Robert A. Shaw, the newspaper publisher who created the daily Northwest Herald in fast-growing McHenry County in the 1980s, is walking away from his brainchild, he told the paper’s readers Wednesday.
His announcement comes nine months after his cousin–Thomas D. Shaw, president and chief executive of the family-owned parent company, Dixon, Ill.-based Shaw Newspapers–hired former Thomson Newspapers official Michael Sheppard as the top executive for a group of Shaw-owned papers in northern Illinois, including the Northwest Herald.
Sheppard recently reorganized another paper in the group, the Kane County Chronicle. That shake-up included the elimination of jobs and the departure of executives.
Contemplated for months
Robert Shaw did not respond Wednesday to requests for an interview. But in a column that appeared Wednesday in the Northwest Herald, he told readers that he had been contemplating a change in his life since he turned 50 in September–the month that his eldest son was married and the month that terrorists attacked New York and Washington.
“Call it a midlife crisis,” he wrote. “But my wife, Lillian, and I are ready to embark on the next challenge.”
Shaw noted he had spent 33 years in the family business, one of a dwindling number of family-owned newspaper companies across the country. The Northwest Herald, based in Crystal Lake, is the largest paper owned by the company, which was founded in 1851 by Benjamin F. Shaw, great-great grandfather of Thomas and Robert.
“Since 1984, I have worked here,” Robert Shaw wrote, “embarking on a journey that began when Shaw Newspapers bought the old Free Press group and began the daunting, yet exciting task of consolidating newspapers to create the Northwest Herald for McHenry County.”
The 200-employee Northwest Herald, created from 14 small local papers, grew up as suburbia pushed aggressively into McHenry County.
It has daily circulation of 35,500 and Sunday circulation of 37,500, both up about 2 percent from a year ago, Sheppard said.
“The paper is growing and thriving in every respect,” Shaw wrote in his farewell column.
Thomas Shaw did not respond to requests for an interview, and Sheppard declined to discuss what led to the departure, deferring to Robert Shaw’s final column.
Sheppard said he spoke with Northwest Herald employees Wednesday, and told them operations will continue as usual.
“There is no change in focus or strategy,” said Sheppard, chief operating officer for the Shaw group, which includes the Northwest Herald, the Kane County Chronicle and several northern Illinois weeklies.
`A labor of love’
“This was a labor of love, so some longtime employees are feeling a degree of sadness,” he said.
A replacement for Robert Shaw has not been named.
A number of community leaders say they will miss Shaw’s stewardship.
“Under his leadership, the paper has been a contributor to many causes here in McHenry County,” said Bob Blazier, president of the Crystal Lake Chamber of Commerce. “And I see him as a very steady influence on the editorial policy of the paper.”
