Recently I took note of the demise of the Eagle Times in Claremont, New Hampshire, observing that the paper had also closed in 2009 and that it had apparently been operating on a shoestring for some time. Well, it turns out there may have been more to it than that. Or not.
Todd Bookman of New Hampshire Public Radio has produced a deep dive into the odd reign of former owner Jay Lucas, a venture capitalist with degrees from Harvard and Yale who grew up in nearby Newport. According to Bookman, Lucas bought the paper from an out-of-state chain in 2022 with big plans to revive local news in the area, but he fell short on the financial side. He shut down the paper in June after failing to make payroll.
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“In the wake of the collapse, staff have claimed that Lucas repeatedly failed to pay overdue bills, and on occasion requested workers hold off on cashing their paychecks due to a lack of funding,” Bookman writes, adding that “the local boy who had made good, and decided to invest in his hometown, appeared to have harmed the very community he was aiming to help.”
It’s a harsh assessment, and Lucas comes across as an easy target, spouting optimistic aphorisms while letting the paper wither and die. Yet I came away from the story wanting to know more. As Bookman describes it, Newport is a low-income community that has been dealing with an opioid epidemic. Claremont, too, is struggling, with a median household income of $54,520, just a little more than half the statewide median of $95,628.
From the sounds of it, I’d say that any local newspaper owner would have a tough time making a go of it in such circumstances. Lucas says he hasn’t given up the idea of reviving it; he’s launching a nonprofit, and perhaps a new iteration of the Eagle Times will be part of that.
Earlier this month, Steve Taylor of the Valley News, based in Lebanon, New Hampshire, noted that the Eagle had been star-crossed since 1950, “when its publisher, John McLane Clark, drowned while canoeing in a flooded Sugar River.”
Clark, a former editorial writer for The Washington Post, had purchased the Eagle in 1946 after losing out to the incestuous pedophile William Loeb on a bid to buy Manchester’s two papers, the Union and the Leader. Those papers continue as the New Hampshire Union Leader. Meanwhile, Taylor writes, the Eagle lost money for much of its existence.
To paraphrase the science fiction writer William Gibson, the future of local news is here, but it’s unevenly distributed. Affluent communities across the country are hosting hundreds of independent start-ups, both nonprofit and for-profit, while news deserts are spreading in urban communities of color and rural areas.
The Claremont-Newport area needs quality news and information, but traditional market economics simply don’t work in such places. I hope someone — perhaps Lucas, perhaps not — comes through with a philanthropic model rooted in the community.
Note: I made a copy-editing fix after this post was published.
