Local newspaper started by Ralph Nader saved from closure by national media company

WINSTED, Conn. — A small Connecticut newspaper that began publishing in February with the help of Ralph Nader has been saved from a planned shutdown after a national media company swooped in to buy it.

American Business Media said Wednesday that it has acquired the Winsted Citizen, whose oversight board had decided only two days earlier that it could no longer operate because of financial woes. Terms were not disclosed.

Vincent Valvo, chief executive, publisher and editor in chief of American Business Media, said the company made its offer to buy the Citizen on Monday after he heard about its possible demise. He said he wanted the newspaper to be successful.

Valvo has longtime ties to Connecticut, having worked at the Hartford Business Journal and Connecticut Law Tribune and led the Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information. He also has a home near Winsted, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northwest of Hartford.

“I look at it and I think I know what folks in this region would like to see and what I’d like to see,” Valvo said. "I have an infrastructure that can serve this and I’m like let’s do it.”

American Business Media publishes seven national business magazines and produces business conferences and trade shows.

Nader, the consumer advocate and four-time presidential candidate who grew up in Winsted, had hoped to buck the trend of media closures and downsizing with the launch of the Citizen. He invested $15,000 to help start it, but it soon fell into unmanageable budget deficits, said Andy Thibault, former editor and publisher of the paper.

Valvo said Thibault will stay on as a contributing editor and there will be no layoffs at the Citizen, which had been publishing monthly in broadsheet form. Valvo said he envisioned expanding the paper's online and social media presence.