End of an era: Standard Democrat publisher Michael Jensen leaving after lifetime in newspaper business

Tuesday, May 28, 2019
Standard Democrat publisher Michael Jensen looks over some documents Tuesday morning at the Standard Democrat office. Jensen will be leaving the newspaper Friday after nearly 50 years in the newspaper business.
David Jenkins/Standard Democrat

One of the first stories Michael Jensen ever did when he was hired to work at Sikeston’s Daily Standard in May of 1970 was a feature story on a blacksmith from Matthews, Mo.

As the days of the blacksmith were dwindling, Jensen was enamored by the man and his story of being able to pursue what he loved.

“He was a fascinating guy from a completely different era and I remember the one quote he had,” Jensen said. “He said ‘I’d rather be a blacksmith than the president of the United States.’ And I thought how wonderful that was that a man found what he wanted to do in life and was able to to do it his entire career and I’m able to view myself the same way.”

Little did Jensen know when he wrote that story 49 years ago that his life would follow a similar path. And on Friday, Jensen will be leaving the Standard Democrat and the newspaper business that he has known almost his entire life.

Newspaper family

Jensen grew up in a newspaper family. After World War II his father, Marvin, left the Marines and answered a classified ad and went to work as a linotype operator for the Dexter Messenger in 1946.

“I remember going to the old Dexter Messenger office in the early 50s, just being a little kid, and being amazed by the machinery,” Jensen said. “I guess maybe I got the bug early.”

In the summer of 1963, Marvin was working for the Daily Standard in Sikeston and Jensen, at the age of just 15, began working in the production end with his father. It was then he decided he wanted to go into the newspaper business.

Jensen graduated from Sikeston High School and attended Memphis State University and after a quick flirtation with radio and television, got his degree in mass communication and print journalism. He graduated from Memphis State University in May of 1970 and the next week was working as a reporter for the Daily Standard, eventually working his way up to city editor.

“Back then the people in the newsroom, not a whole lot different than today, did it all,” Jensen said. “We had no full-time photography so you did your own photography, you wrote your own headlines, you obviously wrote your own copy, went to the meetings and what have you, and I just absolutely loved every minute of it.”

In the spring of 1972, Jensen was hired to help launch a new newspaper in Cape Girardeau, Mo., called the Bulletin Journal. A combination of a small newspaper from Cape Girardeau and a small newspaper from Jackson, Mo., Jensen established the newsroom. Which he laughs was just himself at the beginning but the paper “achieved a degree of success,” Jensen said.

Enjoying the management aspect of the newspaper business as well as the newsroom, Jensen returned to Sikeston and started the Democrat Advertiser in May of 1976, serving as publisher until the paper merged with the Daily Standard in 1989, becoming today’s Standard Democrat.

He was then publisher and co-owner of the Standard Democrat until 2008 when Rust Communications bought the Standard Democrat and Jensen remained as publisher.

“But none of our success would have been possible without the team who launched this newspaper in the beginning,” Jensen said. “My father, Don Culbertson, Merlin Hagy and Shawn Crawford. I was just a part of this wonderful team.”

The column

One thing that Jensen began in 1976 and has continued as a source of pride for the newspaper man is his column.

“(The column) started off at the suggestion of the executive director of the Chamber of Commerce,” Jensen said. “He said we didn’t have any locally written editorials so he suggested that I start writing one. Most of those first columns were strictly about Sikeston and things that went on here.”

Many of his early columns dealt with being a young father and what was going on in and around Sikeston. As the year’s went on, the columns became more and more political. Since 2008, Jensen’s editorials have focused heavily on politics, running not only in the Standard Democrat but also in newspapers across the area, like Cape Girardeau, Dexter and Poplar Bluff, Mo. The column has won numerous awards, including best column by the Missouri Press Association through the years and best column by the United Press International.

His column has also received national attention at times.

“I remember a column on a congressman from Kansas City on an idea he was floating,” Jensen smiled. “That particular column got picked up by CNN, Fox News and that particular column got over a quarter of a million hits on our website, shut down the server at the newspaper office and the congressman went on CNN to tell me how inaccurate I was and to call me an inappropriate name.”

Newspaper in the community

One of the things Jensen is most proud of is the role the newspaper has held in the community.

“I’d like to think that every newspaper, especially this newspaper, has provided a service to the community,” Jensen said. “Not only in providing information but helping people. And that by far is the most rewarding aspect that I’ve ever experienced since I began this journey many, many years ago.”

Whether reporting on a hostage situation at the Western Union office with an eight-hour standoff or chronicling two major fires that changed the face of downtown Sikeston, Jensen was there, making sure the news got to the community.

Jensen said he remembers many obituaries, names of people who helped shape Sikeston but who are so often forgotten, but who were important to the fabric of the community.

“I’ve seen so many changes in our community over the years,” Jensen said. “And I’ve been lucky enough to be in a job that gets to chronicle those changes. Sikeston, in a lot of ways fights a number of issues, but the opportunities are enormous in our town. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else and I wouldn’t want to do anything else. The newspaper business has been my life.

“If I looked back on it now I don’t think I would change anything. I have thoroughly loved the newspaper business and the ability we have to help people in our community and our region.”

Changes in the industry

While the community has changed, so has the newspaper business in the almost 50 years Jensen has been a part of it. Namely, technology has been the biggest change.

“The content of reporting the news is the same as it’s always been,” Jensen said. “The who, what, why, when, where and how. Truth, honesty, that never changes. But the technology on how we deliver the news has changed radically.”

When he graduated from Memphis State in 1970, Jensen was using a manual typewriter and used the same thing when he started work at the Daily Standard.

“I remember one of the greatest innovations in the business was when we got electric typewriters,” Jensen said. “We thought we’d died and gone to heaven.”

Now things have changed dramatically. Newspaper photography has gone from large format cameras to 35MM cameras and dark rooms to now digital photography. And in 1963, Jensen was working in production when the Daily Standard was one of the first newspapers in Missouri to switch to offset printing, a major change at the time. Now all newspapers use offset printing.

“The one constant in this business is the reporting of the facts of a story. But how we deliver that to the customer is radically different than it was when I started,” Jensen said. “The advent of the computer, social media and all the technology that flows from that has been by far the greatest change, and has been what has greatly affected, in a negative way, the newspaper profession.”

Jensen said he doesn’t know what the future of newspapers are.

“I have often said the newspaper is nothing more than a mirror that you hold up to the community,” Jensen said. “It’s just a reflection of what goes on in that community. That remains true today. Our ability to deliver that news in a timely fashion, in a convenient fashion, has been a sea change in our industry without a doubt. And it’s affecting all newspapers.”

Uncertain future

While Jensen doesn’t know what the future of newspaper is, he also doesn’t know what the next phase of his life holds either.

Born and raised in Sikeston, graduating from Sikeston High School and returning after college to work for nearly 50 years, Jensen has become a part of the Sikeston community.

“I love it,” Jensen said. “I’ve done everything I could for it. I hope I can still be an asset moving forward.”

“I am a man of faith and I believe God has a purpose for me that has yet to be fulfilled,” Jensen said. “Leaving here is bittersweet but change is often bittersweet. I’ve been blessed to have three children that were raised in this community. I’m blessed to have six grandchildren and a good wife and a bonus daughter. I’m a lucky man.”

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