Its a new day for the Moody County Enterprise, with the newspaper being resurrected under the ownership of Champion Media, a community-focused newspaper publisher based in Mooresville, North Carolina.
The companys leaders father-and-son team CEO Scott Champion and CFO Corey Champion visited with Enterprise staff on Wednesday.
Anytime we see a newspaper that shuts its doors, it really hits our heartstrings, Corey Champion said.
He continued, Right away when we saw the news, we figured we had to do something to help at least some of the communities that were affected. Doing our research, we think that Moody County, Brookings, Huron and Redfield are great markets.
Those were the South Dakota newspapers affected when former owner News Media Corp., based in Illinois, ceased operations on Aug. 6.
(We) have a bunch of great communities that deserve a community newspaper, Corey Champion said. We immediately got started and as quickly as we could acquired the publications so we could get the doors back open.
They certainly did, with Champion Media stepping up to the plate and closing the deal in less than two weeks time. Today is the Enterprises first print edition since Aug. 6. An online E-edition was published Aug. 14.
With change comes some new deadlines and paper availability.
The Enterprise will now print on Wednesday evenings at their sister paper in Huron and then be mailed from Flandreau on Thursdays. It will available around noon in local stores, Thursdays.
Those who have been wondering about their subscriptionsthey will all be honored. Renewal cards mailed out just before the closure can now be returned with payment to the office or mailed.
It will be business as usual but with a new publishing date, said ML Headrick. Office hours may change. Watch the Enterprise for new hours to be posted once we get the feel of how the week will go.
Deadlines will now be earlier in the week instead of the Friday before but have not been set in stone yet, she added.
Huron Plainsman Publisher Shaun Sarvis, who worked with Champion Media to secure its purchase of NMCs South Dakota operations, will oversee operations in Moody County. He said the Enterprise will work to take care of the needs of its subscribers and advertisers.
Were planning to bring a good focus on local news that youre not going to find elsewhere and really be here to pull the community into one spot, Sarvis said.
As the publisher overseeing all of this and someone whose family has been in South Dakota a long time for six generations my family has been here I care about bringing local news in South Dakota and I care about Moody County and the community having everything they didnt know to be informed and to see their history saved.
Scott Champion shared similar sentiments.
Every community deserves a voice and an institution, and a newspaper is an institution, he said.
Our focus has always just been community newspapers and we believe that if you support your community newspaper with good editorial content that theyll support you in buying the paper and buying advertising. Every community deserves a voice, and we want to be that voice.
Scott Champion said local staff is a key part of that equation.
Every community deserves a newspaper and a voice and that we feel fortunate to be able to help provide that and the only way that we can provide that is with the staff here, he said.
Both Carleen Wild and Headrick will remain on staff.
Our readers are the voice, so we encourage our readers to reach out to the staff with content that they feel is relevant and help our staff produce the best product that they can put out, Scott Champion said.
A good way to do that is to be involved, and we hope that our readers are involved and care enough to call the newspaper, email the newspaper, and say, Did you know this is going on? and be supportive to our employees, and our employees will be supportive to them.
Its all about community and connections, and were always looking for local voices in the community to help us produce more local content for everyone to read about, he said.
In addition to their South Dakota operations, Champion Media owns five other dailies and 21 weeklies, according to the companys LinkedIn profile. Those newspapers are found in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Minnesota and North Dakota.
Editor’s note: We may still see some changes in the way things are done around here so watch for updates in the paper and here.
Mondell Keck, Brookings Register was a contributing writer to this story
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