Times Union Sold

[jaxlongtimer]

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2017-08-09/morris-publishing-sells-florida-times-union-gatehouse-media

[FlaBoy]

This is the same company that owns the Gainesville Sun, Daytona Beach News Journal, and Ocala Star-Banner.

It would not surprise me if the Florida-Times Union ends up becoming more integrated and sharing more stories with the above papers.

The websites for all those papers suck though.

[Snaketoz]

Great! Now let's get some modern minds running the paper for a change.  The T-U has to be the bottom of the barrel rag.  I watched how this paper went from a mouthpiece of a railroad to a redneck publication sponsoring 19th century thinking.  Maybe things will change, but I doubt it.

[Tacachale]

Interesting development. We'll see how it works out.

[mtraininjax]

Morris still holding onto building, land and plans for hotel and mixed use on the site. Now that should be interesting!

[I-10east]

Does any newspaper have prominence and credibility in 2017? Maybe in 2000 when no one knew any better. Look at the New York Times for godsakes. It's all old dying propaganda laden legacy media. Lets not pretend that the Times Union is the only paper that's a shadow of itself after the internet took over.

[pierre]

Morris still holding onto building, land and plans for hotel and mixed use on the site. Now that should be interesting!

I won't hold my breath.

I do wonder when they will get rid of the hundreds of old newspaper machines that litter the property.

[Tacachale]

Anybody know anything about GateHouse Media? Seems like they own a lot more papers than Morris did.

[JaxJersey-licious]

I would think the sale would make it much easier to prepare the old property for redevelopment. Since the new ownership would probably not need all that space and would be exclusively responsible for evaluating space needs, relocating staff, negotiating a new lease, and reassessing how many printing presses and other machinery they need to keep, that would make it easier for the Morris family to expedite cleaning up and marketing the site.

As far as a new website for the paper goes, it can't be any worse than the Star-Ledger and Jersey Journal teaming up with other state papers for that NJ.com fucking website - such a pain trying to get localized news and political coverage through all the other regional (plus New York and Philly) stories and bullshit state-focused clickbait.

[jaxlongtimer]

As I understand it, the T-U had already stated when they put their property on the market, that they were moving their staff to a much smaller facility, ideally located downtown.  Without the printing and trucking operations on-site, and the reduced size of editorial, advertising and administration, this makes perfect sense.  Also, this is freeing up valuable riverfront property for higher and better uses.

I am not a supporter of the paper's more conservative positions but I have noticed it's all relative.  I think it is more moderate/progressive/objective than it was when Morris first bought the paper and surely more than when it was still owned by SCL/CSX.  Editorial pages aside, I think the paper still does the best job of in-depth and breadth of reporting on local issues.  Not saying it couldn't do more or I wouldn't like to see some other things covered but compared to the alternatives, not much else in its space.  Their articles still make a big impact on our community.  Witness the many snippets posted here on MJ.  So, I hope they continue to hang in there, publishing daily, as a vital part of our community's dialogue and source of info.  I know the reporters I have met put their heart and soul into their work and do so for very little financial reward.

I think the sad thing about newspapers is people are taking them for granted and when many are no longer with us, only then will they be fully appreciated, and then it will be too late to revive them.  We owe much of our country's dialogue, transparency and culture to the pace-setting of newspapers.

Just a wild thought:  If CSX wanted to consolidate lots more people into its downtown HQ's from the burbs or elsewhere, this might be an ideal place for them to expand to given the size and location of the parcel if a developer did a multi-use with some office space.  The humor would be having an FEC RR track running between this parcel and their current tower .

Also, wonder what the odds would be of the City requiring the reopening of the McCoy's Creek cover-over?

[spuwho]

Local papers and local TV news only have a couple of assets to work with.

High School Sports
Investigative Reporting (usually focused around politics.)

Everything else is newswire or newsfeed based and that can be obtained electronically.

[jaxlongtimer]

Local papers and local TV news only have a couple of assets to work with.

High School Sports
Investigative Reporting (usually focused around politics.)

Everything else is newswire or newsfeed based and that can be obtained electronically.

I beg to differ.  There are hundreds of local stories I find of interest in the course of a year in the paper.  Citizen's good and bad deeds, business and organizational news, land use issues, events, obituaries, historical retrospectives, educational and social issues, local issues making national news, blood and guts, things to do, restaurant reviews, impact of Federal, State and City laws and actions, transportation, infrastructure and military issues, local gardening, etc.  You must "read" the paper in 6o seconds if all you read is high school and investigative reports.  It's sad to see such narrow interests in our own community and may be at the crux of why papers are suffering so.  People seem more and more disconnected from their surroundings.  Maybe that's why things aren't better than they are.  We are a metro area of over 1,000,000 mostly industrious people doing things 24 x 365.  Plenty of news with a little interest and digging.

By the way, I would suggest most of us also get our State news via the local paper given there is no "state paper."  That's a whole other ball of wax to play with.

[river4340]

Local papers and local TV news only have a couple of assets to work with.

High School Sports
Investigative Reporting (usually focused around politics.)

Everything else is newswire or newsfeed based and that can be obtained electronically.

Yeah, that seems like a pretty bizarre opinion to me, too. No offense, but it seems to speak more to your lack of interest in a wide variety of things than it does the limited offerings of local news.

[spuwho]

Local papers and local TV news only have a couple of assets to work with.

High School Sports
Investigative Reporting (usually focused around politics.)

Everything else is newswire or newsfeed based and that can be obtained electronically.

Yeah, that seems like a pretty bizarre opinion to me, too. No offense, but it seems to speak more to your lack of interest in a wide variety of things than it does the limited offerings of local news.

No offense taken, but it is a pretty broad remark based on a couple of sentences. "Bizarre" is a stephendare term. Been a while since anyone has used it around here.

I actually have a extremely broad sense of interests which can be met electronically or going to libraries and bookstores.  In my experience here in Jacksonville local news only meets the above.

You should have asked me where else I get my information instead of making a judgement so quickly.

[Noone]

Anyone else have their posts pulled on Jacksonville.com?