PARKERSBURG NEWSPAPERS MERGING TO SAVE COSTS

(04/18/2009)
The crunch on the nation's daily newspapers has come closer to home.

In one week, The Parkersburg News and The Parkersburg Sentinel will combine publications and produce only one daily paper.

The Parkersburg News has been around since 1852 and The Sentinel since 1875.

Publisher Jim Spanner says the merge is linked to the tough economic times, that combining the papers just makes sense.

The final edition of the afternoon paper, The Sentinel, will be on April 25th.

The papers once had wide coverage in the Little Kanawha region, but in recent years the paper has focused on the Parkersburg-Marietta area.