BRUNSWICK

As 2016 came to a close, The Times Record Publisher Michelle Lester took to our pages to describe the growth the paper has seen in the last year. Increased revenue, circulation, and staff were all listed as signs that after many difficult years, The Times Record was again moving forward.

As The Times Record celebrated its 30th anniversary in 1998, few could have predicted the rough seas ahead. The paper was buzzing with optimism as it launched a website on the still-unfamiliar World Wide Web and longtime publisher Cam Niven had passed the family paper on to his son, Doug Niven. The younger Niven had even helped design the new website.

Predicting increased revenue and readers, and skeptical of any risk to circulation, the paper happily offered its content for free online. Only later would it become clear just how problematic the promising new technology could be.

“During the advent of the world wide web, newspapers sort of struggled with how to take advantage of it and how to leverage it the right way,” said John Swinconeck, managing editor. “You saw this push where the newsroom really wanted to use this as a medium to get as much information out there as possible. But what had happened is we set up an expectation that it was going to be all free all the time, anytime you wanted it. For a lot of newspapers, that wasn’t sustainable.”

Including those who saw the paper online, readership was reaching all time highs. Unfortunately, many of them weren’t paying. Indirectly, free classifieds sites like Craigslist.com gutted a traditional revenue source for newspapers. And while the internet opened newspapers like The Times Record to readers nationwide, it meant that they also had to compete with newspapers across the country.

While newspapers were still struggling to react to the effect that the internet and free content was having on revenue and circulation, the Great Recession hit.

The next decade would be devastating for many in the newspaper industry. Many community newspapers folded, and the ones that survived cut content and staff in order to stay solvent.

“We had to lay off people who had helped me learn how to do my job, and who remain very close personal friends,” said Robert Long, a former managing editor who started at The Times Record in 2002 and left in 2012. “And that was among the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do in my professional life.”

When Long started at the paper in 2002, the major concern was that the newsroom was decreasing from seven reporters to six. By 2012, the paper was down to three reporters. The Bath office was closed.

“The paper got smaller, people noticed it. The staff got smaller, people noticed it,” he said. “It was stressful, I’ll tell you.”

Still, The Times Record continued to churn out a daily paper.

Niven’s Paper

While The Times Record can be seen as simply the merger between The Bath Daily Times and The Brunswick Record 50 years ago, the papers that eventually came to be The Times Record can be traced back to 1820 — the year Maine became a state.

At the end of the 19th century, The Bath Daily Times could look back at decades of name changes, sales and mergers, from the Maine Gazette to the People’s Organ. But from the purchase of the paper by the legendary Frank B. Nichols in 1897 until its eventual merger with The Brunswick Times over half a century later, the paper kept its name and stayed in the family. Seeing a market for news in Brunswick, Nichols began publishing a page of Brunswick news in the Bath Independent, a weekly companion to the Bath Daily Times with wider coverage.

Receiving a positive reception of his foray into the Brunswick market, in 1902 Nichols launched The Brunswick Record. The weekly paper was operated nearly independently of the Bath Daily Times, becoming the leading paper in the town after it absorbed the subscription lists of its chief rival.

Over the next 60 years, Nichols oversaw the development of the Bath Daily Times while his son-in-law, Paul Niven, managed the operations of the Brunswick Record. After Nichols passed away, Niven’s brother, Cam Niven, took over the Bath Daily Times.

In the 1960s, a merger between the two Nivens papers seemed unavoidable. The Brunswick area had grown too big for a weekly, and the smaller city of Bath wasn’t large enough to continue supporting a daily paper, Cam Niven told Alan Robert Miller in his book, “The History of Current Maine Newspapers.”

“[The merger] seemed like a sensible goal to accomplish and had been a long-range goal of mine,” said Niven. “The weekly was growing rapidly and was the bigger of the two operations, and we couldn’t very well operate the weekly from Bath, so it was a matter of biding our time until technology caught up with us.”

On Feb. 6, 1967, the two papers merged to become The Times Record. Of course, not everybody was happy with the move.

“There used to be a fairly regular complaint from people in Bath that Cam Niven had stolen the Bath Daily Times — had taken their paper,” recalled Long.

The Times Record

“When I came to The Times Record in the mid-1980s, I was about to be a new father. I figured I’d work there a couple of years and then move on to ‘bigger and better’ newspapers and arenas. Obviously, I stayed and ended up with a 26.5 year career at one newspaper, my own hometown newspaper,” said James McCarthy, who worked at The Times Record for more than 25 years, including 10 years as managing editor.

During his tenure, McCarthy saw a number of significant changes take place. When he started, pages were black and white and photographs were developed in a dark room. Eventually, digital cameras would allow the staff to take better pictures and the paper began printing photos in color — a first in Maine.

All of this was overseen closely by the Niven family, first Cam and later Douglas starting in the late ’90s.

“Cam was in the building everyday. He’d walk through the old building and pretty much talk to everybody,” said Long. “The Nivens were so embedded in the community. Their fingerprints are on so much of what’s good and important about Brunswick.”

Despite the technological advances at the paper, the new millennium was not kind to the newspaper business. As papers struggled to adjust to the effect the internet was having on circulation and ad revenue, they began to feel the onset of the Great Recession in 2007. Businesses around the country took a hit and many decided that the easiest expense to cut was advertising.

In the Midcoast area, the damage was doubled by the closure of the Brunswick Naval Air Station. Over the next several years, thousands of people who had depended on the base in some way, shape or form left the area. Many businesses in the area suffered from the lost customer base, and The Times Record lost subscribers. As the paper’s staff continued to shrink, people grew concerned over the future of The Times Record.

Sample News Group

In 2007, Sample News Group announced that it would be buying The Times Record from the Nivens’s Brunswick Publishing Co. for an undisclosed price.

“I loved working for the Niven family and I think it’s fair to say I was shocked when the announcement was made that the newspaper had been sold to The Sample News Group,” recalled McCarthy.

Some feared the worst.

“Even though the Nivens and the Sample Group went to great lengths to assure people that they shared the same values in terms of running newspapers and running a business … there were genuine fears that the paper was going to go away at that time,” recalled Long. “It’s difficult for everybody when you go from having an institution owned by your neighbor to having it owned by someone else, regardless of who that somebody else is, it’s going to be a difficult transition.”

Based out of Pennsylvania, Sample News Group owned a number of weekly and daily papers across the Northeast, including several in Maine at the time such as the Journal Tribune in Biddeford. Chris Miles, a partner in the business who had recently moved to Maine, would assume day-to-day operations there.

“Life is change and the sale illustrates the reality for any newspaper, which is that owners, publishers, editors, writers and photographers come and go, but the newspaper lives on,” said McCarthy, who left the paper shortly after the sale was announced.

Staff levels continued to drop as the Great Recession took its course and thousands of people left the area with the base closure, and yet The Times Record continued to consistently publish a daily paper — the only newspaper to do so in the Midcoast region. Long credits the papers survival in part to its reputation in the community.

“The underlying sentiment was that people relied on the newspaper, they wanted the newspaper, they recognized the importance of a community newspaper,” he said. “There’s some people who worked at that paper who were just the epitome of community journalism.”

A comeback

In 2012, the paper that had been printed on its own presses since Nichols bought the Bath Daily Times in 1897 sold its printing division. Miles and RFB Co-op out of Rockland bought out Alliance Press and moved the outfit to one side of the new The Times Record building at 3 Business Parkway. As part of the restructuring, past-due property taxes on the property were finally paid off.

“This reorganization will allow us to focus on what we do best produce good hometown newspapers,” said the Sample News Group at the time, calling the deal a win-win.

Now, just a few years later, The Times Record is again growing its staff. In 2016, the paper added a new full time reporting position and happily reported that both advertising and circulation revenues were up and online engagement was growing.

“We finished the year up 10 percent last year — I don’t know any newspapers that were up that significantly. We had a fantastic year,” said Lester, the current publisher. “It really wasn’t difficult to turn things around here.”

“There’s always a lot of talk about newspapers are dying, but that’s total BS,” she added. “That applies to papers in big communities where neighbors don’t know neighbors. People don’t care what’s going on. A community newspaper is just fine, believe me.”

While the paper continued to focus on community centered reporting, Lester worked on the back end to ensure that The Times Record had a sustainable business model. Inexperienced sales representatives who had actually applied for jobs as reporters were replaced with knowledgeable and savvy employees. She updated the company’s advertising programs so that they would be effective and attractive to a variety of potential advertisers. Still, it took time to bring advertisers back.

“We had to go out and find all the people that had been driven off by the inexperienced reps, by the high rates, by the ineffective ad programs. We had to identify them and there’s only one way to do that — one at a time in the field.”

In addition to shoring up advertising revenue, Lester has focused on increasing the paper’s presence and participation in the community.

Since taking over as managing editor, Swinconeck has worked to focus the opinion pages on local authors and local topics.

“Pivoting toward local on the opinion page is important,” he said. “Writing about state and local issues requires a little bit more finesse. But we’ve increased the amount of local pieces on that page. We’ve increased the amount of local topics that we cover on the opinion page.”

Tackling a frequent critique of newspapers, Swinconeck has also worked to produce a more balanced opinion page that appeals to readers of all backgrounds. With a coverage area that spans from the blue collar workers of Bath Iron Works to the liberal arts students of Bowdoin College, it’s important to make sure that all voices are heard.

As to what’s next for the Midcoast’s only daily newspaper?

Lester also plans to develop a reader advisory board to provide feedback and help ensure the paper continues on the right direction.

To get that process started, Lester and Swinconeck will be holding meetings in various communities in The Times Record coverage area to listen to readers and residents about what they want from their newspaper.

“People always talk about the liberal media, and there’s some truth to that,” admitted Lester.

As with Swinconeck’s work balancing the opinion pages, Lester hopes that a citizens advisory board could help the paper realize its own blind spots. Moreover, it gives the staff more feedback on what their customers want to see printed everyday.

“We just want to make sure that we’re really representing the whole community, not just the section that we agree with most often,” said Lester.

Our Paper

Ultimately, The Times Record is a community paper.

McCarthy called his decision to stay at The Times Record for a prolonged period one of the wisest decisions of his life because of the impact the community had on him.

“It deepened my reporting, and opened me up to wonderful friendships and experiences that I’m not sure would have occurred if I kept moving on from one newspaper to the next. The diversity and interesting people living in the Midcoast region made that any easy decision. Each and every person I’ve interviewed or gotten to know as a reporter and editor, even my critics, made me a better person. For that I will always be grateful,” said McCarthy.

“That’s one of the great things about the paper. People would call you up to say it’s their paper. It wasn’t the Nivens’ paper, it wasn’t the Sample Group’s paper,” said Long. “It was ‘our paper.’”

“Submit letters to the editor. Send us story leads or tips,” encouraged Lester. “This is Our Paper.”

nstrout@timesrecord.com

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