The East Texas Journal
After leaving the Citizen's Record, Hudson Old went to work for an Arlington, Texas steel company. While there, he learned textbook sales techniques. He quickly moved up the sales ladder, rising from writing $35,000 in orders his first month to $600,000 per month by the time he left. When the company balked at paying ever-increasing commissions, Hudson left the company. Six months later, he decided to return to Mt. Pleasant and start another newspaper.
This time, rather than reporting current news, he decided that his new East Texas Journal would focus on human interest stories and stories of historical interest drawn from Titus and surrounding counties. He set up an office at 209 North Jefferson in the back of his father's used book store and sandwich shop and established the East Texas Journal with a camera and a typewriter. The man who hired Hudson for the steel company came from Dallas twice to re-hire him, and ultimately paid him to drive to Dallas to talk to his boss about going back to work for the company. Hudson decided to stay with his first loves - writing, photography, and the newspaper.
Two months later he got a telephone, which was a definite asset. To build paid circulation, he got four more telephones and hired four salesmen to dial numerically through the telephone exchange, starting with 572-0000 through 572-9999. Next, they called everyone in the 577 exchange. Within a couple of months, they had written a couple of thousand orders.
The paid circulation base qualified the East Texas Journal for a second class mailing permit (now Periodicals Postage), which afforded a deep mailing discount and better service than third class Bulk Mail. Periodicals Postage originated with Benjamin Franklin, who believed that the free press serves a vital function in a democracy. In theory, "periodicals" pay only for mailing the advertising portion of the newspaper.
Initially, Hudson contracted out the typesetting, but by the end of his first year in business he bought a computer and hired Sharron Forbes to do his typesetting. The actual printing was contracted to commercial printers rather than making the enormous investment in web presses used to print newspapers. Using sales techniques he'd learned at the steel company, he built up his advertising clientele.
The East Texas Journal was well received by the community. Hudson's wife, Susan, joined him to do the typesetting in the family business after Sharron Forbes left the company. In October, 2003, they moved the Journal into a new building at 119 East Sixth Street.
In addition to editing the newspaper, Hudson does photography for commercial clients. His photographs, which support the stories' text, are a hallmark of the paper. The Journal now features four-color process printing to allow reproduction of color photos. The Journal's circulation has expanded from Titus to Camp, Franklin, Morris, and Red River counties and Hudson is always on the lookout for a good story from those areas.
