EAGLE TIMES PHOTO
It’s been exactly one year since Newport native Jay Lucas bought the Eagle Times from Pennsylvania-based Sample News Group. From 2009 to 2022, the Eagle Times was part of a corporate news group, lumped in with several Vermont publications that dictated everything from its content to its format.
Sample bought the Eagle Times out of bankruptcy after it collapsed earlier in 2009, giving it another chance at life. But, as the newspaper industry continued to decline, the Eagle Times bore the brunt of corporate cost-cutting, losing the local personnel and content that made it a local paper.
When Lucas bought the paper, it had a part-time general manager, an editor, one and a half reporters, a customer service person, a dedicated cadre of drivers who delivered papers to post offices and newsstands across the region, and a handful or two of part-time writers.
Outside of the sports coverage provided by part-time Sports Editor Chris Shaban and his merry band of scrappy, part-time writers, there was little local content.
Lucas engaged with the operation but only fiddled around its margins. Some pay raises were given and some new equipment purchased.
Regular calls with the staff were designed to learn about the operation and start thinking about how things could be done differently. By early December, discussions were underway that Lucas hoped would bring his vision for the Eagle Times into reality.
Founder of the now five-year-old Sunshine Initiative in Newport, Lucas came to realize that for small, rural communities like those served by the Eagle Times to thrive, they needed a healthy, dynamic, locally focused media outlet.
That trusted news outlet would share the local stories that needed to be told so that neighbors, businesses, community organizations and the government could connect with each other.
Remembering fondly his days as an Eagle Times delivery boy and his periodic appearances in its sports pages as a high school athlete, Lucas bought the Eagle Times with this in mind.
Those early December 2022 conversations paid off and things began to change early in January. Lucas started bringing on people with proven track records in community-focused media.
He first brought in Richard Girard, Manchester, who has a well-earned reputation in community radio journalism and a solid understanding of what hyper-local coverage means.
Girard started the Eagle Times on its current path – a path that means to bring the Eagle Times back to the content and local spirit that defined the paper through most of its long history.
He immediately began mentoring the staff on the need to reengage with the community, cover local events, take dynamic photos of local people doing positive things and relying less on content from new aggregators like the Associated Press.
In Meaghan Breen, Girard hired a dedicated health & education writer and oversaw the revamping and rebranding of the Eagle Times’ Good Health Care Guide. All of its content is now locally produced, developed in conjunction with local health care providers to ensure it iss relevant to our readers and the institutions that care for them. The end goal is to have the best health care guide in the industry.
Girard also started rebuilding relationships with area Chambers of Commerce, local governments, organizations and advertisers, along with nurturing new relationships with local, county and state officials.
Simple content additions, like police and fire logs, property transfers and lottery numbers were brought back in response to reader requests. Articles featuring local people, business, history and events found their way back to our pages, as have investigative articles. Every page of the paper is now printed in color.
Realizing that his community news background was in radio, Girard sought out a trained newspaper professional to help him mold the paper into a community focused and content-driven publication. He hired Iowa-native Kevin Brown, who has been in the newspaper industry most of his adult life. Brown had been living in Robertsdale, AL, selling RVs when he decided to re-enter the journalism profession.
Brown immediately worked with Girard to cancel the Associated Press contract and discourage the use of news from outside of our immediate areas in NH and VT. He started covering local events, trained the staff on taking more people-centered photographs and spearheaded the still evolving move toward 100 percent locally generated content. Photo pages were introduced to bring events to life in the full-color news product.
The very recent addition of two seasoned community news veterans will allow the Eagle Times to improve both the quality and quantity of its content. New Managing Editor Stephen Cheslik and incoming News Editor Chris Frost have started working from their current homes and will be on site by mid-July.
We plan to hire a Digital Asset Manager to bring the vision of reader engagement full circle at the Eagle Times. This move will allow us to bring new and exciting video and Podcast coverage to complement the Eagle Times’ coverage. Expect a big improvement in our online presence across the board.
The paper has added a local business reporter, an education reporter, an area history reporter, and a host of other local writers to boost our outreach and variety of coverage topics. If you’re interested in coming on board, we’re interested in talking to you.
In addition, the paper has introduced special sections that allow it to showcase important local anniversaries, honor local graduates and highlight the businesses and people helping to build a better life in all of our communities.
Recent examples of these special sections include the 75th Anniversary section honoring MJ Harrington’s Jewlery store in Newport, local sections focused on Memorial Day and Fourth of July events and a revamped graduation publication that allowed us to run larger senior photos and publish closer the actual graduation dates. Be sure to look for our coming sections honoring the 100th Anniversary of the Newport Rotary Club and the 75th Anniversary of the Charlestown Rotary Club. Others are on the drawing board and we’d love to have your suggestions on things we could help celebrate in the communities we serve.
We’ve revamped our subscription offerings to provide longer-term subscriptions and senior citizen discounts to hold down the cost of the paper. The initiative is aimed at allowing people to lock in a lower rate over two or more years at a discount. Call us at 603-543-3100 for more information.
Stay tuned – the best is yet to come. The Eagle has landed. It is aggressive and passionate about being the best community newspaper in the country and to create a sustainable marketing/business/content model that can be shared with other community newspapers to better all local communities.
We believe that newspapers are still the cornerstone around which community is built and nurtured. We also believe we need to embrace and harness technology to reach more people in more places in ways that are convenient to them. You can help! Let us know how we’re doing, what you think we should be doing or not doing, what we can add, subtract or change. Subscribe to our paper. Support our advertisers. Advertise with us. We’re in our communities together. Let’s be there for each other.
Check us out at https://www.eagletimes.com/, find us on the newsstand or stop by our offices at 27 Pleasant St., Claremont.
As always, thank you for reading the Eagle Times! We’re looking forward to serving you for the next 189 years!
As your daily newspaper, we are committed to providing you with important local news coverage for Sullivan County and the surrounding areas.