A correspondent says the interview and reapplication process has begun to determine who’ll still be employed after the combination of Hussman and Stephens newspapers in Northwest Arkansas, likely around Nov. 1. Justice Department willing (which it shouldn’t be, but …)
The result will be a vertically integrated near-monopoly of print in Washington and Benton Counties — daily newspaper, free weekly, Spanish language. But enterprise and the Internet being what they are, there will be alternatives. Newspaper war refugee Chris Spencer is, for example, already up and running with the locally oriented Ozarks Unbound, an on-line publication. When I went to get a link, I found that he has already been at work monitoring progress of the newspaper combine.