Update: Last night, the Disptach’s Phil Pikelny shot Scene an email back with the following comment about the sale.
“There are no changes contemplated for any of the acquired properties in the near future. In fact, Roy Biondi will remain the Group Publisher for The Other Paper so The Other Paper will retain its current voice.
“Working with Roy, executives at The Dispatch Printing Company will assess the opportunities for all of the publications we acquired and will do what we feel is in the best interests of our readers and advertisers.”
***
On a surface drive-by, this news coming out of Columbus might only appeal to media geeks, those ink fingered few of the shrinking tribe who can talk the ins and outs of sunshine law but don’t know anything about a 401K. But really, once you consider how the following situation ripples out, what it signifies for the future of the state’s professional sources of journalism, then this is something everyone should tune in for.
The Other Paper, Columbus’ alt-weekly, was purchased yesterday by the parent company of the city’s only daily paper, the Columbus Dispatch, according to Columbus Business First. The buy was part of a Dispatch Printing Co. shopping spree that included Columbus Monthly magazine and a chain of community weeklies. The final price tag was not released.
This article appears in Sep 28 – Oct 4, 2011.
The Dispatch sucks.
Sad. Good piece.
Good article but I’d dispute the one line about The Other Paper “always” being the more serious alternative to Columbus Alice. It’s not that many years ago that Columbus Alive was the only independent alt.newspaper in Columbus (except for the year or two when The Guardian provided another option), while The Other Paper was the breezier, suburban-newspaper-chain-owned option. The Other Paper has never had independent ownership, much less affiliation with alternative newspaper ownership. That’s not to say it hasn’t been a good weekly, but it certainly didn’t have the sort of alternative media cred that Columbus Alive or the Guardian had when they were publishing.
the last line in this article, “Hopefully, the Other Paper will continue to do the good work they’ve been doing, regardless of who pays to keep the lights on.” is so astoundingly naive that I have to ask the writer if he is taking prosac or something. Read the book “Media Monopoly” and tell us just how much courage one of the reporters is going to have to crit his corporate ownership when his salary gets cut, or he gets transfered to the sanitation beat after covering the conflict of interests on the NHL team and city hall.