The (Quakertown) Free Press, Jan. 9
Publisher Webb retires from Berks-Mont, Hernandez named successor
By David P. Anderson
The times they are achangin'. Berks-Mont Newspapers has announced the retirement of longtime publisher James C. Webb, effective Dec. 31, 2007.
Webb's retirement brings to an end 21 years at the head of the company and 40 years and two generations of his family's control of the newspaper group beginning with The Boyertown Area Times in 1964.
"It's probably time. It is what I have done for 32 years now," said Webb Jan. 2. "I grew up with Berks-Mont, and the papers grew up with me."
Webb is being succeeded by Angel Hernandez, former publisher of The (Lansdale) Reporter, which is also owned by Journal Register Company.
Webb sold his newspaper group to Journal Register Company in 2004.
"I want to get the newspapers more involved in community things," said Hernandez Jan. 2. "I'm hoping to get more than just a quality product onto newsstands each week, but also to increase the presence."
An employee of Journal Register Company for five years, Hernandez began his career as an ad representative for the Reporter, later moving on to work at the corporate level before returning to Lansdale as publisher.
"I'm from Berks County. I know the communities and the area. Because of that, I am glad to be back," said Hernandez, a Marine who also served in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
Journal Register Company owns 22 daily and 346 weekly and other non-daily newspapers reaching nearly 7 million readers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Ohio and Michigan.
Webb leaves behind a newspaper chain which includes The Boyertown Area Times and The Southern Berks News covering southern Berks County, The Hamburg Item and The Kutztown Area Patriot covering northern and western Berks, Westside Weekly covering the Reading suburbs, La Voz, a prominent Spanish language newspaper, The Free Press, covering Quakertown in Bucks County, and The Saucon News, covering the Saucon Valley and the Southern Lehigh areas.
Webb's family's involvement with these newspapers-particularly The Boyertown Area Times-goes back to a time before he was even born.
Webb's father, Donald, purchased the Times in 1964, after serving as the paper's editor for 11 years.
The Boyertown Area Times became the first in a chain of papers that would eventually make up Berks-Mont Newspapers.
The elder Webb relocated to Boyertown in 1953 from Tarentum, a Pittsburgh suburb, satisfying a yen to operate and then own a community newspaper.
James Webb began working for the family business in 1976, after finishing college.
In his early years with the company he sold typesetting.
Later, he worked in advertising sales, as circulation manager, and finally, as general manager.
When Webb became publisher in 1986, a second newspaper covering the borough of Birdsboro and surrounding communities, The Southern Berks News, was already a part of the fold.
It was followed by The Hamburg Area Item in 1997 and The Kutztown Area Patriot in 2000.
In 2001, Webb acquired the struggling Free Press of Quakertown, and gave Berks-Mont Newspapers a foothold in upper Bucks County.
The same year he bought The Saucon News, covering portions of Northampton and Lehigh Counties.
The company launched The Community Connection, serving the Pottstown area, in 2003.
Berks-Mont then created two additional newspapers, Westside Weekly and La Voz, in 2005, under Journal Register Company ownership.
These newspapers boosted coverage in the Reading area market and offered new opportunities for expanding reader-ship.
Webb sees a bright future for Berks-Mont, despite the slow decline of paid newspaper circulation.
With the growing market of the Internet and the company's online presence at www.berksmontnews.com, Webb sees opportunities for continued expansion in the future.
"The audience is actually about the same or bigger, it is just that the way you get the message out may change," he said.
"Weekly newspapers are not going away anytime soon," he said.
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