AAN has terminated the membership of Dayton City Paper for non-payment of dues.
The paper will relocate its offices over the Thanksgiving holiday to the Metropolitan Arts building in downtown Dayton, "putting the City Paper in the middle of the scene it covers," Dayton Business Journal reports.
Owner and publisher Kerry Farley sold the paper to local radiologist and nightclub owner Mehdi Adineh, who hired Paul Noah to be his publisher. Noah brings a diverse background to City Paper, including stints as a radio personality and in radio sales. Most recently he ran a promotions and marketing agency in Dayton. He tells AAN News he "has no intention from deviating from the path" set by Farley, who has been publisher of the paper since 2001 and its owner since 2005. Farley tells us that after he finishes up a stint advising the new owner and publisher, he will do a little traveling and then decide what comes next. "I've been doing this for 15 years," he says. "It's kind of time." Terms of the deal, effective Jan. 1, were not disclosed.
A name change and other moves for the Dayton, Ohio, alt-weekly are designed to attract new readers, recover the old and stabilize the bottom line, Publisher Kerry Farley tells AAN News. Among the changes are a renewed focus on suburban issues and a more conservative editorial voice designed to appeal to suburban movers and shakers, Farley says. "It's better to be in a room full of people making decisions than outside with a picket sign," he says.
The city of Dayton, Ohio has a new paper this week: AAN member Impact Weekly changed its name to Dayton City Paper and has "abandon(ed) the bully pulpit," Publisher Kerry Farley tells the Dayton Daily News. According to Farley, Dayton wasn't receptive to the traditional format of an alternative weekly, so in a bid to reach new readers he plans to change the left-leaning paper into a forum for local opinion that spans the ideological spectrum.
Kerry Farley, now general manager of Impact Weekly, says Yesse Communications "will probably only continue to exist as long as it owes money." Meanwhile, several key employees are back on the job at Impact, and Farley tells AAN News a sale of the paper is not imminent. In Springfield, Ill., Bud Farrar is busy taking back Illinois Times, a paper he owned for 20 years before selling it to Yesse in 1997.
The owner of Impact Weekly is discussing a sale of the paper to Kentucky-based Landmark Community Newspapers Inc., the Dayton Business Journal reports, although Landmark's president says, "We're not even close to making an offer." Yesse! Vice President Kerry Farley, who wants the weekly to focus more on suburban readers, says editorial changes may be in store even if the paper isn't sold. Meanwhile, Yesse! President Craig Hitchcock tells the business journal that ownership of Illinois Times may revert to former owner Fletcher "Bud" Farrar if Yesse! fails to pay the remaining balance on the paper.
Yesse! Communications, in bankruptcy since spring of 2001, is struggling to keep its last two papers alive, but bounced paychecks and unpaid medical claims have sent another flood of employees out the door. Now managers are pointing fingers. Kerry Farley, vice president of operations, blames Michael Stern, Impact’s former business manager. Others blame both Farley and Yesse! President Craig Hitchcock for indifferent management and neglect. Farley and Hitchcock insist the Dayton, Ohio, weekly is still viable.
Staff at the Dayton, Ohio paper have not been paid regularly since May 1, the local daily reports. Impact is one of the two remaining papers in the Yesse! Communications chain, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April 2001. Yesse! exec Kerry Farley says May 2002 was the paper’s best month yet, but that advertisers aren't paying up. "It’s a collections issue. But it’s also a problem with alternative newspapers in general," Farley said. The paper's editors have threatened to resign en masse.
