{"id":22014,"date":"2018-04-01T04:04:41","date_gmt":"2018-04-01T10:04:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=22014"},"modified":"2018-04-03T08:15:48","modified_gmt":"2018-04-03T14:15:48","slug":"gazette-bought-by-last-best-news-will-go-to-print-only","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2018\/04\/gazette-bought-by-last-best-news-will-go-to-print-only\/","title":{"rendered":"Gazette bought by Last Best News, will go to print-only"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sign\"<\/a>

Last Best Gazette photo by John Warner<\/p>

Although the purchase of the Billings Gazette by Last Best News was not announced until this morning, workers began installing a new sign on the Gazette building at North 27th Street and Fourth Avenue North soon after a press conference on Saturday. In a possible sign of celestial endorsement, the sun shone briefly on the proceedings.<\/p><\/div>\n

In a move sure to set heads spinning in the newspaper industry, Last Best News has purchased the Billings Gazette, it was announced shortly after midnight today, Sunday, April 1.<\/p>\n

Widely seen as a plucky upstart with questionable prospects when it launched as an online-only newspaper just four and a half years ago, Last Best News now finds itself owning the largest daily newspaper in Montana.<\/p>\n

\u201cReaders can expect something totally new and yet quite traditional from the rechristened Last Best Gazette,\u201d said Last Best News founder Ed Kemmick, speaking at a press conference Saturday afternoon, with the understanding that the news was embargoed until Sunday morning. \u201cStarting next Sunday, we will cease operations at Last Best News and also end the Gazette\u2019s online presence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will devote all our resources to a print-only version of the Last Best Gazette,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt\u2019s what people in Montana and northern Wyoming have consistently said they wanted. Honest to God, who wants to read a newspaper on the web? Have you looked at the web lately?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike Gulledge, former publisher of the Gazette and vice president of news for Lee Enterprises, the Iowa-based media powerhouse that also publishes the Bloomington (Indiana) Pantaloon, said the sale was driven by market changes sweeping the legacy media industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was only a matter of time before we sold the Gazette,\u201d Gulledge said, citing steady reductions in staff, advertising, content, circulation and free cake at employee-buyout parties, and a corresponding increase in subscriptions prices, annoying pop-up ads and bonuses for corporate brass.<\/p>\n

Neither party would disclose how much the Gazette was sold for, but Gulledge did let on that the sale was \u201chighly unusual\u201d in that little upfront money was involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Lee board of directors was so impressed with Kemmick\u2019s plans for the future, and the economic viability of the print-only model he was proposing, that it ultimately accepted his audacious promise to raise enough money to complete the purchase within five years,\u201d Gulledge said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe time was just ripe,\u201d Gulledge continued. \u201cWe knew our readers needed something new, something cutting edge \u2014 and yet something reactionary and regressive \u2014 and to be honest, we just didn\u2019t have it in us to deliver that. We believe Kemmick does.\u201d<\/p>\n

David Crisp, Kemmick\u2019s associate at Last Best News, will continue as managing editor and a twice-weekly columnist at the Last Best Gazette. Crisp said he was convinced they were on the right track.<\/p>\n

\"Item\"<\/a>

Last Best Gazette photo by John Warner<\/p>

After their joint press conference Saturday, Ed Kemmick, left, and Mike Gulledge visited the Gazette’s pressroom, soon to be cranking out record numbers of newspapers. That paper under Gulledge’s arm, one of the last few editions of the Billings Gazette, is sure to become a collector’s item.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re taking this concept to the limit,\u201d Crisp said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to start hiring young people to deliver newspapers again, and they will be knocking on doors to collect cash money from subscribers. We also intend to hire newsboys and newsgirls to hawk papers on street corners. We\u2019d like to have at least one of these little salespeople in every town in the region with a population over 1,500.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crisp also said that preliminary discussions with potential advertisers have been \u201csurprisingly positive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs just one example,\u201d he said, \u201cAMC Theatres were so excited by the concept that they have tentatively committed to heavy investment in print advertising, including regular full-page ads for the latest blockbuster movies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kemmick said the purchase grew out of his failed attempt to end his subscription to the Gazette.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the latest rate increase, I tried calling the Gazette to cancel my subscription, but I was immediately put on hold,\u201d Kemmick said. \u201cThis went on for 20 or 25 minutes. I almost lost my mind, and I finally hung up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kemmick said he was so exasperated by the experience that he set up an appointment to speak with Gulledge, whose second-floor office has a commanding view of the Gazette\u2019s large and frequently flooded parking lot.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just going there as a former employee,\u201d said Kemmick, who spent the prime years of his manhood as an editor and reporter for the Gazette. \u201cI really wanted Mike to know how much trouble I\u2019d had trying to cancel my subscription.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once the two media magnates got together and the talk turned to the future of the industry, Kemmick laid out his vision for what the Gazette could become, under the right owner.<\/p>\n

Gulledge was, in his own words, \u201cblown away.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKemmick sees a shift coming,\u201d Gulledge said. \u201cHe\u2019s convinced \u2014 and now so am I \u2014that readers in this region are just fed up with the internet and want to go back to simpler times, when you sat down with a great big hard-to-fold newspaper and just read the damned thing without a thousand and one distractions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dennis Swibold, a newspaper historian and media analyst at the UM School of Journalism, said Kemmick and Crisp \u2014 who have been dismissed as \u201cdotards\u201d by some media watchers \u2014 are likely to silence critics by the sheer boldness of their concept.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an idea whose time came and went and is now coming back again,\u201d Swibold said. \u201cIt will be interesting to watch the markets on Monday. This development is going to come as a shock to Craigslist and Amazon, among many others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kemmick said the shift back to print-only could be just the beginning of an overdue revolution in the way news is produced and delivered.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re thinking pretty seriously about allowing cigarettes, or at least e-cigarettes, back in the newsroom,\u201d Kemmick said. \u201cYou have to balance reasonable health concerns with the widely acknowledged benefits of heightened creativity and the ability to concentrate.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter that, who knows? I can almost see the day when we return to green eye shades, real film in cameras and\u201d \u2014 Kemmick paused to wipe away a tear \u2014 \u201cmanual typewriters.\u201d

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a move sure to set heads spinning in the newspaper industry, Last Best News has purchased the Billings Gazette, it was announced shortly after midnight today, Sunday, April 1. Widely seen as a plucky upstart with questionable prospects when it launched as an online-only newspaper just four and a half years ago, Last Best […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":214,"featured_media":22015,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[60,114,135,136,305,343],"class_list":["post-22014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-billings-gazette","tag-david-crisp","tag-ed-kemmick","tag-last-best-news","tag-lee-enterprises","tag-mike-gulledge","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/214"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22014"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22027,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22014\/revisions\/22027"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}