Paton.
The Brave New Media World under construction at the New Haven Register just got a whole lot bigger.
The Journal Register Co., the newspaper chain of which New Haven’s daily serves as flagship, is now taking over management of another national chain.
The deal was announced Wednesday. JRC’s chief, John Paton, will run not only JRC’s 18 dailies (and other media properties), but also the 57 dailies owned by the financially troubled (obligatory redundant adjective for legacy media companies) MediaNews Group. He’ll do so under a new corporate umbrella created by JRC, called Digital First Media.
MediaNews Group, associated with colorful longtime chief William Dean Singleton, is the more prominent sibling in the new partnership. Its newspapers include the Denver Post, Detroit News, and San Jose Mercury New. It also owns over 100 non-dailies. (Detail: MediaNews’s vice-president for news is a former New Haven Register editor, David Butler.) JRC publishes 18 dailies and 170 non-dailies. Its Connecticut properties include the Register, Middletown Press, Torrington Register-Citizen, and Connecticut magazine.
Click here to read JRC’s announcement of the news.
The deal happened in part because the same hedge fund that bought the formerly bankrupt JRC in July, Alden Global Capital, also owns a majority share in Media News — as well as a stake in other heavy-hitters like Tribune Co. (owner of the Hartford Courant & New Haven Advocate) and the Philadelphia Inquirer (two more natural corporate fits for that obligatory redundant adjective).
The deal happened as well because Paton has emerged as a leading national proponent of taking old-fashioned newsrooms and trying to reinvent them as profitable multi-platform digital news outlets. The news industry is watching closely to see whether he can succeed in changing how the newsrooms operate while also making them profitable. Click here to read “John Paton’s Big Bet,” Columbia Journalism Review’s feature story. Click here, here, here, and here about some of the ambitious plans and painful transitional developments here in New Haven.
Paton was asked via email Wednesday about the challenges of trying to create digital new-media newsrooms on a large scale across a large old-media corporation.
“The biggest problem is usually the culture of the corporation but I do not believe this will be an issue at Media News Group,” he responded. “MNG has been taking dramatic steps in the past couple of years to transform the business. This announcement today only accelerates that transformation.”