Fort Worth critic resigns after plagiarism questions

FORT WORTH — The Fort Worth Star-Telegram notified readers that its TV critic had resigned after editors identified instances of plagiarism in his work during a two-year period, the Associated Press reported.

Several stories and columns by Ken Parish Perkins contained whole sentences or long phrases taken verbatim from other publications and Web sites without attribution.

Editors started reviewing Perkins’ work after someone pointed out that a Nov. 10 item included a paragraph that had appeared verbatim in Entertainment Weekly magazine.

The review determined that Perkins had violated an ethics policy governing attribution of material that was not original, Star-Telegram ombudsman David House said in a column outlining the paper’s policies and tools guarding internally against plagiarism and fabrication.

Brownwood daily changes to a.m. publishing cycle

BROWNWOOD — After 105 years publishing as a weekday afternoon newspaper, the Brownwood Bulletin Dec. 5 began publishing a morning newspaper.

“Afternoon newspapers and local news at 6 o’clock followed by national network news at 6:30 p.m. were once the norm. That is no longer the case nationally, and it seems true locally also,” publisher Bob Brincefield said.

The change comes 15 months after the Bulletin successfully added a Saturday morning edition. A market study completed by a marketing management class at Howard Payne University in the fall of 2003 studied reader habits and the survey’s primary recommendation was for the newspaper to change its publication cycle from afternoon to morning.

According to the TPA database, only 36 of Texas’ 86 dailies are still publishing in the afternoons.

Highland Lakes papers sold to new company

MARBLE FALLS — Next West Newspapers Inc. on Nov. 1 purchased the assets of Highland Lakes Newspapers Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of American Consolidated Media Inc.

The newspapers include The Highlander in Marble Falls and the Burnet Bulletin, and free papers Kingsland Current and The Llano Buzz & County Journal.

Next West Newspapers is a new Texas corporation headquartered in Marble Falls and is owned by Gary O. Gerlach, Karen Ann Conner, his spouse, and Richard M. “Dick” Plum. Gerlach is president; Conner and Plum are vice presidents and directors.

Plum will become publisher and editor at the newspaper group. He most recently was president and general manager of a West Virginia publishing group.

Dirks, Van Essen & Murray, a newspaper brokerage, appraisal and consulting firm based in Santa Fe, N.M., represented the sellers in the transaction.

Austin, SA dailies tops in market reach

The Austin American-Statesman and San Antonio Express-News are among the nation’s Top 20 newspapers in market reach.

The American-Statesman ranks second with a 74.8 percent market penetration of its print paper and 82.7 percent of its Web site.

The Express-News is seventh with 64.5 percent of the market for its print edition and 71.5 percent penetration with its Web site.

In Web point gains the American-Statesman ranks third with 7.9 percent and the Express-News ranks 11th with 7.1 percent.

The figures were reported in Editor & Publisher following the latest release of the Newspaper Association of America’s NADbase report.

Knight Ridder acquires Dallas area free pubs

Knight Ridder, publisher of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, acquired two Metroplex free publications — DFW Job Connection in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and DFW Auto Connection.

DFW Job Connection publishes three zoned weeklies serving Dallas and Fort Worth. Former owners Sandra and Rick More will depart, and the rest of the staff will operate the publications.

Details of the transactions were not disclosed.