Church shooting is first major breakthrough for fledgling GateHouse News Service

The announcement last month that GateHouse Media was forming a news service to offer stories between its own newspapers and sell them to other media outlets across the country drew a collective yawn.

The yawning stopped today when GateHouse publications, the Neosho Daily News and Carthage Press were on top of the tragedy that occurred when three people were murdered by a lone gunman at the First Congregational Church of Neosho.

As noted earlier in The Turner Report, the material from the Daily is being eagerly sought by media outlets across the state and the U. S. This is how GateHouse News Service works, according to its initial news release:

GateHouse's publications primarily have circulations under 50,000 and follow the events of each town with a dedicated team. This original content now will be made available to other local publications. The service will offer articles, columns, photos, graphics, political cartoons and internet content such as video clips. In addition, the GateHouse News Service team will produce national and regional projects with local relevance, allowing for the localization of high-level journalism. The GateHouse News Service will be made available to non-GateHouse community publications who find this content valuable and useful on a subscription or on a per piece basis.

"We are committed to giving our newsrooms more tools for producing the best possible publications and web sites for our readers," said GateHouse Media CEO Mike Reed. "GateHouse News Service will provide our editors with a menu of relevant options they have never had before."

"We produce a wealth of relevant, engaging and entertaining content every day," said GateHouse Media Vice President of News Operations Brad Dennison. "The news service allows us to leverage our very best work into expanded news options for all GateHouse and third party publications."

At this writing, the Daily's coverage of the shooting has been tabbed as the GateHouse News Service Editor's Choice with Rick Rogers' story and a photo by John Ford featured. (The photo accompanies this post.)