I’m just now getting around to this Biz Journal article on the looming N&R sale.
For starters, the article speculates on the interesting scenario of a sale to either Media General, owner of the Journal, or Paxton, owner of the HPE. A sale to Paxton would be disasterous for Greensboro readers when you look at how lame the HPE is these days.
But most interesting are the comments from regionalism advocate Don Kirkman, president of the Piedmont Triad Partnership:
Though many fear media consolidation and the loss of competitiveness among rival papers, Kirkman said he’d like to see an end to what he called the “Balkanized” Triad newspaper coverage, in which each of the three major cities has one newspaper of its own.
“At the risk of offending my friends in the editorial departments, we’d have a much stronger voice if we had the ‘Triad Today’ as opposed to multiple newspapers that cover news only in those areas where they sell ads,” Kirkman said.
Kirkman’s comments are especially ironic considering the fact that the N&R is continually pushing regionalism. But I’m sure the editorialists at the N&R think Kirkman’s idea is taking regionalism a bit too far. Funny how something’s not such a great idea when your paycheck is in jeopardy. But that’s just the media business.
