North Texas Daily

KERA, a publicly funded media conglomerate, will acquire the Denton Record-Chronicle with plans to turn the paper into a nonprofit publication, according to a press release.

The acquisition was announced on Sept. 27 and is currently in an early phase with completion estimated for 2023.

“A lot of it started with our publisher Bill Paterson,” Record-Chronicle executive editor Sean McCrory said. “It began at least over a year or year and a half ago.”

In addition to publisher, Bill Patterson’s titles include owner and CEO of Denton Media Company, which the Record-Chronicle has been under since 2017 when Patterson bought the paper.

He said his retirement and the long relationship the Record-Chronicle has with KERA were some of the deciding factors in the partnership considering several publishers served on KERA’s board over the years.

“[The] [f]uture of local journalism in Denton and Denton County was top on the list that also included the need for succession planning as I look towards retirement,” Patterson said in an email to the North Texas Daily. “I wanted to make sure I found a good partner that would sustain and grow local news about our area and also one that could help us move further along on with […] other types of content.”

The acquisition has major potential benefits for the Record-Chronicle and its coverage of local issues, McCrory said. This is a goal KERA will support in the Denton community, according to their press release.

McCrory said increasing the Record-Chronicle’s coverage of Denton County could empower the community to make good decisions and stay informed about key issues.

The transition to a nonprofit business is slotted to be a significant change for the paper, McCrory said.

“One of the things you would expect to come out of the Denton Record-Chronicle becoming a nonprofit is that the paywalls that exist to support the current business model of being a for-profit publication […] would come down,” McCrory said.

Audiences can expect the publication to expand more into podcasts, McCrory said. The Record-Chronicle currently releases several podcasts, but McCrory said they are interested in increasing production.

The move to nonprofit-based journalism is one other media groups in the United States have made as well. The change can have significant benefits for those organizations, according to Share America.

“I think nonprofit journalism has the potential to be a good thing depending on who is funding it,” said Max Anderson, a 23-year-old Denton resident. “If the model is to focus on donations from large industries, I become skeptical, but when an organization is made up of people who care about truth in news, it is a good thing.”

In regard to operation and publishing, Patterson said nothing will change. The newspaper will keep its current name, website and social media platforms.

“It will be a fantastic partnership for Denton with a very established media company in Dallas that is very interested in community journalism in Denton and Denton County and will provide resources to expand and grow coverage along with sharing coverage and working on special projects,” Patterson said.

Featured Image: The Denton Record-Chronicle building sits on Oct. 6, 2022. Photo by Ismael Belkoura