The Atlanta Daily World has been acquired by a Detroit group, taking it out of family hands for the first time in its history.
A partnership headed by several Real Times Media owners, including William F. Pickard and Hiram E. Jackson, bought the 84-year-old newspaper for an undisclosed price. It becomes part of a growing multimedia group that includes The Michigan Chronicle and The Tri-State Defender in Memphis.
M. Alexis Scott will stay on as publisher of the newspaper founded by her grandfather W. A. Scott II.
"It was a major move, but in these times we felt like we needed to be part of a bigger organization," Scott said.
Real Times Media officials could not be reached for comment, but in an article in the Daily World, Jackson, the company's CEO, said "building a strong multimedia presence in Atlanta is key to the continued growth of our company.”
Scott said several factors contributed to the decision to sell. They included the state of the economy and changes in the news industry, such as the growth of social networks and advertisers moving to the Internet -- and not necessarily to newspapers online.
Scott estimated that advertising has fallen about 20 percent since 2008. The newspaper, which is online every day but publishes a print edition once a week, has a readership of 25,000, about half of that paid.
The paper currently has about 15 full- and part-time workers and stringers.
"We will still have the same mission to inform, educate, entertain and inspire," Scott said.
That mission has served a purpose over the decades, said Bernard LaFayette Jr., a civil rights leader and distinguished senior scholar-in-residence at Emory University's Candler School of Theology.
"It made a tremendous difference in keeping people abreast of the issues that affected blacks," he said. "The Atlanta Daily World represented a kind of spiral in terms of people being connected."
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