The remaining summer months flew by. Submissions continued to flow into the offices of Farm Country News. Articles from John Deere and Case IH, material from Archer Daniels Midland, a long piece from Monsanto, a story from Tyson Foods, another from Cargill, and a two-thousand-word piece from Land O’Lakes. Nothing from Nathan West headquarters in Dubuque—the folks there were obviously still angry about the editing Josh had done to their long article.
For days on end, Josh sat at his computer, reviewing the stories that came in and doing some minor, usually very minor, editing. He bit his tongue when he allowed some of the material to appear on the paper’s website—in his mind too much of it was poorly written or at best sounded like an info-ad, which, indeed, most of the material was. As long as the money followed the stories, he had no reason to turn them down; his boss had made that abundantly clear.
Josh stopped out at the Nathan West building site in late July and again in late August and after each visit wrote a brief piece, including photos. His boss reminded him that he should allow Nathan West to write the stories and take the photos—that the paper would benefit in at least two ways. Josh wouldn’t waste his time traveling, writing stories, and taking photos; and, of course, Nathan West would pay for everything that it submitted.
After each of Josh’s stories appeared, the usual set of letters to the editor came flying in—some actual letters and most of them e-mails. Almost none included the required payment, so they were never published.
Dear Editor:
I drove by the building site for those new Nathan West hog houses. What a blight on the countryside. A stick in Mother Nature’s eye, that’s what they are.
Jamey House
Tamarack River Valley
Dear Editor:
Mark my word. Something’s gonna happen to them big hog houses. Something bad. We don’t want them in our valley. Simple as that.
M. D.
The last letter came in an envelope with no return address; the postmark was Plainfield. Josh stared at the signature. He had printed several items that M.D. had written, all of them quite critical of the Nathan West project, but none sounded the least bit threatening. Was M.D. going off in a new, more violent direction? He stared at the letter again; it was handwritten. All of the other M.D. pieces had arrived neatly typed. Could this be a different M.D.? Perhaps some kind of prank? Josh didn’t know what to make of the letter, except that it clearly sounded like a threat. He called Natalie. As a trained law-enforcement officer, she would have had experience with these kinds of threats, if indeed it was a threat.
“Natalie, Josh. Got a question for you. What does it take for a threatening letter to become a threatening letter?”
“What?”
“What does it take for a threatening letter to become a threatening letter?”
“I heard you the first time. What’s going on?”
Josh read the letter aloud.
“Who signed it?”
“This is the part that troubles me. It’s signed “M.D.” As you know from reading the paper, we get the occasional submission from an M.D., but we have never gotten a letter to the editor. I can’t believe this is the same person, but you never know.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line.
“Are you still there?” Josh asked.
“I’m still here. I don’t think the letter reaches the threat level. The person didn’t say he was going to harm the Nathan West buildings but merely said something might happen to them.”
“True, but aren’t you splitting hairs?”
“Maybe, but it sounds like a spoof, with the writer using ‘M.D.’ to stand for Mortimer Dunn, that old drowned lumberjack.”
“I was thinking the same thing. Hey, Dunn may be dead, but his ghost is still around. People swear that his ghost is out there, searching for his grave on dark nights and trying to protect the valley.“
Natalie laughed. “You don’t believe in all that ghost stuff, do you?”
“Well, I’ve been getting this poetry from somebody who uses the initials ‘M.D.’ I’m beginning to wonder if the old ghost isn’t writing the stuff and sending it to me.”
“Oh, Josh, what’s happening to you? Where’s that trained journalist who wants only to deal with the facts? Whatever happened to him?”
Now Josh laughed. “Just pulling your chain a little, Natalie. But I really do wonder who M.D. is. I also think I better give the folks over at Nathan West a call, just in case the threat is real and someone is planning to do something stupid.”
“Sounds like a good idea. How about coming to my cabin for dinner on Saturday? I’ll bake a chocolate cake.”
“I’ll be there with bells on,” Josh said.
“You can leave the bells home—I don’t think you’ll need them.” Natalie chuckled as she hung up the phone.
Immediately, Josh called Ed Clark at Nathan West’s building site.
“Ed, it’s Josh Wittmore at Farm Country News.”
“How you doing?” answered Clark, who, unlike his superiors at Nathan Clark headquarters in Dubuque, had come to like Josh and his interest in and writings about their new hog operation.
“Say, I want to give you a heads-up. There may be nothing to it, but after the last piece I wrote about the progress you guys are making with your buildings, I got a rather nasty letter in the mail. I’ll read it to you.” Josh read him the letter.
“Who is this M.D.?” asked Clark.
“Probably stands for Mortimer Dunn, the Tamarack River Ghost.”
“Him again?”
“Yup, lots of ghost believers around. This may be simply a prank. I wanted to let you know, though, just in case there is something to it.”
“We’ve gotten this kind of stuff more times than I can count. We don’t put much stock in these tirades. They come at us from all directions. But thanks for letting me know,” said Clark.
For weeks on end, Josh and his boss scarcely talked. They had obviously reached some kind of truce. Josh came to work each morning, put in his eight hours, and returned to his apartment. His heart was just not in his work anymore. He felt like a phony; he wanted to be a journalist, dig out important stories, interview people, find different points of view on a controversial topic, but now his hands were tied. He believed a high school dropout could do the work he was doing; his position certainly didn’t require a trained journalist.
The electronic Farm Country News was making a profit. It should, thought Josh. The paper’s fixed costs were minimal. It had a tiny full-time staff and almost no newsprint and press charges, as it printed only a thin broadsheet once a month. Posting material on the paper’s website cost the paper little.
Josh had hoped people would begin to see that the printed articles, especially those that were supposed to be news, were not news at all but advertising pieces for the companies submitting them. A few people figured it out and let the paper know in no uncertain terms that they were opposed to what it was doing. A recent e-mail Josh received made the point:
Dear Editor:
What do you think your readers are? A bunch of idiots? I subscribed to Farm Country News for more than twenty years. In its print format, I found it interesting, informative and well edited. Now, with your new online format, you’ve completely lost your direction, and, I might add, you’ve lost my support. I’d like to say that I am canceling my subscription, but alas, all I can do is no longer go to your website. (I am telling my friends to avoid your website as well.) You claim that people want their news free and unencumbered by ads and other moneymaking schemes. Well, remember the old adage: there is no such thing as a free lunch. A free newspaper without advertising falls into the “free lunch” category. And perhaps, even worse, it is a major deception, coming right close to being a scam. Some people actually believe they are reading news when they are reading yet another advertisement presented to look like news. You are doing a great disservice to the public, whether you are aware of it or not. If I could think of a way of shutting you down, I would do it.
John Frederick
Ames, Iowa
Josh forwarded the e-mail to his boss, hoping that one day soon Lexington might see his idea was failing and that if the paper was to continue it must develop a new strategy. But he heard not a whisper from his boss. Not one word.