Vindicator name, website to continue

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

An agreement has been reached for the Tribune Chronicle to acquire The Vindicator’s subscription list, masthead and the Vindy.com domain, Mark Brown, general manager of The Vindicator announced Friday.

The agreement clears the way for the Tribune Chronicle, based in Warren, to produce an edition under the name of The Vindicator, and the Tribune Chronicle has agreed to provide a newspaper for the remainder of the unexpired term for all subscribers of The Vindicator.

The owners of The Vindicator announced on June 28 the newspaper, which recently celebrated its 150th anniversary, would cease publication on Aug. 31, citing unprofitability for several years.

The Tribune Chronicle announced on July 2 it would attempt to fill the void left by the closure of The Vindicator by publishing a Mahoning County edition beginning Sept. 1.

“We have always felt strongly about the need to have a local newspaper. The agreement announced today provides The Vindicator’s subscribers with continued delivery of a daily print newspaper focused on their communities, Mahoning County and the [Mahoning] Valley,” said Mark Brown, general manager of The Vindicator. “We are very happy to be able to provide our readers with a daily print newspaper from a family-owned company. The Nutting family and Ogden Newspapers have been in the publishing business since 1890.”

“We are extremely happy and honored to be able to preserve the long-respected name of the newspaper that has served this region for a century-and-a- half,” said Charles Jarvis, publisher of the Tribune Chronicle. “We look forward to delivering approximately 30,000 of the new The Vindicator editions to the people who have supported The Vindicator through the years and have developed a printed newspaper reading habit.”

The Tribune Chronicle has been planning increased coverage of Mahoning County and has added considerable resources to get that done. The Vindicator edition will be the area’s best source for Mahoning Valley news and will offer a strong advertising medium to support the businesses that drive the region’s economy.

Many of The Vindicator’s popular features, including all the daily comics and most of the Sunday comics, will be included in The Vindicator edition. The website will continue.

The Tri-County Funeral Directors’ Association members who have traditionally published obituaries in The Vindicator are planning to use The Vindicator edition of the Tribune Chronicle, for their obituary section called Tributes. Local and state governmental agencies have indicated they will use The Vindicator edition to publish their legal advertisements.

Combining the Trumbull and the Mahoning editions of the Tribune Chronicle will provide advertisers with a combined reach of nearly 50,000 households. Youngstown now will not be the largest city in Ohio without a daily newspaper.

“We are committed to publishing a newspaper for Mahoning County that will give the community a strong voice,” Jarvis said. “While we could never fully replace the great work done by The Vindicator’s publisher, management and staff, we believe we will produce a really good newspaper as a replacement – one that the community can be proud of.”

The Tribune Chronicle plans to contract with as many current Vindicator carriers as possible in order to provide a seamless transition Sept. 1.

Jarvis stressed this whole process is on a very fast track and the Sept. 1 transition may not be as smooth as hoped.

“If there are some missed deliveries in the first few days, we hope the subscribers will let us know and give us the opportunity to fix the problems. We have always been committed to excellent customer service,” he said.

Hundreds of people have already reached out to the Tribune Chronicle to subscribe to the announced Mahoning County edition. For those who have subscribed and who are also current Vindicator subscribers, the Tribune Chronicle will extend the expiration of The Vindicator subscriptions.

Those subscribers who make automatic payments from their bank accounts should contact the Tribune Chronicle to make sure a secure transaction is established and maintained.