Local Reporting and Its Significance
By Max Maldonado
Jerry Lower, 60, knows the importance of being up to date on current and breaking news, especially when it comes to his local community in South Palm Beach.
A journalist whose career spans over four decades, Lower is both diligent and accomplished, but he noticed that where he lived in South Florida, an area that spans from Palm Beach to as far south as Boca Raton, was rather under-represented by any major news publications. Lower knew from his years in various newsrooms that some kind of news had to be happening there.
“You’re not going to figure out what is going on in our little towns reading the Sun-Sentinel or the [Palm Beach] Post because they don’t cover our town anymore,” said Lower, “In lots of ways if you don’t write about something [here] it just didn’t happen.”
The lack of news coverage in this area turned into an idea that was birthed between the coastal sea grapes and ritzy buildings that act as one part home and the other part grand statement. In the November of 2008, that idea came into reality in the form of a monthly newspaper named the Coastal Star, located in Ocean Ridge, that has been watching and recording the goings-on in this stretch of coast for almost a decade now.
Lower comes off as laid back and casual, and having his own publication means that he could trade in his old suit and tie for a pair of khaki shorts, a polo shirt, and hiking shoes as his work attire. On his business card, it reads his responsibilities at the Star as publisher, photographer, and paperboy.
Not a native to Florida, Lower was born in Princeton, Illinois, and was the youngest of six children. His family later moved to a small town of around 300 people known as Manlius, where Lower spent the large majority of his youth growing up, as he put it, “in the middle of the cornfields.”
Even before Lower had the thought of pursuing a career in journalism, the era in which he grew up in influenced him heavily.
“I was fortunate enough to be exposed to some really great photojournalism as a teenager,” remarked Lower on instances in history that are now famous, such as the moment when John F. Kennedy Jr., salutes his father’s casket or when the Watergate Scandal was breaking news.
When Lower was to enter high school, his family again moved to another town known as Mohamet. Lower would attend Mohomet-Seymour High School, and it was here where he would foster his interest in photography and join the high school yearbook.
The experienced gained through his time in the lens and recording the stories that took place there would serve as a building block for Lower and would set him down a long career path in news coverage and photography.
Lower later attended Parkland Community College, in Champaign, Illinois, where he pursued a degree in journalism. Lower would spend the next two years cutting his teeth at the college’s news publication, The Prospectus, and would later become editor from 1975 till his graduation in 1977
After college Lower worked for the Morning Courier, a Champaign-based newsprint, until its closure in 1979, and right after he joined on at the Southern Illinoisan as a photojournalist. During his time at the Illinoisan, in 1983, Lower would meet his future wife and business partner, Mary Kate Leming.
The following year, Lower picked up and moved down to the Sunshine State of Florida, where he began the next phase of his career working for the Boca Raton News as a photo and graphics editor. In the summer of 1987, Lower brought on to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel as their director of photography for 17 years until he was let go in 2004.
Out of work, Lower instead took his time, and his severance pay, and put it into returning to college. After graduating from Lynn University in 2006 and a three-year stint in Florida Fishing Weekly, where he worked as the art director and production manager, gave Lower enough time to consider his next career move.
Lower admitted that starting the Coastal Star was a risk, especially at the peak of the financial recession of 2008, a time where most major news outlets were suffering and laying off staff en masse. This gamble paid off, however, and where the Coastal Star began as a prototype of fewer than twelve pages later grew into a successful monthly news outlet with around 17,000 papers in circulation and still continues to grow.
Lower jokingly refers to his and his wife’s publication as “The Senior Tour of Journalism in Palm Beach County,” and credits this moniker to the demographics of its staff.
“If you look at our sales staff and our reporting staff then I think that the average years of experience is actually easier measured in decades,” said Lower. “I can’t think of anybody working for us, who doesn’t have 20 years of experience.”
Chris Bellard, 68, is among that staff and has been with the Coastal Star since its inception. A veteran of the advertising field of journalism, Bellard was among the many career casualties that rocked the news industry during the recession.
Not long after being laid off in 2008, however, Lower offered Bellard a position at the Coastal Star as advertising director, an invitation that she is thankful that she received and one that Lower is thankful that she accepted. Having been with the Star for almost ten years Chris credits some of the paper’s success to its community that it serves.
“I love the people that we tell stories about and I love knowing the local news because no one covers it like this anymore,” said Bellard, “I like having that ability to have something that I could read and know about what is going on.”
Over the years Lower and the other journalists of the Coastal Star have covered a variety of topics and events that have happened in their area, from profile pieces of local businessmen, town council meetings and even public service announcements on how someone can save their pet in the event of an emergency.
For Lower the ecology and environment of Southern Florida has always been of significant interest to him and it is for that reason that he finds the Coastal Star’s environmental coverage to be it’s strongest feature.
“Being located on the ocean and the intercoastal for our circulation area we are covering everything from rising sea levels, the impact of hurricanes, sea turtle nesting, to plastic pollution,” said Lower. “I think that has been one of the things that we’ve done that has been really exceptional in our newspaper coverage.”
Some stories have caused the paper some issues in the past, however.
One story that seemed to stir the community was a look back piece that the Coastal Star had published on two violent murders that happened in 1984. These murderers that were perpetrated by the professed killer, Duane Owen, shook the coastal community to the core and left lasting scars that were laid bare after the story was published in March of 2015, a moment that Mary Kate Leming, 64, remembers well.
“It got a lot of people upset because they didn’t want to remember it,” said Leming.
One story, however, could have seemingly taken the paper out of print for good.
In August of 2017 the Coastal Star published a story of a proposed project to build a new shopping center in a historic district in Delray Beach entitled, Midtown Delray Beach. When the story was made public the developer of the $140 million project, Hudson Holdings, filed a $60 million lawsuit against the paper on grounds of false reporting and defamation.
Lower and other staff of the Star were stunned at first but knew that this response was simply a scare tactic to halt the paper from looking further into the developer.
“It was one of those things where they were wishing that we had quoted what they wanted to say and not what they did say,” said Lower. He then went on to explain how all the information that they gathered was factual, having been gleaned from public records.
The lawsuit was soon dropped and the developer actually apologized for their actions against the Star. Today, Lower says he feels a sense of pride in that his small community paper had such a massive effect on a multi-million dollar corporation.
Stories such as this serve as a point to the power of journalism for Lower, a factor that he wishes to place into everything that he reports on. In the latest issue of the star, one story peeks ahead of the others to demonstrate that power once again.
After the horrific massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, parents of children that attended Gulfstream Elementary, a private school in Gulf Stream, feared that the same event might befall their community. This prompted local law enforcement to implement active shooter training sessions over the spring break when children were off campus.
Lower smiled as he recanted how on April 2nd, he, as a photographer, with friend and journalist Rich Pollak followed law enforcement as they snaked through the halls of the school with airsoft rifles shouting orders and grappling with the mock shooter. Lower even laughed as he mentioned how he even served as a teaching point when during a run through of the session an officer reared a corner and fired off a paper pellet at Lower, mistaking him for the simulated threat.
After pointing to a dark pink welt on his abdomen, Lower chuckled and admitted that he had been at fault, having been standing at the wrong place at the wrong time. After brandishing the souvenir Lower still held the smile on his goateed face and said that he was fortunate to receive the chance to cover something so local, yet so impactful.
The Coastal Star may not be as widespread and distributed as other newspapers, but it’s the purpose of reporting the events and happenings in this coastal community are no less important.
Reflecting on his more than 40 years of working as a journalist, Lower had this to say to anyone interested in pursuing the field.
“Take advantage of the fact that being a journalist gives you a front row seat to life. If you don’t take advantage of that, that is your mistake.”
