Gatehouse offering buyouts

GateHouse canceled the contract with the stringer providing University of Arkansas coverage. They will now use AP - until that contract is cancelled to save money.

 

When I tried the Carthage Press website I was directed to the Neosho website.

 

An old college friend of mine, who used to be a pretty regular poster on this board, saw his paper in Gridley, Calif., suddenly shut down. He tells me they were in the middle of their deadline crunch for the Friday paper when a couple of Gatehouse corporate types walked in and told them the next day's paper would be their last.

The Chico paper had a story on it:
With one day’s notice, Gridley Herald staff prints final issue, closes its doors – Chico Enterprise-Record

 

I’m guessing the only reason GateHouse isn’t offering buyouts at the shop I’m familiar with is because they bought the paper in early 2016 and nobody in the place has built up enough seniority under the new regime to make a buyout worthwhile. This publisher will just cut your ass cold and cry crocodile tears all the way to his pad in Oak Lawn.

 

My guess is somebody in Gridley is going to continue the newspaper. Do they have to buy the rights from Gatehouse first?

 

Only if they want to use the same name. Anyone can start a paper. Though when a paper closes the items of most value to the successor paper are the list of subscribers and then maybe the archives.

I googled Gridley and Carthage. Both are close to larger cities, Joplin and Marysville respectively. I suspect the smaller papers were just squeezed out. There will be more. Gatehouse owns about 500 papers and they clearly will not carry a paper that is burning cash. Revenues fell almost five percent at their papers last quarter. As revenues decline more shops will fall below the cut

 

Not to mention GateHouse will siphon as much as they can from the dying papers before taking them behind the shed and putting a bullet through its eyes.

 

Welp, then.

At one point, I was told by a Joplin Globe reporter that people in Carthage had asked for coverage because of the paper going down to once a week. At the time, he said they didn't have the staff. But since then, I know they've added a sports position, so they may dedicate someone to Carthage athletics.

I started covering a high school that one of the Gatehouse papers dropped (that school not finding out until its football team wasn't in that paper's football preview last year) after it said it didn't have enough resources to do it. But they have enough resources in the newsroom to continue covering that town's city commission meetings.

 

Given the choice, as a news consumer, I’d rather have the latter.

 

Gatehouse would probably prefer they not do either.

 

This seems to be going around

 

The latest victim: Waynesville, Mo. Last issue today. Rolla to to start covering Waynesville. Website already redirected.

Waynesville closure note to readers