From the editor: Here are the changes coming to ENC newspapers
Readers of three eastern North Carolina newspapers will see several immediate changes in the coming days, with a long-term goal of becoming more community-oriented.
As of Dec. 1, The New Bern Sun Journal, Jacksonville Daily News and Kinston Free Press, which Gannett previously owned, are now owned by Paxton Media Group based out of Paducah, Kentucky.
Paxton Media Group is operated by fourth- and fifth-generation Paxton family members. The group owns more than 100 newspapers throughout the Southeast and Midwest. Also included in the sale are the Times-News of Burlington, The Courier-Tribune of Asheboro and The Dispatch of Lexington.
Under Gannett's leadership, readers in New Bern, Jacksonville and Kinston saw many changes to the print editions and online versions of the newspaper. In the last several years, the main focus for the newspapers has been to grow digital subscriptions.
Moving forward with new ownership, these three newspapers will move to a Tuesday-Saturday model for print editions in order to focus more on local news happening in eastern North Carolina. The print day switch will align us with postal delivery to begin delivering some routes same day through the United States Postal Service.
All three newspapers will have a website, however, the pages themselves will also go through a transition during the next several weeks.
As a whole, we plan to open back up to the public in the coming months and are looking to hire reporters and customer service personnel. This will allow us to be an outlet for the community and help share more local news.
Certain sections of the paper and options for the public to submit content will also open back up and we encourage local entities to reach out to us directly for community news releases and advertising needs.
While we are extremely excited about these new changes, we ask the public to bear with us during this process. It will take some time to get our legs back under us as our overall goal is to become more community-friendly and focused newspapers.
These three eastern North Carolina newspapers have a long history of providing quality local journalism for readers. Without local journalism, issues that matter the most tend to die in the dark. Through hard work, determination and drive, we have helped to shine a light on those issues and will continue to under the new ownership.
Those interested in employment with the New Bern Sun Journal, Kinston Free Press or Jacksonville Daily News please contact Local News Editor Trevor Dunnell at tdunnell@newbernsj.com or direct message on our Facebook pages. If you would like to submit content, letters to the editor, or have questions regarding the changes, please contact the editor.
For advertising in New Bern and Kinston please contact Cassie Groff at cgroff@kinston.com or cgroff@localiq.com. In Jacksonville, please contact Stacey Spencer at sspencer@jdnews.com or sspencer@localiq.com.
This article originally appeared on Sun Journal: Changes coming to ENC newspapers. Here is what we know
