Local newspaper recognized with distinguished honor!

The Early Bird newspaper, locally owned and operated with distribution to 28,000 homes in Darke County, was recently recognized as “One of Ten Newspapers that do it Right” by Editor & Publisher (E & P), a national newspaper and magazine trade industry publication. E & P makes its selection from newspapers across the country from all circulation sizes; from large metropolitan papers to small daily and weeklies. The Early Bird is one of the few free weekly newspapers ever selected to receive this distinguished recognition.

It was selected because of its philosophy of:

• Investing back into the product;
• Investing back into the communities it serves;
• Investing back into the employees.

The paper was purchased by Fred and Keith Foutz, Darke County natives, in June of 2012. Since that time, they have bucked the newspaper industry trend as they have chosen to add content and pages, increase color advertising and photographs and add staffing while surrounding themselves with a team of professionals who take pride in where they work and the product they all help to produce each week. As stated in the article, revenues at The Early Bird and bluebagmedia.com continue to increase as the newspaper continues to focus on hyper local community news. The two brothers state “the best is yet to come” as they are committed to future growth and expansion in both the print and digital platforms.