Newspaper Page Text
Inaugural Edition
Barrow 4 Journal
www.BarrowJournal.com Or Read all over...
Wednesday, October 29,2008
Vol. 1 No. 1 22 PAGES 2 SECTIONS A publication of MainStreet Newspapers, Inc. WINDER, BARROW COUNTY GEORGIA 30680 25c COPY
New Barrow paper launched
START THE PRESSES! A new news
paper is being launched to serve the
Barrow County community.
The Barrow Journal begins weekly
publication this week as a traditional
broadsheet newspaper with a focus on
Barrow County news.
The newspaper is published by the
family-owned Mainstreet Newspapers,
Inc. of Jefferson.
“For many years, we’ve been asked by
readers and advertisers in Barrow County
to publish a local weekly newspaper in
the community,” said co-owners and co-
publishers Scott and Mike Buffington.
“We are responding to that demand with
the launching of the Barrow Journal this
week."
The newspaper is an outgrowth of
the BarrowJournal.com website and The
Braselton News which have been cover
ing Barrow County since January.
“Our BarrowJournal.com website has
received a tremendous response and
building on that with a weekly print
edition is the logical next step,” said the
Buffingtons. “We are confident about
the future of community journalism and
very excited about the start-up of the
Barrow Journal.”
The Barrow Journal will be a paid
circulation newspaper. It will be avail
able for delivery by mail on Thursdays,
or can be purchased in stores and from
newsracks on Wednesday evening.
The Barrow Journal's office is located
at 77 East May Street, Winder. The firm
purchased the building during the sum
mer. The location has been known as
Special 5-5-5
deal offered
The Barrow Journal is offer
ing several special deals for
readers and advertisers as the
new publication is launched.
For a limited time, read
ers in Barrow County can
become a charter subscriber to
the Barrow Journal for only
$5 per year. The newspaper
will be distributed free for a
limited time to ah households
in Barrow County, but only
paid subscribers will receive
mailed copies starting in 2009.
(Rates are higher for out-of-
county subscriptions.)
Also for a limited time, the
Barrow Journal will have a
special introductory advertis
ing rate of only $5 per column
inch. That means the cost of a
'A page ad is only $165 at that
low rate.
Classified ads are also a
deal. Several categories of
classified ads are free (see
details inside). All other clas
sified ads are only $5 for 20
words or less.
PUMPKIN ADMIRATION
Cohen Milner takes in his surroundings at the Winder First United Methodist Church
pumpkin patch. Milner was there with his family looking for the perfect Halloween
pumpkin. For other Halloween articles, see story about Barrow ghost hunters on
Page 2A and Barrow’s most haunted places on Page 10A. Photo by Jessica Brown
T~
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BARROW JOURNAL STAFF
Staff members of the Barrow Journal are (front L to R) Susan Mobley, Chris
Bridges, Susan Norman; (back L to R) Susan Treadwell, Mike Buffington,
Jeremy Ginn, Jessica Brown and Scott Buffington.
the G&G Travel office and that business
will continue to maintain its office at the
location as well.
The staff of the Journal will be Chris
Bridges as editor, Susan Treadwell as
advertising manager, Susan Mobley
as office manager and Susan Norman,
reporter and webeditor. The staff also
includes Jessica Brown photographer
and Jeremy Ginn as marketing man
ager.
The Buffingtons, second generation
owners of Mainstreet Newspapers, will
also have a hands-on role in the Barrow
Journal. In addition, other Mainstreet
staff members will provide support ser
vices for the Barrow Journal.
“We take a lot of pride in providing
quality local news coverage and high
value for advertisers in the communi
ties where we publish newspapers,” the
Buffingtons said.
Mainstreet Newspapers is a nation
ally recognized newspaper firm that
publishes five community newspapers in
Northeast Georgia. The locally-owned
firm also operates a family of commu
nity news websites.
Inside:
Judge Adamson ‘roasted’ at retirement fete Page 11A
Minister takes on IRS Page 10B
Crime & courts coverage Page 8A-9A
Sports Pages 1B-5B
Opinion Page Page 4A
MEMO FROM THE PUBLISHERS
Newspaper to serve the
needs of Barrow readers
By Mike & Scott Buffington
Co-Publishers
B ACK in the mid-1960s, just after our parents pur
chased The Jackson Herald in Jefferson, we found
ourselves often sitting in the back seat of an old ’57
Chevy riding around Winder. In addition to her myriad duties as
the new owner/editor
of The Herald, our
mother was also the
newspaper’s adver
tising representative
for Barrow County
and as kids, we
sometimes tagged
along on many of
her weekly rounds mike scott
in Winder. Buffington buffington
We didn’t know it
at that time, but those weekly sojourns were just another link in
a long relationship between The Herald and the Barrow area.
From its start in 1875, The Herald had covered the area
around what was then called “Jug Tavern,” or as it was renamed
in 1894, Winder. In fact, Jackson County’s western border was
a spot in downtown Winder, a town that was at the time split
between three counties.
Even after Barrow County was created in 1914, ties between
Jackson and its new neighbor remained intertwined. Over the
decades, a number of multi-county agencies were created that
involve both counties, such as the Piedmont Judicial Circuit, the
Upper Oconee Basin Authority that built Bear Creek Reservoir,
the soil and conservation service, and at times, overlapping
state and national legislative districts.
Over the last century, The Herald maintained its relationship
with the area through news coverage and advertising, a tradi
tion our parents continued and which we have also done as the
current publishers.
Now we are taking that long relationship to the next level
with this first issue of the Barrow Journal. The birth of a
new newspaper is special, in part because it is rare these days.
Some believe newspapers are just tree-killing dinosaurs; major
metro newspapers are straggling financially; and the Internet
has changed the way some people want to get their news and
information.
And yet, for all the doom-and-gloom talk, we believe in the
future of strong community newspapers. We emphasize the
word “community” because that’s the focus of the newspapers
we publish.
If done right, we believe people will read a good local
community newspaper that covers the news fairly and com
pletely. While some may also get a part of their news from
other sources, they will also pick up a quality local newspaper
to read about local governments, local schools and other local
community events.
And that’s why we’re publishing the Barrow Journal. Over
the last decade or so, many people in Barrow County — com
munity leaders, advertisers and regular citizens — have asked
us to publish a newspaper in Barrow County. We believe that’s
due to the long track record of quality reporting at The Herald
and at the other newspapers we publish.
Over the last couple of years, this call for us to invest in
Barrow County has grown louder. With the advent of The
Herald’s sister paper, The Braselton News, in 2006, we began
to cover some beats in Barrow County. In addition, we created
the website www.BarrowJournal.com earlier this year to aggre
gate local news for online readers and over the summer, we
published a special local election edition for Barrow County.
The feedback from those small efforts has been overwhelm
ing. And yet, we felt it really wasn’t enough — that we were
just barely scratching the surface of the kind of deep, quality
reporting needed in Barrow County.
Several people have asked us why start a newspaper now,
given the current economic downturn in the nation? Our answer
is that newspapers have to be able to survive and do their jobs in
any environment, especially in time of economic turmoil where
people need clear news and analysis of what’s happening in the
community around them. We’re starting the Barrow Journal for
the long-term, good times or bad.
So how will we do this? Our business model is simple: We
want to offer a better value, summed up with the initials M.B.C.
— More. Better. Cheaper.
More news, more readers, more advertising.
Better coverage, better quality reporting, better advertising.
And a Cheaper cost to both subscribers and advertisers.
In addition, our community newspaper business is vastly dif
ferent from those large, struggling media firms that you read
about in the Wall Street Journal. Many of those newspapers
are drowning with a lot of debt from leveraged buyouts and
from the loss of classified advertising. And while the economic
downturn hits all of us, we believe we’re much better positioned
to weather the storm.
continued on page 5A
