A chain of 24 local newspapers across western New York filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday, blaming last year’s mega-snowstorm that dumped more than seven feet of snow on the smaller towns that the publications cover, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Officials who put the publisher of the Hamburg Sun, Lockport Star, West Seneca Sun, Springville Journal Sun and other community papers into bankruptcy protection are coming up with a plan to repay the company’s debts without laying off any of its roughly 100 workers, said chief executive James Austin. The newspapers reach about 230,000 people, most of whom live in a region that was pummeled with snow during a series of storms in November 2014. Austin called the community newspaper industry “very strong” financially; his company would have been profitable but for the storm that cost roughly $700,000, he said.
