Corporations gutted local newspapers and then wondered why people stopped buying them.
Almost ALL Rhode Island newspapers owned by TWO media conglomerates. List provided below
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He specialized
in squeezing out competitors so each held a local monopoly. Then he’d chop
staff and news content, letting him glean annual profit margins above 30
percent.
Alas for poor
Warren, along came the internet, allowing people to root around for free to
find local information missing from his hollowed out papers. They began losing
readers, advertisers, and profits. So in 2020, Buffett sold out his entire
portfolio.
But rather than
concede that maybe his slash-and-burn, profit-maximization approach had
produced inferior products, “The Oracle of Omaha” (as Wall Street had labeled
him) blasted the whole idea of local newspapers as dinosaurs. They’re “toast,”
he proclaimed.
But wait your
Oracleness, when done right, local publications both chronicle and help shape a
community’s story. And that’s a social benefit that’s as valuable — and as
marketable — as ever.
It’s not that
people have given up on local news, but that corporate-owned papers did. Many
of them aren’t local, aren’t newsy, and aren’t of, by, or for the workaday
people in our communities.
For example,
nearly every corporate daily publishes a business section, which mostly amounts
to yesterday’s stock prices, corporate press releases, and syndicated filler.
Does even 1 percent of the population read that stuff?
Meanwhile, how
about economic news of interest to the great majority of locals who are
workaday families?
Where’s the
regular section that digs into the area’s wages, job losses and openings,
workplace conditions, childcare availability, unionizing efforts, and other
real-life issues that confront this majority on a daily basis?
The relevant indicator of the wellbeing of nearly every American family is not the Dow Jones Average (which newspapers cover obsessively), but the Doug Jones Average. How are Doug and Donna doing? That’s news that would sell papers.
OtherWords columnist is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. Distributed by OtherWords.org.
Rhode
Island newspapers owned by conglomerates
Gannett/GateHouse Media Inc.
Gannett/GateHouse Media Inc. was an American publisher of locally based print and digital media. It published 144 daily newspapers, 684 community publications, and over 569 local-market websites in 38 states. Its parent company, New Media Investment Group, merged with Gannett in 2019.
The Providence Journal of Providence, owned by GateHouse
Media, covering all of Rhode Island
The Newport Daily News of Newport, owned by GateHouse
Media, covering most of Newport County
Mercury,
published monthly and owned by Gatehouse
Media. An alternative weekly-style paper covering arts,
entertainment and food in Newport and Middletown.
RISN Operations
RISN Operations also called Rhode Island Suburban Newspapers, is a privately owned publisher of three daily newspapers and several weekly newspapers in Rhode Island as well as in other states. The company was founded by Illinois-based newspaper executives in early 2007 to purchase the Rhode Island holdings of Journal Register Company, which it did for $8.3 million.
In 2013, RISN acquired the Yuma Sun and the Porterville Recorder from Freedom
Communications.
In 2018, RISN acquired its former competitors South County
Newspapers and its publications The Independent and South
County Life from GateHouse Media, who had bought the papers
from Edward A. Sherman
Publishing in 2017.
In 2019, RISN acquired The Westerly Sun and Sun Publishing Company from the Record-Journal Publishing Company of Meriden, Connecticut. Also in 2019, RISN
acquired The Union Democrat in
California.
The Call of Woonsocket, owned by RISN Operations, covering
northern Providence County
Kent County
Daily Times of West Warwick, owned by RISN Operations, covering most of Kent County
The Times of Pawtucket, owned by RISN
Operations, covering eastern Providence County
The Westerly
Sun of Westerly, owned by RISN
Operations, covering western Washington County
The Chariho Times of
western Washington County
The Coventry Courier of Coventry
The East Greenwich Pendulum of East Greenwich
The Narragansett Times of Narragansett
The Standard-Times of North Kingstown
The Independent, covering South Kingstown,
North Kingstown, Narragansett and The University of Rhode Island
The Express of Westerly