45 years of AgriNews: AgriNews marks 45 years of providing important news for farmers

Editor’s Note: AgriNews is celebrating its anniversary by reviewing some of the top agricultural issues over the past 45 years.

LA SALLE, Ill. — The focus for Illinois AgriNews has remained the same for 45 years — provide information important to Illinois farmers.

“Lou Lesniak was the idea guy, and the whole idea of AgriNews was to target the working farmer and farm families,” said Lynn Barker, who retired as publisher of Illinois AgriNews in December 2019. “The basis of AgriNews was built around local news and local advertisers.”

Barker began his career at Illinois AgriNews in March 1978, one year after the paper began publishing.

The words “upstart,” “advertising” and “agriculture” intrigued Lynn Barker to apply for a job at AgriNews that resulted in a nearly 42-year career with the company.

“AgriNews was one of the few independent agricultural newspapers in the country,” Barker recalled. “There were ag newspapers in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Dakota and Indiana at that time.”

Illinois AgriNews, which originally was owned by Miller Group Media, was purchased by Shaw Media in September 2019.

“Shaw Media is the third oldest, continuously owned and operated family media company in the nation, founded in 1851,” said Dan Goetz, the current publisher of Illinois AgriNews. “We have daily and weekly newspapers in northwest Illinois and Iowa in addition to several niche magazines.”

Shaw Media, Goetz said, is dedicated to serving communities to provide local news and advertising.

“We’re going to continue the 45-year tradition of excellent coverage of agriculture to serve our farmers and also continue to provide a very strong print edition for our advertising partners,” he said. “Along with that print edition, we can now reach our readers on many different platforms with our website, newsletters, Facebook and Twitter.”

With resources at Shaw Media, Goetz said, advertisers have many ways to inform readers about their products and services.

“There are so many solutions like targeted email blasts,” he said. “With those emails, we can go to different counties or down to ZIP codes to target different areas of the state.”

Technology provides readers information where they want to see it.

“Whether it’s a reader or an advertiser, we can provide people with the information they’re looking for in whichever way they’d like to see it,” Goetz said. “If someone enjoys looking at the website, they can go there and see all the content, including the E-edition of the paper.”

In The Beginning

Barker started as an advertising representative for Illinois AgriNews and held the position of national advertising manager prior to becoming the publisher of the newspaper.

Selling advertising for an upstart newspaper was not any easy task, Barker said, and he heard the word “no” quite often from many ag companies.

“When I started, I worked out of the Morton office, and I had a sales route in east-central Illinois,” Barker said.

“We always wanted to make at least 13 sales calls per day,” he said.

“After being told ‘no’ the entire day, I pulled off on the city square to reflect and I told myself I had to find another job,” he recalled about a day early in his career. “After 15 minutes of reflection, I made my last stop of the day and sold a two-column by 5-inch ad.”

Advancements in technology had a significant impact on how Barker completed his work for the AgriNews.

Once an advertisement was sold, AgriNews salespeople used grid paper to design an ad and sent film to the home office in La Salle to be developed for pictures that were included in the ads.

“All our work was packaged and put on Greyhound or Trailways buses on Friday nights,” Barker said. “One of the tricks of the trade was finding a phone booth to call clients with a calling card while you were on the road or to call the home office.”

Now, advertising sales representatives submit ads for AgriNews through the internet, including art and photos.

“Technology has made our jobs easier because sales people can show spec ads or previous ads on their tablet while visiting a customer,” Barker said.

In The Field

AgriNews employees attended all kinds of agricultural events to introduce the paper to as many potential readers and advertisers as possible during the initial years.

“I would go to the consignment auction at Martin Auction Company, set up a card table and hawk newspapers,” Barker said. “The Martins recognized early on that this publication had potential, so they welcomed me there.”

Among Barker’s fondest memories of his work at the AgriNews is the day an equipment jockey from Mexico walked into the office.

“He had found our newspaper at the Martin consignment sale a couple months before,” Barker said. “He was back in the U.S. and he traveled to La Salle, Illinois, to pick up the AgriNews.”

As websites on the internet became important for companies and organizations to provide information, the Chicago Board of Trade contacted AgriNews Publications for some assistance, Barker said.

“One of the traders who was on the CBOT board asked us to be a content provider for the CBOT website,” he said. “So, we worked out a system to provide content every week to the CBOT, and we probably did that for a year before they started doing that work themselves.

“The AgriNews is successful because it is all encompassing — we don’t just concentrate on row crops or raising livestock,” Barker said. “And we don’t only include the business of farming, but also the lifestyle, as well as youth activities like 4-H, FFA and county fairs.”

“We will continue to provide the agricultural community with the information they need and our advertising partners the solutions they need for marketing,” Goetz said. “We’re always looking ahead to see what’s next to serve our readers and advertisers.”