The Denton Record-Chronicle, the main newspaper for the city of Denton and Denton County Texas, a suburb of the Dallas/ Fort Worth “Metroplex” with a population slightly under 1-million, recently announced that it is being acquired by KERA public media, the regional public broadcasting facility of north Texas. Assisting to make the deal happen is the National Trust for Local News, a non-profit entity that has a focus on developing the financial end of new business models for local news. And who heled put together the Colorado News Conservancy, a public benefit corporation, which along with a large regional news website has now purchased a number of suburban newspapers near Denver, CO (“Denver News Disruptor Colorado Sun Purchases Suburban Weeklies”).
In this 158th episode of “E&P Reports” we interview Bill Patterson, Publisher of the Denton (TX) Daily Record-Chronicle, Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, CEO and Co-Founder at The National Trust for Local News (NTLN), Senior Research Fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism and Nico Leone, President & CEO of KERA the public broadcasting outlet in North Texas that just announced the purchase of the Daily Record with the assistance of NTLN. Patterson speaks to how and why he sought out the sale of his 3-generation family-owned media company, while Leone talks about the benefit to public broadcasting expanding into local legacy news and Shapiro explains how deals like this are made and how they may be become much more common in the future.
