Followup on Copley newspapers sale

The Dover-New Philadelphia Times-Reporter had a followup story on the sale of Copley newspapers quoting GateHouse CEO and the T-R publisher.

Click on the headline to read the full story. Here are comments from the story:

GateHouse CEO Michael E. Reed has said investing in news content is important.

“Good journalism is our duty,” Reed told Business Week. “If we don’t do that, we know we will lose our readership in buckets.”

Reed, a University of Dayton graduate, told Business Week that he believes in buying smaller papers because they are not encountering the same competition bigger newspapers face for advertising and news.

“These newspapers are the dominant media in their towns,” Reed said. “That’s why we never look at a market and say it’s too small.”

Michael Starn, the T-R’s publisher, said he was pleased about the pending purchase.

“I think it is terrific news for The T-R staff and for the community,” he said in a statement.

“(GateHouse) believes in the local autonomy of its community newspapers, which will allow us to carry on with the excellence our readers and advertisers expect,” he said.

“Hyper-local” news, a trendy journalism term, essentially means enhancing coverage of small-town events, politics and sports. So, for instance, the front-page space the Washington Post would give to a breaking Capitol Hill scandal would be the same as a “hyper-local” publication would give to a big decision by an area school board. The smaller paper might cover the national story through its wire services, but that story might be placed lower on the front page or inside.

In other words, it means devoting a lot of editorial attention and space to an event that the world at large wouldn’t notice, but means a lot to area readers and families.

With a circulation of about 23,000, The Times-Reporter is the 16th largest daily newspaper in Ohio, according to 2006 circulation figures from Editor and Publisher magazine. Ohio’s largest newspaper, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, has a circulation of about 339,000.

But The T-R is big for GateHouse – it will be its sixth- or seventh-largest newspaper, Starn said.

GateHouse currently publishes 76 daily newspapers with a total paid circulation of about 405,000, according to a February 2007 story in Editor and Publisher. That only amounts to an average circulation of about 5,330. The seven Copley dailies GateHouse will acquire have a combined circulation of 241,060 for an average of 34,437.

The Times-Reporter was created in 1968 after Dover’s Daily Reporter bought New Philadelphia’s Daily Times. Copley bought the paper in 2001 from the Journal Register Co. of Yardley, Pa.

GateHouse is the fifth owner of the Times-Reporter since 1987. See also a sidebar on the Times-Reporter.