Citizens' Voice from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania • 82

Citizens' Voice 25th Anniversary CITIES WITH NEWSPAPER COMPETITION It all started with a rumor' An anonymous tip from a good source sparked a chain of events that made history As of February 20, 2003 City Total Daily Circ Total Sunday Circ New York City. 7 4,345,712 71 2,663,740 2. Los Angeles 5 papers 1,628,925 1,659,184 I I I 5 papers 7 ,330,711 1,623,605 4. Washington D.C. 2 papers 849,681 1,096,803 jitoiT Z1I1I113 papered xl jr 866,795 6.

San Francisco 2 papers 619,181 539,563 1 1 Honolulu 2 papers 166,338 183,086 8. Tuscon, Ariz. 3 papers 132,412 164,846 Trentorn JvZT "2 papers 7 129,182 127,998 10 Pleasanton, Calif. 2 papers 87,704 90,486 Wilkes-Barre, PA 2 papers 7 84,640 12. Green Bay, Wis.

2 papers 64,419 83,261 13: Kingsport, TN 2 papers 45,656 49,530 14. Columbia, Mo. 2 papers 26,406 30,778 15. Aspen Col. 2 papers 25,965 12,100 16.

Manassas, VA 2 papers sunday) 23,972 25,000 (est) Includes Christian Science Monitor, which does not publish Sundays. Green Bay News-Chronicle does not publish Sunday; Press-Gazette does. international unions. One story told of those early months in 1978 was that of a Cap Cities rep, an attorney from the Nashville, law firm of King Ballow, approaching an official of The Newspaper Guild, the militant union representing editorial, advertising and circulation employees, to determine if the union would back off on what Cap Cities saw as a restrictive contract. The union rep, this story says, used salty language to tell King Ballow that the union members had fought hard over decades to improve wages and working conditions and there would be no concessions.

Within weeks, a fence topped with barbed wire was being installed around the company, which published The Times-Leader, The Evening NewsRecord, an all-day paper created weeks after the Agnes flood of 1972. It was the flood that really sparked a chain of events that led to the sale. The company sustained loss of some of its circulation base; it struggled to implement new technologies; the SEE RUMOR, PAGE B45 By Paul Golias Citizens' Voice Managing Editor It all started with a rumor. About two weeks before the sale of the Wilkes-Barre Publishing Company in April, 1978, a reporter was tipped that the company would be sold to a New York-based chain. That tip, the source of which the reporter never revealed, proved accurate.

In fact, the reporter even came up with the name of the buyer: Capital Cities Communication. It all went down hill from there. Employees began researching Cap Cities and quickly determined that it was a hard-nosed firm when it came to union representation of workers. That posed a challenge because about 225 employees were members of four local unions within three 3 3 2 Newspapers in Tuscon are in a J0A; third circulation of 753 daily, technically making this a competitive Both papers in Aspen are circulated free; only Daily News is circulated Sunday. Honolulu JOA formed in 1962, was dissolved 31501 Sunday circ is that of Gannet's Sunday Advertiser market.

Both Newspapers in Pleasanton sell ads in combo with other papers in their groups, Media News, Inc under JOA; MediaNews and E.W. Scripps Co. formed JOA in Denver in May, 2000, taking Dever off competition list after 100 years. and Knight Ridder. rvnrm G0 03 05 CD 73 73 2 I 73 05 a CD 73 CD to I 00.