[April 12, 2009] Newspapers still hot items for folks in Garner Tweet GARNER, Apr 12, 2009 (The News & Observer - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Given all the doom and gloom hanging over the newspaper industry these days, it seems reasonable to ask what in the heck is up with Garner. At a time when major American cities such as Denver and Seattle are shedding print papers, Garner, with a population of about 25,000, is actually adding them. Today, Garner has three weekly newspapers covering goings-on in the Wake County town -- the Garner News, the Garner Citizen News & Times and the Garner-Clayton Record, which is published by The News & Observer. The number rises to five if you count the two weekly papers that cover Cleveland, a small community southeast of Garner. "We're bucking the trend, aren't we?" said Horace Davis, 75, who reads the three Garner papers religiously. There appears to be no definitive answer why Garner, a sleepy bedroom community next door to Raleigh, is experiencing an old-fashioned newspaper war. Both the recession and the Internet exist in Garner, and yet neither appears to have affected residents' appetite for print news or publishers' willingness to satisfy that appetite. Joe Sample, who ran the Garner News for two decades before selling it in 1999, said residents really love their local news. "They like reading about each other," he said. "They always have." That's not unique to Garner, of course, but the town's moderate growth over the last 30 years may have inadvertently helped the cause of print news. Trip Hatley, the current publisher of both the Garner News and the Cleveland Post, said the area has more longtime residents than such fast-growing towns as Apex and Holly Springs. "Holly Springs is made up of people who have been here less than five years, so there's not the loyalty to a local newspaper," he said. Garner, which draws shoppers from both Johnston County and southern Wake County, is also loaded with small businesses. Jim McClure, a Garner resident who is also the N&O's vice president for display advertising, said many of those businesses prefer to advertise in local publications. The dilemma for advertisers is figuring out which paper to support. The town of Garner currently spreads out its business -- about $1,000 a month -- and runs some notices in each of the three papers, but Town Clerk Judy Bass doesn't expect that to continue. "Obviously, in this day and time, we can't continue to advertise in everybody's paper," Bass said. The N&O launched the Garner-Clayton Record earlier this year, and it is the only one of the three weekly papers that is free. It is distributed to 50,000 households every Wednesday. McClure said the publication added to an existing network of free community papers covering the Triangle, with the Garner and Clayton area being one of the last two holes in that network that needed to be filled. The N&O's arrival has made waves for its much smaller competitors, and added to an already crowded newsstand. "It's a little bit confusing," admitted Hatley, who ran a column after the Garner-Clayton Record launched, telling his Garner News readers that the paper hadn't been bought and wasn't going out of business. Neal Padgett, president of the Garner Chamber of Commerce, said it helps that all three papers offer something different. The Garner News has been around since 1963 and is now owned by Connecticut-based Heartland Publications, which also owns the Apex Herald, the Holly Springs Sun and the Fuquay-Varina Independent. The Garner News has a circulation of about 1,800 and features mostly upbeat stories written mainly by correspondents. "I don't want to say we're good-news newspapers," Hartley said. "We just don't do the wrecks and the downside of the news." The Garner Citizen News & Times is the only one of the Garner papers that is locally owned. It was launched about 18 months ago by Barry Moore, a retired Garner police officer, and his sister, Debbie Moore Rodwell. The paper aggressively covers crime in Garner, recently reporting on a local panhandler who had an open arrest warrant in another state. Garner may not receive as much regional attention as some of its faster-growing neighbors, but it has had its fair share of memorable news events. The town received national attention in 2005 after its beloved stuffed albino deer, White Deer, was dragged out of its climate-controlled home in Benson Park and set on fire by vandals. An editorial about the event that ran in the Garner Times was titled "Garner and its loss of innocence." The Garner Times has since gone out of business, a sign that even Garnerites have a limit to how much print news they can digest. "The concern is obviously, can Garner support all these newspapers," Hatley said. "It's going to be survival of the fittest." [email protected] or 919-829-4548 Read The News & Observer print edition on your computer with the new e-edition! To see more of The News & Observer, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.newsobserver.com. Copyright (c) 2009, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]