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In the News: Journalism Alumni Spotlight
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owner, the Journal Register Co. (JRC), shut down that paper, as well as its seven sister publications in the Taconic Press group. (JRC later filed for bankruptcy protection for its entire company.) Loyal Courier readers mourned the end of the home-
town paper that had faithfully served the eastern half of the county. But two months after the Courier’s closing, Roger Ailes, chairman and chief executive officer of the Fox News Channel, announced that he had purchased Taconic
Press from JRC and planned to breathe life back into the Courier.Within a week, the paper was being printed once again.His wife, Elizabeth Ailes,’82 — who has an extensive journalistic resume — is serving as the paper’s publisher and executive editor.After
earning a Bachelor of Science degree in journalism from Southern, she eventually became director of daytime programming for CNBC, and later vice president of programming for America’s Talking Network, the forerunner of MSNBC.At the time, she
was the youngest vice president at NBC. She recently served as a consultant to Internet providers of financial news and commentary. Last July, Roger Ailes purchased the Putnam County News and Recorder, a continues on page 43
At a time when numerous newspapers are falling by the wayside, Elizabeth Ailes, ’82, is helping to breathe new life into several well-established weeklies that were recently purchased by her husband, Roger Ailes, chairman and chief executive officer of the Fox News Channel. By Joe Musante, ’86
t
photo courtesy of Elizabeth Ailes, ’82
he news about the newspaper industry seems to worsen with each passing week. The convergence of two unsettling trends — an economic recession and a shift by younger people to get their news electronically — has spurred a growing number of daily and weekly papers to close. Even newspapers with a proud history of being institutions in their communities have not been immune. Such was the case with the Putnam County Courier, a weekly newspaper based in Carmel, N.Y., which had the distinction of being the state’s oldest continuously published weekly. The Courier stopped publishing last February after its “The key is to be hyper-local, the kind of news you often can’t get anywhere else,” says Elizabeth Ailes, ’82, with her husband, Roger Ailes. 14 | Southern ALUMNI MAGAZINE
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