The Commerce office of The Commerce News is closing and production will move to MainStreet Newspapers’ home office in Jefferson.
The News office will close in Commerce June 1. Over the next two weeks, the office will be open intermittently. A door slot will remain available for people to drop off items, said Mike Buffington, co-publisher of MainStreet Newspapers, Inc.
“The time has come when the overhead costs of maintaining two separate offices so close together no longer makes economic sense,” Buffington said. “In addition, most of our customer needs are now met through our online systems. Both subscriptions and classified ads are largely done online by most of our customers. Wedding, church and other community announcements are usually emailed to us now.”
The Jefferson office, nine miles from Commerce, is the home office of MainStreet Newspapers, which publishes six community weekly newspapers in Northeast Georgia, including The Commerce News.
“The costs associated with maintaining a separate building, from heating and cooling to Internet lines and multiple computer servers to staffing just isn’t cost effective,” said Buffington. “At various times over the years, we have done some of the production of The Commerce News in Jefferson since that’s where the actual printing takes place.”
The focus and news coverage of The Commerce News will stay the same, Buffington stated.
“Our commitment to covering Commerce will stay the same and the focus of The Commerce News will stay the same,” he said.
The phone and fax lines for The News will keep the same numbers, as well as phone and email contacts for editor Mark Beardsley. Beardsley’s office will be in Jefferson starting June 2.
Buffington said the company doesn’t plan to sell its Commerce building and may reopen the location sometime in the future as the need dictates.
“It’s always tough to change how we do things, or close a location, but there are a number of economic and efficiency reasons for streamlining operations,” he said.
In addition to The Commerce News, the firm publishes The Jackson Herald, The Banks County News, The Madison County Journal, The Braselton News, The Barrow Journal and a series of interrelated websites under the banner of Mainstreetnews.com.
