Frank Blethen, a descendant of Seattle Times founder Albert Blethen, a Maine native, later called the purchase "the largest and riskiest investment in our history" but a necessary move to keep the newspapers from becoming part of a corporate chain. Gannett and his heirs-no relation to the Virginia-based chain called Gannett Company-held the three Maine dailies until 1998, when they sold them to The Seattle Times Company, which rechristened the chain " Blethen Maine Newspapers". Gannett's ownership also saw the paper become less politically biased. His holdings included the Portland Press Herald and, after 1929, the Sentinel's in-county competitor, the Kennebec Journal. In 1911, a financially ailing Davis sold the paper to bond holders ten years later, it was bought by Guy Gannett, who was in the process of building a newspaper, radio and television empire in Maine. Murphy-the Waterville Morning Sentinel, within a year, grew from a three-desk operation to requiring its own building, on Silver Street. Eugene Thayer, leavened by newspaper veteran Thomas F. Senator Charles Fletcher Johnson and future mayor L. The paper is printed at the Portland Press Herald press in South Portland, Maine.įounded in 1904 by officials of the Waterville Democratic Party-Waterville mayor Cyrus Davis future U.S. The newspaper covers cities and towns in parts of Franklin, Kennebec, Penobscot and Somerset counties. The Morning Sentinel is an American daily newspaper published six mornings a week in Waterville, Maine. March 3, 1904 ( ), as Waterville Morning Sentinel In Maine, nonprofit startups like the Maine Monitor, the Harpswell Anchor, and Amjambo Africa, a free publication about the African diaspora, have sprung up to help counteract the state’s growing news desert.Newspaper in Waterville, Maine Morning Sentinel Over 135 such outlets have launched since 2017, according to the Institute for Nonprofit News, approximately double the number in the previous five years. “We feel this is a good faith effort to preserve local ownership of the paper, and we’re really interested to learn more,” said Megan Gray, an arts reporter at the Press Herald and president of the union.Īs corporate owners continue to hollow out and shutter local newspapers nationwide, the nonprofit newsroom model is growing in popularity. The union issued a measured response to the potential of a nonprofit buyer, noting in a tweeted statement they “have many questions about what their proposal would mean for our coworkers.” Nearly 200 workers at the Press Herald and the Morning Sentinel are represented by The News Guild of Maine, which Nemitz considers “very much allies” with the foundation. Since then, he has brought a bevy of other smaller publications across the state under the Masthead Maine banner, cultivating a one-man conglomorate that the Columbia Journalism Review called an “unparalleled consolidation of local news.” “I’m supportive of looking at all of the options.”īrower has owned the Press Herald, the Kennebec Journal in Augusta, and the Morning Sentinel in Waterville since 2015, when he purchased the parent company from financier S. “I think it’s like a wait and see,” he said. Late last month, Brower announced that he was looking to offload his media holdings or bring on another investor, casting uncertainty on the future of the bulk of Maine’s local news ecosystem. “But we, at this point, have a seat at the table.” “It’s too soon at this point for us to tell who else is out there, and what kind of competition this may be,” said Nemitz, who is joined on the board of the foundation by veteran media leaders Emily Barr and Bill Burke. As of Monday afternoon, the group had raised just over $21,000, and plans to court funds from foundations and individuals with deeper pockets. To this end, the Maine Journalism Foundation has embarked on a $15 million fund-raising drive to acquire Masthead Maine and “nurture and invest in the papers” moving forward, said Nemitz. “Journalism and Maine are both sufficiently woven into my DNA that I couldn’t simply sit back and watch terrible things happen to both.” “Seeing what’s happened in other markets, we fully anticipated that some of the same predatory behavior we’ve seen befall other newspapers might come our way,” said Nemitz, who last year retired as a columnist from the Portland Press Herald, one of Masthead Maine’s flagship publications.
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