My first newspaper job was with The Ledger in Columbus, Ga. It was an afternoon paper in a town that still had numerous textile mills to support it. A little history lesson: Day shift mill workers went to work too early to read a morning paper and got off work at 3 p.m., where the local PM paper would be waiting.
The Ledger died as a stand-alone paper some years ago when most of the mills closed. It was combined with The Enquirer, the morning paper, to create one paper for Columbus, The Ledger-Enquirer. The same thing happened in Durham in 1991, when The Durham Sun succumbed to the exodus of tobacco and textile mills from the Bull City and combined with the Durham Morning Herald. Coincidentally, The Ledger and The Durham Sun were once owned by the same man, Reynaldo Page.
Now there are new economic realities threatening even these combined newspapers. The Ledger-Enquirer is one of them:
About half of the 174 employees of the Columbus (Ga.) Ledger-Enquirer will be required to take a week off without pay, the paper reported Thursday.
Publisher Valerie Canepa told employees that 88 workers, including newsroom employees, will be required to take the furlough between Sept. 6 and Dec. 12, according to the story by Tony Adams.
I still have a few friends working there. Hope things work out.
