Thirty-six years ago, Cox Enterprises announced the purchase of the Waco Tribune-Herald from the Harlon Fentress family. A new era was born, and as with any new era, great debates have been inspired due to opinions expressed by various publishers.

Cox Enterprises has well served the broad Waco community — brought the news into the new century — and its legacy will long endure. The Fentress family owned and operated the Trib for 50 years before the Cox sale. Its long and successful ownership was created by honest and fair reporting, expressing opinions on hot issues generally homogenous with the opinions of readers in the universe it served. The Fentress family is and forever will be remembered for its service to our community.

This is the first edition of the Trib under the ownership of the Clifton Robinson family. The new experience of newspaper ownership is exhilarating, exciting and entered into with certain trepidation, remembering quotes of “Stick with what you know” and “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”

The Robinson family has lived in the Waco area since shortly after the Civil War. Our early business interests involved general stores, rentals, farming and insurance. Current interests include insurance, investments and real estate. Philanthropy is also an important mission, supporting animal rescue, civic projects, scholarships, McLennan Community College and Baylor University.

The newspaper business is currently undergoing what can best be described as the perfect storm: The failing U.S. economic conditions coupled with the digital age have caused advertising revenues and subscriptions to decrease.

Change is the byword of our modern society, and such is the case of the Trib. It’s time for a change, and hopefully our values and opinions will be well received by our advertisers and readers. It will come about slowly but surely with the first change being printed on this paper’s front page, where it will remain during the tenure of our ownership: In God we trust.

The question most often asked is, “why would anyone want to own a newspaper in these times?” Our simple answer is that our entire success has been in operating out-of-favor businesses. The Waco Tribune-Herald is far and away the most trusted news source in Central Texas and needs local ownership and tweaking as it moves into a new age. Newspapers as we presently know them will survive long into the future, during which time they will be integrated gradually into the digital age.

Our mission is to offer a community news service dedicated to truth, honor and integrity, and to this mission, we will not fail.

— Clifton Robinson

Chairman, Robinson Media Co. LLC