Changing to compete

By: Todd Shields S.C. daily serves notice

Citing rapid growth in its part of western South Carolina, The Index-Journal of Greenwood plans to move to morning publication.
The 82-year-old family-owned paper, with circulation of 14,618 daily and 16,172 Sunday, is now delivered weekday afternoons and weekend mornings. The paper will begin seven-day morning delivery Oct. 1. "We believe we must change with the times," Publisher and President Judith M. Burns said in The Index-Journal June 16.
The paper hired Dallas-based Belden Associates to conduct a survey that found readers are likely to be receptive to a morning paper. That's true in part because many are newcomers and were accustomed to morning delivery in their previous homes, Managing Editor Richard Whiting told E&P.
Population grew about 12% during the last decade in the four-county Lakelands area around Greenwood as newcomers took jobs at such major companies as Fuji Photo Film Inc. and Capsugel Warner Lambert Co.
Morning publication should help The Index-Journal compete with larger dailies published in Greenville and the state capital Columbia, Whiting said. He added that the change may not have been necessary -- "if we were content with being a Greenwood-only paper."

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(copyright: Editor & Publisher June 25, 2001)