by Zachary Harmuth
Quietly and without circumstance, the Franklin Review-Appeal, started more than 200 years ago, folded for good last week.
The Gannett Corporation, which bought the Tennessean in 1979, swallowed the Review-Appeal in 2004. But Gannett kept the name and continued issuing the paper.
Until last Wednesday, that is, when Gannett shuttered the Review-Appeal along with the Brentwood Journal, which it also owned nominally. Additionally, the Williamson A.M. segment of the Tennessean will go to only Wednesday and Sunday editions.
Without warning or comment, the state’s second-oldest newspaper simply wasn’t there when subscribers looked for it in the usual place tucked into the Tennessean this past week.
Since 1813 the Review-Appeal had been in-and-(sometimes) out of print and all-along a Franklin institution. The Tennessean, itself, started in 1907.
The R-A dug deep roots in Franklin. It not just recorded the town’s history but took part in it.
For example, George Armistead, the paper’s publisher in the late 1800s, literally helped build downtown: he laid the cornerstone for the Confederate soldier statue standing in Franklin’s Public Square.
In the 20th century, the paper grew with the town, employing some 30 people at its 2nd Avenue North office.
“I had my first job at the Review-Appeal out of college in 1983,” Mindy Tate, now the executive director Franklin Tomorrow, said. After working for the Brentwood Journal and other publications, became the general manager of the Review-Appeal in 2004 when Gannet bought the paper.
“The end of such respected papers is sad, and their final disappearance now is a loss of a piece of history,” Tate said. 
The media industry always was cannibalistic, with papers constantly closing, merging or opening.
But during the technological revolution of the past 10 to 20 years, newspapers have either evolved or, like the Review-Appeal under Gannett and so many others, gone extinct. Just that you are reading this story online, at The Williamson Source, says a lot about this new media ecosystem.
I decided to interview my boss, Steven Ludwig, who started The Williamson Source two years ago after 25 years in local radio and media, to help make some sense of the changing media landscape and the failure of the Review-Appeal and the Brentwood Journal.
One of the things he considered Gannet unable to do was adapt.
“The internet gives us the ability to provide local news and information in entirely new ways,” he said. “What you are seeing with the Williamson AM and the Review-Appeal is a reflection of Gannett’s inability to make the transition to a new distribution channel.”
“In the end, [The Source] is betting that a quality product, sensitive to the needs of its audience and advertisers will survive and thrive.”
Media immediacy is one of those needs.
“Waiting for the newspaper to be delivered is just too late,” he said. “Global happenings are communicated instantly to our phones, tablets and televisions, so now consumers expectations of local news is justifiably the same.”
He gave as an example of a teenager who went missing in Nolensville on Thursday of this past week. Minutes after, the Sheriff’s Department released a statement, The Source was able to use all its social and media platforms to start talking about it, he said.
A print media outlet could not have responded with nearly the same immediacy.
“We can super-serve residents of Williamson County in ways the Review-Appeal never could,” Ludwig said. “We can now combine social media, targeted advertising and editorial content for a powerful, highly-targeted campaign; one that is efficient and relevant for both the advertiser and potential customers in our audience.”
Ultimately, the shift of paradigm from print to digital sets The Source and other online media apart. The Review-Appeal might have long history, but The Source is positioned currently, hopefully, to make history. To be the Review-Appeal of 200 years ago.
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