On Community News and a Life Forged in Southern Illinois: An Interview with Steven 'Snaz' Stilt
Steven ‘Snaz’ Stilt is a long-time friend I grew up with in Greenville, a relatively small town in the greater St. Louis area of mostly rural Southern Illinois. Steven works as the managing editor of the Sentinel, a local newspaper that’s covered Centralia, Mount Vernon and close-by South Central Illinois communities since 1863.
In high school, Steven acquired the nickname, ‘Snaz’, though I’m not sure either of us recall precisely how or why. My assumption, or what I’ve inferred from way back, is that he had an understated je ne sais quoi, along with paradoxically toned-down, silky smooth and fundamentally sound finesse in the realm of academics, sports and conversation.
As a lad, Steven could school you on the basketball court or in a spelling bee, without ever approaching anything approximating arrogance or imperiousness. At the risk of coming across as assholic while trying to be candid complimentary, he was ‘cool’ without trying to be and, again paradoxically, without necessarily being ‘cool’ in any celebrated or conventional sense, which made him that much cooler. Although life has taken us in different directions and we don’t talk frequently these days, my guess is all that remains true enough.
Since I’ve known him, the guy has always possessed a healthy sense of humor, which might not be obvious immediately, but it’s a trait that becomes abundantly clear once you start talking to him. He’s good for a few perfectly-timed hilariously wry remarks, and he has a natural deadpan delivery in his bag capable of inducing uproariously fits of laughter, as needed.
Steven and I were able to talk in person for the first time in a while last summer. I hope we get the opportunity to do that again this July.
Speaking with him last year and learning more about our shared interest in journalism prompted me to reach out again recently to see if he’d be down to do a Q&A for this newsletter. He obliged. The interview focuses on local news, in the main, but ‘Snaz’ fielded a few questions on more personal topics and commented on what it was like growing up in a predominantly lower-middle class community in the mostly rural Midwest at the time we did, what he remembers from those years, and how that upbringing influenced him.
You can read my Q&A with the inimitable Steven ‘Snaz’ Stilt beneath his photo just below.
James: We both grew up in the Midwest in the late eighties, early nineties and early aughts. To be specific, we grew up in Greenville, a small, mostly rural town in Southern Illinois about an hour’s drive from St. Louis, Missouri. What do you think growing up in Greenville does to a person? How did that upbringing shape you and your approach to work and to life?
Steven: It's an interesting place in which to grow up. As you mentioned, it's within an hour of St. Louis, but it's a predominantly white community that's heavily rooted (no pun intended) in agriculture. I've never really reflected before on how growing up in Greenville impacted my development. I think one of the ways in which it affected me was that, at least until college, I had very, very limited discourse with people who weren't, for lack of better phrasing, "like me" — white and lower-middle class. That's not meant to be a negative commentary on the town where I grew up; it's just the reality of the situation. I love Greenville, but it's not necessarily a cross-section of the U.S.
James: Assuming you aren’t going to recall anything too embarrassing, what do you remember most about me from that period (childhood through adolescence)?
Steven: I remember you being highly intelligent and very much into the NBA. If I recall, you may have also been the one who introduced me to "Forgot About Dre," for which I'm eternally grateful.
James: We did not have a school newspaper at Greenville High School (a.k.a. Bond County Community Unit #2 HS). We should have, I argue. We also should have had a cross-country and wrestling team, but that’s neither here nor there. As far as academics are concerned, I think it would be great if kids could be exposed to journalism via a well-organized, student-run newspaper (and perhaps an intro to journalism course) at the junior high or high school level, if not sooner. I’d suggest the same for a critical media literacy/studies course and an intro to philosophy course. Putting aside my K-12 curriculum recommendations nobody is going to take seriously, I’m curious when and how you became interested in journalism. Was it in high school or even before, or not until college or later?
Steven: I took an unconventional (or what I assumed was an unconventional) route to journalism. I spent the first two or three semesters of college undecided on a major, and largely unsure of what I wanted to do "when I grew up." In hindsight, it wasn't a brilliant approach to college.
Anyway, at some point, I'm thinking maybe second semester of sophomore year, I was at a St. Louis Cardinals game, and it occurred to me that I could probably find a lot of satisfaction in sports reporting. "I could go to ballgames and write about them every day."
Fast-forward to my post-college existence. I had tossed out resumes to a handful of area newspapers. One I sent in response to an ad for a sports reporter position; about a month or two later, I received a call back asking if I could come in for an interview. As it turns out, the interview was for a news reporter gig. I went in there and did my best to sound competent, and the rest, as they say, is history.
I've had the opportunity to cover a few sporting events, and have enjoyed doing so, but the bulk of my work has been on the news side and I've truly enjoyed it.
James: Until fairly recently, you worked as editor-in-chief of The Advocate, the newspaper serving Greenville. You also wrote for the paper and covered local stories across a variety of beats. What was your Advocate experience like? What did you learn from working in a small town newsroom? Did you learn anything new about Bond County while at the local paper?
Steven: Working at the Advocate was a fun experience, albeit a stressful one at times. Fortunately, I had a reporter who had been working in journalism for decades, who was able to give some good guidance without being overbearing. I learned that there is a LOT of work to do when you have very few people with whom to split the workload. I had the obvious responsibilities such as writing news stories (the reporter and I split those approximately 50/50) and coming up with a front page layout, but the job also carried some under-the-radar obligations that weren't burdensome in and of themselves, but added to that workload. For example, I had to scour various sources to fill a farm page that ran in the paper a couple times a month.
I'm not sure how much I learned about Bond County during my time at the Advocate, per se, but my time there overlapped the heart of the COVID pandemic, and it was interesting covering news during that time. There was often some tension there between members of the community and, for example, school administration over pandemic-related policies like mask mandates.
James: You now work at another nearby newspaper. Could you comment on that and on how that experience compares to your time at The Advocate?
Steven: Yes, I now work at the Centralia Sentinel, about 45 minutes from Greenville, as the managing editor. The Sentinel publishes five days a week, compared to the twice-weekly Advocate, but honestly I think it's a slightly less stressful experience, all in all. While I do contribute the occasional article, most of my focus is on editing copy, front page layout and assigning stories. We have more to cover, in that our office essentially covers three counties, rather than one, but there are more people to handle the workload.
James: Do you prefer writing and reporting, or do you like editing and facilitating/coordinating newsroom production and content more? And can you explain your preference – and if it has changed at all over the years?
Steven: That's a great question. I enjoy both, but I've probably grown to like the editing/coordination side of things a little more. I learned quite a bit about page design at the Advocate, and I've tried to take that knowledge to my current position and "think outside the box" now and then when it comes to layout. Delegating work and providing constructive criticism aren't really my forte, but it's something I've grown more comfortable with.
That definitely marks a change from the past. Even four or five years ago, I would have felt very much out of my element trying to oversee a newsroom, but my role at the Advocate definitely helped me feel more comfortable making the transition at the Sentinel.
James: As we might’ve discussed previously, community newspapers and newsroom staff have been decimated in the last two to three decades and especially in the last few years. Sometimes papers are purchased by hedge-funds and conglomerates who proceed to shutter them or insert new management willing to layoff reporters and editors because the organs don’t turn a nice profit. Other times smaller, independently-owned papers close because they can’t afford to keep staff and continue printing. That might be because the traditional reliance on advertising for revenue – long a source of tension for commercial media in the US, given third-party preference for affluent audiences and for stories amenable to business interests – is no longer viable in the age of Google (Alphabet) and Facebook (Meta) and similarly situated tech companies monopolizing most of the available online advertising revenue. Sometimes the decimation of local journalism is directly attributable to the steady, continuous decline in readership of newspapers, especially among younger persons. Other forces can over-determine the fate of media at the municipal level as well. Could you comment on the issue of diminished local news and on the importance of that now-endangered community-oriented journalism?
Steven: It's definitely been a tough time for community-oriented journalism, and really for journalism in general. When I started at the Sentinel a decade ago, we had probably two or three more people in the newsroom than we do now, which is pretty significant when you're operating with a fairly small group to begin with.
I truly hope that other small-town newsrooms out there are able to weather the storm. In a sense, those outlets are the "last line of defense" if and when city councils, school boards, etc. try to skirt rules or handle finances in a less than responsible manner. Frankly, in my experience, very few members of the public attend these meetings, so the press is often the lone entity that can shine a spotlight on these issues.
James: What’s the most significant story you’ve authored thus far? Why was it kind of a big deal?
Steven: I guess that depends on one's definition of "significant." I can't single out one particular story, but just a couple months after I started with the Sentinel, word came out that the state had put the Warren G. Murray Developmental Center — a facility in Centralia for individuals with developmental disabilities — on its closure list. Murray, aside from helping provide its residents a high quality of life, is a major employer in the community; its closure would have been devastating to the local economy and the morale of the community at large. My colleagues and I wrote countless articles on the process, from the initial announcement, to rallies against the closure, to state hearings about the facility, to the state's eventual decision to leave Murray open.
It was definitely a collaborative effort, and it wasn't a single article by any means, but I feel it was very important for us to shine a light on the issue and keep the community as informed as possible throughout.
James: What are some stories – or some different types of stories – germane to small-town Southern Illinois or to your part of the Midwest more generally that, in your view, have yet to be written or that entreat greater attention and additional coverage or investigation?
Steven: I'm not sure if this precisely answers the question, since it's not really exclusive to Illinois or the Midwest, but I've been interested in looking at the duality of the proliferation of video gambling. On the one hand, gaming revenues are a pretty significant source of income for small towns that desperately need money. On the other hand, it seems that those who use said gambling machines are generally people who don't have a ton of money to begin with, so the whole concept feels a bit predatory.
On a side note, it has been interesting to see the growth of the cannabis industry in southern Illinois, particularly in small towns. There's been a healthy pushback from some communities against grow facilities and dispensaries, often on religious grounds, but it seems that more and more towns are seeing the fiscal benefits and showing more openness to it.
James: Any advice for young people and others who want to get into journalism, especially as local news reporters? Similarly, any sage advice for those who want to start at local or regional publications and work their way up to writing about subjects with wider appeal for publications with greater reach?
Steven: Quite frankly, make sure it's what you're passionate about. It's not a field that pays particularly well, the perks are pretty minimal and the hours can be unforgiving. If you have a passion for it, though, it can be incredibly fun. It feels great to break a story, or to tackle a story from an angle that none of your competitors have.
Honestly, as someone who doesn't necessarily aspire to move on to a publication with more "reach," I may not have a ton of advice to dispense on that front. I think most of the same principles apply to small publications as larger ones, though — be thorough and be accurate, for example.