Going Under?

A telemarketer for the Northwest Arkansas Times cold called our office on the evening of March 13 and shared some interesting information.

She said the Times was offering a special rate of $1.16 per week or 75 cents for the Sunday paper only. This, she said, also included delivery of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The D-G and Times began co-delivery last Aug. as part of a new “alliance” between Wehco Media Inc. (which owns the D-G) and Community Publishers Inc. (which owns the Times and Benton County Daily Record).

Since the D-G maintains publicly that it didn’t acquire CPI’s dailies, we couldn’t help but take this opportunity to ask her about the paper’s ownership.

We asked: “So you guys are owned by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, right?”

She replied: “Well, we’re part of the Democrat-Gazette. They bought us out, yes. But the reason they did is we were already going under. The Morning News put us under anyway.”