Two of Georgia’s oldest newspapers have been sold to a national nonprofit news company.
The Macon Telegraph will mark its 200th birthday later this year. The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer is only two years younger.
Now both newspapers have been sold by California-based and hedge fund-owned McClatchy Media to the non-profit Georgia Trust for Local News.
Georgia Trust Executive Director Cynthia DuBose says in Macon, the deal means a merger of the Telegraph and the Georgia Trust’s own news startup, the Macon Melody, into one news outlet.
“It will be called the Macon Telegraph,” DuBose said of the older publication. “The Melody name will not go away. It will become a weekly part of the Telegraph and it will cover the people, the moments that are really the rhythm of Macon.”
That will be for the subscribers who still take twice-a-week delivery of the Telegraph on Wednesday and Sunday.
The Telegraph has been without a physical newsroom for months. It’s unclear how many of the handful of remaining Telegraph journalists may stay through the merger. In its heyday, the newspaper covered a footprint stretching north towards Atlanta, south towards Tifton and into the rural southeastern Georgia communities between Macon and Savannah.
The acquisition brings the total number of Georgia Trust news outlets to 21, running from Middle to Southwest Georgia. The trust is still in the process of bringing some of the smaller weekly papers online, but others such as the Albany Herald in Southwest Georgia have received some online redesign. All are paywalled.
DuBose said paywalls in Columbus and Macon will be lifted for 30 days in an effort to let potential subscribers get a look at the sites.
“For the first 30 days, what we would love for Macon residents to do is to check us out, give us feedback,” DuBose said.
She said the durability of the paywalls may later change.
“It might be, ‘Hey, these are things that we know are important to the community, and so we’re going to give access to that,’” DuBose said. “And there are other deeper — not just content — but actually experiences that we want to share with those who are supporters.”
The last standalone edition of the Macon Melody will come at the end of July.
Attempts to reach McClatchy Media for comment on the sale were unsuccessful.
