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‘Nought may endure but mutability’

My brain was working overtime this morning, and I woke a little before 5 a.m. That was it, couldn’t get back to sleep. That quote above about change from the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was on rewind in my brain as I pondered my day. Why, I don’t know.

The moon was bright and lit up a cloud hanging over our mountain, and a light mist greeted me as I slid into my truck.

I turned away from Shelley and thought of perhaps a more apt phrase for what I wanted to write about this week — the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Like many Tuesday mornings, I knew it would be busy. With that knowledge, I drove to the gym to get a workout before heading to the office. As has been the routine for 27 years of Tuesdays, it’s “press day” at The Smoky Mountain News. That means we finish stories, edit those stories and everything else going into this week’s edition, make sure all advertisements are approved by the businesses buying those ads, send it all to designers to put it on the page, ship the finished package digitally to the press in Bristol, Tennessee, by 5 p.m. at the latest.

Sometime after midnight, a truck rolls into Waynesville and deposits this week’s edition into our warehouse on Montgomery Street. By sunrise we’re getting those papers out to more than 500 locations in Haywood, Jackson, Macon and Swain counties, along with the Qualla Boundary.

When the inaugural edition of The Smoky Mountain News hit the streets on June 2, 1999, we pretty much let out a big breath of satisfied but exhausted air, probably tossed back a few cold ones, and started planning for the next Tuesday, our next deadline.

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These days, though, the news cycle isn’t weekly, and it doesn’t end on Tuesday. There’s no rest for the weary. Like news folks everywhere these days, we’re adding stories and updates to our website almost constantly, sending out daily e-newsletters and making social media posts, doing all we can to make sure readers can stay up to date in a data-driven world where everyone wants to know everything the minute it happens.

I pulled out editions of that paper that hit the streets in June 1999. Our cover story was about the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and in my reporting back then I found that the park had about $3 million in deferred maintenance. Regional tourism and economic development officials worried that the crown jewel of our tourism industry would become decrepit and lose its luster.

Thankfully, park employees work smart and nonprofit groups like Friends of the Smokies and Smokies Life have helped with millions of dollars in donations. Still, Congress is allowing facilities to deteriorate. Twenty-seven years later, that $3 million in deferred maintenance and repairs has ballooned to $308 million.

Talk about things remaining the same.

But let’s look at the upside of celebrating 27 years in business. First, we’re still here. Sadly, hundreds of legacy newspapers and media outlets have closed in recent decades. Every time I read about the demise of a local newspaper it hurts. The fractured online media market, in my opinion, has contributed to the divisiveness that is so prevalent in our society. Online, everyone is an expert, and people are too susceptible to information that just isn’t true. It’s the challenge of this generation, dissecting truth from fiction in a digital-first information age.

In the second edition of SMN that was published on June 9, 1999, I wrote about the joy one can find in the written word. In that same piece, I prophesized about what kind of newspaper I envisioned: “As we give birth to this newspaper, I’m going to try and attract writers who will write thoughtfully about issues affecting this region. That’s the kind of publication I’d like The Smoky Mountain News to become, and if you’re opinionated, smart and care about Western North Carolina, write to us about your concerns. We’d like to publish them.”

Well, I’m proud to say we have had a legion of talented reporters come through our doors since 1999, and I’m proud of the work our writers produce each and every week. I know for a fact that the focus on quality writing and thoughtful reporters has been key to our longevity.

Things change, but they stay the same. Here’s to 27 years.

(Scott McLeod can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)