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Guest Editorial: Public notice— How will you know? Guest Column: Reasons some newspapers grow By Kevin Slimp
Arkansas Press Association
Publisher Weekly Vol.18 | No. 6 | Thursday, February 16, 2023 | Serving Press and State Since 1873
Gaines takes reins of family-owned newspaper group; sees great potential and challenges ahead By Wesley Brown
Eliza Hussman Gaines’s easy smile belies the huge task she has ahead as the new publisher at WEHCO Media Inc. and its flagship newspaper, the Arkansas DemocratGazette. Not only is Gaines stepping in the shoes of her father, one of Arkansas’s most legendary newspapermen, but she is assuming the top role at the company’s video and digital divisions as well. In her downtown office, looking out over the ADG newsroom, Gaines shared her vision for the family-owned newspaper chain founded in 1909 by her great-grandfather. After stepping down at the end of the year, Walter E. Hussman Jr. remains chairman of the family-run company he led for more than 50 years. During APA’s inaugural Arkansas Press Freedom Gala in October, Hussman announced he was stepping down from his post after spending most of his life in the family’s namesake business. While the retirement announcement surprised many at the event, Eliza said her father had been preparing her for the moment for several years. “I was not surprised — he had told me two years ago that he was planning on retiring when he turned 75. So, it was not a shock, because we had been talking about it,” Gaines recalled. “My husband and I had just decided to have a baby, and I told him he may have to wait a little bit. But the timing worked out very well.” Gaines, 35, took the reins as publisher on Jan. 1. The first woman to lead the parent company and Arkansas’s most prominent newspaper, founded in 1878, she has served as executive editor of the ADG since January 2021. Prior to that, she served as managing editor for the Arkansas daily nearly two years, since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. Gaines said she is proud to be the first woman to lead the newspaper, and the fourth generation of the PalmerHussman family to be in the newspaper business in
Eliza Gaines
Arkansas. Only a few months after returning to the job from maternity leave, she jumped right into the position, and has been going nonstop since. “So, now I am the public face of the newspaper, and obviously, I’ve gone from being focused on just the newsroom to focusing on the company as a whole. Now, I’m working with circulation and advertising, whereas I had been used to being in a ‘newsroom hole’ a long time,” Gaines said. “But it is great because I feel like I had an advantage because of having Walter Hussman as my father, and it is not like I’m Continued on Page 3