New Local Owners For Hometown Oneonta and Freeman’s Journal

Local newspapers The Freeman's Journal and Hometown Oneonta is now in new hands with everything from new local owners to some staffing changes according to AllOTSEGO.

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Iron String Press owner, Jim Kevlin, after 15 years at the helm as the publisher of both newspapers and president of the company, is retiring, leaving Tara Barnwell, who was the company's general manager, to act as president and publisher for Iron String Press. Greg Klein, an experienced writer, is now editor of the company’s print and digital news and entertainment sources, jobs formerly filled by Kevlin.

Iron String Press serves Otsego County with a focus on local news and entertainment.

Let's take a look back at the interesting history of this local publishing company headquartered in Cooperstown. According to AllOTSEGO, The Freeman’s Journal was  founded in 1808 by Judge Cooper who also was founder of Cooperstown. In addition, Judge Cooper was famed author James Fenimore Cooper's father. When The Freeman's Journal was first published, there were about 1500 subscribers who paid to get it. It's news was Cooperstown focused as the county seat and it was only published on Thursdays.

The Hometown Oneonta paper wasn't published until 2008 and was meant to serve the county's most populated community, Oneonta. It is a free publication, mailed to every home in the Oneonta and West Oneonta zip codes.