Response to newspaper closures: A newspaper expansion into North Little Rock

Garrick Feldman, publisher of The Leader, a newspaper serving North Pulaski, Lonoke and White counties, says his newspaper will step into a void created in North Little Rock by closure this week of the North Little Rock Times.

Gatehouse Media told employees of two weeklies published in Lonoke and Pulaski counties, the latter published as North Little Rock Times, with inserts from Maumelle, Sherwood and Jacksonville, that editions this week would be the last. All employees will be terminated as of the end of the week.

Feldman sent this message to the Arkansas Press Association:

Starting next week, The Leader will expand with a North Little Rock edition. We want to give NLR Times subscribers a free Leader if we could get their names. I left a message with PB Commercial publisher but haven’t heard back.

My goal is to reach 10,000 circulation in NLR as when the Chisms published the Times.

Can you help and spread the word?

He added in a note to me:

We are still around and we can cover a city of 65,000. NLR needs a newspaper. Mayor Smith is wrong that the days of community journalism are over. Our four-color presses are just a few miles up the road and we’re ready to deliver local news, sports, features and ads from North Little Rock to Searcy.