Mississippi Press will stop printing newspapers in 2023 as focus shifts to online
A newspaper that has served Jackson County since the 1960s will soon no longer publish a printed edition.
Instead, the owners of the Mississippi Press say they will focus on the digital delivery of the news.
Alabama Media Group, which owns the Mississippi Press and three Alabama papers in Birmingham, Huntsville and Mobile, announced Thursday that it each of its properties would quit printing newspapers in February.
“Our mission is the same, but the business model is changing,” said Tom Bates, company president for the media group that operates AL.com. “We remain deeply committed to serving our local communities and are producing high-quality journalism and reaching more people than ever before.”
Several other newspapers nationwide have cut back or done away with the print edition in recent years. Bates said the company “is adjusting to how ... readers want their information today, which increasingly is on a mobile device, not in a printed newspaper.”
The Mississippi Press has a long and storied history on the Coast.
It first operated as the Pascagoula Democrat Star in 1878, but became known as the Mississippi Press in 1966. Over the years, it has employed notable Mississippi journalists including Ira Harkey, Gary Holland, Jerry St. Pe, Dan Davis and Gareth Clary.
“My time as a member of the editorial staff of the Mississippi Press was among the most professionally rewarding of my career in journalism,” St. Pe said Thursday morning. “Sorry to hear that the presses of another newspaper are going silent.”
The Mississippi Press newspaper in 2008 became a Mississippi edition of the Mobile Press-Register.
Alabama Media Group will keep open its offices in the Alabama metro areas, the company said, but some employees in production, circulation and advertising will be impacted by the decision.
This story was originally published November 3, 2022 at 11:19 AM.