SouthComm Communications, Inc., a Tennessee-based media and publishing company, has acquired LEO, an alternative weekly newspaper serving the Louisville area, from Times Publishing Co. of Pennsylvania.
The acquisition was announced to staff this morning.
“We’re very pleased to be bringing LEO into the SouthComm fold,” said Chris Ferrell, Chief Executive Officer of SouthComm Communications. “Our vision is to build a family of niche publications that produces quality products for distinct audiences. With its strong track record of insightful and relevant coverage of the Louisville area, LEO fits that mold perfectly.”
LEO publisher Pam Brooks said she intends for LEO to keep doing what it has always done — challenge perceptions, provide strong, well-rounded reporting and be a comprehensive guide to the area's goings-on.
“LEO has evolved into the Louisville area’s most urbane and challenging newsweekly by looking beyond the surface and delivering locally relevant information that can’t be found elsewhere,” said Brooks. “We look forward to tapping the talents of the SouthComm team to help us provide even more value to our readers, advertisers and publishing partners.”
For information about the sale, contact publisher Pam Brooks at (502) 895-9770 x217 or via e-mail. For information about the newspaper, contact managing editor Stephen George at (502) 895-9770 x214 or via e-mail. (Staff)
Thursday, May 22, 2008
LEO acquired by SouthComm Communications
Posted by General Sense of Outrage at 9:31 AM
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20 comments:
A sad day for a good product. Let's hope LEO doesn't go the way of other "newspapers" acquired by this group. Advertisers, beware!
The details have yet to emerge, of course, but readers may note that long-time editor Cary Stemle's name is missing from the press release that was posted as a news story on LEO's site. It's not unfathomable that new owners would want their own editor, but to write him out of the story -- Kremlin-like -- is just plain bad manners. It is also bad business, given that Cary's personality and leadership was a large part of whatever success LEO has had in recent years in attracting and keeping talented freelancers.
Most readers will conclude that LEO's problems in recent years have less to do with Mr. Stemle than with the owners' apparent lack of confidence in the publisher's ability to increase revenues. How else to explain the owners' decision to not spend anything to increase the staff, to make the web site more than a joke, etc? Good luck to all of you there.
I will never read another LEO! The callous attitude of this group appalls me. Cary Stemle has given so much to this publication and to the local music/arts community. For him to no longer be involved is a bad, bad decision and I hope your new acquisition fails miserably!
I am sorry Cary Stemle and the others lost their jobs but didn't we all know it was going to happen when Leo went the way of a national corporation? It is obvious how hard the freelancers and Cary have worked at keeping the paper free of the cookie cutter feel of all of the other papers in the city. However, Leo started going down hill when John Yarmuth sold and it just hasn't been the same since. This acquisition just means that another Velocity has entered the building..good bye alternative press. We loved you while we had you.
Rumor is that 5 KEY employees of LEO were "let go" this morning after an abrupt staff meeting (Cary Stemle to start the list!) and left the offices shortly thereafter without so much as a goodbye hug. After years of service these employees were simply fired. Their influence MADE LEO, LEO. Business is business and everyone knows mergers and acquisitions are part of the publishing game; but this is not business. It's an attack on the business. Company culture is critical to success and this new "management" style is not building ANY bridges amongst LEO staffers nor the widespread community they serve. To execute such an onslaught of changes with no notice nor regard for GREAT service is an outrage.
For the record, I am not affiliated with LEO in any way. I am a reader, and avid fan and a patron of all things good in the VILLE.' This, folks, deserves an protest of gigantic proportions. LEO has been at the forefront of the tough fights, advocating for all of us on things other publications wouldn't dare touch. How will we repay them for their service and commitment to our community? The time is now.
“The hardest battle you're ever going to fight is the battle to be just you.” Leo F. Buscaglia
Talk about a "general" sense of outrage. Furious? Absolutely. I might as well collect a handful of this week's LEO's since they're sure to be collector's items.
Stemle gone? Say it ain't so. This kind of treatment doesn't even dignify a rise out of a loyal reader. Cary, if you're out there, can you keep fighting the good fight? How about, after the biggies write you out of the picture, you come out with your own rival paper, a brand new alt. weekly? Don't leave us readers alone . . . I have nothing but respect for what LEO tries to achieve.
An over rated useless paper. Who cares! We can all hope the Velocity will be next.
I was already extremely unhappy with LEO after their recent shrinkage, which is the second time the paper's dimensions have shrunk in the last four years. The current LEO feels more like a comic book and has reduced its font to such a degree in some sections as to be laughably unreadable.
But now, with the acquisition of LEO by this "SouthComm" conglomerate, I think we can safely say that LEO is dead. As of now, there is no quality alt-weekly with balls serving the Louisville community. (Velocity is equally useless)
Velocity is just lonely and looking to have a good time.
this is terrible. while most saw this coming, i dont think anyone saw cary getting let go. cary was very important to LEO and michael supplied the masses with "the product".
good luck LEO staffers.fight the good fight. dont fall asleep on the job and stay in the trenches
When John Yarmuth and Blanche Kitchen sold LEO, the new owners brought in a publisher with little understanding of LEO's purpose and importance in the community. Plus I believe she had no newspaper experience at the time. At approximately the same time, Velocity started and the Gannett corporata sucked all the advertising revenue out of the stream. It was also the moment when the revolution in print media started to take hold with the onslaught of blogging and internet news. Plus a whole generation of twentysomethings evolved who didn't care about reading print media. Against all that Cary Stemle and his staff valiantly fought the good fight to be relevant, feisty, eccentric and viable. The business side of the paper apparently didn't keep up its end of the bargain. The paper became thinner. And the owners put a product on the internet that has been absolutely shameful. The paper is sold again. The first thing the new absentee owners do is fire one of Louisville's most valiant journalists, editor Cary Stemle. It is a very sad day for our community.
I don't know what this will do to the quality of LEO going forward, but am sorry to hear that Cary lost his job. He seemed like a fine editor to me and I certainly enjoyed working with him!
As a former AAN editor, I've known Cary Stemle for years and consider him to be one of the brightest, most passionate and committed alt-editors in the country. I haven't spoken to him since hearing of this dust-up, but I'm sure he'll do fine. I certainly hope LEO will do fine ... but from where I sit, this isn't a very good first step.
Cary will be fine. Great talent doesn't normally go unnoticed!
Good bye alt news........ I'll remember my favorite article of this weeks edition by cary.... the hoopee do story was awesome! I'm going to frame this issue as it is the last one with true talent within it's pages!!!
Ha ha! I pegged Stemle as a dork many years ago. Maybe with his demise the LEO can rise above muck-raking and regain a semblance of journalistic integrity. Now once Carl 'Wack Job' Brown finishes up his last few columns,(if they didn't can him already) they have a chance to rely on something besides bipolar freaks to entertain their diminished readership...
You have hopes for this? Really? My hope is that Stemle pulls some friends around and starts an actual alt newspaper instead of a snark-fest. Even this blog reads like it's written by a state college newspaper editor high on his journalism degree(oh, how the world doesn't stack up to my meager wants... and how dare beautiful people have a place to go on weekends... and since I'll never have money I'll snark at anyone who does... and let's beat the other weekly down by poking fun at its "hipness" that isn't as cool as our hipness). vomit
Since when did 'snark' become a word?
Five minutes ago. Or since it appeared in the urbandictionary. Or maybe it isn't, but you got the meaning.
No, honestly I haven't been able to figure out the use of the word, much less it's overuse even in context. I tried looking it up in my Webster's, but it's from about 1875, so I'm sure snarkiness wasn't invented by that point.
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