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Article: West Virginia's favorite hillbilly newspaper. (Jim Comstock and the West Virginia Hillbilly)
- Article from:
- American Journalism Review
- Article date:
- April 1, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 University of Maryland. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The tiny mountain village of Richwood, West Virginia, is famous for two products; ramps and Jim Comstock. In season, both can be pungent.
Ramps are mountain onions, foul-smelling vegetables celebrated each year at a harvest festival. Comstock is a quick-witted iconoclasst who built, ran and still has a hand in the West Virginia Hillbilly, a weekly he launched 37 years ago. Its motto: "A newspaper for people who can't read, edited by an editor who can't write."
If West Virginia is, as some say, one big county, then Comstock, 83, is its local historian. For more than five decades, he has served up tales of the state's hills and hollows to readers in 40 ...