Just released from Journal Register Co. headquarters in Pennsylvania:
Journal Register Company Retains Dirks, Van Essen & Murray to Sell Newspapers
Thursday, 13 November 2008
Yardley, PA - Journal Register Company (the “Company”) (PINKSHEETS: JRCO) today announced that it has retained Dirks, Van Essen & Murray to help manage the process of seeking buyers for certain of its daily and weekly newspaper publications located throughout its Michigan, Connecticut and Philadelphia-area clusters. The publications that have been selected for sale are important publications that have been serving their communities for many years; however, Journal Register Company can no longer give both the resources and attention that these publications require to achieve their full potential.
To learn more about the properties that are for sale, please contact Dirks, Van Essen & Murray at 505-820-2700.
I view this as a positive development because it indicates there is a real intention to try to sell the papers. Of course, we already knew there was a broker hired, but having the company say so does mean something.
Oh, and it also means that a bunch of other journalists in Pennsylvania and Michigan must have got the bad news today.
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Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
3 comments:
Not just professional journalists, Steve. As you know, there are lots of other jobs at newspapers that have nothing to do with the editorial content. Circulation, advertising, janitorial... the list goes on. And the suppliers who depended on that paper as a customer. And the service providers who sold some kind of service, landscaping, cleaning, etc. The stone that the JRC so carelessly threw away ripples much farther than the newsroom.
9:10 - You are absolutely right.
And the thing that companies like JRC and I fear people in communities like Bristol don't know is that once these newspapers are gone, that's it. They're done.
The BP could well go under and in a few years something else could crop up in its place, or even a separate publication with the same name.
But all that history and insider knowledge that comes with more than a century and a half of history is dead, and future publishers will be hard pressed to re-inspire readers, advertisers, printers or pretty much anybody else to take up the cause once again.
So it's no exaggeration to say this the Press' last stand against a black hole that will suck so much more down it besides a local newspaper if the worst happens.
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