Kinston paper printing just one day a week, Jacksonville & New Bern three days

KINSTON, N.C. (WITN) - Newspapers here in Eastern Carolina continue to feel the loss of readership with one of them switching to a weekly publication.

The regional publisher for Paxton Media Group, which bought the Kinston, Jacksonville, and New Bern papers in November, announced that online this morning.

The Kinston Free Press will publish only on Thursday, while the Jacksonville Daily News and the New Bern Sun-Journal will switch to printing only on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

John McClure said the papers will cut back publishing “while at the same time beefing up our digital reporting and marketing opportunities.”

The Free Press had been a daily newspaper since around 1900, but all three papers went to a five-day-a-week print cycle last year.

“It is our intent to provide just as much news in three newspapers per week as we have done in a five-day cycle,” McClure said. “In communities, such as Kinston, we feel a weekly print publication is more economically feasible. We plan to supplement non-print days with local news on our websites and other digital offerings.”

The newspapers said the changes will take effect at the end of the month.