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Small town newspaper shuts down

MOUNTAIN HOME (AP) -- The Mountain Home Daily News closed Friday, ending its battle with a newspaper six times its size in one of the smallest American towns with competing daily papers.

Joe Dobson, the paper's general manager and managing editor, said employees were told Thursday afternoon that the paper they were preparing for Friday morning would be the Daily News' last. No reason was given, he said.

The Daily News, owned by NEWSCO Inc. of Destin, Fla., was founded as a weekly in 1991 and went daily Aug. 1, 1994, as an afternoon paper. It moved to morning publication in 1996, competing directly with The Baxter Bulletin, owned by Gannett.

At the end, the Daily News had a circulation of 1,895, according to figures from the Arkansas Press Association. The Baxter Bulletin's was 11,434.

"I think anytime a business leaves a community, it is significant. They provided employment and a product and service that the community benefited from," said Bulletin Publisher Hal Tanner III.

"As is the case with any newspaper, it hits a little closer to home. We wish all their employees the best."

Mountain Home has a population of 9,027 and it was believed to be the smallest town in the United States with competing newspapers not sharing parts of their business in a joint operating agreement.

The Daily News had 20 full-time employees and another 20 part-time employees, stringers and delivery workers under contract. Some already had applied for jobs at the Bulletin.

"We had a good time just pulling together and working as a team to try to produce a quality newspaper," Dobson said.

When the paper went daily, NEWSCO owner Rupert Phillips purchased new equipment, including digital darkroom equipment and electronic pagemakers, for the newspaper to help it compete against the older and larger Bulletin.

"He knew that since we were going to be a small staff, we would need the quality tools to help us produce a quality paper," Dobson said.

Tanner said his newspaper's circulation had leaped significantly in the past year. The paper's audited figures showed circulation last March at 10,619.

"We were one of the fastest growing newspapers in the country last year," Tanner said. "That is really a reflection of the staff and the kind of paper the Bulletin produced. We think we have a healthy product."

The closure leaves Arkansas with 30 daily newspapers.