The Carleton Free Press is shutting down almost a year after the upstart weekly newspaper first launched to take on the Irving-owned Woodstock Bugle-Observer.

Bob Rupert, editor of the weekly newspaper, said the economic downturn, combined with the pricing competition from the Bugle, was too much to overcome.

"All of this sort of converged and finally, today, just 20 minutes ago, we got together and decided that we had no choice," Rupert told the CBC on Monday afternoon.

"So the paper that will be published tomorrow, the headline story is that it's our last paper. And we did try various avenues to rescue the paper. But when you're facing that kind of money and that kind of monopoly in a bad economy, it's very tough."

Brunswick News, which is owned by J.D. Irving Ltd., owns all of the province's English-language daily newspapers and the majority of weeklies. The Irving-owned competition recently began offering steeply discounted ad rates, Rupert said.

The first edition of the Free Press was published on Oct. 30, 2007. The newspaper was founded following a dispute between Ken Langdon, the Free Press publisher, and Brunswick News. Langdon had previously served as publisher of the Woodstock Bugle-Observer.

Alward is disappointed

Conservative Leader David Alward, the local Woodstock MLA, said the Free Press forced its rival newspaper to improve its journalism. Alward said both papers carved out their own local niche and it is a sad day for his region now that the weekly is stopping publication.

The Opposition Conservatives introduced a motion in the legislative assembly earlier this year to request the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications to return to the province to look at media concentration.

"We believe it is in the best interests of New Brunswickers, we believe, to have the Senate committee to review the media ownership and distribution in the province," Alward said. "The Carleton Free Press had been an excellent example of an independent free press that has worked. It is very, very disappointing today to see what has taken place. I think we all lose as New Brunswickers."

The front-page story that was intended to appear in the final edition of the Free Press on Tuesday outlines the paper's fate. The story was not published but a copy of the story e-mailed to CBCNews.ca said the newspaper tried to get the Competition Bureau to step in and investigate the advertising rates charged by Brunswick News and it also tried to have the Senate committee return.

"We had a gutsy little paper here and it sold well. Our readership was equal to or greater than our competition's. Concentration of ownership and big money finally wore us down," the story said.

"All of you gave us your talent and your support and shared our mission. You have no idea how much this has meant to us! So we dared to dream and we almost brought it off."