RIP Youngstown Vindicator

[TheSportsPredictor]

After 150 years:

Vindicator announces it will stop production

 

[HanSenSE]

Not even maintaining an online presence. Wow.

 

[Alma]

Just awful. That’s not a small town, either.

One prays someone steps up and buys it before it’s too late.

 

[Slacker]

Just awful. That’s not a small town, either.

One prays someone steps up and buys it before it’s too late.

Yeah, good luck with that prayer.
I'd wager that God has supreme WiFi.

 

[RonClements]

That stinks. I've written for the Vindicator and believe it has the best name of any paper in the country. Local newspapers are the lifeblood of their communities and this breaks my heart to see.

 

[HanSenSE]

Letter from owners appearing in Saturday's paper.

Vindicator announces it will cease publication at end of August

 

[swingline]

Kind of heartbreaking that there’s a Subscribe Now button at the end of that letter to the readers.

 

[DanOregon]

Don't think this will be the last one this year.

 

[Severian]

I'm not from Youngstown, but where to do people get their news? Is it seriously only through Facebook?

 

[rtse11]

There are 3 local TV stations in Youngstown, although 2 of them are owned by the same parent and essentially provide the same broadcast with different anchors. I'm a little surprised GateHouse didn't purchase this publication, although it is a Guild shop.

 

[nickp]

Shocking, unfortunate, that Youngstown can’t support a newspaper

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

Found the line that google and Facebook hold down advertising rates and make it harder to generate revenue interesting.

 

[Shropshire Slasher]

There are 3 local TV stations in Youngstown, although 2 of them are owned by the same parent and essentially provide the same broadcast with different anchors. I'm a little surprised GateHouse didn't purchase this publication, although it is a Guild shop.

If Youngstown is like my market, the TV stations probably lost 75% of where they get their news from by the newspaper folding.

 

[FileNotFound]

Certainly notable that neither GateHouse nor Gannett wanted it.

 

[DanOregon]

I've seen too many "signs of the apocolypse"(s) start at smaller papers, advertising on A1, no political endorsements, early deadlines, shutting down their presses and printing off-sight - and then slowly move up the food chain. More quickly than you would imagine.

 

[rtse11]

Certainly notable that neither GateHouse nor Gannett wanted it.

I would be interested to know why; GateHouse went into Akron and dissolved the union. They own 10 of the other 17 dailies in NE and Eastern Ohio. I kind of always assumed Youngstown was just a matter of time.

 

[LanceyHoward]

I would be interested to know why; GateHouse went into Akron and dissolved the union. They own 10 of the other 17 dailies in NE and Eastern Ohio. I kind of always assumed Youngstown was just a matter of time.

Gatehouse still might pounce. It could just buy the subscription list from the current owners. Then it a could print a Youngstown edition in the Akron paper, using a lot of Akron and Columbus material.

Only buying the subscription list means that Gatehouse does not assume the union contracts. And since Gatehouse already has a nearby press they do not need the Youngstown plant.

 

[LanceyHoward]

I looked it up and Mahoning County, of which Youngstown is the county seat, has a population of 238,000. Does another paper publish in the county?

 

[LanceyHoward]

I would be interested to know why; GateHouse went into Akron and dissolved the union. They own 10 of the other 17 dailies in NE and Eastern Ohio. I kind of always assumed Youngstown was just a matter of time.

My guess is that in five years all the surviving area is that all the surviving dailies will be in one group and centrally published. The publisher will probably use separate mastheads but it will essentially be one editorial product.

 

[rtse11]

I looked it up and Mahoning County, of which Youngstown is the county seat, has a population of 238,000. Does another paper publish in the county?

Nope. There's the Warren Tribune Chronicle, in Trumbull County to the north, and three small papers in Columbiana County, to the south. Both would have to add staff or correspondents to cover Mahoning County news and sports.