FORMER PENNSYLVANIA STRIKE PAPER GETS AGGRESSIVE

By: Lucia Moses Times-Shamrock Closes In On Times Leader


If history is any guide, The Citizens' Voice in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., shouldn't have hung on this long. Started in 1978 by strikers of the Times Leader, the city's other daily, the Voice has probably lasted longer than any other strike-born paper.

But circulation declines threatened the paper's existence until Times-Shamrock Communications, owner of the Scranton, Pa., Tribune and Scranton Times, bought the paper from its employee owners last May.

Times-Shamrock has begun to show it means business. It started heavily promoting the Voice, and last month gave the paper its first redesign ever. And a new press unit being installed should double the paper's color printing capacity.

Times-Shamrock has set an audacious objective for the second-place Voice: to become the No. 1 paper in Wilkes-Barre's Luzerne County. "We think that's an achievable goal," said William Lynett, who runs Times-Shamrock with his two brothers.

No. 1 is a long way off, however. The Voice, with a daily circulation of 32,589, is outsold by the Times Leader, with a daily circulation of 49,830. The gap widens on Sunday, when the former sells 28,975 copies to the latter's 69,667.

Voice executives contend that circulation is no longer in decline. But Times-Shamrock is still overpowered by the competition. The Times Leader, owned by Knight Ridder the last three years, has more than twice as many staffers than the Voice - and it swept last year's Keystone Press Awards, taking nine first- and second-place awards to the Voice's one.

Voice Publisher Robert J. Manganiello argues that the Voice, with its more stable staff and resources from its new parent, covers the news better. As a private company, Times-Shamrock can focus on quality without having to worry about Wall Street pressures, Lynett said in a jab at his publicly owned competitor.

Times Leader Publisher Patrick McHugh conceded that the Voice has a deep well of institutional knowledge, but little else. "They may beat us on a story, but they don't have much depth," he contended, adding that his paper hasn't done anything in direct response to the increasingly aggressive Voice.

Few cities have independently operated competing dailies, and Stephen M. Barrouk, president of the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Commerce, said having two papers can give readers more points of view. But, he said, the papers sometimes rush to publish before they have the full story. "By having two papers as competitive as they are, I think sometimes stories don't get their proper due," he said.

Both the Times Leader and Times-Shamrock have expanded by buying weeklies serving the suburbs, where there are some pockets of growth. But Luzerne County may be just the beginning of the battle if the Times Leader fulfills its plan to move into Scranton - Times-Shamrock territory. The lesson for the Voice may be to draw on the survival instincts of its founders. "There's definitely a place for us in that market in the future," McHugh said. "The question[s are] when and what form does that take?"



Lucia Moses (lmoses@editorandpublisher.com) is an associate editor covering business for E&P.



Copyright 2001, Editor & Publisher.