One Newspaper vs. the Gannett Empire: Operation Demolition (1997)

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• published: 01 Jun 2014
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The Green Bay News-Chronicle (originally known as the Green Bay Daily News) was a daily newspaper published in Green Bay, Wisconsin from 1972 to 2005. The paper was owned and operated by Denmark, Wisconsin-based Brown County Publishing Company during much of its existence, and competed with the larger and more established Green Bay Press-Gazette. The Gannett newspaper chain, the Press-Gazette's parent company, owned the News-Chronicle during its last year of existence. By the mid-1980s, the paper had just started to make an occasional profit when Gannett, which had bought the Press-Gazette in 1980, started to make life difficult for the News-Chronicle, which at the time had a circulation of 15,000 compared to the Press-Gazette's 100,000. By virtue of its worldwide presence, Gannett could afford to sell its advertising at a much lower price, thus to stifling or killing competing papers such as the News-Chronicle. Wood had long disdained Gannett and its operation of the Press-Gazette, but felt that the conglomerate's tactics went too far. He responded by calling on long-time friend and Santa Fe Reporter editor/publisher Richard McCord to document for the News-Chronicle the tactics Gannett used to rid its competition in other two-newspaper towns. In November and December 1989, those findings were printed in an award-winning two-week series, "It's Now Or Never", which chronicled the alleged abuses by Gannett and moves that the News-Chronicle had made to counter the Press-Gazette's tactics. McCord later wrote a book about Gannett's abuses and the News-Chronicle series, entitled The Chain Gang: One Newspaper Versus the Gannett Empire. "It's Now Or Never" served as a battle cry for the News-Chronicle in its efforts to survive and remain a second voice in the Green Bay newspaper market. As a "call to arms" to local readers, however, the series proved to be too successful. The increased attention the series provided, along with subscription incentives, resulted in a deluge of subscription orders. The increase overwhelmed the paper's circulation staff, and as a result many subscribers became unhappy with the poor customer service, and dropped their subscriptions. Following an upgrade at the paper's Denmark printing facilities in the mid-1990s, the News-Chronicle added full-color photography and graphics to the paper. A major redesign in 1997 gave the paper a full-color front and back page. The paper's sections also underwent redesign, including the Friday entertainment section, "Rave!" The News-Chronicle launched a Web site in September 1996, greenbaynewschron.com, getting on the Internet ahead of its competition. The entry was timely, as the Green Bay Packers' run to Super Bowls XXXI and XXXII gave the paper and its sports coverage worldwide attention. By 1998, the Press-Gazette changed from an afternoon to a morning newspaper, first changing subscriptions in outlying rural areas to morning distribution and then gradually doing the same for Green Bay metropolitan area subscribers. This caused both newspapers to once again go head-to-head for subscribers and readership. In 1999, the News-Chronicle began a Sunday edition which was distributed as part of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, requiring subscribers to take the Milwaukee paper if they wanted the News-Chronicle's Sunday edition. The move was seen as increasing the visibility of the Green Bay paper. After a few months, the News-Chronicle also sold its Sunday edition separately, and the joint venture started to dissolve when the Journal Sentinel changed distribution in the Green Bay area from its regular Sunday edition to an earlier, less-complete edition. At the same time, the News-Chronicle also added a Sunday supplement, This Week, with writing from other newspapers owned by Brown County Publishing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_News-Chronicle