The Memphis Flyer's premiere issue
Truly, it was a dark and stormy night. The date was February 14, 1989. It rained buckets that particular Tuesday evening, the kind of relentless downpour that put a damper on Valentine’s Day traffic at local restaurants. Not exactly the kind of night you’d want to spend driving all over town, dumping brand-new, kelly-green newspaper boxes on street corners.
By the end of the evening, two delivery teams in rented trucks had chained some 50 Memphis Flyer boxes to telephone poles all around the city. The next morning, distribution drivers filled them with the first issue of the Flyer (right), while also dropping off bundles of papers at shops, grocery stores, and restaurants. More than a few of those outdoor boxes are still sitting there today, just where they were put on that gloomy night three decades ago.
The Memphis Flyer, this magazine’s younger sibling, turns 30 this year, a remarkable tribute both to the many individuals who’ve worked for the newspaper, and to the community that embraced this new weekly that promised, in its initial press release, to “inform, enlighten, and entertain” the Mid-South community it served.
Back in 1989, when the Flyer published its first issue, with an exposé on the Velsicol chemical company on Jackson Avenue as its first big scoop, Memphis was a very different place. Dick Hackett was mayor, Harold Ford Sr. was our congressman, and Sydney Schlenker was being run out of town on account of an elaborate Pyramid scheme. Beale Street was in the process of being reborn, while Downtown re-development was still in its infancy. There were no Redbirds, no Grizzlies. Cell phones were fat, clunky, and expensive, and The Commercial Appeal was still very much the media giant in town, along with three network local TV stations.
So after 30 years, where does all this leave the Flyer? Our weekly sibling is now the largest-circulation newspaper in print in Shelby County, something unimaginable in its infancy.
In 1989, the Memphis Flyer first took flight. Nearly 1,600 issues later, I think it’s safe to say that our sister publication has done just fine, thanks especially to the scores of employees who, over the years, helped make the paper a weekly must-read for what now has been three generations of Memphians.
Three generations of Flyer readers. Yikes! An even scarier fact? When the Flyer published its first issue, Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t even 5 years old.
Thanks to Mr. Zuckerberg and his tech-giant peers, the past decade has been dismal for all but the largest of America’s traditional newspapers. In the late 1990s, these dailies invested heavily in digital development, only to discover a decade later that Facebook and Google were cornering local markets in terms of online ad revenue.
As The Wall Street Journal reported recently, nearly 1,800 local newspapers closed between 2004 and 2018, pointing out that the current Facebook/Google duopoly sucks up 77 percent of digital advertising revenue in today’s local markets. The old days of “robber barons” come to mind to describe what is happening to local journalism all across America.
As elsewhere, the Memphis media landscape has been drastically transformed. Despite the good work done by its truncated staff, the print version of The Commercial Appeal is a shadow of its former self, although the CA does have a significant digital presence. The past year has witnessed the birth of The Daily Memphian, a well-executed, all-digital daily funded by a locally based nonprofit corporation. Also in the mix since the 1970s is the Memphis Business Journal, a weekly with print and digital editions.
So after 30 years, where does all this leave the Flyer? Our weekly sibling is now the largest-circulation newspaper in print in Shelby County, something unimaginable in its infancy. With its own robust digital platform, the Flyer is holding its own with its peers in these certainly “interesting” times.
But in the middle of a media revolution, nobody has a certain path to long-term success. That’s why all four news outlets should be treated as if they were local treasures. And that’s why locals should all think twice before supporting tech giants like Facebook and Google with their advertising/marketing dollars, given just how serious a threat they pose to the survival of quality journalism in our city.
And if you consider the Flyer as much of a "local treasure" as we do, consider supporting its mission by joining our Frequent Flyer program. Different level of membership come with different levels of perks, including lapel pins, t-shirts, and invitations to special events, such as the Flyer's always-popular "Best of Memphis" party, exclusive get-togethers with the Flyer staff (we're nicer than we look), participation in a series of "mobile news-rooms," where your voices are heard, and much more. All the details can be found here. It's your way of helping to keep the free press ... free, and we are grateful for your support.
