This morning I want to share some good news about local news — and from a legacy newspaper company, no less. The Hearst newspaper chain has acquired The Dallas Morning News, adding to its constellation of Texas newspapers including the Houston Chronicle, the Austin American-Statesman and the San Antonio Express-News.
Hearst is a privately held chain and, though corporate chain ownership is always problematic, the company has shown that it’s committed to strong regional and statewide news. We discussed Hearst’s strategy in Connecticut in our book, “What Works in Community News,” where Hearst has a cluster of newspapers that includes the New Haven Register, the Connecticut Post of Bridgeport, the Times-Union of Albany, New York (OK, not quite Connecticut), and the digital-only CT Insider. Hyperlocal is left to smaller outlets and digital startups.
Readers with long memories may recall that DallasNews Corp. at one time was known as Belo, and that it owned The Providence Journal. Rick Edmonds, who analyzes the news business for Poynter, reports that the Texas transaction was worth some $75 million, writing:
Staff reductions on the business side can be expected as those Dallas Morning News functions are consolidated with the rest of Hearst, but except for production, I would expect the newsroom to remain nearly intact. The Morning News’s story on the deal said that it has 157 news employees.
Ken Doctor, a former newspaper industry analyst who now runs local news digital startups in Santa Cruz, California and Eugene, Oregon, had a positive take on the news.
“To have a state like Texas with one owner for those four markets is really something,” he said. “Hearst has held on to their newspaper business and is reinvesting. That’s really contrarian and a good sign for the industry. And they do great journalism.”
The deal ends 140 years of local ownership for the Morning News, which is a shame. Hearst publishes 28 dailies and 50 weeklies. But for the paper to wind up in the hands of a decent publisher rather than a cost-cutting behemoth like Gannett or Alden Global Capital is certainly good news for the News’ staff and the people they serve.
Nonprofit acquires Vt. weekly
A for-profit weekly newspaper in southern Vermont is going nonprofit. The Deerfield Valley News, founded in 1966, is being acquired by The Commons, a venerable nonprofit newspaper based in Brattleboro.
“We’ve never had the resources for more finely grained news coverage like gavel-to-gavel coverage of municipal government news, and The Deerfield Valley News will continue to perform that critical role, as it has, week after week, for years and years. That won’t change,” said Commons editor-in-chief Jeff Potter in a statement. The Valley News writes:
Randy and Vicki Capitani, owners of The Deerfield Valley News for nearly 35 years, have announced the sale of their venerable weekly print newspaper to Vermont Independent Media, publisher of the The Commons.
The sale was completed on June 27, bringing The Deerfield Valley News under the umbrella of Vermont Independent Media, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit news corporation. The Deerfield Valley News will be a nonprofit sister publication of The Commons, an independent newspaper covering Brattleboro, the Connecticut River Valley, and southern Vermont.
Vermont Independent Media and its board of directors plan to maintain the The Deerfield Valley News as a paid-circulation newspaper serving the Deerfield Valley, and current subscriptions will be honored under the new management. The newspaper will continue to operate out of its Wilmington location, and editorial staff and other key personnel will remain in their roles.
N.H. paper shuts down. Again.
Sadly, another newspaper serving New Hampshire is shutting down. The Claremont Eagle Times ceased publishing several weeks ago, Steve Taylor writes in The Valley News. (That Valley News is based in West Lebanon, New Hampshire, and is not to be confused with The Deerfield Valley News.)
According to Taylor, the Eagle Times has struggled since its founding in 1950. Indeed, the news of its closing rang a bell, and sure enough, the paper closed for the first time in 2009. I guess at some point it was revived. When I took note of the first shutdown, there was another news outlet in town called Your Claremont Press. That no longer seems to be in existence, either.
The shutdown came not long after the staff walked out because their paychecks bounced. By the end, the once-daily print paper was coming out three days a week. Its website had reportedly not been updated since June 15, and it currently appears to be down.