Jason Miller didn’t set out to be a journalist. Nor did he begin his career looking to revive a storied local newspaper and serve as its publisher, editor and only full-time reporter.
But for the last 15 and a half years, he has done just that as the force behind Concrete Herald, a monthly chronicle of life in the Upper Skagit Valley.
Next year will mark the end of an era as Miller, 57, steps away from the paper with plans to pass it on to new ownership. He also intends to move from Concrete, the picturesque town nestled in the Cascade Range named for the industry that once powered its economy, to Lynden with his wife and two kids. He has a pair of buyers interested in meeting his $108,000 asking price, he said, though a sale is not yet finalized.
It’s a sad development for Jean Wilkins, who was packing boxes for the local food bank one December morning. Wilkins, who sends the Herald to out-of-town family members, said Miller has done “a great job” with the paper.
“I don’t want it to sell,” she said.
Fewer and fewer small communities like Concrete can boast of a local news source. In 2005, the same year Miller moved to town, the United States had 8,891 local newspapers, according to a Northwestern University report. Now, the country has 5,595 — a loss of more than a third.
Concrete didn’t have a local paper two decades ago. By the time Miller got there, drawn by the cost of housing, the Herald was long gone after being “administratively dissolved” in 1991, he said. It had been running since 1901 to the best of his knowledge.
At the time Miller, who has a master’s degree in creative writing, made a living writing freelance pieces about home, garden and development, he said, while also working part-time as the editor of an urban development publication.
Later, he worked full-time for a marketing and public relations firm. That job went away with the 2008 recession.
“I was thinking, what else could I do?” he said.
Miller had heard of the town’s one-time newspaper and decided to take a look at the archives at the Concrete Heritage Museum.
“I thought it was going to be kind of ratty,” he admitted. “Most tiny rural newspapers aren’t known for fantastic journalism.”
He was wrong. The paper’s quality surprised him as “quite solid.”
So he thought: “Why don’t I bring back Concrete Herald?” Miller said. “If I can do that, I’ll have instant street cred because of the name.”
He’d have to make “colossally stupid decisions in order to screw it up,” he concluded.
Fundraising from public helped
It took a fundraising effort to make that idea a reality. Miller sent out press releases around Western Washington and emails to everyone he knew, receiving donations from around the country and one from Spain.
He also sat in front of the local grocery store, then called Albert’s Red Apple Market, with a card table and a jar. Taped to the jar, which Miller still has, was a piece of paper reading: donations welcome.
The most memorable donation came from a man from Rockport who gave Miller a handful of coins as he left the store.
“I support what you’re doing,” Miller remembers him saying, “but I have to buy groceries and this is all I have left over.”
The new Concrete Herald launched in May 2009 — the same month as the town’s centennial. Miller raised $10,000 to fund the comeback, supplemented by a loan from his parents.
Putting that first issue together was “excruciatingly slow,” he said. Miller had never used the layout design software before, so had to learn how it worked as he went.
He still has the paper framed in his office on Main Street. The nameplate, which Miller still uses, is taken directly from a historical edition of the paper.
Its front page had two stories, laid out in a simple format, and a historic photo of the town. The first article was about the centennial. The second bore the triumphant headline: “It’s baaack…” Concrete Herald was in business once more.
It was a learning curve. Miller had never considered working as a reporter before, never mind taking photos, designing pages and selling ads.
To improve, he paid attention to how other professional photojournalists took pictures and how reporters structured their stories.
He noticed news photographers often weren’t taking photos of events from far away, but focusing on a specific detail from the scene. Miller started doing that, too.
A colorful evolution
In a small town, avoiding conflicts of interest can get tricky. While running the paper, Miller also served on the town council and later as mayor. To cover local politics, he hired a freelance reporter and freelance editor for the town government beat. Miller sent the writer assignments but otherwise stayed out of the editing process.
One time he tried to change a quote of his that appeared in one of the writers’ articles, replacing it with something he remembered saying in the interview. The freelance editor caught it before it went to print.
“I realized I was completely in the wrong, like 100 percent,” Miller said. He went back and replaced it with the original quote.
Over time, the new Herald has evolved far beyond the plain style of its first edition. Scrolling through the paper’s Facebook page readers can see colorful, eye-catching front pages each shining light on a different aspect of life in the region.
A recent cover story features a local “furry,” or someone who dresses in costume as an animal persona.
In the December edition, Miller published a story about the growing need at local food banks. The 40-page paper has a section for each local community in its coverage area, including Rockport, Marblemount and Sedro-Woolley.
It contains stories on local government, high school sports and upcoming events — even an advice column. The paper also highlights pieces of the town’s history, like a cartoon depicting a bride waiting at a church that appeared in a 1944 edition of the Herald.
A rarity in the digital age, most Concrete Herald stories are not published online. Miller uses the website to tease headlines from the print paper. Readers interested in reading a digital copy can sign up for an “e-edition” subscription, where they’ll receive a PDF version of the paper via email.
“If you can find the same content online, I’m not doing my job quite right,” Miller said. “I try to dig for the stories that aren’t found anywhere else.”
Still, he’s ready for a change, weary from the drama of town politics and looking for “more resources and opportunity” for his kids. Moving to Lynden will bring him closer to family, too.
“I don’t hate the job, or I wouldn’t have done it for the past 15-plus years,” Miller said. “But it’s time to move on.”
Sophia Gates covers rural Whatcom and Skagit counties. She is a Washington State Murrow Fellow whose work is underwritten by taxpayers and available outside CDN's paywall. Reach her at sophiagates@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 131.
