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...Rome’s oldest continuously operating business, the local newspaper company, has undergone major transformations and now sits poised on the leading edge of the industry.
The Rome News-Tribune’s legacy stretches back more than 165 years as the community’s newspaper and primary source of news and information.
Over years, decades and centuries, it has evolved as the industry changed — from a more mechanical means of printing to cutting-edge technology that allows the company to deliver news and advertising in several formats.
Click here to see a Web package on News Publishing Co. with historical photos, leadership team bios and more.
The hometown paper continues to strive to improve the print edition that readers like to hold in their hands and pore over each day. A new multi-million-dollar digital press shows the company’s long-term allegiance to
Burgett H. Mooney III is turning over Rome News-Tribune publisher reins to Otis Raybon to focus on the company’s technological future. By Ryan Smith / RN-T |
print subscribers and advertisers.
The newspaper also boasts an online edition that’s updated throughout the day and night and is continuing to put more resources into making romenews-tribune.com all it can be, complete with the latest news, photos, video and reader interactives.
It’s that commitment to staying on the leading edge of the industry that’s opening doors to partnerships with other major newspaper and Internet companies.
Just last week, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution announced that Rome News-Tribune will be delivering its newspaper in the local market. We also deliver the Sunday New York Times to homes and stores and USA Today to commercial sites in the region.
More partnerships with major national companies are in the works.
That’s why News Publishing Co., the Rome News-Tribune’s parent corporation, is making some key changes in leadership — to make sure that both the print and electronic editions of all of its newspapers reach new heights and to position itself as a go-to company in the industry.
Burgett H. Mooney III, NPCo president, is the vision man. He has long looked ahead and taken steps to keep the company at the forefront of the media evolution.
He has been a leader among community newspapers in focusing on online opportunities while continuing to bolster the legacy of regional community newspapers and other print products.
Mooney continues to take what he calls “the 50,000-foot view” of the company’s progress.
As he devotes more of his time to new media and partnership development, Mooney has named Otis M. Raybon Jr. as publisher of the Rome News-Tribune, effective today.
“Otis Raybon, who has been our vice president of operations for 10 years, will now be publisher,” said Mooney. “Mr. Raybon will be charged with keeping the Rome News-Tribune the market leader.”
Click here to read more about the new publisher's vision.
Mooney, who has been publisher since 1987, will remain as president and chairman of the board of News Publishing Co.
“This will allow me to concentrate on growth of the business, technological advancements, partnerships and industry commitment,” he said.
“My home is here. My office is here and I plan to stay heavily involved.”
Another key change is the promotion of Doug Crow from corporate compliance officer to vice president of production.
Crow has played an integral role in improving workflow and printing efficiency to make the new press available for more commercial print jobs and focusing on overall quality control of NPCo products.
“He brings vast knowledge in consolidating printing facilities and production across networks from remote locations as well as the management of all production systems,” said Mooney. “We’re very lucky to have Doug here. He’s very important in the ongoing success of our newspapers.”
All part of a plan
During the past several years, Mooney has been focused on magnifying the profile of the local company within the community and on a state and national level.
He’s clear on what the goal is always: “To be the quality producer and low-cost provider in anything that we undertake … That guarantees that we can compete.”
First and foremost has been showing the company’s commitment to being part of Greater Rome as well as northwest Georgia and northeast Alabama where NPCo has numerous community newspapers and products.
While the company has always had a 10-year plan with a five-year horizon, changes in the newspaper industry have brought more immediacy not only to the delivery of news and services, but also to planning.
Mooney began in earnest five years ago orchestrating major improvements and planning for growth, in what some were saying is a no-growth business.
That may be true with the traditional business model that many newspapers have clung to. Mooney, however, knew the company had to be adaptive. But he wanted more. He wanted his company to lead the way.
“We knew we needed to update our facilities. So we spent $1 million in updating our corporate facilities and our lead newspaper facilities at the Rome News-Tribune to what I think is just a very enjoyable working campus.”
The renovations added natural light with lots of windows, modernized furnishings and workstations while drawing on the historical charm of the original brick walls and wood floors. It created loft-like offices that pay homage to the past while incorporating high-tech amenities that fit perfectly with the newspaper’s commitment both to its legacy and to its future.
“It’s an interesting adaptation of a historical building,” said Mooney.
“That was the first step. We knew we needed to make this a modern workplace so that we can create modern products.”
He also felt it was key to recruiting top-caliber leaders to help grow the business and create new business opportunities.
He points out that even as forward-thinking as the company was, that it quickly surpassed its own plans.
“In our first inception there was no designated area for online; it was just to be integrated in to the newsroom. But before we could finish the building, it became apparent that the Internet would be a big part of what we do. So we quickly changed the plans and provided an area for us to grow our online business.
“Now timelines are so short,” said Mooney. “The future is now.”
He said NPCo has made it a point “to be innovative and on the cutting edge technologically.”
It’s important, he said, to give employees the equipment and technology they need to do their jobs well. “My philosophy is if you’re going to ask someone to do something and produce, we as managers, have to give them the tools.”
A pressing issue
An avid monitor and participant of all things newspapers, Mooney could see the changing of the tides and started yet another shift.
“We knew newspapers were going to have to start looking at consolidation” of production, delivery and shared technologies. And it didn’t have to mean shared ownership in order to do that.
“We always felt that we were on the leading edge so that we would be the leader in providing those services. We recognized that would give us an economic advantage in providing a higher level of news organization because we would have another revenue stream and not put all the pressure on advertising sales programs and circulation.”
So to position the company to deliver other products, to print other publications and to partner with other innovative companies, Mooney had to address a big issue.
He made a bold — and pricey — move at a time when some pundits were predicting the ebbing of print newspapers. He bought a new $2.35 million Dauphin Graphic Machines press to replace the aging mechanical press that had been churning out newspapers for 40 years.
“If we were going to be the technologically advanced producer, what was our biggest problem? Our press room was our Achilles heel.”
The press and crew were still printing thousands of newspapers a day, but Mooney wanted more configuration options, more color capacity and to finally move that very important department into the digital age.
“We went on line in July 2007 with our DGM press and Perretta digitized inking system,” said Mooney. “Some people say it’s at the end of a cycle, but I don’t think so. I think that press will be producing things for a very long time.”
While the new press means savings in ink and newsprint — “our two most expensive commodities” — it also means new revenue potential in commercial printing. Mooney expects that to be an expanding part of the business.
“We’re marketing our press room facilities to other newspapers,” said Mooney. The Pickens County Progress from Jasper, Ga., is printed at the Rome News-Tribune and other prospects are in the works.
“We have put ourselves in a position to fill up a lot of that press capacity with other people’s products.”
Dynamic color reproduction, more color positions have made it so “even small ads jump off the page at you.”
“It’s working very well,” said Mooney.
Weaving a new Web
The Rome News-Tribune Web site has been on the Internet for a decade now, though it’s only been in the last few years or so that it has become an integral part of the news operation.
“By 2005, we realized that we really needed to start paying attention to that and that was going to be a large part of our branding going forward for our newspapers and also for our news dissemination,” explained Mooney. “We also expected that video would become a big piece of that.”
Early on the newspaper subscribed to the Associated Press video feed to provide Web site users with the visual news that afforded for national and world news. But with the growing appeal of video on the Web and as a storytelling tool, it was decided that Rome was ready for multimedia journalism.
“So we started looking for a person to take us to the next level on video and in December 2006 we were able to bring Jim Alred in from Naples, Fla.”
He’d been on the forefront of Web video initiatives there and offered an extra appeal. He’s originally from Rome, having graduated from East Rome High School.
“He really knew a lot about the town,” said Mooney. “He was a videographer in Naples and he came up to head our Internet initiatives and take us into the realm of video production.”
The Rome News-Tribune Web department produced more than 1,000 videos in 2007 — ranging from breaking news to kindergarten weddings — and launched a highly popular video prep football show last fall called Gridiron Central with an accompanying Web site.
“That’s really a huge growth place,” said Mooney. “Video advertising is the fastest growing part of the Internet right now.
“We’d certainly like to participate in that and allow our local merchants to participate in that if it meets their needs.”
Mooney said as the company’s Web presence grew it became apparent that “we needed to start looking for a better Web platform” that allowed for better Web site management and maintenance “that allows for updating 24/7.”
NPCo was also looking for partnerships and developed one with Matchbin of Salt Lake City, Utah. Together the two companies developed the Gridiron Central (and subsequent Prep Central) Web site.
“We’ve worked with them in the development of a whole host of Web publishing tools.”
That partnership is giving NPCo the chance to develop a customized Web management system to meets its needs and allowing Matchbin the chance to create a Web package that it can market to other Web publishers.
The latest venture of that partnership was the launch this week of a consolidated new Web site for Polk County — The Polk Fish Wrap. Its moniker comes from Fish Creek that sits right between Rockmart and Cedartown with the whole county wrapping around it. It features content from the two NPCo community newspapers in Polk, the Cedartown Standard and the Rockmart Journal.
“That’s up and running as of this week,” said Mooney. “And we’ll be rolling out Web initiatives all summer long in all of our products. I hope that everybody will like the changes and enhancements.”
Partnerships multiplying
Mooney’s vision is working as more and more companies are partnering with the Rome-headquartered NPCo on multiple ventures, from digital archiving to national advertising.
“We’re working with the Google newspaper ad program” that allows ads placed through Google to appear in the Rome News-Tribune. “We’re excited about that.
“We’re also in the process of implementing a partnership with a major national employment network,” said Mooney. “That will empower the people in northwest Georgia and northeast Alabama who are looking for jobs to have the best of both worlds — newspapers and the Internet.
“We think that partnership is going to be very important to what we do.”
He said he’s working on another venture that will digitally archive decades’ worth — perhaps later a century’s worth — of the Rome News-Tribune. “We’ll probably announce something on that mid-summer.”
The contract to deliver the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is a perfect sample of why partnerships make sense these days.
He says it doesn’t make good business sense in a market with multiple newspapers distributed to have several carriers driving by the same houses each delivering their products when a single carrier can deliver them all much more efficiently and at less cost.
“We very proud to be the first partner for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The partnership is going to add tremendously to our overall delivery system.”
The footprint for that was already in place with delivery of the Rome News-Tribune. An internal consolidation piggybacked delivery of the previously mailed Calhoun Times and Cedartown Standard and showed that the concept worked.
Another partnership that has been developed is with the Mansell Group in Atlanta, one of the top e-mail marketing companies in the nation.
“People registered on any of our Web sites will start seeing some that rolling out this month,” said Mooney. “They will manage our lists so that we can better serve you as a recipient as well as serve our advertisers.”
Mooney has worked with Mansell Group to create customized e-mail programs for NPCo that feature artwork by the Rome News-Tribune’s national-award-winning cartoonist Mike Lester and NPCo graphic artists.
This is the latest twist on something the company has long done — maintain a comprehensive database list of addresses and demographic information on our markets. That information is used in advertising, direct-mail services offered by the company and in the creation of new products.
“Everything we do is based on demographics,” said Mooney.
All of these partnerships — and more to come — are key to transforming News Publishing Co. into a media company built for serving its core market while exploring whole new frontiers.
A commitment to the community
While all of the improvements, technology, initiatives and partnerships are about the future of the local newspaper company, it is also about keeping our commitment to serving our communities.
Mooney is always clear about that.
“To accomplish all of this and to go forward, we had to have the equipment and the facilities in place. We made over $4 million in investments in the last four years, which we think is a tremendous commitment to this community and to northwest Georgia and northeast Alabama. And I think it really speaks to our desire to stay here and to be in business here.”
Mooney says the management changes announced today “reflect the new businesses we’re in and will maintain our ability to be the best high-quality low-cost provider.”
That translates into being the best community newspaper in print and online for our communities and the best partner to those who are joining us in innovative business ventures.
