By Patrick Wood
Publisher
Dear Reader,
Gannett, the largest publisher in America when measured by circulation, owns the Green Bay Press-Gazette, Stevens Point Journal and a number of other Wisconsin newspapers.
Gannett is currently merging with GateHouse Media, which having undergone one bankruptcy in September of 2013, is owned by New Fortress Investment Group who also owns New Fortress Energy. (New Fortress Energy concentrates on doing business in natural gas and fracking.) Stay with me — New Fortress, in turn, is owned by Softbank, an investment company based in Tokyo, Japan. This string of related companies gets more complicated the further away it gets from the field of media and the more it gets into extraneous industries. Money and profits appear to be the overriding goal.
Assuming this ill-fated merger goes through, what do you think will happen? Do you think this investment conglomerate based out of Tokyo will add more reporters and resources to cover local news here in this
community?
Given that Gannett on its own has been laying off people in the newsroom over the past six months, probably not. In fact, if historical precedent is what we have to go by when two big giants such as these are forced fitted together, it will get worse.
Here in our community where Gannett currently owns a newspaper, they have retreated from covering most things local unless it’s the Packers, or something connected well beyond local because the content can be spread across
many of their publications.
In contrast, our media stewardship is to cover almost all local news in this community such as high school sports, city and school board meetings and any significant community event worth reporting. Given that this is an investment which relies on a partnership with the community, we need your support to sustain our efforts.
You can help by telling your neighbor to buy a subscription or buy one for them; and don’t forget to mention to our advertisers where you saw their ad message. We appreciate it and so will they — especially because you are shopping locally and supporting the community in which you live.