ASHDOWN — The Little River News in Ashdown, Arkansas, suspended publication after Thursday's edition, but the publisher is hopeful someone else will want to buy the 121-year-old newspaper and continue serving as the county's paper of record.
"We hope this is just a little hiccup. We would love to sell it to someone who can keep it operating as the newspaper of record in Little River County. We would love for this to just be a pause in publishing," said publisher and co-owner Mica Wilhite.
She owns the paper with Bob Palmer. They also own the weekly newspaper in Jefferson, Texas called the Jefferson Jimplecute. The Jimplecute, the fifth oldest newspaper in Texas, will still publish, Wilhite said.
Subscriptions for the Little River News have been strong, but it has been getting harder to generate revenue, Wilhite said.
"We could keep publishing, but we need a stronger alignment between revenue and cost. We need those to more strongly align," Wilhite said.
Wilhite wrote about the suspension in a letter to readers printed in the Nov. 14 edition.
"At this time, I can see that a different solution to publishing the Little River News is a better fit for the county. As such, the Little River News will suspend publication after publishing our Nov. 21 edition in hopes that a new publisher and staff will step forward to resume publication as soon as possible with the Little River News name," Wilhite wrote.
"Suspending publication of a weekly newspaper is not an easy decision but it is the responsible business decision," Wilhite wrote.
The Little River News was started in 1898.