E&P Reports with Mike Blinder

Shaw Media claims to be "the third oldest, continuously owned and operated family newspaper in the nation." Today, Shaw Media has more than 300 employees working at 53 newspapers and magazines across Illinois and Iowa.

Tom Shaw, who has worked at various levels within the company, currently holds the position of vice president and chief product officer. He recently led the launch of a news consolidation model called Shaw Local, designed to better their communities that contributed to their yearly double-digit growth in reader revenues.

In this segment of "E&P Reports," publisher Mike Blinder goes one-on-one with Shaw to learn more about how news consolidation models may not just benefit their company, but the industry as a whole. Plus, we learn Shaw's thoughts about the industry's relationship and future with Google and Facebook, growing advertising revenue, building diversity in our newsrooms, and Shaw Media's plans for growth in the future.

Related Links: Shaw Local, Shaw Media's new consolidated news platform: https://www.shawlocal.com

https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/shaw-media-creates-digital-news-network-for-northern-illinois,188311?

Shaw Media's corporate website: https://www.shawmedia.com

Talking Glass Media (TGM) recently celebrated 6 million page views on its flagship "good news" website SignalsAZ.com, launched in March 2018 by Brad Fain, CEO of its parent company: Fain Signature Group, a multi-generational land holdings and real estate group based in Prescott Valley, Ariz.

Today, TGM publishes two regional magazines, the area's premiere recreational guide, broadcasts podcasts and videos, and offers outdoor digital display marketing along with a complete suite of digital services for local businesses. TGM's executive editor Guy Roginson's background is not from the legacy media side of the business. He was brought in from an advertising agency to build TGM by "bringing together highly motivated professionals, dynamic content, the latest technologies and regional assets to deliver essential information, events, entertainment and news to a place once aptly named Lonesome Valley," as stated on their website.

In this edition of "E&P Reports," publisher Mike Blinder discusses with Roginson about how TGM operates, and what their vision is for maintaining growth in both readership and revenue.

It's true that over the years we have seen the Borrell Associates' Advertiser Research Studies show a downward trend in local advertiser spending for printed newspapers. But today, Borrell Associates CEO Gordon Borrell feels that those same newspaper companies are now in the right position to gain larger shares of local digital dollars as those advertisers look to shift their expenditures to those companies with the right solutions. According to Borrell's latest newspaper study, most local ad directors feel they are poised for significant growth over the next year. It's all part of a new study being performed by Borrell Associates and America's Newspapers to help the industry find the best opportunities for growth in 2021.

In this segment of E&P Reports, publisher Mike Blinder goes one-on-one with Borrell on initial findings and what opportunities are available now for garnering new ad dollars.

Related links: More information about participating in the Borrell/America's Newspapers Study: https://newspapers.org/stories/research-study,4157875?

Borrell Associates Website:

http://www.BorrellAssocaites.com

Damian Radcliffe is the Carolyn S. Chambers Professor in Journalism at University of Oregon and also a fellow of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. However, most of us know Professor Radcliffe as the author of numerous studies that provide insight into the global journalism ecosystem. His latest study on the impact of COVID-19 on journalism was just released in conjunction with The Thomson Reuters Foundation. It reveals the pandemic's impact on the personal safety and welfare of journalists, the structure of newsrooms and disruption to business models and the proliferation of fake news, and surging threats to media freedom. The study also identifies best practice and innovative approaches that have been developed as a response to the challenges of COVID-19.

In this segment of E&P Reports, publisher Mike Blinder chats with Radcliffe about his current findings from this study and what trends he is seeing in the other research projects he is currently working on.

Related links:

More about Damian Radcliffe: https://www.linkedin.com/in/damianradcliffe/

Download the entire Thomson Reuters Foundation study http://covid-report.trust.org

Many know newspaper industry veteran John Kelly, who has spent over 30-years in sales leadership positions for Cox, Gannett and others. John is still consulting today and publishing a daily newsletter as well as speaking his mind when it comes to the state of the industry today and what he sees as our biggest challenges when it comes to ad sales. Mike Blinder, Publisher of E&P Magazine has known John for most of the 25-years he has spent providing media ad sales training and revenue generation services to hundreds of newspapers worldwide.

Join Mike & John, as these two old sales "war horses" talk about their views on what it takes to succeed in ad sales as well as the challenges we face in a world of pandemics and corporate takeovers.

With help from the Local Media Association (LMA), three Ohio News Publishers are uniting together in a new initiative called "Amplify Ohio" with a goal of publishing stories together that focuses on health disparities impacting the local Ohio Black and LGBTQ communities they serve. Their collaborative storytelling will use available tools such as podcasts, videos, explainers and more.

On the business side, the LMA team will work with consultants to launch a community contribution portal for all three publishers: Black Girl Media, Columbus Black and the Buckeye Flame, with hopes to create a common technology stack and seamless user experience that can possibly be deployed in other local markets to help provide an innovative system for publishers to collaborate together on common topics.

In this segment of E&P Reports, publisher Mike Blinder chats with Nancy Lane, CEO of The Local Media Association who is helping fund and guide the project, along with: Shana Black, founder and publisher of Black Girl Media; Kevin Lloyd, founder and chief executive officer of Columbus Black and Ken Schneck, editor of The Buckeye Flame speak on their common goals to help address the health care disparities their readers experience, plus other common topics of concern their communities share with each other.

Related links:

More about Amplify Ohio: https://www.localmedia.org/lma-launches-amplify-ohio-a-diverse-digital-media-coalition/

Black Girl Media Website: https://www.blackgirl.media

Columbus Black Website: https://columbusblack.com

Buckeye Flame Website:

There was a lot of industry buzz last month when it was announced that Editor and Publisher Magazine was supplying more than a hundred years of editions digitally for free via a partnership with The Internet Archive, one of the largest libraries in the world.

Founded by Brewster Kale, a passionate advocate for public internet access and a successful entrepreneur, Kahle has spent his career intent on a singular focus: providing universal access to all knowledge. Soon after graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied artificial intelligence, Kahle helped found Thinking Machines, a parallel supercomputer maker. In 1989, Kahle created the internet's first publishing system called Wide Area Information Server (WAIS), later selling the company to AOL. In 1996, Kahle co-founded Alexa Internet, which helps catalog the web, selling it to Amazon in 1999. The Internet Archive, which he founded in 1996, now preserves 20 petabytes of data—the books, web pages, music, television, and software of our cultural heritage, working with more than 400 library and university partners to create a digital library and making it accessible to all.

In 2005, Kale was honored by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2008, he received the Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award from the University of Illinois. In 2010, he received his Honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Alberta, and in 2012, Kale was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame.

In the segment of E&P Reports, publisher Mike Blinder has a lively conversation with Kale who speaks about how he feels about digital privacy, the future of content distribution and compensation, and why the preservation and access to historical content is a matter of paramount importance.

Related links:

More about Brewster Kale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster_Kahle

The Internet Archive: https://archive.org

Editor and Publisher's 100+ years of Archives: https://www.editorandpublisher.com/archives/

For more than 66 years, the Parker family has owned the 14 weekly newspapers of the New Jersey Hills Media Group, which serves 50 communities in north central New Jersey. With a combined circulation of just under 100,000, it is the largest weekly newspaper group in the state.

When the current owners, Liz and Steve Parker, reached out to Grimes, McGovern & Associates to explore the possibility of sale, little did they know that an ensuing deal would be consummated that ended up creating a new non-profit entity that would eventually own and manage the group. With letters of intent now signed, the Corporation for NJ Local Media (CNJLM) will take over the operation and start a major fundraising initiative to achieve the goal of "building strong communities through journalism and civic engagement." Moreover, the two leaders of CNJLM: executive director Amanda Richardson and founding chair Nic Platt met each other as opposing candidates for a local election.

Learn more about how this transition took place and what plans are underway in converting this family-owned group to a non-profit local news entity as E&P publisher Mike Blinder interviews Richardson and Jim McDonald, senior associate for Grimes, McGovern & Associates.

HD Media, the West Virginia-based publisher of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Charleston Gazette-Mail and the Herald-Dispatch, is making its own news with the recent announcement that they have filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against Google and Facebook. The purpose is to hopefully help the entire industry receive some form of compensation from the 70%+ of local advertising revenue these tech giants make from the content they exploit.

In this segment of E&P Reports, publisher Mike Blinder has an in-depth conversation with lawsuit co-council Paul T. Farrell Jr. and HD Media's VP of news and executive editor Lee Wolverton to uncover how the lawsuit started and what they want to see happen as a result of their actions. Farrell and Wolverton also speak to how they feel about the need for local journalism and how this suit is not just about ad dollars but also the survival of the news industry as a whole.

Related links:

Download a copy of the class action lawsuit https://www.scribd.com/document/492607988/Complaint-HD-Media-Co-LLC-v-Google#from_embed

"Investigation of Competition in Digital Markets" House Judiciary Committee October 2020 Report on antitrust and anticompetitive conduct by Google and Facebook https://judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/competition_in_digital_markets.pdf?utm_campaign=4493-519

HD Media Wikipedia Page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_Media

Paul T Farrell Jr Wikipedia Page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_T._Farrell_Jr.

It wasn't too long ago that the family-owned Silver City (N.M.) Daily Press Publishing Co. announced that it would print its final edition. But, 24 hours later, it was still printing under new, local ownership. It was then-general manager Nickolas Siebel (now publisher) who quickly reached out to local civic leaders for help in putting together a loan to allow him to keep this hometown paper alive. Today, the Press is thriving under Siebel's leadership, even in a COVID-19 world, with healthy subscription numbers and advertising revenue. Plus, the Press has expanded its offerings to provide varsity football broadcasts, an auction to help local businesses during the pandemic, and even publishing a special report for the local municipal league this year.

In this segment of E&P Reports, E&P publisher Mike Blinder chats with Siebel on what it takes to takeover a local publication and keep it thriving even in challenging economic times.