South County Newspapers

Last updated
Independent Newspapers
Type Private
Industry Newspapers
FoundedOctober 16, 1997
Headquarters Wakefield, Rhode Island
Key people
Dan Kitteridge, managing editor
ProductsOne weekly newspaper and magazine in Rhode Island
Owners RISN Operations (pending sale)
Website independentri.com

Independent Newspapers is an independent publisher of a weekly newspaper, The Independent, and a magazine, South County Life, in Washington County, Rhode Island.

Contents

The company was founded by veteran newspaper publisher Frederick J. Wilson III in 1997, seeking to "produce a weekly newspaper that would not be beholden to corporate interests." Wilson is no longer involved with the company, which was later sold to Edward A. Sherman Publishing Company, the publishers of The Newport Daily News . Independent Newspapers shares advertising resources with The Newport Daily News .

In 2017, Edward A. Sherman Publishing and all of its publications, including The Independent, was sold to Gatehouse Media in October 2017. [1] In 2018, Gatehouse sold The Independent and its sister magazine South County Life to Rhode Island Suburban Newspapers. [2]

The Independent is published on Thursdays. For several years under its Sherman and Gatehouse ownerships, its main offices were located within the Newport Daily News building in Newport, Rhode Island, and the company maintained a smaller satellite office in Wakefield, Rhode Island. Under RISN ownership, the newspaper's offices were moved permanently to Wakefield. [2]


Publications

Previous publications

South County Independent

The first of Wilson's papers, founded in 1997, the South County Independent was a New England Newspaper Association Newspaper of the Year in 2000 and 2001, and a New England Press Association general excellence winner in 2004. The South County Independent covered South Kingstown (including the villages of Kingston, Peace Dale and Wakefield), Narragansett and the University of Rhode Island.

North East Independent

Launched in 1999, the North East Independent (originally The NorthºEast Independent) took its name from its two-town coverage area, North Kingstown and East Greenwich. The newspaper won first place for general excellence from the New England Press Association in 2001 and 2005; more recently, it won "Newspaper of the Year" awards from the New England Newspaper and Press Association in 2013 and 2014, and was named a "Distinguished Newspaper" in 2015.

South County Living

The newspapers' companion magazine, South County Living, was founded in 1998.

Current publications

The Independent

In 2015, the South County Independent and North East Independent merged. [3] The new publication, The Independent, covers the towns of South Kingstown, North Kingstown, and Narragansett; its first edition published Oct. 1, 2015. Prior to merging, the two newspapers shared a website, IndependentRI.com, which remains unchanged.

South County Life

South County Living was rebranded as South County Life magazine in 2013. The free magazine is published seven times a year and distributed throughout Southern Rhode Island (March, May, June, July, August, September and November). Its content focuses on communities in Washington County, R.I.

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North Kingstown is a town in Washington County, Rhode Island, United States, and is part of the Providence metropolitan area. The population was 27,732 in the 2020 census. North Kingstown is home to the birthplace of American portraitist Gilbert Stuart, who was born in the village of Saunderstown. Within the town is Quonset Point, location of the former Naval Air Station Quonset Point, known for the invention of the Quonset hut, as well as the historic village of Wickford.

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Wakefield is a village in the town of South Kingstown, Rhode Island, United States, and the commercial center of South Kingstown. Together with the village of Peace Dale, it is treated by the U.S. Census as a component of the census-designated place identified as Wakefield-Peacedale, Rhode Island. West Kingston, another South Kingstown village, was the traditional county seat of Washington County. Since 1991, the Washington County Courthouse has been in Wakefield. The Sheriff's Office which handles corrections is also in Wakefield.

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South County Independent was a weekly newspaper serving the areas of Narragansett, South Kingstown, Charlestown, Kingston, Wakefield and Peace Dale in Rhode Island. The paper was founded in 1997 by Frederick J. Wilson III & a group of investors. In October 2015, South County Independent merged with the North East Independent to become one paper, called TheIndependent, which covers North Kingstown, Narragansett, and South Kingstown.The Independent's weekly circulation is 8,482.

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References

  1. Anderson, Patrick. "Providence Journal parent buys publisher of Newport Daily News". providencejournal.com. Retrieved 31 December 2017.
  2. 1 2 Kittredge, Dan. "GateHouse Media sells Independent newspaper, South County Life to newspaper group". The Newport Daily News. Retrieved 22 June 2018.
  3. Nesi, Ted. "Southern RI weeklies to merge, scale back in EG". WPRI 12 Eyewitness News. Retrieved 2016-01-27.