Coopwood and others on the panel will be asked to address the question “Is This Town Big Enough?” at 8 a.m. Tuesday (Feb. 16) in the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics auditorium at the University of Mississippi. Although the morning hour is set to accommodate students, the program is free and open to the public. Samir Husni, director of the UM Magazine Innovation Center, will serve as moderator and will be joined by Joe Atkins, a professor at the UM Meek School of Journalism and New Media, to talk with Coopwood about his venture. At a time when newspapers have become an endangered species in many cities, Coopwood started distributing the new broadsheet here last October. The paper contains breaking weekend news and sports but is heavily dependent on feature stories and color photographs.
“If you are an avid follower of news about the media, you will think that a person who starts an ink-on-paper newspaper in today’s marketplace is out of his or her mind,” Husni said. “Well, Scott Coopwood did not start one, but two newspapers in the last year alone.”
After an initial period when The Oxford Enterprise was offered free, the paper now requires subscription.
“It is being seen not only as an interesting initiative but an indirect challenge to The Oxford Eagle, the venerable Monday-Friday newspaper that has served the community for decades,” said Curtis Wilkie, Overby Center fellow.
“Many observers of the newspaper industry are interested in why a publisher would be willing to start a newspaper in a town that has had one for a long time,” said Will Norton, dean of the Meek School of Journalism and New Media. “Many publishers are wringing their hands and wondering about the future. However, the publisher of The Oxford Enterprise has an interesting take on what is happening in our society.”
Starting publications is nothing new for Coopwood, a 1984 Ole Miss graduate who lives with his family in the Delta town of Cleveland. Twenty years ago, he entered the magazine publishing business in Jackson with Forward Mississippi and followed with the Jackson Business Journal. He sold his Jackson interests, moved to the Delta, where he grew up, launched the Delta Business Journal in 1998 and established Coopwood Communications, an advertising, marketing and public relations firm, the next year.
In 2003, he began Delta Magazine, a glossy lifestyles publication that has proven so successful that last March he started The Cleveland Current, a new Sunday morning newspaper in the Bolivar County city. The Oxford Enterprise is his latest investment in Mississippi journalism.
For more information on the program, contact Curtis Wilkie at 662-915-1707.