{"id":32689,"date":"2016-03-31T09:45:24","date_gmt":"2016-03-31T14:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=32689"},"modified":"2016-04-02T04:12:23","modified_gmt":"2016-04-02T09:12:23","slug":"shepard-smith-purchases-the-local-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/shepard-smith-purchases-the-local-voice\/","title":{"rendered":"Shepard Smith purchases Oxford, Mississippi newspaper, The Local Voice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oxford, Miss. (WTF) \u2012\u00a0Shepard Smith<\/strong>, longtime Fox News<\/strong> anchor and Ole Miss<\/strong> superfan, entered into an agreement with The Local Voice<\/em><\/strong> on Monday to purchase the Oxford, Mississippi<\/strong> based newspaper and all of its assets for an undisclosed amount. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Mississippi-born New Yorker said the deal will increase his ties to his home state and provide much needed structure to a publication beset by recent internal struggles and alleged illegal activity.\u00a0\"WTFNewsWider\"<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNothing is hotter right now than print journalism,”\u00a0 Smith said. “When I discovered that the most respected news outlet in north Mississippi was for sale, I called my financial adviser and told him to book a trip to God\u2019s country\u2012Oxford.”<\/span><\/p>\n

“He asked me if I was still awake from the night before, but I laughed him off,”\u00a0 Smith continued. “I mean, yeah, I hadn\u2019t slept\u00a0in 32 hours, but I know a bargain when I see one.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When asked about accusations that The Local Voice<\/em> was home to an underground casino and spa, Smith had no further comment.<\/span><\/p>\n

In December 2015, former employees of the newspaper made updates on social media describing the work environment as \u201cLittle Reno\u201d and \u201ca cubicle trapped inside the Devil\u2019s throat while the Devil is trying to cough-up phlegm but it just won\u2019t come out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Disputes between the current Editor-in-Chief, Nature Humphries<\/strong>, and\u00a0Publisher, Newt Rayburn<\/strong>, have also been noted in recent editorials and classified advertisements. <\/span><\/p>\n

A posting in The Local Voice<\/em> July 4th edition asked \u201cWanna work and gamble in Hell? Come to The Local Voice<\/em> and meet the publisher aka devil incarnate (sic)\u201d and included the Editor-in-Chief\u2019s home phone number.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sources close to the negotiations say that talks nearly stalled when the Editor-in-Chief threatened to \u201ccrop dust\u201d the room if anyone uttered a word that ended in a vowel. This behavior along with the Publisher\u2019s refusal to wear clothing during an initial meeting with attorneys gave Smith pause.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a letter to Local Voice<\/em> employees, in which Smith acknowledged that the newspaper had plenty of room for improvement, he noted that the paper\u2019s leadership \u201cwas under review.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

He also stated that the future of the publication was brighter than ever.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone knows that the internet is yesterday\u2019s darling, but that physical media is tomorrow\u2019s crush,”\u00a0 Shepard said emphatically. <\/span><\/p>\n

“We\u2019ll hand-write hard-hitting stories if we have to. We won\u2019t back down;\u00a0 We won\u2019t quit…and we won\u2019t sleep!\u201d\u00a0\"The<\/a>
\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

APRIL FOOLS! The Local Voice\u00a0has not been sold. This article is a work of satire & fiction\u00a0authored by Sherman Smithers. It’s local entertainment, y’all…<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Shep<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oxford, Miss. (WTF) \u2012\u00a0Shepard Smith, longtime Fox News anchor and Ole Miss superfan, entered into an agreement with<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":246,"featured_media":32694,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8217],"tags":[8220,8218,113,15,7067,7594,3],"class_list":["post-32689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-april-fools","tag-april-fools","tag-fox-news","tag-nature-humphries","tag-newt-rayburn","tag-ole-miss","tag-shepard-smith","tag-the-local-voice"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Shep-Smith-TLV_WEB.jpg?fit=750%2C500&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/246"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}