In the span of a few days, the Roswell Daily Record faced both its demise and rescue by acquisition. This week's issue was supposed to be the last edition. But on Wednesday, New Mexico News Group announced it would purchase the southeastern New Mexico paper.
Founder of the news group Pat Davis said he hopes that this purchase will inspire confidence in local businesses and audiences to return to the newspaper.
“Businesses stretched in their own budgets start hearing that maybe the paper is going to go out of business,” Davis said. “They stop including it in their advertising budget, and so we're going to have to go back and remind those folks and tell them that we're going to stick around for a little while.”
The News Group owns several papers in the Albuquerque-Santa Fe metro area, including the Santa Fe Reporter, City Desk ABQ, and the Sandoval Sign Post. But, Davis has faced some controversy in the journalism sphere for his business approach. This includes down-sizing and layoffs after launching or acquiring some newsrooms.
In response, Davis said that jobs that existed under these outlets are now under the larger New Mexico News Group umbrella. Additionally, he said that instead of hiring multiple part-time or freelance roles, like a graphic designer, he can make them into one full-time position that he argues helps people make a living-wage in journalism.
Davis said that a new 30% state tax credit incentivizes newsrooms to invest in staff. Davis said the purchase of the Roswell Daily Record is the first big success of the tax credit.
“I just totally told somebody the other day- I'm like, ‘we got to talk about this,’” Davis said. “Because it is the first paper that got saved because we're going to save a good chunk of payroll without having to lay people off, right? That difference is somebody's job in Roswell.”
Davis said that subscribers of the Roswell Daily Record would have access to the other journalism being produced by the New Mexico News Group. The paper will also have access to staff under the New Mexico News Group, like graphic designers and reporters in the Legislature.
The purchase of the Roswell Daily Record also included its in-house printing press, where the newspaper printed its material until October of last year. Davis said that the newspaper would continue to print at the press at the Santa Fe New Mexican for cost purposes. According to him, the future of the printing press in Roswell is likely being sold as a whole, or for parts.
The purchase of the Daily Record isn’t the only shakeup in Roswell. Southeastern New Mexico conglomerate El Rito Media also announced that it would be launching the Roswell Tribune. El Rito owns Alamogordo Daily News, Artesia Daily Press, Carlsbad Current-Argus, Rio Grande Sun and Ruidoso News.
At the beginning of the week, Chaves County looked like it was going to lose its only news outlet. Now, the number has doubled.
The New Mexico News Group will officially take ownership of the Roswell Daily Record on August 1st.
