It wasn't all that long ago when the High Country witnessed a wave of media consolidation...remember when the Mountain Times was an independent paper? How about the Watauga Democrat? Both are now owned by a non-local entity.
You can add another local paper to the growing list of THE CONSOLIDATED: the once-independent Jefferson Post. Connecticut-based Heartland Publications, Inc., LLC recently acquired the Post, along with 15 other papers in North and South Carolina. Already, the layoffs have started: 12 employees from the Mount Airy News and the (Elkin) Tribune were fired.
While the out of town corporation will probably make millions by laying off employees and combining reporting personnel, others won't be quite so lucky. In the end, it will be the readers of the papers who lose the most, as the new owners seek to cut costs by reducing coverage of local issues (like elections, the impact of development, etc.). As has been shown time and time again with media consolidation, corporate owners look for the cheapest ways to fill up a paper, often by relying on irrelevant AP wire copy or soft news items. After all, you can't report on the real news if you get rid of all of the reporters...better still, the owners can hire brand new cub reporters on the cheap, who would be all too happy to write soft news stories...while missing the big picture entirely.
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