Arkansas Publisher Weekly: July 28, 2022

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Kevin Slimp webinars now available for staff training sessions

Guest Column:

Google and Facebook are threatening local news. The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act can save it.

By Dean Ridings

Arkansas Press Association

Publisher Weekly Vol.17 | No. 30 | Thursday, July 28, 2022 | Serving Press and State Since 1873

It’s all about relationships: Democrat-Gazette president Lynn Hamilton on nearly a half-century in the business Lynn Hamilton is retiring July 29 from WEHCO Media Inc. after almost 48 years with the company. He has served as president and general manager of the Arkansas DemocratGazette since 2013.

“I’ve gotten old,” he said, “and it’s easy for an old man to tell the younger people about what he knows. But it truly is about the relationships. What we do in this life – what we achieve – is always done with other people. Building those relationships. Treating people the way you would want to be treated. Being kind. All of those are the most important things there are in life and in business. It took me too long to learn that, and I think that’s normal. But if I was giving out advice, that’s what it would be.”

He started in October 1974 as a data processing manager for WEHCO, the parent company of newspaper and cable television operations of which Walter E. Hussman Jr. is chairman.

“I was 26,” Hamilton said. “Walter Hussman was 27. He was hiring people his own age.

That’s just one of the many ways I’ve been fortunate in my career.”

Hamilton was born in Madera, Calif., and graduated from high school in Fresno, Calif. He moved to Arkansas shortly after graduation to work for his older brother, Clay Hamilton, who had offered him a job at his data processing business. He graduated from what was then Continued on Page 2

Lynn Hamilton

Tomorrow last day to return APA public notice survey The last day to fill out the Arkansas Press Association’s member public notice survey is tomorrow, Friday, July 29.

The goal of the survey is to gauge the impact a reduction or loss of public notices would have on members.

All data collected will be used to support APA’s efforts to keep public notices in our newspapers. As seen in previous legislative sessions in Arkansas, a variety of bills have sprung up in other states to curb spending on public notices.

“Public notices are in danger of being removed from newspapers in favor of

posting on government websites,” said APA Executive Director Ashley Kemp Wimberley. “As we know from a recentlycompleted statewide research study, our communities want public notices published in our papers and we will do everything we can to keep it that way.”

According to the research study, 70% of Arkansas adults read public notices in newspapers, and 65% believe that publishing

public notices in newspapers should be required.

APA asks that one employee in a management position at each member newspaper complete the survey. If your company owns more than one publication, please complete the survey for each.

The survey can be accessed here: https:// www.surveymonkey.com/r/ ARPublicNotices.

It’s all about relationships: Democrat-Gazette president Lynn Hamilton on nearly a half-century in the business Continued from Page 1

Arkansas State Teachers College in Conway and taught math for three months at a Memphis high school before spending the next three years in the Navy.

Hamilton then returned to Little Rock and worked briefly as a data processing manager for a small trucking company before going to work for WEHCO Media.

“I essentially started as an IT guy, working on financials, bills and payroll for all of Walter’s cable TV stations and newspapers,” Hamilton said. “I had about five people working for me at that time, and I was the only computer programmer.

Hamilton was a WEHCO employee but worked in the Arkansas Democrat building from day one. His involvement with the larger press industry of the region also started from the beginning.

“My very first day they flew me to Oklahoma City,” said Hamilton. “We heard a newspaper there was doing something innovative – accepting credit card payments for subscriptions. They took us to lunch at a restaurant on the top floor of a building with a beautiful view. The restaurant manager got a phone call from Walter, and Walter’s father wanted his plane back. We got back to Little Rock midafternoon, and I never did learn about credit card processing that day. I told my wife when I got home, ‘You’ll never guess where they took me to lunch today.’”

Circa 1975, Hamilton inside the ADG building soon after he joined WEHCO.

Even though his first day on the job was a field trip, Hamilton said his most active involvement in the larger industry has come in recent years.

“In the last few years, the threat to newspapers has accelerated,” he said. “WEHCO has hired a fulltime lobbyist, and the APA has stepped up in a big way, too.”

“For a long time, it wasn’t questioned that newspapers were the place the government should be publishing notices so the public could be aware of what the government was doing,” he said. “In recent years, a number of bills have been proposed to take public notices out of newspapers to the detriment of the public.”

Through his legislative efforts, Hamilton has also enjoyed building a strong relationship with the APA and Executive Director Ashley Kemp Wimberley.

“For the people who haven’t worked closely with Ashley, they should know they have a real winner in her”, he said. “She is such a high-energy, intelligent and committed leader. The APA couldn’t do better. I have the utmost respect for her talent Continued on Page 3

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Hamilton (left) with son, Wyatt Hamilton, in 1983. They were producing the first edition of the combined Arkansas Democrat and the Arkansas Gazette papers. The first Arkansas DemocratGazette page 1A is on the light table between the two in mid-completion.

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July 28, 2022

It’s all about relationships: Democrat-Gazette president Lynn Hamilton on nearly a half-century in the business Continued from Page 2

Walter Hussman Jr. (left) and Hamilton (center) at the new plant site in Northwest Arkansas in 1996.

and commitment.”

Two sessions ago, Hussman directed Hamilton to work with lobbyist Bob Smith.

“Bob and I were good friends, we played golf together,” said Hamilton. “Bob, Ashley and I were the primary representatives for the newspaper industry at the legislature.

Ashley and I testified and beat back several different bills. I learned more about how our state legislature works through that process. And enjoyed getting to know people and legislators in a bigger and better way than I had in the past.”

For her part, Wimberley says she is honored to have worked closely with Hamilton for many years on legislative and industry needs. “Lynn’s nearly halfcentury in our industry – with much of it steering the largest newspaper in our state – has been highly successful and a true example of strong newspaper leadership.

He greatly cares about the issues of our industry, but most of all he cares about people. He is leaving an incredible legacy, and I am so glad to consider him a friend.”

Hamilton believes the fight not only to save newspapers, but to preserve public information, is vital. He believes the reason we must to fight is a pervasive one.

“It’s our culture,” he said. “We’re in an environment where people believe all legitimate news is fake. Or if they just Arkansas Publisher Weekly

don’t like the news they call it fake. That coupled with the fact the digital age is upon us and newspaper readership is down. It’s easy for legislators to use the digital age to punish newspapers for anything that’s printed that they don’t want to read. And they perceive that newspapers aren’t as influential as they once were.”

While newspaper influence has waned, Hamilton believes his newspaper will survive and thrive, despite the variety of threats it faces. “The WEHCO organization is unique because the Hussman family has positioned the Democrat-Gazette for the long term,” he said.

“We have a clear leadership plan with Nat Lea and Eliza Hussman-Gaines. Walter has a strong commitment to journalism, as evidenced by his $25 million donation to journalism education. This company is not at all similar to the large corporations who are squeezing every penny they can and have no real plan for the future of journalism.”

Hamilton views the loss of privatelyheld and family-owned newspapers, who don’t have to meet the additional demands of shareholders, a loss for both journalism and communities. “In many markets, people don’t really have a way to know what’s going on in the multiple organizations that control their lives,” he 3

said. “If those journalists covering local government and business weren’t there… it’s so much easier for government officials to do what they want when no one is watching.”

Hamilton helped lead the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette through many major events. Two of the most noteworthy have been the newspaper war (with the then Arkansas Gazette) and later the iPad program.

The newspaper war In March 26, 1986, a federal jury in Little Rock found the Democrat not guilty of antitrust violations in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit brought by the rival Gazette.

“It meant the newspaper war would go on. We had lived to fight another day,” Hamilton said, adding that a guilty verdict would have closed the Democrat.

The chain went on to lose $118 million in Little Rock over five years of competition with the privately held Democrat, which limited its losses to perhaps $2 million or $3 million a year during the Gannett years and rode out the tide as “Arkansas’s Newspaper.”

“The Democrat was making substantial gains in circulation, and the Patterson Continued on Page 5

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It’s all about relationships: Democrat-Gazette president Lynn Hamilton on nearly a half-century in the business Continued from Page 2

Lynn Hamilton (left) with former Dallas running back Emmitt Smith in 2019 at an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette sponsored event.

family genuinely felt that we must be cheating,” Hamilton said. “In truth we weren’t and we were acquitted completely.

They were hoping to win a lawsuit and lots of money, which would help them pay off the debt they acquired on their new printing presses. When that didn’t happen, the Patterson family decided they needed to sell to an organization with more money.”

Hugh Patterson and his family quickly sold the Gazette to the Gannett chain of Virginia for $51 million and assumption of $9 million in debt. “Gannett pulled out after five years competing with us,” Hamilton said. “They thought they would come in, spend lots of money. It didn’t work.”

According to Hamilton, Gannett cut its circulation rates to extremely low levels, which the Democrat couldn’t afford. “Our rates were less expensive than they are today, but never lower than the Arkansas Gazette’s,” he said. “Gannett’s Gazette came in with many managers from outside of Arkansas, the East Coast, and we promoted that we were Arkansas’s newspaper. The public understood that.

After five years, their losses were so substantial, their stockholders didn’t have the stomach for losing money in Little

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Rock. They realized it was best to sell to Walter.”

Acquiring the Gazette’s assets was mostly a relief to Hamilton. “When the newspaper war ended, we moved over to the Gazette plant with better presses,” he said. “We had the best people and now the best equipment. And when it became one newspaper, we had money. We could relax a little. Everyone was paid better. It wasn’t an emergency everyday.”

At the end of the newspaper war, it truly became one newspaper. “Our theme was that we were providing the best of both,” Hamilton said. “We thought it was important that loyal Gazette readers felt like they were included. We didn’t once think about continuing only as the Democrat and eliminating the Gazette.

There was a lot of social cachet with the Gazette being the oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi. We certainly wouldn’t have wanted to throw that out, either.”

A day in the life From working in IT, newspaper production and management, Hamilton has seen it all. But his typical day at the office has mostly been the same.

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“A typical day for me is walking in the office and having people tell me about issues and problems and helping solve those problems,” he said. “That’s how my career has worked. I wish I could say I had lots of time to brainstorm and be creative, but truly that hasn’t happened much for me.

“Solving problems,” he said. “All day, evenings, weekends. One evening we didn’t finish printing until 8 a.m. the next morning. We were pushing our equipment and people to do more and more. It’s been intense being general manager. From 2000 to 2014, my job was a little easier, but in 2014 it ramped back up with fighting the digital age and the increasing pressure on the bottom line.”

The iPad program The completion of the iPad program in January 2020 was another major event in Hamilton’s career. “What the iPad conversion has done is it allowed us to stop the losses,” he said. “We’ve saved money on production costs, and we expect to be minimally profitable this year. We are in a position to continue to do journalism Continued on Page 6

July 28, 2022

–30– Max Atkinson

FEARLESS IS KNOWING HOW TO TELL YOUR STORY

An Independent Licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association

Max Atkinson of Mountain Home, who wrote the “Ozark Angler” fishing column for The Baxter Bulletin in the 1980s, died in a boating accident on Saturday, July 16, on Norfork Lake. He was 73.

Atkinson was a longtime insurance agent, fisherman, guide and former coach of the Lady Bomber soccer team. Known for his quick wit and sense of humor, he also served as the public address announcer for Mountain Home Bomber football, basketball and soccer games for 20 years.

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–30– Rosetta Lockhart She served as Justice of the Peace for two years and was instrumental in getting “city water” to Gregory and the outlying areas. For many years, she coordinated the Gregory community Christmas Eve celebration. Over the years, she was also active in the American Legion Auxiliary, American Cancer Society, Gregory Homemakers Club, Augusta Improvement Club, the “Going Group” of the McCrory Bank and the Cotton Plant Hypsion Club.

He was born July 22, 1948, in Fordyce, Arkansas, to the late Dr. Henry Harrison and Mary Maxine Atkinson.

Atkinson was preceded in death by a brother, Al Reed Atkinson. He is survived by his wife, Deborah Atkinson of Mountain Home; daughters Kelly (Trey) Haney of Mountain Home, Suzanne Smith of Conway and Jennifer (Bo) Blankenship of Tulsa, Oklahoma; two stepsons, Shaun (Lori) Harms and Chris (Amy) Harms of North Little Rock; brother, Jim (Gayle) Atkinson of Pensacola, Florida and 10 grandchildren.

Visitation was held Monday, July 18, at Kirby & Family Funeral Home of Mountain Home. The celebration of life service was held Tuesday, July 19, at the First United Methodist Church in Mountain Home.

Memorials may be made to the Max Atkinson Scholarship Fund at First Security Bank.

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Rosetta Lockhart of Gregory died Saturday, June 25, following a stroke. She was 93.

She was born in 1928 in McClelland, Arkansas to the late Thomas J. Vincent and Ethel (Smith) Vincent. She was Postmaster of the Gregory Post Office for 43 years, retiring in 2000. She wrote “Gregory Gleanings” column for over 60 years, first in the McCrory Leader, then in the Woodruff County Monitor in McCrory and the White River Journal in Des Arc. In 2011, she was honored with the Arkansas Press Association’s Golden 50 Service Award.

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Lockhart was preceded by her husband Gatther Lockhart, Jr. and brothers Floyd Vincent, Boyd Vincent, Lloyd Vincent, Buel Vincent, Clyde Vincent, Howard Vincent and Buster Vincent, and sisters Sallie (Vincent) Dollar and Viola “Tean” Vincent.

She is survived by her three children Steve (Janie) Lockhart of Texas, Stan (Betty) Lockhart of Arkansas and Sherry (Russ) Frye of Ohio, eight grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren.

Visitation was held on Tuesday, July 5, at the Powell Funeral Home Chapel in Augusta followed by the funeral at the Augusta Memorial Park.

July 28, 2022

It’s all about relationships: Democrat-Gazette president Lynn Hamilton on nearly a half-century in the business Continued from Page 4

many years into the future. We are also, of course, hoping to do much more than that.”

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s iPad program is watched by the entire newspaper industry. Everyone wants to know if the newspaper will see success – both with increased profits and readership. Hamilton is well aware of the national attention on the program, especially with a national decline in readership.

“The loss in readership troubles us,” he said. “The decline we’re experiencing since the iPad program was launched is minimal.

We actually see that we’re holding steady with people who are reading the paper digitally, but we also have people that are reading it only in print and those numbers are continuing to decline.”

He said in Little Rock, readership is at about 35,000 subscribers who get the Sunday edition and the daily digital edition on their iPads, as well as 15,000 single copy readers. Statewide readership is about 70,000 with another 20,000 from the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. That’s down from about 140,000 newspaperonly subscribers in 2014, according to Hamilton.

While the iPad program’s cost-cutting innovation has paid off, readership is still a work in progress. “If I had a definitive plan that we knew would work in a big way to increase readership, we’d be implementing it immediately,” Hamilton said. “What we’re doing with the iPad – everyone in the country is watching it. We know we’ve been in a place before with the newspaper where we didn’t see a way forward, but we found a way. We will do it again.”

The cost savings from the iPad program have also slowed the rate of staff reductions seen by many newspapers.

“We used to have a lot of people in this office,” Hamilton said.

“Bulging with people. Desks everywhere. Since 2007 we’ve been steadily reducing our staff size. We haven’t done the massive layoffs a lot of newspapers have, but we have gradually cut in half. At one time we had close to 600, and now we’re at 300.”

The pandemic has also emptied the office. “It’s a quieter place now,” he said. “The iPad program has created enthusiasm, but it’s not like the days when we were bursting at the seams and

Hamilton with wife Betti Hamilton and dogs Lucy (left) and Gusto. Betti trains the dogs to do agility events and Lynn is the groundskeeper at their training field in downtown Little Rock.

in competition with the Gazette. I was younger then. We were really engaged in the daily fight and that was really energizing.

At age 74, I won’t miss that fight. I’m glad to be going to play golf.

A smaller, leaner newspaper means fewer people. And fewer people means fewer relationships for Hamilton to build.

“I love the relationships with the people I worked for and those who worked for me,” he said. “It’s important for me to find a solution that helps the company but also the individual. I enjoy encouraging the younger people and helping them thrive and grow. I’m not going to miss the problems, but I am going to miss the people.”

NEWS

ARKANSAS NEWSPAPER CONNECTION

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The Arkansas Newspaper Connection is a weekly newsletter published by APA connecting freelance and independent writers, editors, photographers and designers with Arkansas newspapers in need. The publication also lists available job openings and other opportunities at Arkansas newspapers and associate member organizations.

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NEWS

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July 28, 2022 NEWS

Kevin Slimp webinars now available for staff training sessions Newspaper Academy director and design expert Kevin Slimp is offering several hours of pre-recorded webinar content for newspapers to host in-house training sessions. The webinars will be available for purchase through July 2023. Topics include: ● Designing (and redesigning) better pages; ● Creating more effective ads to improve results and increase ad revenue; ● Writing better headlines and stories to increase readership; and ● Advanced Adobe InDesign, including new information never before taught.

Slimp has been teaching Adobe InDesign as long as it’s been on the market. Working with the InDesign team while the application was being developed, Slimp trained a group of 98 newspaper designers in Phoenix, Arizona the week InDesign hit the shelves. In the years since, he has come to be known to the newspaper industry as the guru of InDesign training, tips and tricks. In addition to technology, Slimp has also become a leading voice in the newspaper industry, developing ground-breaking research and inspiring journalists on four continents.

The package cost for the four webinars is $169. Newspapers will receive links to these classes to watch at their convenience or can use the webinars as a daylong office retreat with classes, lunch, breaks and brainstorming among your staff.

To purchase the training package visit https://newspaperacademy.com/ webinar/3570/

Library of Congress: Finding your family in newspapers The Library of Congress is hosting a genealogical research workshop on Wednesday, August 3. The event is online only and starts at 6 p.m.

The workshop will teach participants how to discover their family’s past through the newspapers of their present. Digital conversion specialists will lead the workshop on how to search for ancestors in Chronicling America, a free digital collection of almost 20 million pages from American newspapers published between 1777 and 1963.

Finding Your Family in Newspapers: Using Chronicling America for Genealogical Research August 3, 2022 6:00 - 7:00 pm EDT

The presentation will discuss the collection, the search interface and how to navigate the challenges of working with historic newspapers. Chronicling America is jointly sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.

Online Webinar

Discover your family’s past through the newspapers of their present!

Join the Library of Congrss to learn how to search for ancestors in Chronicling America, a free digital collection of almost 20 million pages from American newspapers published between 1777 and 1963. The talk will address some search strategies for finding family names in this vast collection. Please register for the event using the link found at the Library of Congress Event page or using the QR code.

Arkansas Publisher Weekly

To learn more or to register, go to: https://www.loc.gov/item/event-404650/ finding-your-family-in-newspapers-usingchronicling-america-for-genealogicalresearch/2022-08-03/?fbclid=IwAR3lLyH GPlXpe6YY5YgYz-AtPapFPPv9K9T587-pXzKP49_0hIygSWwsNMY

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July 28, 2022

Learn more about GNI North America Subscriptions Lab America’s Newspapers and the Google News Initiative announced the launch of the GNI North America Subscriptions Lab. The program is open to small- to midsized publishers in the United States and Canada that seek to improve their digital subscription revenue and overall digital presence.

The application deadline is August 11, 2022. The free program will begin in September and run through February 2023.

“The GNI Subscriptions Lab will give participants the opportunity to significantly accelerate their digital evolution,” Dean Ridings, America’s Newspapers CEO, said. “By working and learning from the experts at Google News Initiative and their partners at FT Strategies, news organizations will gain valuable insights they can implement immediately to grow digital subscriber revenue. And participants will work with other peer newspapers in similar situations to learn from each other. We are very excited to bring this opportunity to our members.”

Applicants must commit to the participation of the publisher and other senior executives at the newspaper.

This Lab is intended for news organizations with established skills, technical foundations and more than two years of experience with a subscriptions revenue model who are looking to accelerate their path toward sustainable digital reader revenue. Participants must have demonstrated digital foundations, including established Google Analytics.

Eligibility Criteria: ● News organization based in the United

States or Canada that has produced original content for at least two years. ● News organization with established skills, technical foundations and more than two years of experience with a subscriptions model. ● Demonstrated digital foundations, including established Google Analytics. ● Existing digital presence and organization-wide investment in longterm digital growth. If selected, a letter of support from an executive sponsor is required before the start of the program. ● Commitment to devoting operational and technical resources to the program, along with the willingness to test, improve and iterate on how you work and your existing products/collateral/technology, etc. ● Commitment to providing data and access to requested platforms as required to receive personalized recommendations and track progress. Platforms may include Google Ad Manager, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, CMS, etc. ● Newsroom with a minimum of two fulltime employee (FTE) journalists, up to a maximum of 100 FTE journalists. ● Editorial focus on core news provision, i.e., not lifestyle, sports, etc. ● Commitment of five to 10 hours per team per week. A dedicated project manager will be responsible for ensuring your team attends all program and coaching sessions and completes all assignments.

We recommend a team of three to five people who may be involved at different points of the Lab, which includes at least the following roles: a) Sales/Marketing; b)

News/Editorial; and c) Product/Tech/Data. ● Willingness to share business insights and openly collaborate with cohort members. ● Willingness to share learnings with the greater news industry after the completion of the program. ● Preferred: News organization serving underrepresented communities.

For more information about the lab, go to https://newsinitiative.withgoogle. com/digital-growth-programlabs/#subscriptions-lab Launched in 2020, the GNI Digital Growth Program has been designed with industry experts and news publishers across the world to help small- and mediumsized news organizations grow their digital businesses through free training, consulting and support.

The Google News Initiative is Google’s effort to partner with news publishers around the world to build a long-lasting, diverse and innovative news ecosystem.

We do this by offering training, programs, funding and products to journalists and newsrooms to help strengthen their work in the digital age.

America’s Newspapers is the trade association for thousands of newspapers across the United States. www. newspapers.org For more information contact Greg Watson, chief marketing officer of America’s Newspapers, at gwatson@ newspapers.org

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July 28, 2022

Guest Column:

Google and Facebook are threatening local news.

The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act can save it.

By Dean Ridings Thomas Jefferson famously declared, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

Jefferson knew that local papers were vital to a thriving democracy, and that notion is as true today as it was at our nation’s beginning. Americans know it, too. They trust their local news outlets, even in this highly fractured and partisan time. Compared to national news, six in 10 Americans have more trust in local news to report on stories that affect their daily lives, and they are about twice as likely to trust local news to report on the information they need to vote.

Despite our trust in local news, too many communities today are hurtling towards Jefferson’s worst fear, but in a way he never could have imagined.

About two newspapers have been closing every week since 2005. Instead of the government stifling journalism, local papers are steadily being shuttered due to the unchecked influence of two private entities: Google and Facebook.

The main challenge for small news publishers is that Google and Facebook have hindered local outlets’ ability to be fairly compensated for the significant value their content generates for these platforms. Big Tech has commoditized and disconnected news content from its sources, undermining the advertising business that served as a bedrock of the newspaper industry. Big Tech platforms control virtually every aspect of the online

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advertising business and use clever tactics to keep users on their sites and deprive publishers of the ability to monetize their content.

Faced with this anticompetitive behavior, it should be no surprise that local papers are struggling. In 2022, more than a fifth of Americans live in news deserts. And, 1,625 counties have only one newspaper, while more than 200 have no local newspaper at all. Social media is increasingly filling the void with untrustworthy sources and misinformation and becoming America’s de facto local news source.

Big Tech’s threat to local journalism will not go away on its own, and the cost of inaction is too great to ignore. Congress must act.

Among the antitrust bills Congress is considering this year, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) is the only one that provides a direct check against Google and Facebook’s anticompetitive tactics that put local papers at risk.

Ironically, Big Tech is protected by U.S. antitrust laws, which prevent local papers from negotiating as a group. The JCPA would provide a temporary, limited antitrust safe harbor for small, local news publishers to collectively negotiate with Facebook and Google for fair compensation for the use of their content. It’s narrowly tailored to ensure that coordination by news publishers is only in the interest of protecting trustworthy, quality journalism.

Critics of the JCPA have parroted Big Tech’s argument that the bill would

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predominantly help large national publications. However, the JCPA is specifically designed to help small- and medium-sized papers and would help flow subscription and advertising dollars back to their newsrooms. Large national publications like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times won’t qualify.

The bill also incentivizes publishers to invest in hiring new journalists and newsroom personnel. In fact, publishers that demonstrate their investment will receive a higher portion of the negotiated funds.

As Big Tech devalues high-quality journalism in favor of provocative, divisive clickbait, the prospect of layoffs, pay cuts and furloughs has become an everyday reality for local journalists. While critics of the JCPA squabble about utopian solutions, local publishers, who recognize the urgency to revive local news, are firmly supporting the JCPA. They acknowledge the JCPA is the only bill that will put them on a more level playing field with the tech giants.

Join me in asking your representatives in Congress to prioritize passing the JCPA to protect their constituents’ access to objective, quality local reporting – and to ensure that Thomas Jefferson’s fear of a democracy without robust journalism never comes to pass.

Dean Ridings is the CEO of America’s Newspapers is the trade association for thousands of newspapers across the United States. newspapers.org

July 28, 2022