• by Ray Schultz , June 19, 2024

Carpenter Media Group, an Alabama-based company that entered the Pacific Northwest by acquiring Sound Publishing earlier this year, is now laying off 62 people in the region, The Seattle Times reports.  

This includes half of the unionized employees at The Daily (Everett) Herald, and is “bad news for journalism in the Northwest,” says Kaitlin Gillespie, executive officer of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, according to The Seattle Times.

Sound Publishing publishes more than 40 newspapers in Washington, including Everett Herald and Okanogan Valley-Gazette Tribune, plus three titles in Alaska and Seattle Weekly, an online news site. 

Carpenter announced in April that it was acquiring Sound Publishing’s owner, Black Press Media of Canada, with Canadian institutional investors Canso Investment Counsel and Deans Knight Capital Management. 

In another development, Carpenter recently announced an end to its joint management of several newsrooms with Boone Newsmedia. As part of this, Carpenter is acquiring several publications in the Southern U.S. 

In May, Carpenter said it was acquiring 10 southern newspapers and a Georgia printing facility from Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. 

Carpenter is now said to own 200 publications.