📰 The Future of Local Journalism; How You Can Make a Difference

Join host Jason Ball and guest Randy Lovely, former newspaper executive and current President of the Coachella Valley Journalism Foundation (CVJF), for a deep dive into the evolution of the news industry, the decline of newspapers' financial heyday, and the critical importance of supporting local journalism.

Today is Giving Tuesday! Support Local Journalism!

In this episode, Randy Lovely stresses that local journalism is vital to the health and fabric of a community. The best way to show your support is to pay for your news whether through a direct subscription or by donating to a foundation that supports local news outlets.

💖 Support the Coachella Valley Journalism Foundation

• Donate Today: Visit cvjf.org to make a donation and support the various programs that keep local news thriving in the Coachella Valley.
• What Your Donation Supports: Funding for staff positions, journalism training and staff development, reporting project costs, and placing interns in local newsrooms.
• Indio Post Campaign: The CVJF is currently in a campaign to match dollar-for-dollar up to $24,000 to offset the startup and technical costs of the new Indio Post.
• Philanthropy Coverage: The CVJF helps fund the Desert Sun's dedicated coverage of local philanthropy, a crucial public service for the community's hundreds of nonprofits.

🚀 Randy Lovely's Life in Journalism

Randy Lovely shares his incredible 40-year journey in print journalism, beginning with a middle school mix-up that landed him in a journalism class instead of wood shop.

• Early Career: Started as a general assignment reporter at a small seven-person Gannett paper in Sturgis, Michigan, in the mid-80s, learning to be a multi-faceted journalist (taking photos, writing, and even helping with page composition).
• The Golden Years: Worked through the heyday of newspaper publishing, noting that 2006 was the watershed year, the highest point for newspaper revenue. At the Arizona Republic, the paper made over $1 million per day in net profit in 2006.
• Staff Size: At its peak, the Arizona Republic newsroom, including satellite offices, swelled to about 500 people.

📉 The Fall: Technology and Economic Headwinds

Randy discusses the swift and accelerated decline of the newspaper industry after 2006.

• Digital Shift: Consumer behavior rapidly switched to digital consumption between 2006 and 2008.
• Advertising Decimation: The core revenue model, retail advertising, was decimated by new competitors like Google, Craigslist, and Amazon.
   
• Craigslist Disruption: Randy reflects on the industry's regret for not taking a fraction of their enormous profits in the late 90s/early 2000s to "out Craigslist in Craigslist," instead holding onto their classified ad moneymaker.
• Economic Crash: The 2008 housing bubble burst added significant economic pressure, especially in growth markets like Phoenix, which lost huge revenues from developer and builder ads.

📺 Merging Print and Broadcast

Randy shares the "thrilling but difficult" experience of merging the Arizona Republic with the NBC affiliate, KPNX.

• Integration: The newsrooms were physically merged and integrated across all platforms after receiving an FCC waiver, putting reporters together regardless of whether they worked for print, digital, or TV.
• The Tucson Shooting: A month after the full i

Let Life After News inspire your next chapter. Because leaving the news doesn’t mean the story’s over—it means a new one’s just beginning.