It's All About Longevity for These Five Dailies

By: Jennifer Saba Big metros are languishing on the sales block in San Diego and Austin. Seattle, Denver, and Tucson are about to kiss their second dailies goodbye. But not everyone is in a rush to exit the industry.

A group of four families concentrated in the Midwest, along with the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, have one thing in common: They have held on to their dailies the longest in the U.S., according to Dirks, Van Essen & Murray (see p. 44 of E&P's January 2009 issue for the list).

The Deseret News in Salt Lake City has been under the LDS Church for 159 years. It maintains the name of the territory ? The State of Deseret ? proposed by Mormon settlers before what is now Utah was officially recognized by the U.S. government. It's also under a joint operating agreement with The Salt Lake Tribune, owned by MediaNews Group.

Next: the Jacobs/ Wallis family, whose Madison (Ind.) Courier has been in the family since 1849. "We have no plans to get out," says Kurt Jacobs, 46, and the Courier's general manager. He rattles off a list of family members involved at the paper ? his mom and publisher, Jane Jacobs, grandmother and board member Mary Goode Garber Wallis and brother William, who works in the pressroom.

"This is the only property we own," says GM Jacobs. "We have always enjoyed having a newspaper in a town we live in. We still think it's important. ... We're still profitable despite all the gloom and doom. Our margins are certainly different than they were!"

Frank Snyder, fourth-generation publisher of The Daily Standard in Celina, Ohio, can relate. His family is No. 3 on the Dirks list. "A lot of places got used to huge profit margins that I could only dream about," Snyder, 57, says. "Suddenly they are being dragged back to reality!" He has a sister, brother, son and brother-in-law involved in the paper. "We are in the process of evolving into the next thing," he muses. "The Internet ? that's a piece of cake compared to the switch from hot type to offset."

Not all owners are actively involved in their papers. Take Lane Williams Hartle, 50% owner of the Times-Union in Warsaw, Ind. Her second cousins hold the other 50%. "I have not lived in that town since I was in the eighth grade," says Hartle, 72. She resides mostly in Boca Grande, Fla., but still has a family home in Warsaw, where the Williams family has operated the paper for 153 years (No. 5).

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. "It's pretty much a hands-off situation," she says. "There are really wonderful employees there ? highly loyal to the paper. I didn't see a need to be a micro-manager." One of Hartle's three sons works at the paper, and she has no plans of selling her half (her heirs get her stake, as she did from her father). "It means a lot to me and my family, history-wise."

History plays a big role for the Shaw family, owners of The Telegraph in Dixon, Ill. (157 years, No. 4). In 1856, Benjamin Flower Shaw, the newspaper's owner and editor, met with 11 other newspaper editors along with Abraham Lincoln to form the Republican Party of Illinois. Tom Shaw, president and CEO of Shaw Newspapers, says he's proud of his heritage and the company's mission: "Our culture is a competitive differentiator."