Charles A. Womack III, President of Womack Newspaper's Inc., announced that veteran journalist Mark Jurkowitz, has purchased the Outer Banks Sentinel, Nag’s Head, NC,
from his company in a deal announced earlier today. Jurkowitz, recently stepped down as the
Associate Director of the Journalism Project at the Pew Research Center in
Washington, DC.
The Outer Banks Sentinel
is a paid-circulation broadsheet weekly published every Wednesday. It is
distributed throughout North Carolina’s Outer Banks, a top vacation/historic
destination.
Jurkowitz
explained, "This is the culmination of a longstanding dream. I got my
start in journalism more than three decades ago at a community weekly and in
this shifting news landscape, the one constant is the need for robust local
coverage. The Outer Banks is a wonderful community and the Sentinel will
continue to serve it with the journalism it deserves."
A long-time press writer, Jurkowitz spent 10
years at the Boston Globe, first as the paper’s ombudsman and then as its first
full-time media beat reporter. Moving to Pew Research, he became a familiar
speaker at media industry seminars, regularly briefing foreign reporters in the
U.S. sponsored by the International Center for Journalists and had discussed
the project’s work on programs such as the PBS NewsHour, CNN’s Reliable Sources
and On the Media from public radio station WNYC. He has authored studies on
presidential campaign coverage and the newspaper industry’s search for new
business models and was the lead writer of the News Index Reports, which quantified and analyzed the news agenda of
the mainstream media.
He
will be joined at the Sentinel by his
wife Linda, a noted graphic artist for Education Week magazine.
Womack Newspapers, Inc. headquartered in Greensboro NC
includes several newspaper and specialty publications in Guilford and Dare
Counties. The company is owned by Charles A. Womack III and includes YES! Weekly (Greensboro,
Winston-Salem-High Point, NC, the Jamestown
(NC) News and the Adams Farm Gazette.
Last week the company announced a major expansion into the Charlotte market
with the acquisition of Creative Loafing
Charlotte.
WNI is also part of Womack Publishing Co, based in Chatham, Va.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better match than Mark and
Linda,” Womack said. “The Sentinel and
the Outer Banks community are very lucky to welcome them. They bring with them
the highest standards of community journalism and professionalism,” he noted.
David Slavin, W.B. Grimes & Company, represented Womack
Newspapers, Inc. in the transaction.
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