New daily starts up in Liberal, Kansas
Cutbacks. Buyouts. Layoffs. Papers abandoning their print customers in favor of online profits that may or may not ever materialize.
Forget all that. In Liberal, Kansas, they’re starting up a new daily newspaper.
A print newspaper. You know. Print? As in dead trees?
The High Plains Daily Leader cranked out its first edition Sunday. The staff mainly consists of the former editor and publisher of The Times, which had cut back publication in January from daily to three times a week. About 70 percent of The Times’ staff quit and followed their publisher to the Daily Leader, reports Maria Sudekum Fisher of the Associated Press.
In addition, the town of Liberal — population about 20,000 — has a weekly and a Spanish-language weekly. About half the town is Hispanic, Fisher writes.
Earl Watt, publisher of the High Plains Daily Leader, had been publisher of the Times but resigned that position last week. He said officials at Lancaster Management Inc., which owns the Times, told him last fall it had plans to cut back publication to twice a week as a cost-saving measure.
“I told them this community would reject that like a baboon’s heart,” said Watt, 37. But three days a week didn’t fare much better, he said.
“The public was upset,” he said. “They were dropping subscriptions. … Three days a week was kind of a slap in the face to the community. They felt embarrassed by it.”
The Daily Leader is circulating about 7,000 copies each afternoon. Its first editions were 14-page broadsheets. They plan to publish a Spanish-language edition on Wednesdays and to post a web site later this week.
Read the whole AP story in the Monday Kansas City Star.
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UPDATE
The Times web site is a complete mess. They don’t appear to be interested in updating it regularly.
For example, the site calls itself The Daily Times. According to the AP story, the Times cut back from daily publication in January. This is May.
A reader named Brandon posted on the site (I cleaned up the grammar a bit):
I read in [The Hutchinson News] (they update their site daily, hint, hint…) where Earl [Watt] is starting his own paper. Nothing about that on this lovely site. Maybe they will have a better web site with local news. Do you have their web address yet? If so, please post it so I can get local news.
Ouch!
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UPDATE TWO
A Daily Leader staffer e-mailed me a copy of Sunday’s front. I’ll post it separately.
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UPDATE THREE
Um, that Sunday front? There is a little issue with it…
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UPDATE FOUR
The latest on this topic, as of Wednesday, May 14.
May 8th, 2008 at 7:12 am
As a former subscriber of The Times, I am happy that there is now a daily newspaper in Liberal.
Where did the owners of The Times learn that to increase profits, you cut back on service! Maybe that’s the way it works in the newspaper business, but in other businesses things don’t work that way.
The web site is terrible, looks like it was designed by a grade school student, except that possibly a grade school student would do a better design.
May 8th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Arnold …
For all its lack of content, the Southwest Used-To-Be-Daily Times looks a thousand times better than most of the other Lancaster web sites, which have designs held over from 1995.
May 8th, 2008 at 9:58 am
I’m a Liberal resident who bought a subscription to the new paper for the school I work at. This is the first time I’ve ever purchased a subscription to any paper. I wanted to support Earl in his new effort.
May 9th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Deception through lies and now “borrowing” designs? Is this a way to run a business?
May 12th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
I have watched with great frustration how the swdtimes web site has changed, not to the best I might add. I know longer live in Liberal but still have ties to it. Sure would be nice to read the local happenings and news. Since the day this paper was no longer owned and by local people it has sadly gone to pot. Guess I will read the Hutchinson News to find out any thing.
May 20th, 2008 at 8:42 am
As a former Times employee, I must say, sir that I appreciate your dedication to freedom of speech. However, in interest of fairness, perhaps you should ask why a number of good employees left the Times when Mr. Watt was in charge? Also, you should take pity on those who followed him who were scared enough about possibly not having a job that they left with him - believing in nothing more than a pipe dream.
June 20th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
i would really like to know what the website is for the new newspaper i am really needing the garage sale listing and they seem to be better at it then the times is. thank you
July 28th, 2008 at 10:18 am
While Earl Watt was in charge at the SWDT, and Larry Phillips was the editor, I called to ask why, what I thought was a significant news item (a helicopter crash resulting in a death of one of the life team members) was not reported. I was just curious, and asked nicely, but Larry Phillips SCREAMED at me, like a psycho! That was an ongoing problem at the Times. Even when it was a daily paper, news was reported several days after the fact, after it had spread by word of mouth and been reported on the radio and by the Hutchinson News!
August 12th, 2008 at 12:31 am
As a current resident of liberal i believe that this is the best thing that has happened to this town. I could not believe that the times was bought out by lancaster and was actually DOING what that company was telling them to do. me personally would have told them i’d rather die than do that to my community, but a new newspaper is better than that :P. hopefully this one wont be as biased and one sided as the times. that was an ongoing problem. I do like the fact that all of the people i knew from the times are now working for the leader and actually reporting the news (what little of it there is) like they should.
GOOD JOB MAN!
August 12th, 2008 at 10:13 am
I’m also a former employee of the Southwest Daily Times and worked with Earl Watt for a number of years, albeit before he became publisher.
All new business ventures, particularly publications, have a rough and somewhat shaky time when they first start.
Regardless of what you may think of Earl or his ability to manage, a town with a population of more than 20,000 NEEDS a daily printed newspaper, plain and simple. 2 or even 3 days a week does not cut it. Not one bit.
Earl did the right thing. The Southwest Daily Times wont be around much longer at the rate they’re going, that’s a fact.
Keep up the good work, Earl.
December 17th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
It’s been tough watching all the changes with the local newspapers in Liberal. I agree with the former Times Employee though, Liberal needs a daily printed newspaper. It doesn’t have to be a big thick paper…it just needs to cover the local news.
April 28th, 2009 at 11:34 am
I don’t know why Earl, Rick and Jason and the rest of the employees at the Leader are talking so much trash about the TIMES.. I feel that Earl walked out on his paper like Rod Riley walked out on Mike Andrade when he went with Elite motors. Lies and trash talking does’nt make good business. I heard that one of the TIMES employees was threatened by Rick because that employee was out selling Rick and his sales people walking while they were driving. Way to go salesman. That’s determination and should be embarassing for the Daily Leader. Remember back in the day when you were treated bad with the Southwest Times it was because of the people there now its because Earl and his crew was there and realize thats how they will treat you now. They don’t care about you its not about you at all its about taking your money and making EARL WATT look good. He didnt care about you then and he don’t care about you NOW. Don’t waste your dollars with him. Even tho the SW TIMES is a 3 day paper they have more ads and info in their paper then Earl does in his Daily. And putting stories in his Shopper’s to bulk up his pages and adding more classifieds to make it look like he has alot Oh Please!
November 26th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Just FYI, The Times website is updated daily since the new staff took over. It’s a nice site that they appear to be working on all the time. http://www.swdtimes.com They also have Twitter and Facebook accounts that are updated daily. The old, never updated, website was ran by Earl. No surprise that his current website for the Daily Leader, http://www.hpleader.com is hardly ever updated. Maybe once a month. A lot of criticisms about The Times all came from when Earl was in charge, but corporate was blamed. Now I think we are all seeing someone else was the real culprit. I realize I am commenting on these blogs late. I did follow them from the beginning, but decided to “wait and see.” I have know Earl for years and really wanted him to succeed, but things did not ad up with his stories. I’m glad I trusted my instincts. Hopefully Earl can pull out a miracle, or I don’t see his paper lasting longer than a few more months.