Link below includes 3-minute video clip.

The importance of the newsroom and of newspapers publishing engaging, relevant, local news was emphasized again and again by media executives on the "Investing in Newspapers" panel at the recent Key Executives Mega-Conference.

Over the last 13 years, the newspaper industry has lost more than 1,400 newspapers in the U.S. to closures, mergers and the downsizing of smaller free-standing newspapers that have become editions of larger regional ones, said Penelope Muse Abernathy, Knight Chair, Digital Media Economics, School of Media and Journalism at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

"We've lost more than 1,000 newspapers," she said, "but the decline in circulation has been even more dramatic. It's been halved. Total print circulation – that includes all weeklies and dailies – has declined from 117 million to 67 million, the biggest drop coming in dailies."

She said, "The average print circulation of a daily newspaper in 2018 is 20,000. Since 2004, more than a third of all newspapers have changed hands and about half of them have changed hands two times or more."

When calculcated based on the number of newspapers (not on the circulation of those papers), she said the top 25 companies own a third of the nation's newspapers and control about 50 percent of print circulation.

Three of those companies – Adams Publishing Group, Hearst and AIM Media Management – were among the conference panelists.

The Daily Record (Dunn, N.C.) has expanded its operation with the acquisition of The Courier-Times of Roxboro, one of North Carolina's leading community newspapers.

Daily Record publisher Bart Adams, along with Brent Adams and Maere Kay Lashmit, announced the purchase. Their father and mother, Hoover and Mellicent Adams, founded The Daily Record in 1950.

Brinn Clayton, Courier-Times publisher, and Bart Adams are longtime friends and that friendship played an important role in the sale.

The Eau Claire Press Company, a fourth-generation and fifth-generation family-owned media company with a daily newspaper, a weekly agricultural newspaper, a shopper product, a commercial printing division, digital and marketing services, has been sold, according to John Cribb, Cribb, Greene & Cope. The buyer of The Eau Claire Press Company's assets is family-owned Adams Publishing Group, based in Minneapolis, Minn., and chaired by Stephen Adams.

Carl E. Esposito has been named president of Adams Publishing Group – Tennessee/North Carolina (formerly Jones Media), adding to his responsibilities as publisher of The Daily Times in Maryville, Tenn. The announcement was made by Gregg Jones, president of APG - East and executive vice president of Adams Publishing Group.

Jones Media, a fourth-generation family-owned media company with several daily and non-daily community newspapers, tourism-related products and services and a digital marketing solutions agency, has been sold. The buyer of Jones Media's assets is family-owned Adams Publishing Group, based in Minneapolis, Minn., and chaired by Steve Adams.

Gregg Jones will continue as president and CEO of Jones Media, a role he has held for more than 15 years, and will succeed his late father, John M. Jones, III, as publisher of The Greeneville Sun.

Additionally, Steve Adams and his family have asked Gregg Jones to assume a greater leadership position within their overall rapidly-growing newspaper publishing operations nationally.