.

Devan, thank you for being on the 260.

Again, you can find the JG's election guide JournalGazette.net/elections Thank you.

All right.

Good to see you.

Good to see you.

The 260 is a PBS Fort Wayne production made possible by membership donations from viewers like you.

Thank you.

You can support the show by becoming a sustaining member at PBSFortWayne.org That's all the time we have for this episode.

Please take a moment to appreciate the folks who contributed to the making of this show, and I'll see you next time on the 260.