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If you’re in the newspaper business — large daily, small weekly, it doesn’t matter — then you owe it to yourself to read an interview with Publisher Rena Mlodecki in the current issue of California Publisher.
She’s the regional publisher for Horizon Publications, owner of the Inyo Register in Bishop and Mammoth Times in Mammoth, which puts her close enough to Nevada that we ought to pay attention.
Why?
Because Mlodecki has the experience and smarts to understand how to operate a community newspaper — which means having a vision and working hard to make it succeed.
Here are just a couple of excerpts:
What’s the most important thing you learned along the way that prepared you to be a publisher?
Know your market. Make your newspaper irresistible and an information package for the community. Do not let your staff decide what the market wants or tell you “that is the way we’ve always done it.” That is the publisher’s vision. It comes from the top.
As a local publisher, do you run it like you own it? And how does that work?
I always run them as though I own them. This is not a day job. You can talk about all the initiatives and blueprints and trends you want, but you have to know how to implement them and bird-dog them. You keep bird-dogging and understand that “what gets measured gets done.” You may have to make staff changes and take a look at the veterans who have 17 years or one year’s experience. Can they change? Will they embrace the initiatives? Arm wrestling with your own staff is a waste of time, and tolerating complacency or bad attitudes will hurt your paper financially.
Newspapers have to make money, but you can’t put out junk and expect readers to subscribe to it. That’s a big problem with concentrated ownership along with their digital emphasis. There are good market opportunities for digital, but don’t abandon the print dollars. My instinct is that online newspapers lack credibility. You can Google a lot of misinformation to prove your point with any topic, and you don’t want your masthead alongside those illusions.
Go back and click on the link to the whole interview. It’s worth your time.