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RISN Operations
RISN Operations Inc., also called Rhode Island Suburban Newspapers, is a privately owned publisher of three daily newspapers and several weekly newspapers in the U.S. state of Rhode Island. The company was founded by Illinois-based newspaper executives in early 2007 to purchase the Rhode Island holdings of Journal Register Company, which it did for $8.3 million.[1] In 2013, RISN acquired the Yuma Sun and the Porterville Recorder from Freedom Communications.[2] In 2018, RISN acquired its former competitors South County Newspapers and its publications The Independent and South County Life from GateHouse Media, who had bought the papers from Edward A. Sherman Publishing in 2017.[3] In 2019, RISN acquired The Westerly Sun and Sun Publishing Company from the Record-Journal Publishing Company of Meriden, Connecticut.[4] Also in 2019, RISN acquired The Union Democrat in California.[5] In 2022, RISN acquired The Chronicle of Willimantic, Connecticut, from Central Connecticut Communications.[6] OfficersThe corporation's first two named officers, Melanie Radler (president) and Roland McBride (vice president and treasurer), were both Illinois residents connected with Conrad Black's former Hollinger International newspaper chain. Radler is the daughter of F. David Radler, a former Hollinger boss; McBride is chief financial officer of Horizon Publications Inc., the company Radler founded after he left Hollinger.[1] McBride also served as CFO of American Publishing Co., a former Hollinger subsidiary, and was said in an indictment to have aided Black's and the elder Radler's misappropriation of $5.5 million in connection with the sale of some newspaper properties from Hollinger to Horizon.[7] The company is based in Warwick, Rhode Island.[8] Its incorporation papers list a Delaware address.[9] RISN shares owners with Horizon Publications.[10] DailiesRISN operates seven daily newspapers:
The company also briefly published the Warwick Daily Times, based in the West Warwick newsroom. The Warwick paper had been founded by JRC in 2006 but was folded by RISN in 2007.[11] WeekliesRISN's weekly newspapers, known collectively as Southern Rhode Island Newspapers, are based in the village of Wakefield, part of South Kingstown, Rhode Island. A Providence Journal report said the group's combined weekly circulation of around 13,000 in 2007 was down from 16,140 in 2001.[1] Southern Rhode Island Newspapers' offices are at 187 Main Street, Wakefield, Rhode Island 02879.
Sun Publishing Company also publishes weekly newspapers.
In August 2023, The Chariho Times and The Coventry Courier, two of RISN's weekly Southern Rhode Island Newspapers, announced on that they were "ceasing publication...[due to] rising costs, fewer resources and decreased local advertising revenue".[13] The Chariho Times, founded in 1993, covered Charlestown, Hopkinton and Richmond, three rural towns in western Washington County that form the Chariho Regional School District.[12] The Coventry Courier covered Coventry and West Greenwich, the two westernmost towns of Kent County, also covered by the Kent County Daily Times. It was founded in 1996.[12] Plagiarism controversiesIn April 2013, an assistant editor at The Narragansett Times plagiarized the lede (the first paragraph of a news story) from an article in a competitor newspaper, the South County Independent[14]. The South County Independent asked for a front-page apology, and The Narragansett Times subsequently printed a clarification stating the words were "inadvertently transcribed" and "apologize[d] for any confusion this may have caused our readers." References
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