A Decade Later, Another Shoe falls in the Newspapers Collapse of 2012

 

You may remember the day the then three largest daily newspapers in Alabama gave up that title on October 1, 2012. 

The owner of The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times and The Mobile Register stopped publishing seven days a week...dropping back to just three. 

That earthshaking change came not long after two of the three had built and moved into brand new buildings. (A forth paper, a Gannet paper, The Montgomery Advertiser, maintained its daily publishing schedule till recently, but they had also moved into a new building here in the Capitol City).

Then the newspaper publishing world was hit by the digital storm, losing almost all of its classified ad revenue and a chunk of it's space ads too. But the new buildings had been built, so the slimmed down staff moved in. Now---in 2022---the Mobile building has been sold...to a beer distributor:

AL.COM---the digital remainder of those three papers--- reports:

"The newspaper will continue to be printed on the presses at the Water Street site. Advance Local had moved its offices for the Press-Register and digital platform AL.com to 18 South Royal Street about eight years ago."

The Birmingham News building was sold to an Insurance Company in 2015. The Huntsville Times had already moved into a new building in the late 1950's.

Poynter reported on wide staff and salary cuts at the papers when the coronavirus pandemic hit as well.

 (NOTE: There does seem to be a connection between the newspapers and the new beer company owners of the Mobile building but I'll not go there. 😎🍺).