The Homer Tribune has issued its last print newspaper. Jane Pascall, owner and publisher of the paper says it was a tough decision.
“After 25 years of putting out the Homer Tribune, a decision was made to shut it down, as of this issue. The decision was not made lightly,” said Pascall.
The Homer Tribune, a weekly newspaper, issued its last print edition Wednesday, the same day Pascall informed the paper’s five employees she was shutting down.
Pascall helped start the paper in the early 90’s. She says she is shutting down the print version so she can focus on her other business, a Homer restaurant.
“I really felt that having two businesses that I was being spread way too thin and that I needed to focus on one of them and the Lighthouse Grill, a restaurant that I have with my fiancé, won the battle,” said Pascall.
In addition, Pascall says financial pressure due to changes in the newspaper industry also played a role in her decision.
Pascall says she moved to Homer from Fairbanks after graduating from UAF with a degree in marketing and fell into the job at the newspaper.
“I got a part-time job over at the clerk’s office at the courthouse and that’s where I met Jim Hornaday, who had been a district judge and had returned to Homer to be a lawyer and for some odd reason he wanted to start a newspaper,” said Pascall.
Pascall had taken some journalism classes at UAF, she says, so Hornaday hired her. About a year later, she bought the paper and began operating it out of her home while raising her young son.
Pascall says she believes the community was better for having two newspapers.
“The readers benefited from that. Homer is a town that loves reading about Homer, so keeping this newspaper alive was easy,” said Pascall.
Easy, until the internet came along and changed everything. Pascall says she had been scaling back for some time, using mostly freelance reporters who worked remotely.
She says the paper will not completely disappear though.
“I am going to be keeping our online edition active and I will be posting current stories and information on the online edition and also taking advertising,” said Pascall.
Pascall says she’ll also keep the Tribune’s facebook page going, which has more than 1,500 followers.
Without the print edition of the Homer Tribune, that leaves one print newspaper in town – the Homer News, which is owned by Georgia-based Morris Communications.
