Portico Publications suspending Metro Spirit publishing in March. The first issue of the new Metro Spirit will be on April 14.
A fresh off the press Metro Spirit will return to stands on April 14 with new, local ownership and a contemporary take on an old-school idea.
On Wednesday, March 2, 2011, Portico Publications announced the suspension of Metro Spirit with its final publication. The management team of Portico refused to comment any further about the suspension of the Metro Spirit other than “financial performance.”
“When (Portico) closed the doors a couple of weeks ago, their press release blamed the local economy and that has nothing to do with it,” said Joe White, new owner of Metro Spirit and owner of 15 House LLC. “It was how the paper has been run.”
Portico Publications, located in Charlottesville, Va., purchased the Metro Spirit in 2005 after local ownership since 1989. According to White, the paper has been in decline since Portico took ownership with only one thing to blame: distance.
“Revenues declined, page count declined, editorial quality declined,” White said. “It was owned by a company 1,000 miles away and they didn’t really pay any attention to it. That is 100 percent the reason (for its downfall).”
Austin Rhodes, local radio host for WGAC, will return as a columnist for the Metro Spirit. Rhodes left the publication in early December due to “editorial disagreements.”
“The Metro Spirit has been in trouble since the Portico takeover in 2005,” Rhodes said. “They tried to run the paper the way they ran their other two very successful alternative weeklies in college-oriented cities … Although (the Spirit) has an appeal to college students, it was not a ‘college paper.’ It was born in a political atmosphere based on community happenings and not built around the college, entertainment and social scene.”
Along with distance and editorial issues, signs of financial problems were evident of Portico Publications’ relationship with Metro Spirit, according to Shelby Menard, a freshman art major and former photographer for the Spirit, who said she experienced this downfall first hand.
“My paychecks would be really late,” Menard said. “I was supposed to get paid $30 every week for my photos. I worked every other week so I usually got paid at the end of the month. At one point, it was two months until I got a paycheck.”
Despite recent troubles, Portico Publications successfully produced an alternative weekly with a large “entertainment” presence in Augusta. However, White said he hopes to return the publication back to the original Spirit style — unique and news-oriented.
“When it first came out, there was nothing like it in Augusta,” White said. “It was an alternative newspaper, almost like a breath of fresh air. It always had an irreverent point of view and the topics covered were random. You never knew what was going to be in it until you picked it up. One week we were taking down a politician, the next week we were doing a fluff piece on Bill Clinton.”
According to Rhodes, the Spirit originally attracted a different audience. In turn, it created a reputation for being an unbiased news source that used a different approach to headline news. Rhodes validates the alternative style to news writing of the “old” Metro Spirit.
“It aimed at a person who wants a different take on news that they already heard,” Rhodes said. “The Spirit did a great job giving very interesting insight that nobody else did. That had been lacking since Portico took it over.”
New management will focus on one important aspect of successful journalism; growth. According to White, when Portico stopped publications, only 13,000 issues with a page count of 36 were being produced per week. Both he and his team are committed to publish 23,500 copies of a 56- page paper.
“We are just going to take it back to what it was, which is local, watch-dog journalism in the front half, and arts, entertainment and fun stuff in the back,” White said. “We will not be doing social work type of journalism. We are not going to be ethicacy journalism. It is going to be reporting straight down the middle.”
White also said if readers want to interact with the “new” Metro Spirit, they will have to pick up an issue on Thursdays. Metro Spirit will no longer have a Website, Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr. Despite being a 23-year-old institution with multiple, previous owners, the new Metro Spirit will encompass the old school Spirit in its design.
“It is a plan,” Rhodes said. “There is an active blueprint in place to bring the Spirit back to its roots and I think people are going to be very happy with what they see.”