new owner in GateHouse Media<\/a>.<\/p>\nThere\u2019s a lot of differences between GateHouse and our soon-to-be former owners, Morris Communications Co. GateHouse is a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange; Morris Communications is a private company. GateHouse is owned by stakeholders in the company; Morris Communications is owned by William S. \u201cBilly\u201d Morris III.<\/p>\n
The biggest thing of note, however, is what is not different; it is what is the same. And that\u2019s commitment to community journalism, and a promise to protect the Empire\u2019s tradition of local news produced by local people for local readers.<\/p>\n
After meeting with GateHouse\u2019s Western Division\u2019s Chief Financial Officer today in Juneau, my overall impression of the change is positive. I am relieved to report that the autonomy of the Juneau Empire newsroom will remain strong. No one will be coming in from Outside, telling us what stories to cover, or dictating what appears in our newspaper\u2019s pages. No one from Outside will be presuming to know Juneau and what news matters to our community and our readers. In fact, GateHouse\u2019s business model of actively acquiring community newspapers \u2014 they own over 550 publications \u2013 practically requires their properties maintain local control.<\/p>\n
For readers, that means you won\u2019t notice a change in your daily Juneau Empire in terms of news coverage, editorial content and direction, and anything else of the sort. The newspaper will still arrive at your doorstep. It will still bear our masthead. It will still be produced by us.<\/p>\n
For us at the office, it\u2019s still largely business as usual. There are no immediate job losses, planned lay-offs, or any such changes on the horizon. It\u2019s no secret the newspaper industry as a whole has declined in the past few decades, but the century-old Empire has adjusted with the times and weathered the storm. That means that we are actually in a good place now, and more secure than one might think. Other newspapers may not be able to say the same.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t guarantee there won\u2019t be changes in the future. We cannot stave off change forever, remaining frozen in the permafrost of time. The Empire may one day have a different look. It may have a different website. It may have different reporters, editor, general manager or publisher.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s only one day I fear, and that\u2019s the day the presses stop. Today is not that day.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\n
\u2022 Emily Russo Miller is editor of the Juneau Empire. Contact her at 523-2263 or emily.miller@juneauempire.com.<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Change can be scary, but in this case, it doesn\u2019t have to be. I woke up Wednesday morning to the same news<\/a> as everybody else: The Juneau Empire has a new owner in GateHouse Media. There\u2019s a lot of differences between GateHouse and our soon-to-be former owners, Morris Communications Co. GateHouse is a publicly traded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":430,"featured_media":34330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-34329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/430"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34329"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=34329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}