Jim O’Rourke
Twenty-seven years ago, three people decided this neighborhood deserved a newspaper of its own.
John Myers, Tim Mullan and Tara Blanc launched North Central News in the fall of 1999 with no guarantee it would see a second year. It has now seen 27 – through a recession, a pandemic, and a stretch of industry consolidation that closed community papers all over the country. That is not luck. That is a publisher who knew exactly who she was writing for, and a community that read what she printed.
My name is Jim O’Rourke, and as of August 1, my company O’Rourke Media Group (OMG) became the new owner of what she built.
Who we are
O’Rourke Media Group is a family-owned company I started in 2018 on a simple premise: local newspapers are not a dying business; they just require a strengthened playbook to stay relevant in the community and financially viable. Of course, that includes focus on digital but print also remains a key factor for success. We’ve grown to 46 markets and 65 hyper-local publications and websites across nine states. Here in Arizona, we publish the CITYSunTimes just up the road, along with the Arizona Silver Belt in Globe – the paper of record there since 1878 – the Copper Country News and the Lake Powell Chronicle.
There is no version of our plan that ends with a thinner paper in your mailbox!
What isn’t changing
Nearly everything you value about this publication.
Kathryn Miller remains your editor and Joanne Day remains your sales manager. North Central News stays monthly, and it stays free. It stays in your mailbox – roughly 22,000 copies delivered to homes and businesses across North Central Phoenix, plus another 3,000 in racks around the area.
And it stays about here: the Madison schools and Camelback High, the businesses along Central and the 7s, Sunnyslope and the North Central corridor, the zoning fights, the Friday-night teams, the neighbor down the street who is worth a story.
What is changing
We will be working with Kathryn to provide the newsroom more tools and support than an independent monthly could never reasonably afford on its own. Jen Lee, a top creative and design talent in the Phoenix area who has been with OMG for five-plus years, will now be working with Kathryn on handling that work for North Central News.
We will be working with Joanne to make sure that we continue to provide her and local advertisers with the best service and support possible. You’ll get the same trusted print buy you’ve always made, now with the opportunity to pair it with digital solutions through our full-service, internal digital agency. And if you want to cost-effectively reach past North Central, our CITYSunTimes readers in Scottsdale, North Phoenix, Cave Creek, Carefree and Fountain Hills are now one phone call, email or text message away!
Over the coming months you’ll see a rebuilt northcentralnews.net, a digital replica edition you can read from anywhere, and a more robust free email newsletter that puts neighborhood news in your inbox between print editions.
A community newspaper is a conversation, not a broadcast. Tell us what we’re missing. Send your school news, your club news, your business openings, your objections. Write letters to the editor. And support the businesses you see in these pages; they are the reason this paper arrives at your door for nothing.
One more thing
Tara, thank you for trusting O’Rourke Media Group to take the reign of the North Central News. What you and your team built and managed over the past 27 years is quite impressive, and we’re excited to work with the team to keep it going for many, many years to come!
Jim O’Rourke is publisher and CEO of O’Rourke Media Group. Reach him at jorourke@orourkemediagroup.com.
