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The Auburn Reporter and three other weeklies are merging into one print paper
The merger by the numbers
- 4
- weeklies combined into one print paper
- 55%
- rough rise in newsprint costs over the past decade
- 96
- Washington newspapers left after the merger, down from 99
Sources: KUOW, The Seattle Times
If you pick up the Auburn Reporter, the print edition is about to change. Carpenter Media Group, an Alabama-based chain, is combining its weeklies in Auburn, Renton, Kent and Federal Way into one paper, the South King Reporter. KUOW says the first edition publishes Friday, Nov. 6.
Sound Publishing's Katie Morgan told KUOW the move is about cost. Each paper keeps its own website.
- Papers combined: Auburn Reporter, Federal Way Mirror, Kent Reporter, Renton Reporter
- Nationally: nearly three papers closed a week over the last year
- June 2024: Carpenter laid off 62 people across its Washington papers
Will layoffs follow? Carpenter didn't answer KUOW on that, and regional executive John Carr declined The Seattle Times' questions about it. One media expert expects them.
“Pretty much anytime we see a merger or a consolidation like this, one of the first things that happens is they begin to let people go.”
Randy Nichols, communications professor at the University of Washington Tacoma
Weeklies make up most of Washington's 99 newspapers
Source: The Seattle Times
View as table
| Amount | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| Weeklies | 82 | 82.8% |
| Dailies | 17 | 17.2% |
