Wednesday, January 15, 2003
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Wednesday, January 15, 2003 |
Newspaper blaze still under scrutiny; Daily News publishes after building destroyed by flamesBy JOHN
MUNFORD
Investigators are still probing the early morning blaze that destroyed the Fayette Daily News building on Church Street in Fayetteville Thursday. Sgt. Bill Rieck of the Fayetteville Fire Department declined Tuesday to indicate whether investigators have determined how the fire started. He did say there is no evidence of any criminal intent in the blaze, which destroyed the paper's office and press units. The Daily News did not publish its Friday edition but managed to get a black-and-white front page out on the streets Friday as the editorial staff worked from offices in Senoia, said editor Chuck Morley. "That was by the seat of the pants journalism," Morley said, referring to the chaotic nature of putting together the paper, which was printed at presses owned by The LaGrange News. The effort took the paper's 30 employees including delivery folks working overnight to complete, Morley added. "The first thing you want to do after you see something like this is fall down to your knees and cry," Morley said. "I told our people we needed to do that, but we needed to get back up, too." The Daily News publishes on a Tuesday through Saturday schedule, but since computers were being installed they didn't publish yesterday, Morley noted. The fire destroyed the newspaper's "morgue" file of previous issues that dated back to 1937. But a key piece of Fayette newspapering history was preserved in Morley's vehicle: a "film" of a paper called the Fayette Gazette that dated back to 1857. And Morley said the University of Georgia, which has a strong journalism program, may have archived copies of the paper in addition to the probate judge's office. The plans are to rebuild the entire plant somewhere in Fayette, Morley said. "We're looking for a large space in Fayetteville," Morley said. "... We could be here for a while (in Senoia), maybe six weeks to three months, I'd say." Since the paper's subscription records were lost, they are "saturating" the county with newspapers until they can rebuild their subscription base, Morley said. "At some point, we'll go back to our original subscribers," Morley said, adding that the paper has received over 200 calls a day from subscribers wanting to make sure service wasn't interrupted. Some of the paper's computer hard drives survived the blaze and information is being pulled off of them to help the paper get back on its feet quicker. But the paper's accounting information "is gone," Morley said. Morley lauded Fire Chief Alan Jones and his crew for helping them recover what they could from the wreckage. Senoia officials have been very helpful in dealing with the extra traffic the newspaper has brought to its sister office for the East Coweta Journal, Morley said. "They are good, good people down here," Morley said, adding that they also have "good coffee."
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