Simon Says

As part of our 40th anniversary celebration, the Syracuse New Times
invited its creator, Ken Simon, to visit and talk about why he did what
he did. He spent a few hours at 1415 W. Genesee St. on March 19,
explaining the karma that resulted in the third-oldest alternative
newspaper in the country. It isn’t a reach to boast that he helped
invent the alternative press. When he started the paper as a brash
21-year-old senior at Syracuse University, it wasn’t because similar
tabloids were fledgling in Greenwich Village and San Francisco. It was
because he could.

MICHAEL DAVIS PHOTO

“I don’t know what led me to do it,” he admitted about turning his Orange Pennysaver
into something more than a vehicle for advertising. “I guess the urge
to communicate did, but it was crazy because I had no money. I knew
there was a void on campus for a newspaper that had advertising. The Daily Orange
had gotten so strident and radical and there was no advertising. So I
looked at it and thought, ‘Maybe there’s a market for advertising.
Maybe I could start something.’ And so I did. I borrowed $50 and I
printed up business cards, letterhead and invoices and thought, ‘That’s
it: I’m in business.’ I didn’t have any plan; I just sort of did it. I
don’t know what I was thinking.

“The first place I went to for
advertising support was Liquor Square, and he said, ‘I’ll take a
double-truck’ {two-page center spread} and I said, ‘For how long? For a
year?’ And he said sure. That was the key moment right there, so then I
went to Discount Records and sold them an ad.” 

The next 11 years of being part of the
vanguard proceeded nearly as smoothly, although they were anything but
dull. “The 11 years that I ran The New Times were incredible,”
Simon said. “We were a lot less established then. We were young and
wild and inventing it as we went along. It was crazy times, 1969 to
1980, very rich and profoundly important times to our country. We were
all in our 20s and 30s; Walt {Shepperd, former senior editor} was in
his 50s.” {Simon grinned from ear to ear when he made that last
statement.}

“We were people who love journalism and
who love newspapering, although maybe not these days when you look at
what’s going on in our industry. I’ve always thought that the dream is
you go out and you work your butt off at a daily newspaper, and then
you retire, you buy a little weekly, you retire to that. I was lucky
enough to do that ass-backward. It was the greatest 11 years that I’ve
spent in many ways, lucky to do the things that I love doing. I helped
to invent the concept of the alternative newspaper, me and the people
who worked with me. The Syracuse New Times is the third-oldest
alternative weekly, and that’s something, especially when you consider
that this is Syracuse; it isn’t San Francisco or Boston or Chicago or
New York City, a bigger or you’d think more alternative-leaning
metropolitan area.”

It’s interesting that Simon, now 61, did
so well with print because he majored in broadcast journalism in
Syracuse University. “That’s what I do now,” he said, “television and
radio, documentaries, PBS shows. I’ve done three pledge concerts on
PBS, with Carole King, the Eagles and Harry Chapin.” 

Come September, he will begin a teaching job near Hartford, Conn., in a video production facility he helped design.

Four decades later, The New Times
is ingrained in the Syracuse landscape; many locals couldn’t imagine it
not being around to inform, agitate and question. What follows is a
transcript of Simon’s recollections about the paper and the Salt City,
and where he thinks the print media industry is going in the early part
of the 21st century.  

In the Beginning

“I just visited the hallowed New Times
Park {located at Comstock and Euclid avenues}. It is just great to be
here. I haven’t been here for at least 15 years; I was here for the
25th anniversary. Riding through the city unlocks a lot of memory and
sensory things. I’ve been able to keep up with it {The New Times}.
For the years that I’ve been gone, it’s almost like a child writing to
me every week. The city is great. This was a tough city to start an
alternative newspaper in many ways and for those reasons, The New Times
is even more important to the city, to give it an alternative voice, a
place for civic discourse, and that is at risk these days as newspapers
implode all over the place.

“It’s unbelievable that stupid
management decisions and corporate ownership and inability to foresee
the Internet and take advantage of the new digital platforms led to a
situation where, hit with some economic disasters plus the change in
digital landscape, is just sounding the death knell for daily
newspapers. Who knows what’s going to happen.

“The business model will eventually
catch up, no doubt about it because people crave the kinds of things
that newspapers can do and that alternative newspapers can do in a big
way. Among the survivors of this implosion will be folks that are
involved with alternative newspapers who can figure out the transition
to digital. Economic diminishment and layoffs lead people who really
are passionate about journalism or community or arts or culture to
another outlet, because downturns don’t stop that passion from
happening. That’s why you’re getting a lot of these local dot.com
‘newspaper’ sites.

“We still need to know what’s going on, and so this is an ugly transitional period and I think The New Times
and papers like it that are well run and well managed are going to
survive big time with this because the playing field has been leveled.”

The First Downturn

“We had been going great guns, started a
paper in Ithaca in 1972, started a paper in Buffalo. Unfortunately,
these were in the days when we didn’t have computers to keep track of
our expenditures; everything was on these ledger sheets. All of a
sudden it seemed we were producing three papers on this antiquated
equipment. In a good week we produced 120 pages among the three. And we
had three sales staffs, so I had weekly meetings in three different
cities. We grew so rapidly, and what happened was we were losing money
but I didn’t know that. 

“When I figured it out, where before I
had never had an increase in my printing bill, the price of newsprint
shot way up. We had a 30 percent increase in newsprint just at the time
when I needed three times as much of it. And the prime interest rate
had gone to almost 21 percent {during the Carter administration,
1976-1980}. And our advertisers were having trouble paying their bills.
This is the first time we needed money. Now I look back on it and
there’s something to be said for a fist in the stomach. I shut down
Buffalo, gave the Ithaca paper to Jim Bilinski {still the Ithaca Times’ publisher}, and concentrated on Syracuse.

“This was the first time that I was
scrambling around to find local partners that could put money into it.
I had to separate the business from the editorial. We were at the White
Memorial Building {East Washington and South Salina streets}. I didn’t
tell the staff that I had no money, that I couldn’t meet payroll. So
that became my job, to scramble around to meet payroll, and part of
that was finding some partners real quick. I decided I had to shut
down. We were four or five days away from the deadline for that maybe
last issue. It was the middle of winter and we lost heat. As if things
weren’t bad enough already, right? 

“Then I asked Tom Peyer if he would create a cartoon for our last issue. It was four panels featuring the publisher of The Herald Journal at the time, and he’s looking at a copy of The New Times that says “New Times out of business,” and the publisher looks up from his desk and says, “You mean we won’t have The New Times to kick us around anymore?”

“The day before payroll I got the green
light from a group of four businessmen in town who invested in the
paper. It gives me chills just sitting here, telling you guys this. {At
this point, Simon tears up and after a minute or so composes himself.
Before he started speaking about the paper, he had told the staff
assembled that he had injured his back during an exercise class and was
taking Diovan for the pain.} We put out another edition and the heat
went back on. That meant a lot to me; the paper still means a lot to
me. Syracuse is very special to me. I was here for school and for 11
years after that. It’s so good you guys are still around. It’s terrific
for the city.

“We were good for another year before
the investors decided, that’s it, you’re not making any money, you’ve
got two weeks before we shut you down. So I had to go through the whole
thing again. A couple years earlier I had saved the Advocate
newspapers {out of Simon’s home state of Connecticut}. They were
experiencing financial difficulties. There was a store on Marshall
Street, Discount Records, and the guy that owned it ended up working
for CBS Records. So we printed and distributed newspaper inserts for
CBS Records to alternative newspapers. They were printed at the
Scotsman and shipped out by truck all over the country. There was lot
of money involved and that saved our ass for a long time.

“I knew the people from the Advocate,
and they asked me for cash since they were going out of business. I
told them, I can give you this newspaper insert and I had faith that
they would distribute it. I called a couple of people there: ‘Would you
be interested in owning a piece of a paper in Syracuse?’ So I ended up
selling another chunk of The New Times. For a year I was going
to Amherst, Mass., once a week because we stopped producing the paper
here, which I didn’t like. I insisted on working the boards so we could
have some control. So for a year, I pasted it all up there, using their
crew. That was kind of tiring. After a year my contract was up, so they
ran it for a couple years and they screwed it up big time,
business-wise.

“Lucky for {current New Times
publisher} Art {Zimmer} and lucky for you guys they screwed it up big
time. Things have been pretty stable for the past 25 years.” 

Naming Rights

“I found the envelope that I wrote on, where I was playing with different names for the paper. Orange Pennysaver
was the original name. The first issue, I needed to get some cash going
so we ran around and put it on everyone’s door at SU; it was
advertising, it was a pennysaver for a while. Then I started putting in
editorial when we could because even though Vic Ianno {in charge of
printing The New Times at the Scotsman Press} asked me, ‘What
are you doing putting stories in that? Are you crazy?’ A pennysaver is
all income but then we started adding editorial as we could afford to
and I started recruiting writers. So I changed it to Campus Pennysaver, because I expanded it to Onondaga Community College and Le Moyne.

“I had a draft number of 37, and I was
writing a column at the time and I did what our former president did: I
joined the National Guard, went to basic training, and that is when I
changed the name. I got out of the National Guard in May 1970, the same
month four students were killed at Kent State, when I realized that I
was either on one side or the other. I decided I couldn’t do this
anymore; I’m not going to Vietnam, I’m not going to stay in the
National Guard; I’m going to change the name of the paper—in that order. 

“And I picked the name. I was AWOL and I
applied for conscientious objector status. I put together a real good
application; the newspaper was an exhibit. I said, ‘Look, I don’t want
to be here, why would you want me?’ They said, ‘We know about your
column, Ken.’ So they gave me the chance to write stories for the base
paper. It was a good move; I’m not some guy running in the mud. I could
talk to the guys and get on their level.

“I named the paper ‘New Times’ because I wanted to get a combination of real traditional, a New York Times
kind of feel, and it was new. I wanted ‘The Times,’ which is as
expressive an image you can get, but with new. At the time, there was a
magazine, they started after we did, called New Times, a
communist screed which I thought was kind of cool. Their lawyers sent
me a letter asking me to cease and desist. ‘Right,’ I thought, ‘I’ll
sue your asses!’ Then the Phoenix New Times started
after we did. {To this day, and contrary to belief, this paper remains
staunchly independent and locally owned, and has nothing to do,
corporately, with any other New Times publication.}

“I can’t believe I choked up back then {earlier in his recollection}; must have been the drugs. Coming back to The New Times and doing drugs? How could that be?”

Fat Igor Rocks

“I think that’s also a drug story,”
Simon said with a chuckle when asked about the paper’s sketchy mascot.
“He thought he was very hip but he wasn’t really, and that’s kind of
what I liked. Simon Pure {his current company} has two definitions, the
first one is completely the opposite of the second one. I like that
kind of opposing dynamic, especially when it has to do with language.
Fat Igor, I’m so cool, I’m so hip. But he’s not; he’s kind of brash,
he’s kind of aggressive and you like that in a person. He’s harmelss,
he’s a womanizer. We just started using it and people responded to it.
I even posed for a photo dressed like Fat Igor. I don’t know how long
Fat Igor lasted. He was a cool mascot. ‘Can you dig it?’”

Assembling a Staff

“I recruited people. Walt was publishing The Nickel Review
at the time. I had a hat like his, and I’m not sure if I got it because
of the Fat Igor thing, and it was velour. Mike {Greenstein}. . . I went
to his dormroom, he was writing for The Daily Orange at the time and I thought he’d make a great addition to the paper, and I was right. 

“I met Walt coming out of the Scotsman
Press; I was going in with the paper that week. He was experiencing
some difficulties, so I started a conversation: ‘If you don’t make it,
you’ve got a place here.’ After a while we got the core together and
then people started coming in, we built up an editorial staff. It grew
very rapidly because the news hole grew rapidly and we were scrambling
to fill it. 

“The work flow was not as efficient as
it is these days. I pasted the first issue up on a piece of plywood on
my bed; it was eight pages. When we started growing, a piece of plywood
was not very practical, so we moved out down to 311 Comstock Ave.,
across from the SU chancellor’s residence. I lived on the second floor
and the paper was produced on the first floor. I cut this deal to give
away movie passes to Shoppingtown Mall, and there was a lot of
response. It’s the first time I knew we really had some impact. The
paper came out with a half-page vertical ad with two free movie passes;
all you had to do was show up at the office. We looked out the window
and there was a long line, it was very impressive. Wow, people are
reading this and they’re responding.

“I can appreciate the fact that you are
still here. There have been three or four times that I didn’t think it
would survive, and it has, which I think speaks to the passion that
people working here have for it. You are going over and above what
would be a normal threshhold for people, and it speaks to the
community’s need for something like this. Sometimes if there is a real
need for something, the stars do align.” 

The vanguard: The braintrust behind The New Times,
in the early days, included (from left) managing editor Alan Stamm,
founder-publisher Ken Simon and editor Mike Greenstein, in the paper’s
Comstock Avenue offices. 

The Future

“This Internet thing is very important
but a lot of people don’t see it as a way to make money. Well, I don’t
think it is, today. But the beautiful part about the transition from
paper to digital for a free weekly newspaper is you’re not
cannibalizing your circulation revenue. You’ve got to figure out how to
gracefully transition your readers, give them extra, what’s in the
paper but a lot more online that paper can’t do, such as photo
slideshows. 

“That’s where daily newspapers screwed
up. They could have owned the Internet and now they’re paying the price
because they didn’t grab it. They’ve got this dinosaur of a business
model with all this baggage they’re carrying. The managers at
corporate-chain daily newspapers, all they know how to do is squeeze,
protect their own salaries, maintain the profit ratio, and it’s going
to be all gone because they didn’t react quickly enough. Everybody is
ripping off what this kind of paper has a leg up on, I think, because
you lose nothing by going online. You just have to figure out
cost-effective ways to do this.

“Why do newspaper like slideshows?
What’s so good about that? It’s not so hard to put them on the Web
site. Somebody clicks on the first photo, they’re going to click on all
15, and that’s 15 page views that you can tell an advertiser.

“It’s still great. The newspaper is a
terrific medium; I don’t think it’s ever going away. There’s always
going to be people who read standard newspapers.”

“Sometimes if there is a need for something, the stars do align:” Impersonator Richard M. Dixon read us in 1972, while mascot Fat Igor had something else in mind, “Can you dig it?”  BOB LORENZ PHOTO

Up from the Underground

“There was only The Village Voice and the San Francisco Bay Guardian when we started. Also, when I was here there were all these underground papers, The Chicago Seed, The San Francisco Oracle,
and Walt’s paper. I just thought they were very cool and so different.
It was like this bursting of new ways of doing graphics and print and
stories. It was very impressive and very fun.

The Boston Phoenix came around, and the Voice,
where they started to put more form on it, not so psychedelic and all
that. That’s where I wanted to go with the paper, and that’s the
amazing thing, because I did.”