Dayton newspaper owned by Cox again

Who knew that it was possible to resurrect a newspaper. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes the next-to-last newspaper in my 42-year journalism career will be a 7-day daily again.

And with its original owner, Cox Enterprises!

Cox agreed to buy the Dayton Daily News back from Apollo Global Management.

Give the Federal Communications Commission an assist for that miracle. The FCC ruled that Apollo could buy Cox’s TV stations ONLY if it stopped publishing a daily newspaper in the Dayton market.

Apollo gets to keep WHIO-TV in Dayton, which Cox had owned, and Cox’s Ohio radio stations. Apollo had to choose between the Dayton TV station and the Dayton Daily News.  The FCC didn’t want one owner controlling every media outlet in Dayton.

To not kill the entire deal, Apollo agreed to sell the Dayton Daily News and the Springfield News-Sun and Journal-News back to Cox.

Former Ohio governor James Cox bought the Dayton Evening News in 1898 and renamed it the Dayton Daily News.  DDN was the afternoon newspaper during my 13 years there. Its sister paper was the morning Dayton Journal Herald.

Cox Enterprises is based in Atlanta.

I went from the Dayton Daily News to the Akron Beacon Journal in 1969 and retired from Ol’ Blue Walls in 1996. So 27 of my 42 years were spent in the shadow of America’s greatest newspaper owner in history, John S. Knight.

But JSK’s shadow, in a way like Punxsutawney Phil the groundhog who "predicts" whether we'll have six more weeks of winter, didn’t show up in Akron every year till after the Kentucky Derby horse race was run on the first Saturday in May. He spent his winters at the Miami Herald. Mr. Knight was wise in so many ways.

To read the Dayton Daily News article, go to https://www.daytondailynews.com/news/local/cox-enterprises-buys-back-ohio-newspapers-day-publication-continues/q4q4JbHSw0fMzS8dZRDF2H/?utm_source=newspaper&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=11583366&ecmp=newspaper_email&&iaccess=fDIvMTAvMjAyMCAzOjA1OjMwIFBNfGVtYWls