NewsBeat

September 2022 NewsBeat 7 Civil War prompted demand for more time- ly news than the weekly could provide. Today Johnson Newspaper Corp.'s papers cover a lot of territory – more than 5,000 square miles across Lewis, Jefferson, Franklin and St. Lawrence counties. "We are not upstate; we're northern New York," Johnson said. Delivery challenges South of the Canadian border, this is a land of mountains and forests, with small towns and rural outposts. Dairy farming is the primary industry with the military base of Fort Drum another economic driver. Delivering the daily newspaper to the far reaches of their coverage zone has always been one of the company's bigger challeng- es. Finding carriers willing to travel hun- dreds of miles a day to deliver the paper, especially in the winter, had become espe- cially difficult. This year, a switch to postal delivery solved the problem. Since mail carriers were making the trip anyway, having them deliver the newspaper just made sense, Johnson said. "The first editions of the Daily Reform- er were delivered by mail so this in some ways goes back to that," he said. Readers initially bristled at the change but have adapted. In 2019, the daily paper The Johnson titles Johnson Newspaper Corp. and its affiliates publish 12 papers in addition to its NNY360.com news site. Watertown Daily Times The Daily Mail in Catskill Register-Star in Hudson The Daily News in Batavia The Malone Telegram The Journal in Ogdensburg St. Lawrence Plaindealer in Canton Journal & Republican in Lewis and Jefferson counties The Livingston County News The Courier Observer in Massena Oswego Shopper Oswego County News. had eliminated its Monday print editions. With the switch to postal delivery, the Wa- tertown Daily Times restored the Monday edition and consolidated the Saturday and Sunday papers into one weekend edition delivered by mail on Saturday. With two printing presses (one in Wa- tertown and another in Massena), Johnson Newspaper Corp. is also focused on in- creasing its commercial printing business. Fifty customers already rely on their press- es but Alec Johnson says there is ample capacity to handle far more. He's got a map of New York state on his wall, he noted. "I'm always looking for opportunities," he said. "I want us to be one of the last places in the state that print." For many, the Johnsons are a legendary family in the New York newspaper industry. Journalists who got their start in Water- town talk with reverence, for example, about John B. Johnson, the paper's editor from 1949 through 2002. During his ten- ure, the paper successfully advocated for the dramatic expansion of the Fort Drum military base. Alec is the fourth generation of John- sons at the company and since 2020 has served as president, chief operating officer, editor and publisher. He worked in the newsroom as a high school intern, became editor of his college newspaper and earned a Master's degree in journalism from Co- lumbia. Judy Patrick is vice president for editorial development for the New York Press Associ- ation. Johnson Newspapers pressroom.. (Courtesy of the Watertown Daily Times)

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