Daily Local News (West Chester), Jan. 4

Daily Local News welcomes Notter as new publisher

By DAN KRISTIE
Staff Writer

The Journal Register Company has announced that Randy Notter has been named publisher of the Daily Local News in West Chester.

He will replace Shelley Meenan, who served as publisher at the Daily Local News for a year and a half. She is returning to The Times-Herald, of Norristown, where she previously served as publisher.

The Journal Register Company owns both the Times-Herald and the Daily Local News.

This is Notter’s first position as a publisher, although it’s not his first time working at the Journal Register Company. He worked in the company’s corporate office as director of research and sales development from 1997 to 2003.

For the past two years, he served as marketing director at The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News.

He spent his first days as publisher of the Daily Local News meeting with department heads and developing a new vision for the paper.

“This is a great newspaper, but I think in some areas of the organization we can raise the bar a little,” he said. “We can improve our quality of service to customers, and offer more creative advertising solutions to local businesses.”

Although he acknowledged that there’s a perception the newspaper industry is in decline, he said he sees a lot of potential and opportunities in the business.

“There’s no other product you can advertise in that, with a single medium, can reach such a large, local audience,” he said. “Newspapers are really the only source of that type of advertising.”

Notter has been involved in newspapers since he graduated from high school. His brother had applied to be a truck driver for the Evansville Courier & Press, of Evansville, Ind., but before hearing back from the paper had gotten another job.

When someone from the paper called his house to offer his brother the job, his father answered and said, in Notter’s words, “he already has a job, but Randy needs one.”

Notter got the job and drove a truck for the paper while he was a student at the University of Southern Indiana. When he graduated, he was offered a job in Courier & Press’ advertising department.

“I guess I always felt I wanted to be involved in advertising, even since I was a kid,” he said.

And a newspaper, he added, is a great place to work in advertising. He spent eight years at the Evansville Courier & Press, and in 1987 moved on to a job at The Pittsburgh Press. In 1993, he became promotion and research director at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and in 1997 he joined the Journal Register Company. He received an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh in 1996.

He lives in Langhorne, Bucks County, with his wife, Sandy, and has five children who range in age from 14 to 27. He spends his free time with his family, and is involved with his church, for which he plays guitar.

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