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The Columbia Paper sold to local community news publisher
GHENT—Newspaper owner and editor Parry Teasdale has agreed to sell The Columbia Paper, a weekly in the Town of Ghent N.Y., and the news website
www.columbiapaper.com to Capital Region Independent Media, LLC for an undisclosed amount. Capital Region is headed by Mark Vinciguerra, a veteran media executive.
The agreement includes having Managing Editor and Deputy Publisher Emilia Teasdale take similar positions under the new ownership. She is Parry Teasdale’s daughter. Teasdale said that by taking positions with the Capital Region group they could help the transition and allow the company to prosper. That’s the challenge of these lean times,” Teasdale said. In addition, he noted, “Mark has assured us that there will be no changes in staffing or in news content for the time being.”
With the acquisition of the Columbia Paper, Vinciguerra now owns newspapers in 3 locations in the Hudson Valley. He already has a partner in his company’s expansion, Capital Region Independent Media Vice President Warren Dews, Jr., who also serves as publisher for the other two papers, The Ravena News-Herald and The Greenville Pioneer. In addition to the printed products the company also owns The UpStater.com. Dews will take over as publisher of The Columbia Paper.
“My thanks to Parry for establishing a trusted product that Columbia County and surrounding communities rely on. As we move into this new and exciting chapter, I look forward to building on this solid foundation and will continue to deliver content that matters to the communities that we serve,” said Dews, Jr. —
Asked what kind of benefit he and Dews expect to gain from The Columbia Paper, Vinciguerra said, “The Columbia Paper is a true local treasure and one of the best community media outlets in the nation. I am extremely proud to become its new steward and carry the company into its next iteration. We will be continuing to provide the same in-depth coverage of the issues important to Columbia County as Parry and his team have done so well over the past 14 years.”
The Columbia Paper almost exclusively covers news from Columbia County, which stretches from the Massachusetts and Connecticut borders to the Hudson River. The county’s population is 60,000 but it is easily reached from New York City by Amtrak or car.
The Columbia Paper has a weekly circulation of 2,100. Google Analytics reported that 22K “visitors” used the website at www.columbiapaper.com in the last 28 days.
Parry Teasdale will stay on with the new owners with a job description of “publishing consultant.” “We’re still in the process of figuring out exactly what that means in addition to continuing to write editorials in The Columbia Paper on a regular basis,” he said.
The Columbia Paper has over a dozen regular contributors and has won 20 state news awards including three for First Place: “Spot News Photos” (David Lee, 2015); “Front Page” (design staff, 2013); “Editorials” (P. Teasdale, 2016).
The paper was founded in 2009 by Teasdale with support from colleagues laid off after The Independent, a twice-weekly paper in Hillsdale was closed by its corporate owner, a chain then called The Journal Register.
Capital Region Independent Media launches new website
By Melanie Lekocevic
Capital Region Independent Media
Local multimedia company Capital Region Independent Media is launching its new website this week.
The company, which publishes the Greenville Pioneer and the Ravena News-Herald, along with community newspapers, websites and social media across various communities in upstate New York and Vermont, launched its newest website, TheUpStater.com, on Jan. 13.
“As a newspaper, we know that people need news and information and we focus deeply on the needs of the Greenville and Ravena areas,” Publisher Warren Dews Jr. said.
TheUpStater.com will offer news from both communities in one convenient website.
“While our well-known and respected legacy print publications continue to serve a major portion of our market — reaching over 91,000 readers each month — our websites are well trafficked as well,” CRIM President Mark Vinciguerra said. “Our sites draw in four times more readers than our nearest competitor each month, and the launch of this new website will give those readers an even better experience. In addition, about 50% of our traffic on the web comes from outside the area, and we continue to grow that audience regionally as well.”
“In my years in the market, I realize we have an overflow of people — people transition back and forth to Greene and Albany counties,” Dews Jr. said. “We want TheUpstater.com to be the place where they can get aggregated news — they can get all the news and information they need.”
The new website will offer a one-stop shopping experience where residents of Greenville, Ravena, Coeymans, New Baltimore, Durham, Cairo and beyond will be able to read the news that impacts their daily lives.
“It’s going to be user friendly, and it’s new and improved,” Dews Jr. said. “As a small media company, we are thriving and that’s because we are there for people the way they want to read us. If they want to read us in print, we are there for them; if they want to read us in digital, we are there for them. We are there for the customer and how they want to read us.”
The website will include news, sports, human-interest stories and columns, along with links to videos like Dews’ “Get to Know…” series, which focuses on local people who are impacting their communities.
“We know that print newspapers are going to transition highly into the digital world and we want to be there with this new and improved site, but we are not forgetting the legacy — we understand that there are people who want to read their news in print and we are going to be there for those people, too. Those people are still important to us,” Dews Jr. said of the print publications that remain an anchor for the company.
For those who would like to read a hybrid version — the print edition of the newspaper in a digital format — TheUpstater.com will offer that, too.
“Our electronic edition — or ‘e-edition’ — is an exact replica of the paper, so if you want to still read the paper online but you want to read it in the legacy format, we have that option, too,” Dews Jr. said.
Capital Region Independent Media reaches thousands of readers each week through its various formats — print, e-edition, website and social media. In fact, the Greenville Pioneer is in a unique position with its readership in Greene County, Dews Jr. said.
“We are the largest paid circulation newspaper in Greene County, in digital and print,” the publisher said. “We reach more people in Greene County in paid circulation than anyone else.”
