Stephens Media, the owner of the North Little Rock Times and other local papers is cutting back on staff at their papers across the U.S.  This cut back has not escaped Central Arkansas with the loss of a business reporter.  These cutbacks have recenlty been documented in the AR Times Blog . This was on top of several other cuts in recent years at the NLR Times, some before Stephens acquired the NLR Times.

I would assert the NLR Times is looking at the wrong end of thier business model.  Looking at the costs is important, but the product has sufferred and the Times is losing thier way as a local paper. Just a few examples of the downward spiral in the NLR Times quality

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• The last two weeks, the Times has had errors in reporting crime locations in Argenta, Sherman Park and Park Hill that was in other neighborhoods
• Where are the local alderman endorsements in last week's paper?  The mayor's race is important but we can get that in other media too. If the Time doesn't care enough about the local alderman races to endorse candidates, why should we care about the Timea?.
• Where is the local coverage of the alderman races?  One article when they announce and another on each Ward a couple of weeks ago is NOT coverage.  Where are the reports on all the alderman debates and questions at neighborhood meetings?
• In an article about the mayors race, the Times did a counting of yard signs on Cherry Hill Drive pronouncing the apparent yard sign winner as Mayor Hays without informing readers who may not know, that Mayor Hays lives on Cherry Hill Drive.  

The girl who answered the phone didn’t strike me as wanting to even try and make it work and I didn’t know who to ask for other than Dennis and thought better of that. I called on Friday to see when deadline was for this week’s paper and was told as long as got it in on Monday, it would be okay. Of course, I failed to write down the name of the person I talked with – big mistake. Contrary to what I was told last Friday, deadline for NLR Times ad was last Friday and they wouldn’t accept the ad copy today

Anyway, the folks at the Demo-Gaz are giving us three days for the price of two; so the ad will run Thurs – Sat. Hopefully, the repetition will help catch folks eyes.

No wonder the NLR Times has to cut costs, they aren't trying real hard to make money with ad sales. This is a disservice to all the Times readers and employees. The Times' problems are not with costs, but with service and product.  I am a big supporter of local media and newspapers, but the NLR Times is no longer a local paper and will continue to go down hill with more and more cuts. Time for the NLR Times to die or have Stephens morph it into whatever they want. 

Argenta News has 4000 unique readers every month, which is nearly 2/3 of the Times "reported" circulation and this site only really covers Argenta.  So clearly there is a hunger and need for local news.  The Times has just lost touch with it's base.  I will be cancelling my persoanl subscription to the NLR Times next week and I urge you to do the same.  I don't know what the NLR Times is trying to be, but I do know it is failing us who crave local news and it is too painful to enable the NLR Times failings anymore with a subscription. 

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