Shirley Dunham (Photo by Nina Baker) |
The Montezuma Record has been a fixture in the town of 1,500 since 1924, but declining revenue and readership have slowly whittled it away. Shirley Dunham became the last employee when the previous executive editor, her husband Charles, died in 2018, Nina Baker reports.
The paper was losing money when Dunham took over, and she has only been able to keep it operating because no one who works for it—including her—takes a paycheck. In 2020 the paper confounded the pandemic phenomenon and began making a profit because businesses bought advertising in search of new customers, Baker reports.
The paper, with a circulation 600, alos gets a lot of support from local nonprofits. Montezuma Lions Club member Roger Allen told Baker that they take out ads in the Record because "We think it's important that our community still has a newspaper ... We try to support it just on that principle." That's not the only local support the Record enjoys, Baker reports:. "Dunham’s subscriber base expanded as well. She said she thinks that with more residents staying at home, some began to gravitate towards the Record to stay up-to-date with local news, but she can’t be certain."
Montezuma in Poweshiek County (Wikipedia map) |
Dunham acknowledges that any new owner will probably combine the Record with another paper, a common move these days, but she has one condition for would-be buyers: "If the newspaper is merged, at least one full page must always be allocated to coverage of Montezuma." But buyers may be scarce. Many small papers owned by families or individuals have closed because they can't find buyers.
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