This post is reprinted with permission of the Bolivar Commercial.
Lee Walls, president and CEO of Walls Newspapers and owner of The Bolivar Commercial, announced this week that The Bolivar Commercial would cease publication and operations at the end of April.
“It is a sad thing to have to announce, and it is something I’ve spent years and a great deal of money, trying to avoid,” Walls said.
Prior to the recession of 2008-2009, newspapers, both big and small, were feeling the strain of thinning advertising dollars. The options for advertising provided by the Internet were growing rapidly, and the main strength for community newspapers was their focus on local news.
“With the recession came an abruptly downward shift in ad dollars. Even when times are tough a business still has to pay a variety of bills, such as power, rent, water and phones. One expense a business can quickly control and stop, however, is advertising,” said Walls.
“By the spring of 2009, following dismal car sales in 2008, General Motors and Chrysler were at the tipping point of bankruptcy. The bailout of GM by the federal government required them to terminate their franchise agreements with hundreds of dealerships across the U.S., and Cleveland had one of those dealerships. It just so happens they were one of our best advertisers,” explained Walls.
Two years prior to the recession, Facebook changed its requirement for membership from that of being a student or school administrator — meaning you had to have a .edu email address — to being open to anyone with a valid email address.
“Facebook, and social media in general, have done more to harm community newspapers than the Internet as a whole. With social media, a user can choose to have a ‘news’ feed of legitimate stories, incorrect stories, hateful rhetoric, harmful gossip and defamatory commentary. As if that’s not enough, they can have all of that in the form of video or text. You get all of that by simply giving up your personal data and privacy, no money required,” Walls said.
“We don’t have the option to compete against that business model because we are held to a higher standard. Based on very objective statistics, it is clear that people are choosing social media and to give up their privacy, over community journalism.
“In 2010 Facebook had around 600 million users worldwide. It is expected to hit 1.69 million users this year. In contrast to that growth, daily circulation for U.S. newspapers has fallen by about 50 percent since 2000.”
Walls said adding to these multiple headwinds, Bolivar County and Cleveland have had a declining population for decades. The change for Cleveland since 2000 is minus 15 percent, and both the city and the county have poverty rates over 25 percent.
“The closing of this newspaper has nothing to do with the performance or leadership of the staff. My publisher, Diane Makamson, has been with us for 42 years, first as a bookkeeper when my father, Lee Walls Sr., bought this paper in the early ’80s, and then I promoted her to publisher in 2012. She has been a wonderful employee and leader through all that time.
“I have nothing but respect and pride for all of my employees and their hard work, which is why I have personally covered the losses for many years now to keep the paper running,” said Walls.
“This is a heartbreaking situation for all of us,” said Makamson. “The remaining employees — nine full-time and one part-time — have a combined 222 years working with the paper. I would like to thank them for their dedicated service to The Bolivar Commercial and to the community. I could not have had a better, more hard working staff. We are like family.”
“My grandfather used to say that a community gets the newspaper it is willing, or able, to pay for,” said Walls. “I’m sure there are people and businesses in Bolivar County and Cleveland who are willing to pay for a local newspaper, through subscriptions and advertising, but history has taught me there are not enough.”
“I’d like to thank the community and advertisers that have always supported The Bolivar Commercial,” said Makamson.
“I am also very thankful for the opportunity to have worked for Norman Van Liew who hired me in 1978 and honored to have worked closely under the leadership of Mark Williams for many years.”
During the transition all prepayed subscriptions will be refunded in full. Checks will be mailed in May.
The Bolivar Commercial has served the community for 104 years and has continually employed an award winning staff.
24 comments:
I despise Facebook. But blaming facebook for your inability to draw readers and turn a profit is ridiculous. Why not blame Matt Drudge, Bloomberg, or even Reddit?
"With social media, a user can choose to have a 'news' feed of legitimate stories, incorrect stories, hateful rhetoric, harmful gossip and defamatory commentary."
In other words, the same stuff you get in most newspapers except it's 2 days earlier and free.
My wife says she gets her news on Facebook. My kids Twitter.
I'm to old to try and change them. I just hope they forget to vote in November.
There are few readers out there anymore. Unless the news comes in small bits it is considered by this generation as "TL:DR" which means, "Too Long:Didn't Read." Newspapers were best to get the in-depth background on important stories... but it required time to read and a basic knowledge of English. "For sure," that no longer exists. And I speak from experience having been a small paper reporter for many years until I saw that black train coming and got off the track.
@3:19
Millenial here.
For my MSM news I like using news aggregators like https://spidr.today/ and for independent reporting, I enjoy the doom porn opinions of https://zerohedge com but to be honest, most of the MSM news is following a narrative to keep the masses compliant sheeple.
The real red meat comes in the form of unmoderated comments like ZH has, where free speech flourishes and the marketplace of ideas can take place. That's not a jab at JJ. If KF left the comments unmoderated his comments would just be a flea market of ignorance.
PS. Drudge is trash with too much celebrity tabloid crap.
I've read the Bolivar Commercial for sixty years, have personally known multiple publishers, editors and staff. It's a small town rag about like the Deer Creek Pilot (published somewhere in the weeds around Anguilla). Like most small town papers, it's not been interested in reporting, journalism, investigation and local stories of interest in at least twenty years. These papers, like the Clarion Ledger, need to simply fold up and go away.
Newspapers always blame somebody or someTHING else for their demise. Butt-hurt is ever-present throughout his remarks. This was a fine paper decades ago when Cliff Langford, a local - not a yank import, ran it.
NEWS FROM THE OFFICES OF COOPWOOD PUBLISHING GROUP
To Friends, Family & Longtime Supporters:
We have been working night and day putting together the content for our upcoming newspaper, The Bolivar Bullet that we will start publishing every Wednesday beginning May 6. Because our 104 year old town newspaper, The Bolivar Commercial announced they will stop publishing April 29, city leaders approached us quickly about re-launching our old weekly so the town will continue to have a newspaper.
Despite the current climate of the newspaper industry and despite the virus and the aftermath, we have agreed to return and have lined up longterm advertising commitments to make this work. Instead of using our old name, The Cleveland Current, the new paper will be called, The Bolivar Bullet so we can take advantage of our daily e-newsletter, The Bolivar Bullet Today (begun in 2002) as the digital component.
Between the printed weekly newspaper (5,000 circulation printed one day each week) and the daily digital e-newsletter (sent out to 7,200 emails each day) we will deliver significant news coverage for Cleveland and Bolivar County.
As most of you know, this is our 31st year in the publishing business with our magazines: Delta Magazine, Delta Business Journal, Delta Ag Journal, The Welcome Guide and our e-newsletters The Bolivar Bullet, DBJ Business Brief and The Edit. We published The Cleveland Currenthere in Cleveland from March 2009 to May 2017.
A formal announcement and press release will be forthcoming.
I quit buying buggy whips when I got my blockbuster video card through America online. Oh well back to the typewriter and papyrus.
Goodbye candle makers. I mean newspapers!
Yesterday’s news tomorrow....
There aren’t enough literate people in Bolivia County to keep it afloat-
Interesting that he 'blames' the demise of this local paper on Facebook - while ignoring all the other 'news sources' that have originated since the dawn of the internet age. The internet (invented of course by Al Gore) was becoming a commonly used medium in the late 90's. So, what did the Walls family do -- created Walls Media in 1997. From their website:
"Walls New Media, Inc., began life in May of 1997 as the answer to the question being posed by Walls Newspapers Consultants: Who has the solution that will allow our newspapers to publish content online, everyday, and without spending a fortune? At the time those solutions were quite costly and targeted primarily at the largest daily newspapers and broadcast news sites. So a company was created with the mission of tackling this problem.
Given our ability to handle the demands of daily newspapers and all the complexities of their Web sites, we soon found ourselves doing Web development work for non-newspaper clients. That, in turn, grew into doing other creative and design work for a variety of companies, and not all of it for the Web"
So - the Walls family operation evidently were a part of the "problem" he now blames on Facebook.
Wonder if his great grandparents were in the buggy whip business a century ago - and used their profits to invest in gas stations.
Local news is a casualty of the digital age. Google, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon have all contributed to their demise.
It's impossible to overstate how big of a loss this is.
By the way, this is coming from a Trump supporting Republican.
Maybe the Clarion-Ledger will be next!
@7:32, We can only hope. I look forward to the day we no longer have to suffer the Clarion-Liar
Norman Van Liew and Mark Williams were kind enough to give a broke college kid a job catching papers off the press. Good memories.
Fox and WAPT is all I will watch.
Take online news or sports stories, their is always a video attached to the story. Now I have a choice listen or read, for me I want to read and not have someone tell me what I can read. However, today the younger crowd would rather have someone tell them something and that to me is where the problem begins.
Ever sit and watch a news story or press conference unfold on TV as soon as it is over you have 5 talking heads trying to explain what you just listen to.
Disclaimer: Younger can be anyone under 80.
Stepping off soap box
Blaming Kossman's for not advertising, and Facebook, and then doubling down on the "legitimate stories, incorrect stories, hateful rhetoric, harmful gossip and defamatory commentary" is projecting his failures and blaming it on other things. Successful people adapt and overcome.
Side note, for the Cleveland people, is Mrs. Makamson Dirty Steve's mom?
A few pieces of information I couldn't find: Is the Commercial a daily or weekly? (Apparently a daily). What is its circulation? What is the newspaper known for? Did it wage battles for civil rights, or against public corruption, or side with underdogs in their battles against government tyranny? Did the newspaper receive recognition in the form of press association awards for its coverage of community issues - or other recognition for representing the goals & hopes of its subscribers? Social Media & the Internet will take their tolls, but what unique competitive advantages did the Commercial provide? Sorry I'm not familiar with the newspaper's successes.
The problem with news today is that it is all the same garbage regardless of the source.
If you watch FOX, CNN, MSNBC they all have the same stuff mentioned on the ticker at the bottom of the screen. They cover all the same crap just with different spin.
A news source should keep the local government honest and accountable first. If you accomplish that they you can run stories about local football teams and upcoming events, etc.
So many papers today only care about advertising and getting BS stories from AP that I no longer subscribe. Oddly enough I don't use FB either.
FEAR NOT - Wildlife Commission Chairman Coopwood to the rescue. The same Bolivar County savior who allowed Mississippi to become the only River state without an adjacent river-park with observation tower, picnic grounds and fishing lake. The same guy who has turned all that public and school land into a private hunting camp for friends and dignitaries.
Do not be fooled. The horse in his barn has NEVER been white.
9:59, Coopwood knows more about the outdoors than anyone else because he has enough money to buy a membership at Donaldson Point, duh!(sarcasm). Yes the great river road state park was bought by public funds. Its roughly a little over 1500 acres of some of the finest hunting land in Mississippi. They closed the park because it wasn't making any money, but it also had a restaurant and they could have done away with that and it would lose about the same as some of the others. Someone needs to look into it.
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