FNP 51 Page 37 P: What's the future of independently-owned weekly newspapers? G: We could sell out today to a conglomeratet. I think it's getting slimmer and slimmer that you're going to find independently-owned newspapers, of any kind. Live Oak, for instance, just sold out to Thompson, and Thompson just sold out to Community. Thompson did their best to buy us. They tried to buy the Monticello News. Right now, the only two right here, Monticello and Madison, right now, is the only two independents that I know of [in north Florida]. P: Do you think you'll eventually sell to one of these conglomerates? G: I won't ever sell, and my daughter loves it so, I'd be surprised that she would. I'm not saying it won't happen, but I'm going to outlive my enemies before I sell. P: What is the major source of income for a weekly newspaper? Is it still advertising? G: Yes. Advertising, advertising, advertising. P: Do you think that the larger chains can buy up a bunch of these newspapers, and they can operate them, at least, cheaper than an individual can? Because they can buy, I guess, paper in bulk and they have all these services that they can offer and they have, I guess, columns that they can purchase at a cheaper rate, so that, technically, they can operate these weekly papers more efficiently than an individual owner? G: What they do, they come in, like, for instance, if they bought up Greene Publishing out, they would come in and they would trim it down to the bone. Madison people would not be getting the same newspapers that they're getting today. They'd have this thing cut down to a survival-type publication. If another newspaper opens up in Madison to bring in a better product, then they start souping up their product again. So it's going to be extremely difficult for a new paper to come in against a conglomeratet. Now, they tried to open a paper up there in Valdosta here a number of years back, and they came and asked me about it. What they did, they started to open up a daily against a daily, and I told them right up front, I'd never do that. I could make a weekly work up there and get you a good strong weekly, and then down the road if you wanted to convert it to a daily or a twice a week or tri-weekly, then you could. A lot of people, just like me, gets into the newspaper business not knowing what's in front of them, and most of them's smart enough to get out. P: When you look at the time you've been in business with this paper, what would you think the paper's greatest contribution to the community would have been? G: Whew. Well, we have promoted industry as hard and heavy as we can promote because