August 2025 Notebook

Wardens purchase Three Rivers Publishing

Dennis and Connie Warden, along with son Jacob, purchased Three Rivers Publishing at the end of June.

Warden Publishing includes The Gasconade County Republican, which the family has operated since 1963, as well as The Maries County Advocate (2016) and The Osage County Unterrified Democrat (2018).

Their purchase of Three Rivers Publishing from former publisher Rob Viehman brings three more newspapers under the Warden family’s control. Those publications include the Cuba Free Press, Saint James Press and Steelville Star-Crawford Mirror.

“We’re excited to pick up the torch in Crawford County and continue the high journalistic standards that we’re bringing from the other Warden Publishing newspapers,” Jacob Warden told readers in announcing the purchase. “In today’s age, it’s important for community newspapers to be owned locally. We are excited to keep three more newspapers from becoming corporately owned.”

Viehman said he is ready to retire and is thrilled to turn ownership over to Warden Publishing. After learning wife Caroline’s plan to retire, he started working on selling the newspaper group, including placing an ad with Missouri Press Association’s Marketplace, which offers free classified ads for member publications.

“Jacob called me within about two weeks and we began working on the sale,” Viehman said. “It was a big relief to me to be able to sell to a family, especially a local family, that I know will be good to my now former employees and will do a great job with the papers.”

Most of the Three Rivers staff plan to continue on under the Wardens with the exception of longtime employee Joy Brandenburger, who has served as secretary and billing manager in the Cuba newspaper office for 48 years.

The Wardens told readers they can expect some updates and modernization at the Three Rivers publications, including more sports coverage, new web features and redesigns for the newspapers.

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Neosho — In the July 2 edition of the Newton County News, Publisher Jennifer Sexton Hayworth announced the newspaper would cease publication. The newspaper had been published since 1873, with Hayworth owning since 1998.
Hayworth cited the rising costs of printing the newspaper along with advertisers spending less for the News’ shuttering.
“It was a tough decision to make. But it is one that has been coming for a long time,” Hayworth told readers in announcing the newspaper’s closure. “Our printing bill increased by 60 percent in June. For a newspaper hanging on by its fingernails, that was too much to absorb.”
Joining Hayworth at the newspaper since 2009 was her husband, Chad, who had previously worked as deputy city editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in northwest Arkansas. He told readers it had been an honor covering Newton County at its best and even sometimes at its worst.
“What’s happened to us is happening all across the country,” he said. “A generation ago, nobody thought twice about dropping a couple of quarters in a news rack to get the latest information about their community. Now, people expect to find that information at their fingertips on their phones, and for free.”

Columbia — In July, Gannett announced that its Columbia printing facility would be shutting down Sept. 7, to consolidate its printing operations. Printing of the Columbia Daily Tribune, Springfield News-Leader and USA Today will be moved to the company’s Des Moines, Iowa, facility. All employees of the printing plant will be affected.
Additional commercial printing clients will see their work moved to Gannett’s Peoria, Ill., printing plant, including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which closed its own printing operations and outsourced printing to Columbia this year.
The Quincy Herald-Whig also recently informed customers it would be closing its printing facility. Carpenter Media Group purchased Phillips Media Group’s Missouri and Illinois properties in August of last year, which included the Herald-Whig and its printing plant.

Cape Girardeau — In May, Rust Communications and its sister company, PubGen.ai, won Local Media Association’s Innovator of the Year award for its artificial intelligence-powered content management system (CMS) for local newsrooms. The award, presented to Jon K. Rust, Sho Rust and Michael Machiah, recognizes leaders in digital media who pioneer new concepts and experiment in creative ways.
The new platform, PubGen.ai, was first introduced by Rust Communication’s local media properties, including Southeast Missourian. It works by connecting advanced AI capabilities to newsroom workflows, media business systems and user-facing digital platforms.
Some of the tools included in the platform’s suite are for writing, image creation, design and production, which PubGen.ai says allows journalists to focus on storytelling.