Stephens Media Buys Missouri Weeklies
by February 16, 2004 12:00 am 74 views
Stephens Media Group, which appears to be based in Las Vegas and Little Rock, announced on Jan. 30 that it had purchased McDonald County Press Inc. of Pineville, Mo., which publishes six weekly newspapers in that county.
The company publishes the McDonald County Press, McDonald County News Gazette, Anderson Graphic, Southwest City Republic, Goodman News Dispatch and El Tiempo, a Spanish-language weekly.
The six newspapers have a combined circulation of 13,500. The company has about 12 full-time employees, all of whom will keep their jobs, said George Pogue, the publisher. The company had been owned by the Pogue family since Ralph Pogue, George’s father, bought it in 1951.
“McDonald County is just growing so fast,” George Pogue said. “It’s pretty easy to see what the future is going to be, and frankly I needed some help.”
Located directly north of Benton County, McDonald County was added last year to the Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers metropolitan statistical area.
Pogue wouldn’t reveal the price Stephens Media paid for McDonald County Press Inc., and we were unable to reach Sherman Frederick, CEO of Stephens Media, to ask him that question.
Pogue said the McDonald County newspapers would be printed at The Morning News in Springdale beginning in mid-February.
Stephens Media owns three large daily newspapers in Arkansas — The Morning News, Southwest Times Record of Fort Smith and Pine Bluff Commercial — as well as four weeklies in Washington County: the Lincoln Leader, Prairie Grove Enterprise, Farmington Post and La Prensa.