Decatur Daily comes to town, T.Wayne not getting on a plane

When we first reported a couple of weeks ago The Decatur Daily was in talks to buy The Times Daily, my first thought was, is it making a profit? Of course, cutting the four senior-most positions must be a large cost saving measure. In all likelihood, more cuts will be necessary. Last I heard, there were over 100 employees at TD. And we are all aware of the plummeting ad sales in print media, hundreds of papers across the nation are going out or under, as we speak.

From media accounts of the transaction, the new owners seem very focused on local news. So I can't see many more cuts in the newsroom. But you better believe they are going to want a return on their multi-million dollar investment. Financial analysts recently estimated the New York Times Regional News Group value to be around $100 million. With the Boston paper accounting for most of that, that leaves just a few million dollar value on the rest of the newsgroups papers, five to ten million a piece. Rest assured, the new owners have close to this invested in the Times Daily.

The new owners have mentioned the high dollar presses at the TD. This will save money on print cost for the Decatur paper.

We at Shoals Insider extend our welcome the new owners and new staff to the Shoals area.

We really hate to see T. Wayne Mitchell leave the TD. I have to admit, I have read several of T. Wayne's columns. I once asked him if T. Wayne was yankee for Dewayne. We both laughed.
In his last column, Mitchell seemed to imply he is sticking around. He can always come work for the Shoals Insider. The check would be the same minus a few zeros.

Honeymoon over for Florence City Council

Sources close to the situation tell the Shoals Insider that the honeymoon is over for the Florence City Council. At the last council meeting a straw poll was taken for who would be the next city council president. We would like to remind the council of Mr. Barnhart's long statewide public service. Mr. Barnhart has worked under two governors as Labor Commissioner. Out of all those involved and especially the new members of the council, Barnhart has the greatest amount of knowledge, pertaining to state and local government.

Let's hope this city council will be less divisive than prior ones. We have a very talented group this time.

Do us all a favor and leave your egos at home.