Sample News Group buys Pennsylvania paper
Sample News Group has bought the Indiana Gazette (Indiana, Pennsylvania), according to Randy Cope of Cribb, Greene & Cope, who represented the Donnelly family in their sale.
Mike Donnelly, former publisher of the Gazette, announced that the paper has been sold to Sample News Group, based in Corry, Erie County. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Sample News Group, whose CEO is George “Scoop” Sample, owns more than 75 publications in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire.
The sale does not affect operations at Gazette Printers in White Township, which will stay under the ownership of Indiana Printing & Publishing.
Adams Publishing goes with Memoriams
Adams Publishing Group is going with Memoriams for obituary self-serve across all properties, said a press release from Adpay | Memoriams.
Memoriams, by Ancestry, is an obituary self-serve network solution for funeral homes and private party individuals. It provides the ability with a single order to place an obituary locally and then into over 3,400 media properties around North America. APG already used Memoriams for a number of their western region properties, the release says.
APG switched to Memoriams from another vendor platform. Webinar trainings are scheduled to manage seamless transitions for funeral directors and the newspaper teams. On-site trainings will occur when COVID-19 allows. Ancestry is Memoriams parent company and Memoriams is a subsidiary of Adpay, a provider of online solutions to the media industry. Adpay customers include Advance Digital, AIM Media, Gatehouse Media, Lee Enterprises, The Dallas Morning News, Black Press, Evening Post Industries, Tampa Bay Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Hunter to take helm at McClatchy
Chatham Asset Management has announced that Tony W. Hunter will be the new CEO of McClatchy. McClatchy said he’ll take up the role in September, after the company comes out of Chapter 11 and completes its court-approved sale to Chatham.
McClatchy’s asset purchase agreement with Chatham was approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court on August 4. This came after McClatchy and Chatham told Judge Michael E. Wiles Aug. 3 that they had reached a tentative agreement with certain creditors that ended opposition to the sale, McClatchy’s D.C. bureau reported. https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article244691827.html
The transaction is expected to close in September, subject to closing conditions and certain regulatory approvals, says McClatchy. Hunter will succeed Craig Forman, McClatchy’s CEO, who along with the current board and Chairman Kevin McClatchy, will leave the company upon McClatchy’s emergence from its court-supervised reorganization. Hunter joined the Tribune Company in 1994, rising the ranks to CEO of Tribune Publishing and publisher of the Chicago Tribune, a role he held from 2008 to 2016. Previously, Hunter served as chairman of Nucleus Marketing Solutions, a collaborative venture between McClatchy, Gannett, Hearst and Tribune, as well as chairman of the News Media Alliance and a member of the board of the Alliance for Audited Media.
Group in Eden Prairie aims to launch news startup
A group of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, residents has started a charitable fund at the Eden Prairie Community Foundation to support a news start-up. The Eden Prairie Local News Group (EP-LNG) is creating a nonprofit news model with a mission to create reader- and business-supported, public-service journalism in Eden Prairie. The nonprofit route will preserve local control and enable the start-up to tap additional revenue streams not available to for-profit models, including tax-deductible donations and foundation grants, says a news release on the effort. Since it’s not yet a 501(c)(3), the group is using the Eden Prairie Community Foundation as its fiscal sponsor, the release says.
The group recently conducted an online survey in Eden Prairie. Among more than 430 respondents, 99.5 percent favored the start of an organization focused on local news.
Sixty-three percent are willing to pay a subscription for receiving local news. More than 60 individuals offered to help in some other way, as an advertiser, writer or advisor to the start-up. The EP-LNG will begin with a news website and grow, focusing on Eden Prairie with news generated by Eden Prairie residents.
Analyst Ken Doctor launching Lookout Local
Media analyst Ken Doctor, who’s been covering the news business for Harvard’s Nieman Lab for more than ten years, is launching a company called Lookout Local. Doctor initially made his move public in October 2019.
According to Lookout Local’s website, it’s a public benefit corporation whose “fundamental mission is to serve its communities with new and higher standard of news, information, and of community engagement and interaction.” Lookout is not aiming to be a supplement or an alternative to the local daily paper, Nieman Lab reported. Lookout sites aim to be the news source of record in their communities, said Nieman Lab. Lookout will launch first in Santa Cruz, California, where Doctor lives. Doctor recently chatted with Joshua Benton, Nieman Lab director, about his plans. https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/08/in-the-arena-ken-doctor-is-moving-from-media-analyst-to-media-ceo-with-lookout-his-plan-for-quality-local-news/
DCOS Automation working with Post and Courier
DCOS Automation has an order from The Post and Courier (Charleston, South Carolina), the company says. The order is for a new controls system integration for the paper’s 108 Goss digital page packs, including ink preset and a new closed-loop color registration/ink density system replacement to their existing CC1 register system.
The project started in 2019, according to Sidney Stover, pressroom manager at the paper. “Near the end of 2019, the current system failed and we were without ink presetting capabilities for two weeks. Our IT department was able to restore the system, but it was only a matter of time before it will fail and not be recoverable.”
“While the more traditional ‘old school Goss Metro’ base is shrinking somewhat over the last few years, there are still quite a few out there that can benefit from our upgrade, I look forward to speaking with these customers soon, hopefully at a rescheduled Metro Production conference later this year or in 2021?” adds Ron Ehrhardt, sales director for DCOS North American operations. “It’s also nice to see newspapers making investments in upgrade equipment during this current COVID-19 economic situation.”
Metric Media buys Mount Vernon News
Chicago-based Metric Media has bought the Mount Vernon News (Ohio), the paper announced Aug. 2. https://mountvernonnews.com/local-news/2020/08/02/mount-vernon-news-under-new-leadership/
Metric Media publishes more than 1,200 business news and regional web sites. The Mount Vernon paper represents Metric Media’s first buy of an existing print title, the paper said. The paper plans to update its print look and add new features and pages. The Culbertson family started today’s Mount Vernon News with a merger of two papers in 1939. Kay Culbertson has been publisher since 1992. She and Assistant Publisher Liz Lutwick will stay with the company in consulting roles, the paper said.
All in Print China set for October, offers online platform
All in Print China 2020 will be held as scheduled from October 12–16, 2020, at SNIEC in Shanghai, say organizers Messe Dusseldorf. https://mdna.com/
Since many international participants can’t visit the show personally due to COVID-19 restrictions, organizers created a new online platform, All in Print Cloud, which will be open until the end of the live exhibition for all participants. All in Print Cloud will open on August 10. All in Print China is the largest trade fair for the printing sector worldwide this year, says Messe Dusseldorf.
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