Suburban Journals

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Type	Chain of community newspapers
Format	Broadsheet
Owner	Lee Enterprises
Publisher	Bob Williams
Editor	Dave Bundy
Founded	Various
Headquarters	14522 South Outer Forty Rd. Town and Country, Missouri 63017  United States
Circulation	637,000 weekly
Website: STLtoday.com

Suburban Journals is a group of 40 publications in the St. Louis region owned by Lee Enterprises.

The group, known as Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis, publishes 31 community newspapers, the Ladue News and St. Louis' Best Bridal magazine. The chain reaches 637,000 households.^[1]

Publications are grouped in regional offices, each with its own editor, in Town and Country, Mo.; Collinsville, Ill.; Festus, Mo.; Columbia, Ill.; St. Peters, Mo.; Warrenton, Mo.; and two in St. Louis.

The newspapers are independent of the Lee-owned St. Louis Post-Dispatch, but do share some resources, such a technical assistance and, as of May 2008, printing.^[2]

The companies, which were both previously owned by Pulitzer Inc., also share a common website, stltoday.com.

The chain's main competition is the Post-Dispatch and community-focused Webster-Kirkwood Times and South County Times in Missouri and Alton Telegraph, Edwardsville Intelligencer and Belleville News Democrat in Illinois.

It is by some counts the largest community chain of newspapers in the country.^[3]

The chain employed 415 full-time workers in 2006 ^[4].

The papers are printed at the Pulitzer Publishing Center, in Maryland Heights,Mo.

[edit] Newspapers

Missouri

• Jefferson County Journal
• Meramec Journal
• News-Democrat Journal
• Ladue News
• Northwest County Journal
• Hazelwood-Bridgeton Journal
• Overland-St. Ann Journal
• North County Journal
• Northeast County
• North Side Journal
• St. Louis' Best Bridal
• South City Journal
• South Side Journal
• Southwest City Journal
• South County Journal
• Southwest County Journal
• Oakville-Mehlville Journal
• St. Charles Journal
• St. Peters Journal
• O'Fallon Journal
• Mid-County Journal
• Citizen Journal
• Kirkwood-Webster Journal
• West County Journal
• Press Journal
• Chesterfield Journal
• Tri-County Journal

Illinois

• Granite City Press Record Journal
• Collinsville Herald Journal
• Edwardsville Journal
• Monroe County Clarion
• Millstadt-Smithton Enterprise
• St. Clair Journal

[edit] Notable staff

• Steve Pokin, a reporter and columnist for the St. Charles Journal, in November 2007 broke the story of Megan Meier, a Dardenne Prairie, Missouri, teen who committed suicide after being scorned by a fictitious friend on the social networking site MySpace^[5].

• Todd Smith, a reporter for the Kirkwood-Webster Journal, was shot in the hand during the February 2008 shooting inside City Hall in Kirkwood, Mo.^[6]

[edit] History

Most of the publications currently owned by Suburban Journals date back to the early 1900s as independent newspapers. Many were in direct competition with one another.

By the 1930s, the big adversaries in south St. Louis were the South Side Journal -- renamed from the Cherokee News after Frank X. Bick bought it in 1933 -- and 39th Street Neighborhood News, launched in the summer of 1922 ex-Post Dispatch composing room worker Bernard H. Nordmann^[7].

The two competed against each other until 1970, when the operations merged into St. Louis Suburban Newspapers. Bick's son, Frank C. Bick, helped shape the fledgling chain, which grew to include 10 publicans in St. Louis and St. Louis, Jefferson and Franklin counties.

Meanwhile in northern St. Louis, Arthur M. Donnelly in 1935 bought the Wellston Local and rebranded it the Wellston Journal, focusing more on west and central areas of the city. Donnelly later shifted attention to norther St. Louis County, St. Charles County and Madison County in Illinois, eventually creating 25 papers.

All three operations were eventually merged into the Suburban Newspapers of Greater St. Louis. Circulation topped 820,000^[8].

In the early 1980s, the group was snapped up by Ingersoll Publications Co., a firm headed by Ralph Ingersoll II, whose father lead the innovative PM newspaper in 1940s New York City^[9].

Ingersoll, who wanted to compete with the Post Dispatch and now defunct St. Louis Globe-Democrat], used high-risk junk bonds to finance his acquisitions and eventually launched the failed St. Louis Sun^[10].

Ingersoll was bought out by his partner and financier, E.M. Warburg, Pincus & Co., which formed a the Journal Register Co., the owner of 25 daily newspapers, including the New Haven Register and Alton Telegraph. The chain became the Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis.

In 1997, it bought the Ladue News^[11].

The company in 1999 had revenues of $151 million^[12].

Pulitzer, which owned the Post Dispatch and 11 other daily newspapers, in June 2000 bought the company, which then had 38 papers^[13]. It cost $165 million^[14].

Pulitzer then sold the group to Lee in summer 2005 for $1.46 billion^[15].

In early 2007, Lee reorganized the chain's management and eliminated publisher positions in the eight offices^[16].

[edit] Controversy

In April 2008, the Suburban Journals closed their last remaining print shop resulting in the loss of 37 jobs. Lee Enterprises claims that the reason for the closing is to outsource the printing to a more capable press owned by its sister paper the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. One notable displacement was of, a supervisor who after 20 years of service was given 10 days notice of termination. "I was not chosen because I started 3 months too late," said the employee, referring to the decesion to transfer two people from the department to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch . This is the latest in a string of major lay-offs by Lee Enterprises. Less than 4 months prior the St. Louis Post-Dispatch laid off 31 employees in a move to reduce costs.

[edit] Notes

[edit] Sources

• A 2001 Riverfront Times article about the relationship between the Post-Dispatch and Suburban Journals reporters [1]
• An article about Ingersoll [2]

[edit] External links

• Suburban Journals website
• Suburban Journals Flicker site