The Athens NEWS and The Athens Messenger now share the same owner.
In a twist of new-media irony, we learned via Twitter on Wednesday that the owner of one Athens newspaper had purchased a competing newspaper.
The Athens Messenger and The Athens NEWS now share the same owner, Adams Publishing Group, LLC, after the latter was purchased by APG, the group announced Wednesday.
We hope that the deal helps keep Athens a three-newspaper city for years to come — especially as newspapers navigate what has been widely chronicled as a trying time for the publishing industry.
The fact that Athens has three ink-on-paper newspapers is a rarity in itself, especially for a city of its size, but the Messenger and NEWS’ arrangement will make the publishing landscape here especially unusual.
Relatively few daily and weekly newspapers from the same city (or in the NEWS’ case, an alternative printed twice-per-week) are owned by the same parent company. An Internet search for similar arrangements produced examples such as The Columbus Dispatch and Columbus Alive, both owned by the Dispatch Publishing Co., and The Hartford Courant and The Hartford Advocate, which are owned by the Tribune Publishing Co.
We hope that the purchase is fruitful for both parties and that no journalism jobs will be lost as a result. We truly believe that newspapers (and television and online news sources) perform an essential function of the community: informing their audiences, keeping tabs on authorities and offering commentary about issues of local importance. We feel fortunate to live and work in a city with so many sources of news.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of The Post’s executive editors.
