Times Media Group, owner of more than 30 community-news outlets across Sun Valley, Tucson and Southern California, announced last week that it’s launching the Queen Creek (Arizona) Tribune, a weekly to cover one of that state’s fastest-growing towns.
The paper will start publishing on April 24, featuring a local focus on current events in the town, a southeast Phoenix suburb of about 68,500 residents.
“Queen Creek has grown up fast, more than doubling in population over the past decade, and that growth has created a void when it comes to local journalism,” Times Media Group President Steve Strickbine said. “It’s a void we’re going to fill.”
“The residents and business owners we’ve talked to in Queen Creek have expressed a need to know more about what’s going on in the community, at Town Hall, in the local business community, in their schools and with their school sports teams,” Strickbine continued. “The Queen Creek Tribune will focus on those signature elements of community life, while at the same time giving local businesses more and better options to connect with their customers.”
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Initial circulation for the new Tribune will be set at 20,000 weekly printed copies delivered every Sunday. Distribution will include home delivery and in high-traffic areas in and around Queen Creek, where residents can pick up the paper for free. Breaking news during the week will appear on QueenCreekTribune.com.
Locally in the Phoenix area, Times Media Group publishes the East Valley Tribune, the Gilbert Sun News, the San Tan Sun News, the Ahwatukee Foothills News, the Scottsdale Progress, the West Valley View, the Glendale Star, the Peoria Times, the Foothills Focus, the College Times, and five other newspaper and magazine brands.
The company also owns AZ Integrated Media, a media distribution and custom-publishing company, and multiple southern California news publications.
Contrary to pervasive negative sentiment in the media industry, Strickbine said in a press release that he remains bullish on the future of local journalism. “Everywhere you look, people are hungry for quality information about the world around them, especially the world they see every day in their immediate community,” he said. “When a community news outlet can tell important and interesting stories about the community, really digging in and finding the people who make a community tick, there is always an audience for that storytelling."