Talk:The Free Lance–Star

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Hi, folks. First of all, I should declare my conflict of interest: I'm Josiah Rowe IV, son of the publisher of the Free Lance–Star and a member of its Board of Directors. I'm also an active and well-established Wikipedian. Per the recommendations of WP:COI, I should "avoid, or exercise great caution" when editing this article, so I'm trying not to edit it at all. However, I have a few suggestions which the good people who can edit the article can take or leave.

First of all, the newspaper's name is actually spelled with an en dash, not a hyphen, so the article should be moved to The Free Lance–Star. The Free Lance-Star should, of course, be kept as a redirect (and The Free Lance—Star, with an em dash, should be created as another redirect; for that matter, Free Lance–Star and Free Lance—Star should be created as redirects too). This should be uncontroversial.

Other uncontroversial edits which I could probably make myself, were it not for the temptation to make further edits:
 * The publishers' names should probably be written out in full, as they are in the staff box on the newspaper's editorial page. That is, "Josiah P. Rowe III", "Florence C. Barnick" and "Nicholas J. Cadwallender".  Incidentally, Flo and Nick are associate publishers, not associate editors — I don't think there's a spot in the infobox for that, but someone else can investigate.  Incidentally, the editor is Edward W. Jones, if someone wants to add that.
 * "web presense" in the fourth paragraph should be changed to "web presence".
 * "2 addresses" in the last paragraph should be written as "two addresses"; similarly, "1 year" should be "one year".

The sentence about Time magazine isn't entirely accurate (even though that's what the paper's own site says — I'll have to speak to someone about that). It's conflating two Time stories, one from 1984 which calls the Free Lance–Star and the Anniston Star "two of the best" papers with circulations under 40,000. (The Free Lance–Star ' s circulation today is well over that figure.) The second story is from a 1986 issue titled "American Best" (see cover here). The issue was as much about the things that America does best as it was about the things that were best in America. (See essay here.) Their article on the Free Lance–Star can be found here, in case anyone wants to provide a full citation. I'll let someone else find the best wording for how the article should discuss the Time plaudits.

Now, the (possibly) controversial suggestion: I think that it's noteworthy that the Free Lance–Star has been owned and operated by members of the same family since 1925. Family-owned newspapers used to be the norm in America, but increasingly they're a vanishing breed. The Free Lance–Star is privately owned, not publicly traded, and that has allowed it to escape some of the investor-driven staff cuts which have affected newspapers owned by major media chains in recent years. I don't know how this should be mentioned in the article, but I think that it's worth mention somewhere. There has been coverage of the newspaper in Editor and Publisher, if people feel like doing the research.

Finally, here are a few (non-FLS) sources which might be useful for editors: this is a short article from Brandweek, and the PDF file linked from here, from a supplier of advertising software, has some details which may be useful.

Thanks! —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:44, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Bankruptcy sale completed
Following the bankruptcy already mentioned on the article page, the Free Lance–Star has now been purchased by Sandton Capital Partners. This ends the Rowe family's 130-year involvement in the newspaper. The new interim publisher is Gene M. Carr. Details can be found here; that can also be used as a citation for the article. As a member of the aforementioned Rowe family, it would be a conflict of interest for me to make the necessary updates to the article. I hope someone else can do so soon. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 03:22, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅. -- Diannaa (talk) 02:45, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, but there's one more change which needs to be made. The article currently says that the newspaper was "owned and operated by members if the same family since 1926". That is no longer the case. I suggest that the clause be removed, and another sentence added saying that the newspaper was owned and operated by members of the Rowe family of Fredericksburg from 1926 to 2014. (The family involvement goes back to the founding of the Free Lance in 1885, but full ownership began in 1926.) The reference supporting this history (footnote 4) is currently a dead link; it could be replaced by this, this or this, all of which are out of date (none reflect the new ownership) but all of which are accurate as far as the history goes. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:10, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Note, the history link looks like the best of the three. – S. Rich (talk) 23:35, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I hope my edit is neutrally worded. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:19, 10 September 2014 (UTC)