Editor and Publisher Reports

Morgantown, North Carolina, the county seat of Burke County, is now a two-paper town. The nonprofit The Paper proudly reports local news online and in a weekly, Saturday-home-delivery, 30-plus-page full-color print product.   Founder and Publisher Allen VanNoppen is no stranger to news media, having spent his first years out of college as a reporter for the then family-owned local newspaper of record, The Morgantown News Herald, and later at the nearby Greensboro (NC) News & Record. Continuing to write a weekly syndicated column, he left his full-time work as a journalist in 1985 to enter the business world, eventually opening a local marketing agency his children now run. However, as he watched the News Herald be bought and sold over the years, finally being corporately downsized by Lee Enterprises, in August of 2022, he started Morganton Media Group, LLC (MMG) with a dba of The Paper. The Paper's website states they’re a “blend of a registered LLC with nonprofit 501(c)3 fiscal sponsors.” And “will be ow

Borrell Associates has been tracking U.S. advertising since 2001, providing data that encompasses every facet of local marketing expenditures, including promotions, marketing services, research, public relations, loyalty marketing and digital services. Recently, Borrell released its 2024 forecasts revealing that U.S. local advertising will grow a healthy 4.4% in 2024 to $157.1 billion. On top of that, Borrell’s recent “Business Barometer” showed a strong uptick in local advertiser optimism about the 2023 holiday shopping season and the general economy. There was also good news for legacy media providers, such as newspapers, radio and TV, forecasting a moderation in previous years' declines. Along with the forecast for 2024, Borrell just released the data from their survey conducted in the second quarter 0f 2023, which included advertising insights collected from over 2,000 respondents. One of the major takeaways from this August 2023 report is a major decrease in respondents who consider themselves "novices"

On January 31, 2022, some would say industry history was made when Chicago Public Media, owners of the PBS affiliate WBEZ announced the acquisition of the iconic, daily tabloid: The Chicago Sun-Times. Chicago Public Media raised $61 million in multiyear philanthropic commitments for the acquisition and then transitioned the publication to nonprofit ownership. At the time of the announcement the New York Times reported that the merger of: “The hard-hitting tone of tabloid journalism and the measured voice of public radio make for an unlikely combination.” Tim Franklin, senior associate dean of Northwestern University’s Medill journalism school and the former president of the Poynter Institute stated: “It’s kind of hard to overstate how profound this development is. I think in some ways it could be a model for the nation.” Just a few months later, more industry “history” was made with the announcement of the hiring of Jennifer Kho, former managing editor of HuffPost and Guardian US, as the paper’s executive

On July 17th, 2023, Bedford County, Tennessee, and its county seat of Shelbyville lost their 149-year-old newspaper of record, the Times-Gazette, as Holler Media locked the doors and fired the staff of all six community publications they owned that served counties around Nashville. Within a matter of just a few weeks, Morristown, Tennessee-based Lakeway Publishers, who owns and operates nine other community newspapers in the state plus others in Missouri and Virginia, had hired a number of the Holler staff. They also announced they were starting two new publications — The Bedford County Post and The Marshall County Post — to provide news coverage to the Shelbyville and Lewisburg, Tennessee areas. In a recent interview, Lakeway Senior Vice President Keith Ponder stated, "As Shelbyville’s long-time newspaper closed abruptly, we saw a need to serve the community with locally produced community-based journalism. We kept the team together and have worked hard to tell the stories of Bedford County. A great communit

Cristi Hegranes is an award-winning journalist and founder of the Global Press Institute (GPI), a nonprofit organization that builds and maintains news bureaus in some of the world’s least-covered locations, like: Cameroon, Haiti, Kashmir, Mongolia, Nepal, Zambia and more. The organization recruits local women in the areas and then implements a 16-week training-to-employment program in which they learn the principles and practice of investigative journalism. Upon completion, graduates are offered full-time, paid employment as reporters with GPI’s Global Press Journal (GPJ), which aims to “produce ethical, accurate news, to create a more just and informed world, with team members who are guided by four core values: dignity, diversity, transparency and excellence.” In September 2023, Hegranes released her new book: “BYLINE: How Local Journalists Can Improve the Global News Industry and Change the World,” which features original interviews with some of the biggest names in journalism, including Nicholas Kristof,

Lisa Simpson, the former executive director of Arizona Newspapers Association, and Chris Kline, the former president/ CEO of Arizona Broadcasters Association, have known each other for years since they both lobby on issues that affect their association's members similarly. The major difference between the two is Lisa's members are from newspapers, and Chris' are broadcasters. But in a world where more and more media content is being shared and consumed on the same devices by the same audiences, to some, it seems archaic and a bit outdated to define a news media company primarily by its legacy platform of delivery (such as a press or transmitter). Moreover, most agree that a broadcaster and a legacy news company compete less with each other for ad dollars, where both lose the lion's share of local media revenue to big tech companies like Google and Meta/ Facebook. Add to that how corporate media empires have grouped more and more local outlets under common ownership, depleting association membership numbers. I

In the spring of 2018, Kenny Katzgrau, CEO of Broadstreet, a SaaS ad management company designed for media companies and direct sales teams, penned and published an online 34-page white paper entitled “10 Advantages That Small Publishers Have Over Tech Giants in Selling Ads.” His purpose for the document was to offer encouragement and advice to smaller news publishers on how they can use some of their competitive advantages to gain back some of the 70%+ of local ad dollars captured by big tech companies like Google and Meta (Facebook).   Katzgrau lists these opportunities as: Community Support & Affinity The Direct Relationship Autonomy, Flexibility and Creativity (Compelling Creatives) Section Sponsorships The Ability to Tell a Compelling Story with Sponsored Content Sustainable and Sensible Pricing Newsletter Sponsorships Optimal Placement Transparent Reporting Better Overall Performance But it was a specific section of the document entitled: “KNOW YOUR ENEMY, PART II: The Key Weaknesses of Google, Fa

Media industry veteran John Ellis has been a political analyst for NBC News, a columnist for The Boston Globe, a political editor for Business Insider, a News Corp advisor and SVP at the Fox Business Network. In 2016, he launched News Items, which became The Wall Street Journal CEO Council’s morning newsletter. Ellis restarted News Items as an independent newsletter in August 2019. His articles have been published in Fast Company, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Real Clear Politics, and Business Insider. News Items is “a collection of news stories, commentaries, analyses, essays and research reports that are interesting or important (or both).”  Each “item” posted is usually two or three sentences long and resides in one of four “baskets:”   ·      World in Disarray, ·      Financialization of Everything, ·      Advances in Science and Technology, ·      Electoral politics, foreign and domestic.   Those who subscribe claim that Ellis and the team have proved their value by being “the fir

Reporting on the news publishing industry’s fight for survival amid circulation and advertising revenue declines has been focusing more and more on the continuing closure of news outlets, propagating "news deserts," and the downsizing of newsrooms creating "ghost papers." However, some media companies are finding opportunities during these troubling times by exploring underserved communities' need for local journalism and utilizing current resources to enter these markets with news brands that are finding new audiences and revenues. Recently, E&P reported on the Charleston Post and Courier’s statewide expansion into new South Carolina markets, where existing newspaper newsrooms had been downsized so much that these communities welcomed and embraced the new brands. Now, similar expansion is taking place in Louisiana as Georges Media Group, the state’s largest news publisher and owners of The Times-Picayune | NOLA.com, The Advocate, Gambit and the Acadiana Advocate, have launched the Shreveport-Bossier Cit

In August of 2022, Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper chain, with more than 200 dailies, terminated 3% of its workforce (around 400 employees) after posting a loss of $54 million, on revenues of $749 million, in its second quarter. One of the layoffs included Mary Cadden, who spent 17 years as editor of the USA TODAY Best-Selling Books List, a weekly ranking of the 150 top-selling titles based on U.S. book sales. Caden started at USA TODAY in 1995 as a researcher. After the layoff was announced, Gannett issued a separate statementannouncing that the book list will be on hiatus for the remainder of the year (2022), a move that surprised many in the industry since USA Today’s list has been highly valued by authors, agents and publishers, who also look to the weekly rankings as an alternative to other popular lists citing its “length, diversity and transparency, since The New York Times breaks down its charts into various categories of 10 or more bestsellers where USA Today, combined everything into one li

In early June of 2023, The Opinions and “Next Gen" teams of The Washington Post announced that Renee Yaseen would be their newest Op-Ed columnist. But unlike some venerable, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists who publish their prose under the iconic one hundred fifty-year-old Post masthead, Yaseen is not listed as a company employee but instead uses the title in her byline: Post Grad Intern. Her twice-weekly column, Post Grad, is published as a free newsletter inviting readers to gain “tips and advice from a recent graduate who will help navigate job hunting, moving, budgeting, relationships and more.” Yaseen did graduate from the University of Notre Dame with a BA in economics and minors in theology and PPE (Philosophy, Politics & Economics). While attending classes remotely during COVID, she founded a tech startup called FriendOver, a company designed to help young children stay active and social during the pandemic. FriendOver helped thousands and won major Notre Dame awards that included the McClosk

In June of, 2021, U.S. Representatives Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Arizona, and Dan Newhouse, R-Washington, introduced H.R. 3940, the Local Journalism Sustainability Act (LJSA), a bipartisan bill designed  to help local newspapers sustain financial viability through a series of tax credits.. The LJSA was originally the brainchild of Arizona-based Francis Wick, CEO of Wick Communications and fellow news publisher Alan Fisco, President of the Seattle Times, who each, along with support from America’s Newspapers, lobbied their local congress members, to introduce the bill that was hoped to provide some needed financial assistance to help abate the widespread proliferation of newspaper shutdowns nationwide. For months the LJSA was debated and modified with hopes that its passage would become a reality. Its closest chance came In November of 2021, with the modified, stripped-down version that only offered tax credits for hiring and retaining journalists. H.R. 390 was then included in the draft text of the Biden Administra

Brock Berry has spent the last two decades as an advertising and marketing leader in the news media industry during what many call the "digital revolution." Just as more and more news consumers were accessing local content online, Berry found his comfort with digital concepts a vital asset as he became the head of the advertising sales department at the Denver Post. And when that major market newspaper underwent ownership changes, he found himself designing and leading the parent company's digital services division, Digital First Media’s AdTaxi Network. Today, Berry is the founder and CEO of AdCellerantx, a Denver-based digital advertising and technology company that partners with hundreds of media companies and agencies in markets across North America to provide a complete menu of digital solutions to tens of thousands of local businesses. Since starting AdCellerant in 2011, the company experienced over 4,000% growth — from zero to over $75 million in revenue in less than three years. Because of its success,

Some might say that one of the most important dates to affect the future of the North American local news media industry was June 22, 2023. On that day, Canada’s Senate passed Bill C-18, a law requiring Google and Meta to pay media outlets for news content that they share or otherwise repurpose on their platforms. Many pundits are now blogging and editorializing about the upside and downside of C-18's passage and how it will likely impact pending similar legislation currently being discussed in committee in the U.S. Senate. The 2023 Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) — a law very similar to Canada's — will allow small and mid-sized news organizations to negotiate jointly for compensation from digital platforms that access their content without allowing them to profit from their journalism. The legislation (like C-18) also allows news publishers to demand arbitration if they reach an impasse in negotiations with digital platforms. And if anyone doubts how important this ruling is to Big Tech, j

Each year, Borrell Associates, an advertising and marketing research firm with customers across the U.S. and Canada, surveys local advertisers and ad agencies. Participants are invited through the active advertiser lists of various media companies nationwide. Although companies would need to purchase the local results for their individual markets, Borrell does release to the industry several insights and predictions garnered from the aggregate results. This week Borrell released the findings of the spring 2023 survey that included 1,938 respondents from more than 100 different business categories. These participating local advertisers from communities across the U.S. responded to over 35 questions concerning the types of media they purchase, plan to purchase, plan to discontinue and how they decide on and perceive the effectiveness of the many advertising solutions available in today's multimedia landscape. Most are "optimistic" and plan to increase their advertising spend.In this episode of “E&P Reports,

Danielle Coffey’s first ew weeks as the News/Media Alliance (NMA) chief executive were anything but "business as usual." After being appointed the new president and CEO of this leading trade organization, representing over 2,000 news and magazine media outlets worldwide, some of the most critical issues and advocacy concerning Western news media's future required immediate attention. That list includes Gannett’s recent stand-alone antitrust filing against Google; Canada's final passage of the Canadian Journalism Compensation Bill, which will require big-tech companies like Google & Facebook to pay news organizations for the content they monetize; and how this may impact the U.S. Congress passing laws that would offer similar compensation to American news outlets. In addition, the congressional support of the Local Journalism Sustainability Act (LJSA) has reemerged — legislation that would help fund local journalism via tax incentives to publishers for salaries, businesses who invest in advertising suppo

Gannett Co., Inc. filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against Google for “monopolization of advertising technology markets and deceptive commercial practices.” According to Gannett’s press release, “The lawsuit seeks to restore competition in the digital advertising marketplace and end Google’s monopoly, which will encourage investment in newsrooms and news content throughout the country.” Others have filed similar lawsuits. A bipartisan group of 17 State Attorneys Generals filed a similar lawsuit against Google for ad-tech monopolization in December 2020. Then, the U.S. Department of Justice, joined by a bipartisan group of 17 additional states, filed an ad-tech lawsuit against Google earlier this year. Both lawsuits are ongoing. Last week, the European Union’s competition authority filed an ad-tech lawsuit against Google, citing similar circumstances. Both the DOJ and EU suits are seeking monetary damages and fines, as well as the breakup of Google’s ad-t

To say that Peter Bhatia is a successful newspaper editor would be akin to stating that Tom Brady was a good quarterback. As Bhatia reminisces during this vodcast interview with E&P Publisher Mike Blinder, when he left Stanford in 1975 to begin his journalism career, the first operation he worked at was using "hot type”  typesetting to lay out the daily edition. Since those early days, Bhatia has managed newsrooms that collectively have won 10 Pulitzer Prizes. He spent time in academia as the Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism director at Arizona State University's Cronkite School of Journalism. Bhatia was president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and received the 2020 "Benjamin Bradlee Editor of the Year Award" from the National Press Foundation. He is the first journalist of South Asian descent to lead a major daily newspaper in the U.S. And was featured on the cover of E&P Magazine as our 2008 "Editor of the Year." For the last seven years, Bhatia was part of the Gannett/

As E&P Reported in our February 2023 cover story, "Labor puts it all on the line,” 2022 was a very active year for union membership, walkouts and strikes. And perhaps no one knows this more than Jon Schleuss, the president of The NewsGuild - Communications Workers of America (TNG-CWA). Schleuss grew up in rural Arkansas, as he admits, in a "very republican world," where the idea of unions and strikes was far from the political discourse he and his family would ever discuss. Schleuss entered journalism at a young age at his college radio station. After graduation, he worked for Wehco Media as the online editor of their second-largest newspaper, The Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Later, he joined the Los Angeles Times as a data and graphics journalist, becoming involved in organized labor by being one of a small group that helped unionize the Times in 2018. In 2019, Schleuss ran for and won the presidency of the NewsGuild, where he has led their membership of more than 25,000 workers within over 200 m

There are hundreds of Evan Brandts in our industry today, doing their jobs alone or in a greatly reduced newsroom, working the same beats covered by tens or hundreds more just a few years ago. It’s easy to cite the reasons for the growth of what many today call "ghost papers," where a community is being underserved in local news coverage. Some blame it on the unregulated "Big Tech" industry that monetizes content while also absorbing local advertising revenues that rightly belong to the news publisher. Others call it evolution, where "survival of the fittest" is tested as legacy media adapts to a multimedia culture. And many blame the corporate greed of hedge funds, which found a quick way to generate short-term profits, by buying up local newspapers and selling off their assets, with little regard for the mission to their local communities — providing that independent, constitutionally-mandated "check on power."  Before his April 2022 appearance on "60 Minutes," odds are you never even heard of Evan Brandt