News of Freedom Communications Inc. filing for bankruptcy protection Tuesday stirred bittersweet emotions.

It’s bitter in that Freedom — for which some of us have worked many years — may well no longer exist as Freedom when the company emerges from bankruptcy proceedings.

It’s sweet in that the company will continue, our jobs will remain and the company is in better shape to move forward today than it was Monday.

It’s also bitter, however, in that the company’s founding family, descendants of R.C. Hoiles, will no longer command the helm that’s guided the business since its inception during the early 1900s with the purchase of small town newspapers in Ohio.

But it’s also sweet in that Freedom’s legacy — of promoting personal freedom and liberty — will continue in the hearts and minds of people who value those principles. We’d hope that’s about everyone.

Interviewed by telephone Tuesday, Dick Wallace said he hopes people will remember Freedom for its commitment to those core values that Hoiles, the grandfather of Wallace’s wife, strived  to live by and do business by every day.

He maintains a hope that his family will retain some ownership of the new business that emerges.

Wallace, who started with Freedom as a salesman for national advertising with what is today The Orange County Register on Dec. 13, 1961, retired about a year ago. He’s remained active, however, with the family’s commitment to what’s been called the Freedom Philosophy.

“The family has no control over it now, but I hope it will continue through editorials and those sorts of things,” Wallace said.

It was a decades-long family squabble that led to what became a massive debt that helped lead the company to bankruptcy proceedings Tuesday.

Some of Hoiles’ descendants cried out in 2004 for the company to “show me the money.” They took it and ran.

Some, however, stayed with Freedom. Wallace was among them.

“Those of us who stayed wanted to support the company and its core values going forward,” Wallace said. “We were not in this for the money.

“We have a little bit of the company left, and hopefully there’s something that will be left in the new business and that the newspaper business will turn around,” Wallace added. “If the industry doesn’t turn around, it will be a sad day for all newspapers.”

Sad indeed.

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The times, they are a-changing.

Change has long been constant, and it seems to be moving ever more swiftly these days.

The same is true in the newspaper business, in-cluding here at The Tribune.
Instead of delivering news only every 24 hours on our preset print cycle, we’re posting news online soon after it happens, any time of the day or night, thanks to our online component at TribTown.com. We’re also posting video online, not just still photos.

We’re about to enter another new phase in our business — printing the pages of the newspaper elsewhere and on a different schedule.

Effective Monday, The Tribune will be printed by HNE Printers, part of Home News Enterprises, publishers of The Republic in Columbus, The Johnson County Daily Journal in Franklin and other newspapers.

No, our ownership is not changing, despite rumors to the contrary. We’ll remain part of the community newspapers division of Freedom Communications Inc., a business with roots in Ohio now with headquarters in Orange County, Calif. Like HNE, Freedom is a family owned business.

Outsourcing the printing of The Tribune  is an effort to reduce costs and divest ourselves of the iron — those big, heavy presses that are costly to update and that may well be headed toward the scrap heap as the newspaper and communications industry embraces and invests more heavily into the digital age and digital delivery of information.

We’re also trying to trim costs related to placing advertising inserts into the newspaper.

What does all this mean for our readers?

It means that single copy issues of your daily newspaper will be available by 7 a.m. at newsracks throughout Jackson County. That’s several hours ahead of current single copy availability.

Carriers delivering papers to our home subscribers will have until 1 p.m. Monday through Friday to make their delivery rounds.

We’ll also give carriers more time to make their Saturday deliveries as the deadline for weekend delivery will be 1 p.m., much as it was when we used to put the paper together every Saturday morning rather than late Friday night and early Saturday morning.

Those new deadlines should all be phased in by Jan. 1.

In short, these changes should have little or no effect on most of our subscribers or how they receive, read and enjoy their copy of The Tribune.

Let us know what you think.

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