<\/p>\n
SILVERTON \u2013 Mark Esper, editor and publisher of the Silverton Standard & the Miner, used to report in war-torn Bosnia and Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was good preparation for Silverton,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Journalists \u2013 irritating, imperfect, insatiable and ungrateful \u2013 are despised everywhere and perhaps nowhere more than in small towns, where there is no social buffer between reporters and the people they sometimes unsparingly write about.<\/p>\n
The Standard, based in Silverton, a stunning mountain hamlet with a year-round population of about 600, is the oldest paper in Colorado. Since Esper took it over in 2009, it has won more Colorado Press Association awards than Esper can count.<\/p>\n
Every week, Esper produces the paper basically by himself, doing all of the reporting, editing, editorializing, much of the photography and some of the advertising sales. On Thursday mornings, he drives to Durango before dawn to fetch it fresh off the presses and delivers it by hand in Silverton.<\/p>\n
Reporting is grueling, stressful, often demoralizing work. Right now, life is stark for Esper, whose uncompromising stories about Silverton\u2019s city government have plunged the town into a rancorous, still-unfolding scandal that was sparked by one city employee fulminating about another city employee at a bar in the early morning hours.<\/p>\n
\u201cI editorialized that if you fire someone for what they say about their boss at a bar at 1 a.m., everyone in town would be fired,\u201d Esper said. \u201cBut since this thing blew up, I\u2019ve been slammed by both sides. It\u2019s gotten tough recently.\u201d<\/p>\n
As he told the story while working in his office, a reader suddenly entered to tell Esper in no uncertain terms that one faction embroiled in Silverton\u2019s ongoing dispute was made up of damnable liars.<\/p>\n
In person, Esper is bracingly intelligent, with a veteran reporter\u2019s steel-trap memory for old, colorful details, a wicked, sardonic sense of humor, weakness for cigarettes and an unabashed love for gossip.<\/p>\n
Since Esper initially reported the bar comments, Silverton Board of Trustees launched an investigation into the boozy tirade, a city employee has been fired and a city council member is facing recall.<\/p>\n
A visit to Silverton showed the town to be convulsed by the affair.<\/p>\n
Interviews with several Silverton residents about Esper were cut off when their neighbors \u2013 whose enemy political affiliations were well-known \u2013 emerged to rake leaves and collect mail \u2013 meaning, spy on them.<\/p>\n
Esper acknowledged the difficulty and the pleasure of reporting in Silverton.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe freedom is great, as is the sense of accomplishment. I don\u2019t miss editors. But I do miss the camaraderie of the newsroom. It\u2019s a little lonely,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t get out much.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Standard\u2019s headlines are, unfailingly, a joy to read:<\/p>\n
\u201cParking ticket is swiped by crow\u201d; \u201cMystery chicken has lots of pluck\u201d; and \u201cShocker! The Bigfoot Hunt May Not Be Real!\u201d<\/p>\n
But in addition to thoroughly charming parade, school and Fourth of July coverage, the Standard unstintingly covers serious issues, including an ongoing environmental catastrophe caused by mine drainage and lack of adequate health-care delivery.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Esper reported on the killing of Jessica McFarland, a hometown girl whose hometown husband, Michael McFarland, was subsequently charged with murder.<\/p>\n
When the Standard published a photo of police carrying McFarland\u2019s body out of her home in bag \u2013 often a routine news decision at a some metropolitan papers \u2013 town residents raged at Esper, who quickly took the photo down from his website. Far from being heartless, he spent nights worrying about the role he played in breaking Silvertonians\u2019 hearts.<\/p>\n
San Juan Historical Society\u2019s Bev Rich acknowledged the difficulty of being a one-man news operation in a one-newspaper town, where readers hold the paper spiritually responsible for the things it reports happening.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe deals with it pretty well. He\u2019s interviewed (Fidel) Castro! But he does get upset sometimes, when people on both sides are mad at him. The town blames him for its mess; people yell. I just tell him: There are a bunch of quiet people here who think you\u2019re doing the best job in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silverton resident Casey Carrol said, \u201ceverybody in this town gives (Esper) a hard time. But have you ever seen an editor work as hard? I get up early, and at 5 in the morning, I\u2019ll see Mark trudging through the snow, huddled down, delivering papers. He hasn\u2019t had a vacation in seven years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Resident Freddie Canfield said Silverton\u2019s discontented residents \u201cget all wrapped about things, and Mark\u2019s the axle, the nitroglycerine in a situation that\u2019s highly explosive. That\u2019s just the way it is. Up here, it\u2019s a remote and hostile environment.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can tell he has bad days. We do rely on him to get the correct information out there \u2013 even if he needs a proofreader desperately,\u201d she said. \u201cBut if anything goes on in town, he knows, and it\u2019s in that paper. He works 24\/7. He\u2019s single, and he\u2019ll be single forever because no wife would put up with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mark Esper started working at the Silverton Standard & the Miner seven years ago after working as a copy editor for Traverse City Record-Eagle, a Michigan paper with a circulation of almost 30,000.
\n He grew up in Flint, Michigan, and attended Eastern Michigan University, where he got his start writing for \u2018Bowling for Columbine\u2019 director Michael Moore at Moore\u2019s Michigan Voice newspaper.
\n \u2018That was before he got famous,\u2019 Esper said.
\n In his long career, Esper has worked at weekly and daily newspapers in Michigan, Colorado, Montana and New Mexico, traveled to 53 countries, reported from Northern Ireland, the former Yugoslavia, Central America, Cuba and the Middle East, interviewed Fidel Castro, been featured on ABC\u2019s \u2018Good Morning America\u2019 while in Havana and has won dozens of Colorado Press Association awards.
\n In 2009, he was a finalist for The Washington Post\u2019s Next Great American Pundit Contest, finishing eighth in a pool of 5,000 entrants.
\n Esper loves history, especially World War I and the Balkans.
\n Chase Olivarius-McAllister
\n An earlier version of this story erred in saying Mark Esper was college roommates with Michael Moore.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The Silverton Standard & the Miner is the oldest newspaper in Colorado, but it has two birthdays. The Weekly Miner was established in 1875, and the Silverton Standard first published in 1889.
\n For much of the 20th century, the Standard was the dominant newspaper in the Southwest. A Sept. 21 headline in the 1901 edition of the Standard proclaimed, \u2018DURANGO TO BE A SILVERTON SUBURB: Silverton is destined to become a city with Durango as a suburb.\u2019
\n But the newspaper\u2019s fortune reversed. During the most recent recession, the Standard almost went under because of financial losses. At the time, GateHouse Media \u2013 a New York-based media conglomerate \u2013 owned it. The company tried to sell it, but when it couldn\u2019t find a buyer, it said it would cease production.
\n Salvation came when the San Juan Historical Society took it over.
\n Now, under Esper\u2019s stewardship, the Standard has rebounded.
\n It has 900 subscribers and sells a couple hundred more copies in the racks.
\n \u2018Sixty percent of our subscribers are out of state. A lot of them are train people, or people who are interested in the history of mining or the Southwest or Silverton for whatever reason,\u2019 Esper said. \u2018One guy in Norway started subscribing, for whatever reason.\u2019
\n An inmate in a California prison tried to subscribe a few years ago because he was trying to figure out if he wanted to live in Silverton once he was released.
\n \u2018It turns out he was a pretty serious sex offender. So I sent him back his money,\u2019 Esper said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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