E&P Reports with Mike Blinder

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" at understanding media concepts, thus offering local media companies more knowledgeable buyers within their markets. Some respondents stated that local media companies should "take more time to listen to what the client is asking for" and "come with more creative ideas about their business."

In this episode of "E&P Reports," we break down the data recently released by Borrell Associates in their latest survey, conducted April through June in 2023, entitled: "New Insights About Today's Local Ad Buyers." Appearing in this vodcast is Borrell Associates' President Jim Brown, who will discuss the latest trends they have uncovered in local advertiser spending, which media types are showing the most demand and how legacy media such as newspapers, radio and TV can capture the predicted 4% increase of overall marketing dollars being invested by local businesses.

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 editor. Kho was the first woman and the first person of color to lead its newsroom.

Since Kho's appointment, there have been many changes at the paper, that include the dropping of their paywall for access to all digital content. A "right to be forgotten" policy, that allows people who have been reported on to seek a review and possibly have stories removed from internet searches. And the addition of twelve Sun-Times' "Next Voices," who are guest columnists that were selected from reader submitted entries.

In this episode of E&P Reports, we check in with Chicago Public Media, owners of PBS affiliate WBEZ, to find out how their 2022 acquisition of the 149-year-old Chicago Sun-Times is going. Appearing on the program are Jennifer Kho, executive editor for the newspaper and Tracy Brown, chief content officer for the parent company, who discuss their new initiatives, collaborative efforts and how the blending of these two major market brands is working to expand their audience.

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 community needs a great community newspaper, and we want to meet that need here — just like we have in Tullahoma for nearly 50 years. We have a strong tradition of service while producing award-winning work."

"I can't stress enough that we were devastated when these communities were left without a newspaper," said Michael Fishman, president of Lakeway Publishing. "And being in the adjoining counties in this region, it just felt that we had the resources and the experience to return a local newspaper to these communities. News deserts — we're totally opposed to that happening," Fishman said. "And while we can't go all over Tennessee, by any means, we were founded on providing quality, local journalism to communities so they would have news and information. And we also feel a lot that it supports the economic vitality of that community to have a good local newspaper."

In this episode of E&P Reports, we go beyond reporting on news publishers by focusing on the impact on a population when they learn they may lose their newspaper of record. Appearing in this interview and speaking about the value of local journalism as it affects the people and public policy of their community are Bedford County, Tennessee's Chris White, director of planning, Greg Vick, county commissioner for District 2 and Curt Cobb, county clerk & master.

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, Carroll Bogert, Bobby Ghosh, Lauren Williams, as well as Global Press reporters across the planet.

In the book, Hegranes states that international coverage led by local journalists can restore trust in the entire news publishing industry. She explains, "to enact this solution, the industry will have to let go of many outdated assumptions about what news people want, who has a right to tell their story."

In this episode of "E&P Reports," we go one-on-one with award-winning journalist and founder of the Global Press Institute (GPI) Cristi Hegranes, whose new book: "Byline" makes a case that the global news publishing industry can become more sustainable by rethinking how it provides global news coverage by focusing on local news sourcing — as opposed to: "The flawed discipline of parachute journalism."

Within the interview with E&P Publisher Mike Blinder, Hegranes cites recent GPI research indicating, "There is a deep reservoir of untapped demand from readers in the United States — across a wide range of demographics, including noncitizen, diaspora, and migrant populations — for international journalism that is local, precise and representative."

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. It seemed only logical to these two state media leaders that merging resources would be a logical way to strengthen the support provided to both association memberships.

So on August 20, 2023, history was made when two separate media associations that for years considered themselves competitive for audience and ad dollars — Arizona Newspapers Association and Arizona Broadcasters Association — announced that their boards approved that they would become one on September 1, 2023. Arizona Media Association was created.

Both Kline and Simpson will remain on board in leadership roles, with Kline taking the "top chair" of CEO and president. Kline was quoted in the initial announcement: "There is a significant amount of line-blurring between platforms. For most news consumers, all local outlets fall under the umbrella of local news, making the merger a logical next step for the industry organizations in Arizona." He added, "It gives us a lot of extra room to stand boldly," Kline said of the partnership, "with hundreds of companies across platforms."

In this episode of "E&P Reports," we explore the groundbreaking move by two organizations that considered themselves competitive for decades. Arizona Newspapers Association and Arizona Broadcasters Association merge into Arizona Media Association. We chat about the "whys and hows" of the union with Lisa Simpson, the former executive director of Arizona Newspapers Association, and Chris Kline, the former president/ CEO of Arizona Broadcasters Association. We also learn their future plans for advancing the industry and serving their combined membership.

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, Facebook & Networks," that would wind up more than three years later having Katzgrau subpoenaed to appear as a witness for the defense, in Google's pending January 2023 lawsuit filed by the US Justice Department, along with the Attorneys General of California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Virginia, charging the tech giant for monopolizing multiple digital advertising technology products in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act.

The specific section of Katzgrau's paper that caught Google's law firm's attention was where he stated, "Small publishers can retain and regain business that was once theirs by closely examining the weaknesses inherent with all networks of scale. Just as Google and Facebook's strengths map to a small publisher's weaknesses, their weaknesses map back to a small publisher's greatest strengths." It can only be assumed that he will be "called to the stand" due to his expertise of more than 15 years as a media software engineer (that included two years at Yahoo!), to try to prove that Google may not be as overpowering as media companies claim.

The irony is that, at best, Katzgrau will be a hostile witness since he has written several op-eds and spoken at numerous conferences about how important it is for big tech not to maintain its monopolistic hold over the media industry.

On July 17th, 2023, Katzgrau wrote for his local news publishing website, which he recently became publisher, RedBankGreen.com, an op-ed entitled "Livin' On a Prayer: "So, Google — you mindless and largely indifferent collective: I hope the DOJ helps chop you up into thousands of unrecognizable pieces. Google à la Bell."

In this episode of "E&P Reports," we explore the recent Google Antitrust suit filed by the DOJ through one of the witnesses for the defense, news media industry digital ad software provider Kenny Katzgrau, CEO of Broadstreet. Katzgrau, who wrote an op-ed three years ago offering advice to small news publishers on how they can compete with big-tech local media advertising dollars, now finds that his words will likely become evidence presented by Google that they may be a less-dominant media giant than has been reported. Katzgrau, a local news publisher, discusses how even though he believes that Google is a powerful, dominant, monopolistic player in the local ad space, he may find himself sitting on a stand offering evidence for the defense.

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 first newsletter to devote extensive coverage to Covid-19, accurately calling the invasion of Ukraine by Russia almost to the day and being one of the first news sources to forecast the enormous importance of AI and the leadership roles taken by Google, Meta, and Weibu."

In this episode of E&P Reports, we go one-on-one with news media industry veteran John Ellis about his 40+ year journey from NBC News in the 70s and 80s, columnist for the Boston Globe and LA Times in the 90s, leadership roles in the 21st century at CNBC, and FOX News and eventual founder and editor today of the daily newsletter, News Items. We also chat with Ellis on how he sees journalism and news publishing in general have changed over the decades, where the industry is today and how he feels it will evolve in the years to come.

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 City Advocate, a brand new, digital-only news operation in the state's third largest metropolitan area.

"We were sending reporters up to Shreveport and kept hearing 'there's no local reporting of any size, in that market," stated Judi Terzotis, Publisher of Georges Media Group. "We went on a three-month 'listening tour,' and what we heard was almost jaw-dropping. 'Where do you get your news?' we would ask, and they would literally say, 'There's this guy on Facebook, and he sometimes goes to City Council."

In their July 2023 announcement, the new managing editor Barbara Leader stated, "Shreveport-Bossier is a metro area that is hungry for local news coverage. I'm eager to lead and be part of this group of journalists dedicated to telling stories of the area's arts and culture, business, education, and health care community, as well as crime and local government."

During this interview with E&P Publisher Mike Blinder, Terzotis admitted, "During our pre-launch 'listening tour,' we were very explicit that we want to bring a 10-person newsroom to Shreveport." She continued to explain that they then asked civic leaders and large business owners to "come to the table" and contribute to make it happen. Terzotis stated that the original goal was to raise $1.5 million in donations for the first three years, and they have reached to date over $500,000.

In this episode of E&P Reports, we chat with Judi Terzotis, the publisher of Georges Media Group, Louisiana's largest local news media company and owners of the New Orleans' Times-Picayune | NOLA.com about their expansion into the state's third largest metro area with the newly launched, digital-only Shreveport-Bossier City Advocate. Also appearing in the interview to explain more about why this new investment fits into their business model and how the news outlet will serve the community are Georges Media Group President Kevin Hall and the new Managing Editor of the Shreveport-Bossier Advocate Barbara Leader.

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 list of 150.

Now some six months later, Gannett announced the coveted USA TODAY Best-Selling Books List is back, placing longtime Arts & Entertainment Journalist Critic for the Arizona Republic, a Gannett/ USA TODAY newspaper, Barbara VanDenburgh as the new editor.

Although VanDenburgh has achieved journalistic recognition, winning the "Best of the West Award" for short-form feature writing in 2018 and the 2015 Arizona Press Club award for arts criticism, she is also shown a high degree of mastery of the digital publishing side of the industry. VanDenburgh started at the Republic as a Digital Innovation Strategist, where she won the Gannett Innovation Challenge after developing new audience strategies.

In this episode of "E&P Reports," we meet the new editor of the rereleased USA TODAY Best-Selling Books List, Barbara VanDenburgh. We talk with VanDenburgh about why bringing back the USA Today lists is important and how she feels about her new role with national influence over the very competitive book publishing industry.

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 McCloskey New Venture Competition, the Lookup Startup Competition and others.

In this episode of "E&P Reports," we chat with the newest addition to The Washington Post's Op-Ed team, Renee Yaseem, a GenZ intern who pens a twice-weekly newsletter called Post Grad. Although just a few weeks in, Yaseen has a vast following that reads her advice and perspective on the many challenges that face today's young adults. We ask Yaseem what it is like to publish to such a large audience under the auspices of The Post masthead and how she feels about the responsibility of having so much "influence" at such a young age.