Weekly Albany Newspaper Ceases Printing - WALB.com, Albany News, Weather, Sports

The Albany Journal newspaper, published weekly, will no longer offer print versions and will only be a digital publication.

Here's a statement from the publisher:

"Due to financial difficulties, it was going to join the growing number of newspaper that have suspended print operations.

"This wasn't something we wanted to do," said Journal publisher Tom Knighton. "We had to either go to online only, or shut the doors forever.

Far too many people have told us that they feel Albany needs the Journal, so this was the only option."
Knighton, who took the paper over in November of last year, notes that the Journal has been losing money for some time. "A lot of papers make this decision to improve their bottom line, to increase their profits. We're just trying to actually have a profit."

So what about subscribers to the paper? "We're going to take a look at our subscribers and work out how best to pay them back. I don't know that other papers are doing that, but we are. It's about what's right, and that seems to be a no-brainer."

Knighton says that while this is a setback, he's looking at it as an opportunity. "We've been wanting to expand our web coverage for some time, but it's been difficult with our limited resources. Now, we can do it," Knighton said. Knighton describes the web expansion is news coverage for seven days per week, essentially turning the weekly newspaper into a daily news website.

"While this wasn't what I wanted for the paper, it's an exciting opportunity at the same time," Knighton said. "We had some long conversations about this, but they're conversations I think all newspapers are going to have. We just had to have it a lot sooner than most of the others have."
Knighton cites the economy as a contributing factor, but far from the only one. "Blaming the economy is easy, and it's partly true, but it there were a lot of factors involved. One thing we don't believe was a factor was the quality of the paper itself. Everything we've heard from readers has been generally positive. What negative we have heard has been specific issues, like an ad we've run or whatnot. The paper has a whole has been solid," Knighton said.