A popular trade newspaper focused on the region’s textile industry is calling it quits after 64 years in business, but local officials believe there’s a silver lining in the clouds.
Charlotte, N.C.-based Southern Textile News, which was founded in 1945, announced Tuesday that it will print its final edition on Monday.
Chip Smith, owner and president of Mullen Publications Inc., the newspaper’s parent company, said the decision to shut down his press was due to declining advertising revenues and unprecedented deterioration of the U.S. textile industry since the 1990s.
Smith said the economic downturn has exacerbated the woes of U.S. manufacturers, particularly in textiles.
“That really is the whole crux of it,” he said. “We’ve seen rough spots before, but we realize now that the textile industry is not going to revive. We don’t have the resources to continue to do it.”
