Carrboro Citizen may stop publication

After five years of serving the community, The Carrboro Citizen could stop publishing this fall.

Publisher Robert Dickson issued a statement Aug. 2 announcing that the paper was for sale.

In the statement, he said the cost of running the paper — which only receives funding from private donors — has become too much for him.

The Citizen is a free, weekly paper that covers news in Carrboro, Chapel Hill, Hillsborough and Pittsboro.

Dickson said the paper has a readership of about 15,000.

He said he is currently talking to a few people about buying the paper.

But if a buyer is not found soon, Dickson said publication would likely stop this fall.

One thing is for certain ­— if The Citizen does stop publication, it will be missed by many readers.

Chapel Hill resident Marion Hirsch said she reads The Citizen because it covers local issues with a different perspective than competing regional papers.

“For a new paper, it’s really substantive and interesting,” she said.

Carrboro resident and devoted reader David Hurlbert agreed, adding that the newspaper offers a more literature-like style of writing that he enjoys reading.

“The writing style is more artistic and the articles have more flow than homogenized papers,” he said.

Hurlbert also said the paper’s local point of view reflects the views of people in the community.

“Its political views are not bent away from the community as they are in most major papers,” he said.

The Citizen’s hometown feel is just what Dickson set out to achieve when he launched the paper in 2007.

Dickson said he felt there was a lack of local news coverage in the community, especially as other local news sources were facing difficulties.

“We saw the corporate-owned paper Chapel Hill News pull back as their economic state declined,” he said.

Dickson said that downsizing of other news sources especially impacted the coverage of Carrboro.

A third-generation publisher, Dickson said he is passionate about the news industry and will miss being part of The Citizen.

“This newspaper has been a labor of love,” he said.

Hurlbert said though many may see the sale of The Citizen as the end of an era, it could be an opportunity for someone looking to break into the publishing industry.

“It’s a true stepping stone for the career of someone who understands writing,” he said.

Hurlbert said he even considered bidding on the newspaper, but didn’t think he had enough money to keep it going.

Dickson said he hasn’t set a price for the paper yet.

“I really have no idea how somebody would value this publication,” he said.

“What something is worth is really what somebody’s willing to pay for it.”

Contact the desk editor at city@dailytarheel.com.