It's new source of local journalism:
"They’re starting — yes, starting — a newspaper on the Cape" by Allison Hagan Globe Correspondent, August 9, 2019
Despite the bad news for local journalism nationwide, Editor Edward Miller and publisher Teresa Parker believe their weekly model can work. Miller and Parker are running the business out of their house in Wellfleet for now, but they hope to have an office once they start printing the paper and publishing it regularly online, which should be around October. Compared with metro newspapers, local papers are more resilient because they offer exclusive content and can benefit from hyper-local advertising, according to a study conducted by the Columbia Journalism Review in 2017.
Miller and Parker say they’ve spoken to owners of weekly local papers in similar markets across the country about strategies to build a sustainable publication that isn’t overly reliant on ad revenue. The paper plans to offer a yearly all-inclusive print and digital subscription for $60. “I believe in the importance of small, local papers in creating a sense of community and really making democracy work at a local level,” Miller said.
The paper has raised an undisclosed amount of money from private investors to get off the ground and hopes to go public next spring through a direct public offering, which is similar to an initial public offering but with fewer costs.
The five-year business plan predicts the paper will break even in year four, Miller said.
“Nobody’s getting rich,” Parker said. “We’re trying to be a modest, viable, sustainable business that invests in itself before it thinks about taking profits out.”
The couple also plans to start a nonprofit arm to support in-depth special reports on critical local concerns, such as LGBTQ issues and climate change.
Until the paper receives approval from the federal government to establish the nonprofit, it’s working with the nonprofit Center for the Study of Public Policy.
In July, Miller quit his job as an associate editor at The Provincetown Banner, a local Outer Cape paper that was bought by GateHouse Media in 2008. GateHouse has been widely criticized for buying papers and then drastically reducing staffing and resources to save money, while outsourcing production and other operations. (On Monday, New Media Investment Group, parent of GateHouse, said it would merge with Gannett, which publishes USA Today and more than 100 other publications across the United States, in a $1.4 billion deal.)
When the Banner laid off its last remaining staff reporter in May and began relying entirely on freelance writers, Miller and Parker feared they could lose their local paper, which once employed more than 20 people and now has just four employees. “You can’t pay someone $75 to write an article about housing on the Outer Cape,” Miller said.....
Well, some can.
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I wonder how much the Globe pays that correspondent.
She would have been better off going to CBS and working for Redstone instead.
Maybe she can work her way up to the city newsroom:
"GateHouse-Gannett merger will have ripple effect in Mass." by Jon Chesto Globe Staff, August 5, 2019
Say hello to Gannett, everyone, and wave goodbye to GateHouse.
The country’s two largest newspaper publishers consummated their long-rumored courtship on Monday, unveiling plans to merge into one behemoth by the end of the year.
The implications could be significant for New England: The merged company will keep the Gannett name, the more well-known of the two brands. The headquarters will be Gannett’s home in McLean, Va., and not GateHouse’s outpost near Rochester, N.Y., and the new company will control more than 260 dailies, across 47 states.
The stated hope is that by banding together, both groups can better withstand the forces ravaging the news industry — dwindling print ad revenue, tough online competition. Their second-quarter earnings underscore the challenges they face: New Media’s revenue at continuing operations declined 6.9 percent in the past year, while Gannett’s comparable “same store” revenue fell 9.8 percent.
Gannett was essentially forced into play by a hostile takeover bid from Digital First Media (aka MediaNews Group). Gannett executives appeared to be suspicious of Digital First’s financing, and its reputation for extreme cost-cutting under hedge fund owner Alden Global Capital.....
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The budgets are tight, more cuts are coming, layoffs for sure, and while the name may change, the problems facing the industry aren’t going away, and with all due respect, I'm tired of the self-serving whining from lying, agenda-pushing, elitist propagandists.
"Gannett merger marks shift for troubled American newspaper giant" by Rachel Siegel Washington Post, August 5, 2019
The merger announced Monday between Gannett and GateHouse Media — America’s two largest newspaper chains — comes amid turmoil for the print journalism industry and shaky times for Gannett, which fought off a takeover attempt by a hedge fund earlier this year.
The deal also marked a new, uncertain chapter for the McLean, Va.-based Gannett, a former titan of American media that boomed in the latter half of the 20th century. Its flagship publication, USA Today, introduced the country to a national newspaper that could reach millions of readers, complete with digestible coverage, color photos, and eye-popping graphics.
With Monday’s announcement, media analysts reflected on Gannett’s rise and ‘‘how it came to be a takeover target as opposed to buying most every newspaper that came out of the market,’’ said Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst at the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit journalism training center.
Like print media everywhere, Gannett saw steep declines in print advertising with the rise of Craigslist and other online advertising platforms. Readers cut back on print subscriptions in search of digital and free news.
Over time, those factors built pressure on media companies to cut costs and consolidate.
‘‘There are ways you can consolidate,’’ said Harold Vogel, a veteran media analyst. ‘‘You don’t need two CFOs; you don’t need two chairmen or heads of marketing.’’
Gannett’s financial struggles and waves of recent layoffs follow a long run at the helm of American journalism. Today, Gannett’s vast portfolio includes USA Today, 109 local media organizations in 34 states, and dozens of other news brands online in the United Kingdom. Each month, more than 125 million unique visitors access content from USA Today and Gannett’s local sites, according to the company. Still, in January, Gannett slashed jobs at the Indianapolis Star, the Arizona Republic, the Tennessean, the Citizen Times in Asheville, N.C., and other papers, Poynter reported.
Gannett’s history reaches back to 1906, when Frank Gannett and others bought a half interest in the Elmira Gazette in upstate New York. From there, Gannett acquired and oversaw other local newspapers throughout the Northeast and, in time, the rest of the country. The Gannett National Service was founded in 1943, providing local papers with national reporting and dispatches from bureaus in Washington and elsewhere. The company went public in 1967.
Gannett was also known for bringing innovations to its newsrooms. In 1929, Frank Gannett invested in the development of the teletypesetter. Newsrooms were later stocked with shortwave radio sets to speed up reporting of far-off events, according to a company history. Printing presses were adapted for color at the Gannett Rochester newspapers as early as 1938. A corporate airplane even helped gather news from disparate places.
Much of Gannett’s greatest success came through the vision of Allen Neuharth, who rose from delivering a daily newspaper to becoming Gannett’s chairman in 1979.
Under Neuharth’s leadership, the company enjoyed a steady growth period and eventually created USA Today, which initially drew skepticism for its cost and viability.
Critics doubted the concept and dubbed the model the ‘‘McPaper,’’ even as the informative charts and exhaustive national coverage caught on with readers nationwide. (Neuharth died in 2013 at age 89.)
Gannett shares closed higher on the New York Stock Exchange at $11.04, up 29 cents.
That's the important thing, the $tock price.
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But they are risking their lives to advance the agenda, right?
"Journalist’s death leads to reshaping of US handling of hostages" by Eric Tucker Associated Press, August 5, 2019
WASHINGTON — Diane Foley learned of her son’s fate not from any government official but from a sobbing journalist who asked if she’d been on Twitter.
Foley had not, but the ghastly images weren’t hard to find. President Obama soon confirmed the news to the world: James Foley, a 40-year-old American journalist kidnapped in Syria two years earlier, was the American beheaded by Islamic State militants in a video circulating online.
Only problem is the video was a fake and Foley a CIA asset, so you can lop the story off right here and forget him (I wonder what his next mission, 'er, assignment was).
For many in the United States, the August 2014 video brought home the extent of the Islamic State’s violence and brutality. For Diane Foley, it was a galvanizing moment, emblematic of the helplessness she felt during her son’s captivity and the lack of urgency she sensed from American officials tasked with helping her. The New Hampshire woman channeled her grief into action, becoming an unofficial ambassador for hostages and their loved ones, and helping reshape the US government response when Americans are captured by terrorists and kidnappers across the globe.
In the five years since her son’s murder, Foley and the foundation she formed in her son’s name have successfully pushed the US government to overhaul the hostage rescue process, advocated legislation to punish kidnappers, and pressed for additional attention for thousands of Americans detained unlawfully. Through research and public statements, she’s also challenged the conventional wisdom that negotiating with captors and making concessions to them are inherently counterproductive.
The most meaningful change was a 2015 Obama administration directive that prompted an FBI-led fusion cell to work full-time on hostage cases and a State Department special envoy to handle diplomatic negotiations. A June survey sponsored by Foley’s foundation said hostage families report significantly more helpful government interactions than before that overhaul, but still want more communication. Current and former government officials describe the hostage recovery process, and communicating with families, as an urgent priority.
The fusion cell structure remains intact under President Donald Trump, whom Foley praises for his interest in hostage issues despite an occasional collision of values with his administration.
US officials have secured the release of several high-profile American hostages and foreign government detainees, though other cases remain unresolved, including journalist Austin Tice, who officials believe is alive in Syria following his 2012 capture, and a group of Citgo Petroleum executives held by Venezuela known collectively as the Citgo 6.
James Foley grew up in Wolfeboro, N.H., and earned a master's in fine arts from the University of Massachusetts Amherst before studying journalism at Northwestern University and turning to conflict journalism after trying his hand at teaching. A reporter at Boston-based Global Post, he was captured for six weeks in 2011 by pro-Qaddafi forces while covering Libyan unrest. He returned home restless, then resumed reporting in the Middle East in time to chronicle ISIS’s rise.
He went to UMass Amherst?
The 2012 Thanksgiving holiday came and went with no word from Foley, which his family found disquieting since he’d always been good at checking in. Foley’s mother learned from his colleagues the next morning that he’d been apprehended by a jihadist group.
The next two years brought promising leads but also bouts of inactivity and frustrating government interactions.
The first FBI official assigned to the case was inexperienced, Foley said. When she’d contact the State Department, it seemed she was speaking to a different person each time. And she felt out of the loop on developments, learning of an unsuccessful Navy SEALs rescue attempt — Foley and other hostages had already been relocated — only after her son’s death.
The captors established contact in the fall of 2013, making a series of demands, including for $100 million euros and the release of Muslim prisoners. Foley raised $1 million in pledges despite White House warnings that ransom payments could violate a law against supporting foreign terrorist organizations, an admonishment she still finds cruel and unnecessary.
Communications ceased around Christmas, resurfacing in July with a threat to murder Foley.
The video the following month showed Foley kneeling in an orange jumpsuit beside a man in black clutching a knife to his captive’s throat. It fades to black before the beheading is completed. The killer, Mohammed Emwazi, was later killed in a US strike.
‘‘I think everyone was in shock,’’ Foley said. ‘‘I think our FBI was in shock. We were caught with our pants down. Nobody ever expected this.’’
Foley was the first of several Western hostages killed by ISIS that year, murders that shook the Obama administration into action and humbled officials who conceded shortcomings.
‘‘The government was letting the families down, letting the hostages down. We were not well-coordinated,’’ said Jen Easterly, former Obama administration senior counterterrorism director.
The next June, Obama announced the fusion cell’s creation, saying the government was ‘‘changing how we do business.’’ He also softened the rhetoric on ransom payments: while the government would not make them, Obama said, it had also never prosecuted families who had done so on their own and had no interest in compounding their pain.
Yet a recent survey from Foley’s foundation shows hostage families still want better clarity on US policies and laws, including on ransom and just how far immunity from prosecution will extend.
Though Foley said she doesn’t think such payments, which are common among European countries and in some cases have facilitated releases, are necessarily the answer, she believes it’s imperative US officials interact directly with captors. She points to research challenging the premise that concessions only serve to incentivize kidnappers.
‘‘Part of the problem is, if you don’t engage with captors, there’s zero chance of getting anyone home,’’ Foley said. ‘‘Are our citizens enough of a priority that we will use all that we can as a government to negotiate . . . to find out what do they really want.’’
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Yeah, keep hope alive!
