In 1950, World War II veteran Hoover Adams scored a $15,000 loan from his father-in-law to start a newspaper in Dunn, North Carolina. He called it The Daily Record and from the start, the paper’s mission was to feature hyperlocal coverage of Harnett County. Church meetings, civic club activities and hog killings took precedence over political elections, plane crashes and national events that happened hundred of miles away from the paper’s home base. Adams’ news model was a success. The Daily Record is still in circulation today, still in the Adams family and was acknowledged by the Wall Street Journal in 2001 for having the highest readership penetration of any newspaper in America. Hoover Adams passed away in July at the age of 92. Host Frank Stasio talks about the legacy of the journalism pioneer with Harnett County native Baxter Ennis, a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel, and Michael Smith, a professor of communication studies at Campbell University.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.