Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/720999
AUGUST 31 - SEPTEMBER 6, 2016 UCW 7 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM JASON BRADY. Columnist. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomin- gweekly.com. 910.484.6200. It finally happened. I am writing this column for one of the few locally-owned newspapers in the region. With the sale of the Fayetteville Publishing Company to GateHouse Media, the Fayetteville Observer can no longer bill itself as one of the oldest family owned newspapers. The sale included the company's military newspapers and commercial printing operation. The agreed upon sale price between "the family" and GateHouse Media is unknown. Also unknown is how the sale to a New York media conglomerate that owns 630 publications in 36 states will affect local news coverage. It's no secret that Gatehouse Media is a company designed to make a profit. The Poynter Institute, a journalism advocacy group, reported that GateHouse Media is reducing staff at recently acquired newspapers: the Columbus Dispatch in Ohio, Rockford Register Star in Illinois, and the Providence Journal in Rhode Island. The voluntary buyout works like this: employees get a week or two to consider an offer of one week's pay for every year they worked at their companies. If they agree, they're gone by mid September. If not, the hammer could fall in the future on those remaining, but without a parachute. I asked Robert Gruber, the new publisher, what the transition from family-owned to a corporate-owned newspaper will look like to its readers. He said that changes in procedures and software upgrades would be transparent. "Personally, my first objective is to better understand Fayetteville as a community and how the Observer plays a role within it," he said in an email. The Observer recently won the General Excellence Best in State award from the North Carolina Press Association, he said. "Therefore, I do not see any reason to come in and attempt to make any changes on how this newsroom covers the community." I worked for The Observer from 1980 to 1989. I first covered government and courts, then everything military. It was the heyday for news coverage. The morning paper — The Times — and the afternoon Observer indulged in cut throat competition that outsiders could never fathom. Competing reporters covered every event, government agency or meeting. Each vied to be the first with the most. The papers were independent operations. The Times put out a combined Saturday paper, The Observer the Sunday edition. Both papers had their own editorial page editors, often with differing points of view. Whether you read the paper in the morning or later in the day, readers got their money's worth. A TV reporter once admitted to me that he read both papers to determine his news coverage. That's until they merged in 1990. The merger caused the inevitable loss of some good editors and reporters on their own accord. Coverage remained good, but less balanced, less aggressive. Then came the anticipated decline of large daily newspapers. It came in part to digital media and in how younger readers preferred their news in snippets and tweets. A former colleague once remarked to me that there were more empty than occupied desks in the newsroom. My 87-year-old mother reads the paper from front to back. So does my mother-in-law. She gets dibs on the Sunday paper. But sadly, daily newspapers have abandoned older readers and readers who enjoy flipping ink stained pages while savoring a cup of morning Joe. The print is too small for aging eyes. And, many issues covered by young often inexperienced reporters do not interest Babyboomers. Just today, a coworker who reads the paper religiously lamented that the paper lacked substance, at least in his mind. So, how will this previously family-owned newspaper fare under absentee ownership? It really doesn't matter. Corporate ownership of newspapers is now the norm. Besides, The Observer is now one of a dozen North Carolina publications owned by GateHouse Media. Even foreign corporations own major U.S. newspapers like the Wall Street Journal. Locally-owned metro newspapers are history. Community weeklies — like Up & Coming Weekly — have grown and continue to thrive. And Then There Was One by JASON BRADY OPINION Hours: 9am-6pm Mon-Fri 3006 Bragg Blvd. 910.323.1791 COME SEE OUR GREAT SELECTION OF FOOTBALL TROPHIES and awards! COME SEE OUR GREAT SELECTION OF FOOTBALL TROPHIES and awards! COME SEE OUR GREAT SELECTION OF FOOTBALL TROPHIES and awards! Gatehouse Media's purchase of The Fayettville Observer makes Up & Coming Weekly the community's only locally-owned paper.