Investing in local news

Veteran AP newsman Dan Robrish isn't scared of the economy, or its effect on the newspaper industry. In fact, he thinks this could be an opportunity for journalists. Some of them at least.

“It’s often said that newspapers are dying, but that’s a gross oversimplification,” stresses Robrish. “The papers with the big problems are the metropolitan dailies. You can get that information from so many sources. But here, if you want to read a professionally written news story about what the Board of Township Supervisors did on Thursday, you really don’t have much choice but to pick up the Elizabethtown Advocate, because I was the only journalist at that meeting. I am the only game in town.”

In this article at the Philly Post, Victor Fiorillo tells how the former employee became a newspaper owner. It's a fascinating story if for no other reason than it flies in the face of the conventional wisdom and a business climate obsessed with cutting expenses, instead of seizing opportunities.