By SCOTT MERZBACH
For the Athol Daily News
ATHOL — A new publisher will oversee operations at the Athol Daily News and its sister papers in Massachusetts, the Daily Hampshire Gazette and Valley Advocate in Northampton, and The Recorder in Greenfield. Aaron Julien, president and CEO of Newspapers of New England Inc., the Athol Daily News’ parent company, on Monday announced that he would take over as publisher effective immediately, replacing Michael Rifanburg, who was reassigned to a vice president position within NNE.
Rifanburg was publisher for NNE’s Pioneer Valley newspapers: The Greenfield Recorder, the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, the Valley Advocate and the Athol Daily News. Julien will now assume direct supervision of those papers.
The action comes one week after employees at the Gazette and Advocate petitioned to form a union.
Of the change in leadership, Julien said, “I’m trying to create a sustainable business … I want to communicate better our goals, our hopes and why we believe in local journalism and newspapers — and that we’ve done everything we can to keep them local and independent.”
Rifanburg, publisher since March 2016, is being named vice president of the company’s third-party services group, where he will be in charge of commercial printing, digital services and other aspects of the company that generate revenue to support the newsroom budgets as a decline in print advertising revenue continues. He could not immediately be reached for comment Monday.
Julien, 56, of Amherst was publisher of the Gazette from 2006 to 2008.
During a series of visits to the three papers Monday, he said he intended to give them his full attention.
Last week, Gazette employees announced a campaign to form a union, citing a desire for a greater say in company decisions. Julien said he is not yet prepared to address the petition, filed Nov. 12, but that it is the “elephant in the room.”
“The petition made clear everyone needs a better understanding of what we’re doing, the challenges we face and how we meet our goals,” Julien said. “It would be disingenuous to not acknowledge the timing of this change and its relationship to the filing of the petition.”
“This change is, in part, recognition I need to be involved now — and here,” Julien told the Gazette staff. “It’s clear I need to be involved in all these issues; that’s something I’m hearing loud and clear, and I feel this is the best way to do it.”
The unionizing effort in Northampton does not extend to the Recorder, although a group of Recorder employees did write Julien a letter outlining concerns they had, some of which he discussed during a staff meeting Monday in Greenfield.
NNE is a family-owned, independent newspaper group that also owns papers in Peterborough, Concord and Lebanon, New Hampshire.