Charleston (WV) Gazette to declare bankruptcy ... Ogden to purchase

Sad day in West by God ...
The Gazette, a Pulitzer Prize-winning paper (twice, actually) is declaring bankruptcy and will likely be assimilated into the right-wing Ogden chain.
The Gazette has really got left-leaning the last few years, but to be scooped by the MAGA-banner waving Ogden chain is the ultimate insult, and will kill independent investigative journalism.

Gazette-Mail declaring bankruptcy; Wheeling Newspapers is planned buyer

 

Worked for the Daily Mail on two separate occasions -- once in newsroom from 2007-08 and then sports from 2010-13 -- and thankfully, was able to get out of journalism before the merger. Sad for all the DM staff who I had the pleasure of working with, but most of those faces are long, long gone.

 

Well this part is good news then.

 

How the hell can Charleston go broke, I ask? Charleston has a metro population of 225,000 and is the state capital I would think the economy is a bit more stable and affluent than the rest of the state. The same family has owned it for 110 years so one would think it did not have a lot debt piled on it.

In reading the link there appear to be two reasons besidess the dismal state of the publishing industry. The owners just lost a 3.8 million lawsuit over some business matter I don't understand and the company employees 206, which seems like a lot for Charleston.

I have never seen a newspaper from West Virginia but is Charleston circulated statewide? It sounds like a really good paper for its size.

 

The suit, I think, stems from the JOI agreement the Gazette made with the Daily Mail, effectively giving the DM a death sentence. The Gazette then sold the US internet naming rights to the UK Daily Mail for a nice chunk of change.

I don't know how they go belly up either. Ads must really be down. They have cut and cut and cut staff. 206 is a lot, but I'll bet it was double that a few years ago - plus the building expenses - (DM and Gazette) operated out of the same building for decades.

The Gazette is circulated statewide. Which is good and bad. State edition goes to press at like 6 p.m.

 

Most WV'ians will probably agree.

The Gazette is great for news. Tremendous work. Like today ... Drug firms shipped 20.8M pain pills to WV town with 2,900 people

...Eric Eyre won the Pulitzer for his work on this stuff in 2016.

But the Gazette is also anti-coal, anti-gun and pro-Homeless and Pro-LGBT and not afraid to slant articles.
A lot of the stuff they report - right or wrong - does not sit well with readers.

 

This is fantastic stuff. Great reporting.

 

It is indeed great reporting done by the Pulitzer Prize winner, Eric Eyre. He is described as the statehouse reporter. I know many papers have abolished that beat. At one point in Colorado reporters from the state dailies covering the capitol. Does Ogden have a statehouse reporter?

 

Dickie Dunn can't even capture the spirit of this thing.

 

They used to have one out of the mothership in Wheeling. They they tried a pool reporter for the beat for all its papers. Now they rely on the AP.

Phil Kabler is the statehouse beat reporter.

 

What is Ogden like financially? Do they pay well or ? Are they stable or ?

 

Pay is crap.

Their papers are committed to good journalism — at least at my old stop, which was one of their bigger pubs.