Wednesday, June 3, 2009

JRC sells off my hometown weekly and several others

Not everyone has given up on newspapers. A relative newcomer to the newspaper business in Lapeer County has purchased the venerable longtime Lapeer weekly - The Lapeer County Press.

Bob Myers, whose family owned and operated The County Press for 60 years, sold the paper to Capital Cities/ABC in 1990 (which also owned my former employer The Oakland Press). Bob and I became friends during my time as a beat reporter for The Flint Journal here in Lapeer.

Bob once told me the biggest mistake he ever made was selling the love of his life, The County Press, to Capital Cities. I think Bob would be somewhat happy that the newspaper was back in the hands of local folks and not some corporate entity.

The View Newspapers group, which began just a few years ago, has swallowed up more than a dozen of the Thumb area newspapers owned by Journal Register Co., which is currently in bankruptcy.

The purchase was announced tonight on the View website.

This will be huge news here tomorrow when the LA View comes out. Looks like the sale won't officially occur until July and it's hard to say what the new publishing schedule will be.

I'm sure the View Newspapers got a good price for the papers, considering that JRC is holding a fire sale for many of its assets.

I'd love to see this work and prove all the naysayers wrong who say newspapers no longer work.

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