GateHouse: Red ink keeps flowing, revenue keeps dropping, cuts keep coming for newspaper owner

Pulaski County Web ^ | 8/4/2010 | Darrell Todd Maurina

[darrellmaurina]

As some Freepers here know, I'm a former GateHouse Media reporter with more than two decades of newsroom experience who lives outside Fort Leonard Wood in the Missouri Ozarks. I now compete head-to-head online with a GateHouse Media newspaper, and quite frankly, am blowing it out of the water in average daily readership and many areas of coverage. (And yes, I'm a conservative Republican -- volunteered for Reagan in 1980 when most people in Gerald Ford country in Michigan thought Reagan was unelectable.)

This link will take you to some of my thoughts on GateHouse Media's current financial problems.

GateHouse: Red ink keeps flowing, revenue keeps dropping, cuts keep coming

Go to http://www.pulaskicountydaily.com if you want to see more of my news coverage beyond the very limited items I post here on Free Republic. Most of what I cover is local and would not interest most Freepers, but it gives a sense of how a functioning online daily newspaper, combined with a local message board (the Pulaski County Web) can effectively compete head-to-head with traditional news media.

Also, read this about the "attack of the blogs" that successfully defeated an incompetent prosecutor:

Click here to follow the Pulaski County Web "attack of the blogs"

Our local state representative even chimed in on this one; though he has to be careful about attacking local elected officials, Rep. David Day said a lot of useful things about the power of the internet in local politics.

I don't know if what I'm doing can be replicated elsewhere, especially in larger cities, but I think there is a very good chance it could be done in a smaller rural community with no more than one to three entrepreneurially-minded reporters willing to work hundred-hour weeks and run circles around liberal lazy out-of-town media.

[bigbob]

Good for you, take it to ‘em!

GHSE has got to be one of the most ineptly managed companies on the planet. Yes we all know the print media is going through an evolution and all, and their financial mismanagement is legendary. But what just astounds me (I live in a small city with a Gatehouse paper) is how stupid they are! For example, they’ll post breaking news on their free public website HOURS before it hits the print or e-edition that we pay for! And the publisher is constantly wringing his hands over how his hands are tied by the corporate office. Best thing he could do is rally the troops and buy the damn place and run it like you’re doing. That happened in Iowa last year and I’ll bet the new owner does very well.