The Kokomo Herald, one of three newspapers in the city, has suspended operations.
Kokomo attorney Brian Oaks, who purchased the paper in 2017, said in an interview that “the operations have been suspended indefinitely. We didn’t publish last week and we’re not going to publish this week.”
“I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to do in the future, but at the moment the operations have been suspended indefinitely,” he added.
Oaks declined to discuss why the decision was made.
“It’s presently temporary, and then I’ll figure out what I’m going to do in the future here real soon,” he said.
A Kokomo Perspective story published in March 2017 announced Oaks’ purchase of the Herald and his decision to move its operations into the Kokomo Perspective’s offices. Oaks also owns the Perspective.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for growth, and I believe our readers will be excited. We constantly have readers asking us when we’re going to publish more than once a week. With the Herald under our roof, we now have a voice twice a week,” said Oaks at the time.
Oaks noted Wednesday that the Perspective “is business as usual," explaining later his efforts to determine whether the public notices, also known as legal ads, previously run in the Herald can be shifted to the Perspective.
He said he is “working on the legalities” of whether such a move is possible. Public notices are considered a substantial source of revenue for newspapers, but a paper must meet certain requirements for eligibility to run public notices.
The weekly paper, started in 1971 by Marjorie “Midge” Janner as the Northeast Herald, was until last week published as one of the community's regular media sources.
Interestingly, Janner became in 1979 the first woman candidate to ever run for Kokomo mayor, according to her obituary. Democrat Stephen Daily, then in his early 30s, ultimately defeated Janner and others in the primary election before receiving 54 percent of the vote in a November victory.