Steve Greenlee – Media Nation

A closer look at what happened at the National Trust for Local News — and what may be coming in Maine

Former home of the Portland Press Herald in Maine, now a luxury hotel — Former headquarters of the Portland Press Herald in Maine, now a luxury hotel. Photo (cc) 2023 by Dan Kennedy.

I suspect we’re going to be hearing a lot more about the National Trust for Local News and especially its newspapers in Maine, anchored by the Portland Press Herald. The National Trust’s co-founder and CEO, Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, stepped down last week, and I’ve heard from serious people that substantial cuts may be coming.

While we’re waiting, though, I recommend this thoughtful analysis by Rick Edmonds, who writes about the business of news for the Poynter Institute. He speculates that one reason the National Trust may have run into trouble was that it morphed from a philanthropic venture that acquired newspapers into a nonprofit organization that saw its mission as actually running them.

In an interview last summer, Dr. Hansen Shapiro told Edmonds, “half-joking,” that “we are becoming like Gannett or McClatchy,” two chains notorious for cutting costs at their newspapers through top-down management. The difference was that the National Trust’s management was focused on improving its papers rather than squeezing out every last drop of revenue. But as Edmonds writes in a piece that was published on Thursday:

In practice, though, that meant not only ownership but decision-making had migrated up to a central office. The trust had become out of sync with the mantra that news organizations work best when they are owned and run by those closest to the local communities.

The National Trust’s first move was to acquire 24 weekly and monthly newspapers in the Denver suburbs back in 2021, which Ellen Clegg and I write about in our book, “What Works in Community News.” It later expanded into Maine and Georgia, and today owns about 60 papers.

Last summer, Hansen Shapiro told Edmonds that the National Trust was shifting from 25% investments and 75% execution to the reverse. In other words, what was originally intended as a project to save newspapers from chain ownership and then run them with a light touch morphed into something much more hands-on.

That has played out in an especially painful way in Maine, where Press Herald editor Steve Greenlee left to take a position at Boston University last year (in an email with Edmonds, he cryptically referred to leaving “at a time of great stress”), and Lisa DeSisto, the longtime publisher of the Press Herald and CEO of the Maine Trust for Local News (essentially a subsidiary of the National Trust), abruptly exited from her job in December.

My usual caveats: Hansen Shapiro is featured in our book and has been on our podcast; DeSisto is a professional friend of ours; and we were the guests at a fundraiser for the Maine Trust last October.

Update: Jody Jalbert has resigned as publisher of the Sun Journal of Lewiston, which is a Maine Trust paper. The story is paywalled, but according to Jalbert’s LinkedIn profile, she had been with the paper in various business-side positions since 1988. That’s a lot of experience to be walking out the door.

Lisa DeSisto resigns as CEO of the Maine Trust for Local News, which owns the Portland Press Herald

Big news from Down East as Lisa DeSisto, the CEO and publisher of the Maine Trust for Local News, has announced that she’s resigning. The Maine Trust is a nonprofit that owns the state’s largest daily paper, the Portland Press Herald, as well as three other daily papers and a number of weeklies. The papers themselves are for-profit entities.

According to Press Herald reporter Hannah LaClaire, DeSisto will leave by the end of the year. She’ll be replaced by Stefanie Manning, a Maine Trust executive who will assume the title of managing director. DeSisto said in a statement:

I have cherished my time leading this organization and working alongside such dedicated and talented colleagues. Serving our readers and supporting this incredible team has been a privilege. Representing the Maine Trust for Local News in the community has been an honor I will carry with me.

DeSisto leaves amid a time of transition at the Maine Trust. Longtime executive editor Steve Greenlee took a position at Boston University earlier this year and was replaced by Carolyn Fox, who had previously been managing editor of the Tampa Bay Times.

DeSisto hosted Ellen Clegg and me for a talk about our book, “What Works in Community News,” back in October. Ellen and I both have previous connections with Lisa — she and I were colleagues in the 1990s at The Boston Phoenix, where she was an executive in the advertising department, and Ellen worked with her after she moved to a top business-side position at The Boston Globe.

Lisa has been in Portland for 12 years and has been through several ownership changes. I visited the Press Herald in late 2015 to talk with her and others about a failed attempt by Boston-area entrepreneur Aaron Kushner to buy the paper in 2012; Kushner, who later bought the Orange County Register in Southern California, was one of the wealthy newspaper owners I profiled in “The Return of the Moguls.”

After Kushner’s bid in Maine fell apart, the paper was acquired by a wealthy Maine businessman named Donald Sussman, who in turn sold it to Reade Brower, a printer, in 2015. Brower sold the Press Herald and other papers he had accumulated to the nonprofit National Trust for Local News in 2023. The Maine Trust is a subsidiary of the National Trust.

Through it all, Lisa has been a source of stability and continuity. There’s no question that she’ll be deeply missed.

Poynter pushes back against gloom and doom; plus, transitions in Colorado and Maine

The Poynter Institute has published an in-depth report on the state of journalism that’s aimed at injecting some optimism into what often seems like a dreary and depressing landscape. The report is called “OnPoynt,” and the introduction says in part:

[D]oom-and-gloom narratives that cherry pick stories of vulture capitalists, job loss statistics and print closures are incomplete or out of date, painting an inaccurate picture of a news and information ecosystem on life support.

OnPoynt aims to offer a forward-minded look at the state of journalism and the news industry that propels the story by considering trends related to creative product ideas, audience growth strategies and traction around revenue, artificial intelligence and innovation.

The entire report is worth reading, but I want to take note of two sections — one on trust, the other on local news.

The narrative that the public has lost trust in the news media overlooks the reality that people actually have a fair amount of faith in their local news outlets. For instance, a survey that Poynter conducted found that 83% of respondents believe that local news organizations “are at least somewhat important to the well-being of their local community,” and 71% say local journalists are reporting the news accurately. The numbers are only slightly lower for Republicans than they are for Democrats. The report continues:

Audiences will spend more time and money with sources of information that they “trust.” Civic participation will grow as trust in media grows. Accessible local news improves democratic participation.

This really goes to the heart of a central argument that Ellen Clegg and I explore in our book, “What Works in Community News.” National news organizations, especially the cable outlets, are contributing to polarization and to the decline of civic life. Rebuilding the local news infrastructure could help lower the temperature and help people on different sides of the political divide find common ground.

Fortunately, as Poynter says in its section on local news, there are viable alternatives to corporate-owned chain newspapers, which in too many cases are being hollowed out and leaving communities bereft. Poynter identifies local television news, public radio and the rise of philanthropy in supporting nonprofit community journalism as countervailing trends.

“The local news ecosystem is complex. The loss of traditional local news journalism jobs should not be minimized, but the battle cry of ‘saving local news’ is oversimplified,” the report says. “Hundreds of news or niche information sites have started in recent years. Many are independent, many represent new offerings from existing companies.”

Poynter’s survey also shows that people who are engaged in civic life are more likely to be local news consumers — a finding that goes back at least to Robert Putnam’s landmark 2000 book “Bowling Alone.”

There’s a lot of bad news out there, and it would be pollyannaish to pretend otherwise. But it’s crucial to look at success stories, figure out why they’re working and encourage people to emulate them in their own communities.

Transition at The Colorado Sun

The Colorado Sun, a digital startup that we profile in “What Works in Community News,” announced a major reorganization last week. Editor and co-founder Larry Ryckman will now be the publisher, with senior editor and fellow co-founder Dana Coffield moving up to the editor’s slot.

In an announcement, the Sun said the shuffle was motivated in part by the Sun’s transition from a for-profit public benefit company to a nonprofit organization, which has created “new responsibilities for its senior leadership.”

The Sun was founded six years ago by 10 journalists at The Denver Post who quit out of frustration over repeated cuts by the paper’s hedge-fund owner, Alden Global Capital. Today the Sun employs two dozen staff members.

Ryckman was a guest on our “What Works” podcast in July. Coffield, who came from a background of small newspapers in the rural parts of Colorado, told us for our book that she was proud of the Sun’s role in reporting stories from across the state that can be republished for free in smaller newspapers.

“We’ve been able to provide quality journalism to some of the smallest outlets in the state,” she said. “I like being able to contribute to a healthy ecosystem for smaller newspapers, since I came from that heritage.”

A new editor in Maine

The Maine Trust for Local News, a nonprofit organization that publishes the for-profit Portland Press Herald and about a dozen other daily and weekly newspapers, has named an executive editor to oversee the trust’s holdings.

Carolyn Fox, currently managing editor of the Tampa Bay Times, will start her new position on Oct. 7. Her appointment was announced by Lisa DeSisto, the trust’s publisher and CEO.

Like the Maine papers, the Tampa Bay Times is a for-profit paper owned by a nonprofit — the Poynter Institute.

“The nonprofit model is so exciting in part because you can make that pitch to people that the journalism matters — what we do matters — and then sell that,” Fox told Eric Russell of the Press Herald. (I’m quoted as well.)

Fox will succeed Steve Greenlee, who’s moved on to a faculty position at Boston University. The organizational structure will be different in that Greenlee was the editor of just the Press Herald, whereas Fox will oversee all of the trust’s holdings.

The Globe will partner with the Portland Press Herald on a Spotlight reporting project

The Boston Globe will partner with the Portland Press Herald on an unspecified investigative reporting project, according to the trade publication Editor & Publisher. The partnership will produce “a multi-part investigative report that will be published by both organizations this fall.”

The project will be funded by the Spotlight Investigative Journalism Fellowship, established by the Globe and Participant Media, the producers of the movie “Spotlight.” Grants of up to $100,000 are awarded to reporters or teams of reporters. This is the first time the Globe has partnered with another news organization. The series will be published by both papers.

Scott Allen, the Globe’s assistant managing editor for projects, declined in an email to say what the topic of the reporting would be — but when I noted that the Press Herald reporter who’ll be working on the project, Penelope Overton, covers the lobster industry, Allen said that “we expect to take full advantage of her considerable expertise.”

There are some interesting intersections between the Globe and the Press Herald. The E&P story points out that Press Herald managing editor Steve Greenlee worked at the Globe for 12 years. But it goes beyond that. Lisa DeSisto, who is chief executive officer of the Press Herald and its sister papers, was previously a high-ranking business-side executive at the Globe (and, before that, a colleague of mine at The Boston Phoenix).

The two papers also have the distinction of having been pursued by Boston-area businessman Aaron Kushner, who tried to buy the Globe in 2010 and nearly succeeded in buying the Press Herald in 2012. Kushner and a team of investors ended up purchasing the Orange County Register in Southern California later in 2012. They spent considerable resources in building up the Register and acquiring and launching other papers — only to tear it all down in short order when the hoped-for revenues failed to materialize. Today the Register is owned by the notorious hedge fund Alden Global Capital. (I tell the story of Kushner’s newspaper adventures in my book “The Return of the Moguls.”)

Today the Press Herald is owned by Reade Brower, a printer, who’s built a small chain of Maine newspapers and gets generally high marks for his stewardship. The Globe, of course, is owned by billionaires John and Linda Henry.