Dear Subscriber,
John Agar has been a crime and courts reporter for his whole career as a journalist. And he also has been a victim of crime.
Together, they helped him become extremely competent at what he does, as well as compassionate when other people become victims of tragedy.
“I don’t like bad things happening to people. It’s just, that’s what usually happens on this beat,” he said. “I count my blessings. I do think, a lot of the people who go through tragedy aren’t any different than me or my family.”
John has been a professional journalist for 32 years, the last 24 at The Grand Rapids Press. I’m telling you his story today because I want to take the opportunity in 2020 to introduce you to the people who bring you the news for MLive and our eight newspapers brands across the state.
I’ll focus on their stories, rather than the stories they bring you.
John’s career path started like many a journalist’s – in the home of parents who were newspaper subscribers.
“I used to lay out the Kalamazoo Gazette on the floor,” he said. “I read the old-style sports editors like Jack Moss in Kalamazoo and Bob Becker in Grand Rapids. They knew everyone and seemed to know everything going on in town.”
Like thousands of Kalamazoo youths, John made it into Moss’ column: “Sports look-alikes: Kalamazoo sportsman John Agar and Larry Bird.”
He was struck by the role of a paper in a community: “I remember being fascinated that the paper could challenge anyone in power. Reporters and the paper weren’t afraid of anybody. Be accurate, tell the truth.”
John attended Western Michigan University, and was in a journalism class when the instructor “shamed” him for not working for the campus paper. His first assignment, a soccer game, got scrubbed when he instead was sent to a program by a controversial campus religious group.
“The story was on the front page the next morning; it was a moment I still haven’t forgotten,” he said.
John also made the news after high school when he was robbed at gunpoint when delivering receipts from his job at a restaurant to a bank. The next day, he thought the brief news item was flippant, and that made an impression that informs how he does his job: “Write a good, complete story.”
That comes through in his approach to stories such as one last week, when a mother and three sons died in a house fire, despite heroic efforts by a neighbor to save them. John interviewed that man, as well as other neighbors, and told a tragic story accurately, and with compassion.
It’s a tough job, approaching people in the wake of tragedy.
“Mostly, I try to be a decent person,” he said. “Depending on who you’re talking to, they’re kind of in shock.”
In the course of my job, I always learn things I didn’t know about people I’ve worked with for a long time. John, who lives in Zeeland with his wife, Jennifer, and three children, is no different. Well, one of his hobbies sure is different – he keeps 50 fish tanks in his basement, a turtle habitat, and five frog ponds in the backyard.
“I got a fish tank for Christmas when I was about 8. … Then started going a little berserk with it,” he said.
He keeps mostly fish from Lake Tanganyika in Africa, “with ‘sumbu’ altolamprologus compressiceps, a dwarf shell dweller as I'm sure you know, the favorite.”
I’ll take your word for it, John. I have a little more comprehension of what you do for a living – and gratitude for doing it well and thoughtfully. |
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Sincerely,
John Hiner
Vice President of Content for MLive Media Group
Share your thoughts with him at editor@mlive.com |
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