E&P Reports with Mike Blinder

In 1913, Victoriano Manteiga came to the United States from Cuba and went to work as a "lector," reading the news of the day to the immigrant workers of the Morgan Cigar Factory in Ybor City, a National Historic Landmark District in Tampa. In 1922 he founded a newspaper for those workers that is now celebrating 100-years of service. Today Victoriano's grandson Patrick Manteiga is "at the helm" of La Gaceta, the nation's only trilingual newspaper still informing, influencing, and thriving as it publishes weekly in English, Spanish and Italian.

In this 138th episode of "E&P Reports," meet Patrick Manteiga, the editor, publisher and owner of the 100-year-old, Tampa Bay based La Gaceta, the nation's only trilingual newspaper, as he speaks about heritage, history politics and more. Also appearing is Assistant Editor Gene Siudut.

Today, two of the premier industry associations representing news and magazine publishers join forces.

It's official: the News Media Alliance (NMA) will merge today with the Association of Magazine Media, still fondly known by its former acronym, "MPA," or the Magazine Publishers Association. News businesses and magazine publishers have largely traveled similar but parallel paths since the advent of the internet. They've been challenged to build digital products and attract new audiences to them. They've both endured a revolution in the print space, with former analog print processes replaced by digital workflow and computer-to-plate (CTP) imaging. Both have been through consolidation, paper price hikes, changes to postal regulations, the disruption of their advertising and revenue models and more than a few lean years when austerity seemed the only path to sustainability. Though news businesses and magazines across the genre spectrum also had their unique challenges along the way, they share a lot in common — in the past and certainly in the present.

"We've had different paths, but we have the same future," said David Chavern, president and CEO of News Media Alliance.

For the 137th episode of the E&P Reports vodcast, Chavern joined Rita Cohen, president and CEO of the MPA, and E&P Publisher Mike Blinder on the eve of the merger's resolution, to talk about the newly formed organization and its advocacy plans.

Cohen has been with the MPA since 1995 and just assumed the president and CEO role in April of this year. Before that, she'd served as senior vice president of legislative and regulatory policy.

"I think it's going to be a wonderful group together. … We feel, going forward, our issues are even more aligned than they have been in the past," Cohen said.

Founded in 1992 and headquartered in Washington, DC, the NMA represents more than 2,000 membership organizations, from small, local news outlets to large international media corporations.

The MPA is a national trade association representing more than 500 consumer magazine publishers with print, online, and mobile app titles.

The new organization will be known as the News/Media Alliance.

"When we originally came up with that name, it was really designed with aspirations to represent everybody who creates great journalism — and great journalism of all kinds," Chavern explained.

Cohen will stay on in a new role as a senior advisor. Seven board members from the MPA will join the NMA's Board.

Moving forward, they'll collaborate on events, including conferences, and form a unified front on advocacy.

Blinder asked his guests, "How big will the organization be once the dust settles from this merger?"

Chavern estimated they'll have a dedicated staff of 25 to 30. They'll have a lot on their plate. The News/Media Alliance will now represent two formidable domestic industries. Chavern said the news publishing industry is a $20 billion a year industry, and magazines weigh in at roughly $25 billion a year.

"Together, we're representing $45 billion of business annually in the U.S.," Chavern said. "And just to put that into context, the U.S. recorded music industry is about $15 billion. "Between the two memberships, we're about three times larger than recorded music in the U.S. — so, a lot of economic activity, a lot of needs, a lot of challenges, … also huge amounts of opportunities."

The two associations already shared some members before the merger — for example, Condé Nast or Hearst Media, which publishes both print and digital magazines and news.

Their members naturally have differing approaches to the platform — some still bullish and dependent on print revenues, and on the other end of the spectrum, digital-centric businesses. And in the middle, there are a great many platform agnostics. Nevertheless, all will benefit from their collective advocacy. They'll continue to work on postal reforms and champion the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), which would impact both news and magazine publishers. They'll also pick up the mantle of data governance and the appropriate use of data.

"We have many, many more readers than we ever did," Chavern said. "And by 'ever,' I mean ever, including whatever the golden era of print was. We have a huge and growing demand for the content. The challenge we have … is that we now have many intermediaries between our customers and us, who take a lot of value."

"Our business models are just like the ones the magazine industry has faced, and we're going to solve them together," Chavern said.

The Baltimore Banner website proudly displays a mission: to be the leading provider of news and lifestyle content in the Baltimore metro area, which Nielsen ranks as the 26th largest Designated Market Area (DMA) in the United States. Currently, the city has 11 newspapers, four broadcast TV news operations and a full-time news/talk radio outlet.

But when the well-known CEO of Choice Hotels International and philanthropist Stewart Bainum's battle with Alden Capitol to acquire the Baltimore Sun from Tribune media failed, he turned to an already strategized "Plan B." He pledged $50 million of his own money to enter the market as a standalone, digital-only, nonprofit news platform: The Baltimore Banner.

E&P's May 2022 cover story features an extensive piece from Contributing Editor Gretchen A. Peck, focusing on the formation of The Banner's team that has assembled in their new waterfront offices downtown, the newsroom structure and the entire culture of the people behind this new news start-up.

But in this 136th episode of "E&P Reports," Publisher Mike Blinder interviews The Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism's, Founder & Chairman Stewart Bainum, Jr. and CEO Imtiaz Patel, about their 18-month journey together, first to try to acquire the 184-year-old Baltimore Sun and then their "pivot" to launch a nonprofit news start-up The Baltimore Banner, to accomplish their mission to become Baltimore's "leading provider of news and lifestyle content."

You may already be familiar with "deep fakes" — the colloquial term for manipulating video, warping its reality with a particular rhetorical objective in mind. But how pervasive, easy to use and convincing have deep fakes gotten in recent years?

On this 135th episode of E&P Reports, Host and E&P Publisher Mike Blinder; guest Sam Gregory, program director at WITNESS.org; and E&P contributor Gretchen Peck discuss Artificial Intelligence (AI) in video and audio and how computer-generated graphics (CGI) technologies have gotten exponentially more sophisticated and accessible in recent years.

Hear how AI will be used to take this very vodcast recording and translate the host's voice into Spanish — as though Blinder himself was speaking the language. It's allowing E&P Reports to reach much wider Spanish-speaking audiences here in the U.S. and worldwide.

The group also discussed the infamous Tom Cruise deep fake that circulated on TikTok and how a Russian propaganda deep-fake appeared to show Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy encouraging his country and troops to surrender to Russia. It was a stark example of how potentially dangerous deep-fake deployment can be.

How much of a threat are deep fakes to journalism, journalists and truth itself? It now falls on the shoulders of journalists and documentarians to invest resources in digital forensics to verify the veracity and sources of video content, so they can be part of the solution to stop the spread of disinformation.

Listen/watch now, and check out E&P's May issue for a deeper dive on deep fakes.

The latest Borrell Benchmarking report from Borrell Associates was just released, showing that local digital advertising will grow 9% to over $92 billion, which will amount to almost two-thirds of all available local advertising dollars, rising to nearly three-quarters by 2025.

The major shift in purchase behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic seems to center on how local businesses moved a good deal of their budgets from Google paid search to targeted banners served programmatically. The report also revealed that almost 20% of media companies stated that video streaming (OTT) has become their number one digital product purchased by local advertisers, with spending projected to surpass paid search within three years.

Other data within the 66-page report showed that for the 1st time, TV stations have surpassed newspapers in terms of average digital dollars, with 50% stating that OTT is their No. 1 source of digital revenue, with no newspapers making that claim.

In this 134th episode of "E&P Reports," Borrell Associates CEO Gordon Borrell breaks down the numbers in their latest Local Digital Advertising Benchmark Study. Also joining in the conversation to offer insight into how this information can benefit the news media industry are Angela Betasso, president and CEO, JDA Media andTom Sly, VP, revenue national media at The E.W. Scripps Company.

Related links:

Borrell 2022 Annual Benchmarking Report

Local Media Consortium 2022 Spring Conference

JDA Media Boot Camp

Liz White, Publisher & Executive Vice President of Record-Journal Publishing Company (R-J Media), states during this "E&P Reports" interview, "I got the idea from reading my own newspaper." White explains how she learned that their city of Meriden, Connecticut was receiving $36 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to help the community recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

White said upon learning that the funds would be allocated by a local American Rescue Plan Steering Committee, she reached out to the Meriden Economic Development Director to see if they could put together a program that would allow local businesses to tap some of the funds to drive business through local advertising. Soon, the local chamber of commerce came on board, and the "Meriden Business Boost" program was presented and subsequently approved by the committee.

"Meriden Business Boost" is a simple program that allows any local business or non-profit organization, regardless of size, if they need to market to the local community, apply to receive a $4,000 advertising program placed across R-J Media. $2,000 of funding for each business campaign will be paid from federal funding, and $2,000 will be matched by the R-J Media Group. Plus, the Chamber of Commerce will provide a $50 discount for new members or a $50 credit for existing members to use towards advertising as well. The initial round of the program will be limited to the 1st 150 businesses that apply. Once this round is completed, there is a pending plan to allow a second group of 150 to participate as well.

In this 129th episode of "E&P Reports," Liz White, Publisher & Executive Vice President of Record-Journal Publishing Company (R-J Media), is joined by Strategic Sales Manager Jaime Gianini to explain how they developed, presented and eventually gained approval for the "Meriden Business Boost" program, that allows 150 local businesses to tap into American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to advertise with their company for free!

On September 1, 2021, E&P reported that The Chief-Leader, the 100+-year-old, family-owned NYC weekly, whose nearly 30,000 subscribers are almost entirely New York City municipal workers, was sold to Ben August.

August has no roots in journalism or media, having sold a lucrative human resource services company he built. And since then, devoting himself to his Napa Valley vineyard and a nonprofit group that investigates who really wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare.

But his passion for supporting the "worker" compelled him to enter our industry to steward The Chief, whose masthead proclaims it "A Voice for Workers," bulleting: "Good Pay, Safety, Opportunity and Equity" as the publications' key missions to its readers.

Now with a new editorial team, design and website, August said his mission is to expand this century-old brand (whose name stems from its 1897 founding as the independent newspaper for NYC firefighters) to be the voice of workers beyond the borders of New York City.

In this 132nd episode of E&P Reports, Ben August, the new owner and publisher of The Chief, New York City's weekly newspaper for municipal workers, explains why he is spending less time on his Napa Vineyard and more time devoted to transforming a more than 100-year-old newspaper into a modernized voice for workers everywhere. Also on this episode is a well-known industry consultant and founder of Creative Circle Media Solutions, Bill Ostendorf, who explains the transformation process of the paper's print design and website and plans for its expansion over the months to come.

In the March issue of Editor & Publisher, the Cordova Times was featured as an "honorable mention" in "10 That Do it Right," E&P's yearly salute to top news media companies. The small weekly in remote South-Central Alaska (only accessible by boat or plane) was awarded "Best Comprehensive Coverage of the COVID Pandemic" across all media, broadcast and print, and "Alaska's Best Weekly" for two years in a row by the Alaska Press Club.

The Cordova Times covers local news, city government, community features, commercial fisheries, environmental news, the Alaska legislature, Alaska Native news, arts, science, history and Alaskan culture. Unfortunately, The Cordova Times is struggling to remain in business since its current owners, The Native Village of Eyak (NVE), has recently announced that if a suitable owner does not come forward, the tribe will simply stop the newspaper. And the price? Free!

Tribal Council Chair Mark Hoover is quoted as saying: "We are open to any proposals and will work with any group that might be interested." Interested parties should contact NVE Deputy Director Brooke Mallory for more information at [email protected].

In this 131st episode of "E&P Reports," we explore the world of publishing a weekly newspaper in a remote Alaskan community with Editor Annette Potter and contributing writer Zachary Snowdon Smith of The Cordova Times. This tribal publication needs to find a new owner whose only investment will be to live in what Niche.com describes as "one of the best places to live in Alaska."

Appalachian news veterans exit the daily newspaper to start a growing non-profit — The Cardinal News. On February 27th, the Washington Post's Margaret Sullivan published a story entitled, "This rural news start-up has two reporters and an editor with no broadband. Already, it's made an impact," and suddenly, the entire world is made aware of the story of an Appalachian digital-only news site called The Cardinal News. Founded in July of 2021 and going live a few months later, this online-only, non-profit news operation owes its start to a grant of $100,000 and now survives on donations from individuals, corporations and foundations. And with this initial seed money, some local key editorial veterans were able to elect to exit the largest daily newspaper in the area, Lee Enterprises' Roanoke (VA) Times, to build this news start-up.

As funding grows, so does the influence of their reporting. The Cardinal News' November of 2021 story on a major flood that ravaged the small community of Hurley, VA, helped amplify the resident's plight so they could get the help needed from the state government. In fact, the website's audience is not just their primary area of service defined as "Southwest and Southside Virginia." Their daily Google Analytics clearly shows that their second-largest audience "cluster" is the state capital of Richmond.

In this 128th episode of "E&P Reports," meet two former editorial staff members of Lee Enterprises' Roanoke (VA) Times, Luanne Rife and Dwayne Yancey, who both resigned to start this growing online-only, non-profit start-up, The Cardinal News, as their Executive Director/ Chief Development Officer and Editor-in-Chief (respectively).

As E&P reported earlier this week (Florida legislators put news publishers — in the state and beyond — on notice), the news publishing industry was stunned to learn that the Florida State Senate voted in favor of a bill that changed the requirement for government entities to place public notices in local newspapers. The amendment that changed the existing bill, which just went into effect a few weeks earlier, will now allow local governments and private parties to provide notice about government meetings, zoning changes, and legal proceedings to appear on obscure government websites rather than being placed first on the floridapublicnotices.com website run by the Florida Press Association.

There may be many reasons on why this sudden reversal took place, including that this quick change of course could actually be a vendetta that starts as high as Governor Ron DeSantis and State Senate President Wilton Simpson against the Florida newspaper industry because of critical reporting — one reporter, in particular at the Miami Herald, Mary Ellen Klas, the newspaper's state capital bureau chief, whom Simpson accused of "collusion" with Democrats over a contentious redistricting debate happening among the legislators.

Regardless of the reason, most critics agree that legislation like this reduces government transparency and reduces an important revenue stream that supports local journalism.

In this 129th episode of "E&P Reports," Editor & Publisher hosts a panel of news publishing leaders on how this reversal may have been avoided and what the future may hold as states might be compelled to mimic Florida's actions. Speaking on this topic are Dean Ridings, CEO of America's Newspapers; Jim Fogler, President & CEO; Florida Press Assoc., Brad Thompson, CEO Detroit Legal News; Don Craven, President & CEO, Illinois Press Assoc.; Samuel Morley, General Counsel, Florida Press Assoc. and Bill Barker, Founder & CEO, Barker Strategic Solutions and past Regional President for Gannett Florida.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of E&P's coverage on public notice legislation across the country.