The Hagadone Newspaper Media Group, according to President Clint Schroeder, has maintained its journalism staffing numbers for the last five years. Anyone familiar with the news industry over that period knows how impressive that is.
There’s a lot that goes into that sustainability. There’s a financial commitment, sure, and audience development and distribution strategies and an emphasis on diversifying content, marketing and revenue streams — categories tracked and tackled by virtually all media companies. But Hagadone goes deeper than the numbers. There's a stated and perpetual commitment to their Pacific Northwest communities.
The leaders at Hagadone often invoke the word stewardship. The news published daily turns into the historical bedrock of a community. That information, knowledge and history belong to the people who live in places like Whitefish or Hungry Horse, Montana, or Columbia Basin, Washington.
“We often talk about this in our executive team meetings, but we’re just stewards of these companies for a very short time in the totality of their history,” Schroeder said. “Gosh, we have newspapers that have been publishing weekly or daily since 1886, and for this part of the country, that’s a long time.”
Hagadone is headquartered in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. The company publishes 16 newspapers in Idaho, Montana and Washington.
Schroeder explained that the company’s founder, Duane B. Hagadone, began building a newspaper company in 1976. Over time, he pared down the portfolio to publications where communities were engaged with their local media.
“I think it was a genius move, because we don’t have a whole lot of competition by legitimate media in any of the markets on a daily or weekly basis,” Schroeder said. “There used to be quite a bit of competition, but when it comes to micro-local, that’s always been a big focus for us. You know, I witnessed in another lifetime micro-local, especially in the metro newspapers, being completely erased in favor of templating national, high regional and international news. That was a big mistake. I mean, we look back now, we all say, ‘Oh, big mistake.’ But I think at the time, those who were making decisions felt like that’s what their readers had an interest in, and it was quite the opposite. The readers wanted to see local faces. They wanted to see their kids. They wanted to see the Rotary Club and what fundraisers were happening. And they wanted to hear about local politics. They wanted to read each other’s opinions.”
Schroeder notes that the company’s sustainability is boosted by the fact that most of the publications are in growing markets.
“So, for us, our print editions, all but two of them right now are showing positive growth year to year, and that’s partially because all of our markets are growing too, and this is a great affluent place to live,” he said. “That means people who are moving up here are typically, maybe more in the demographic line for print. I’m not going to take credit for that. With our apps and our websites, we’ve tried to be comprehensive and thorough. It’s not always best to be first. It’s best to be right. Some really talented folks lead our regional editorial departments, and we’ve got some journalists who make national headlines all the time.”
Anton Kaufer, regional publisher, oversees many of those journalists. He’s borderline effervescent when talking about the work his newspapers do and the role they play. He loves the company culture that revolves around doing meaningful work.
“All we have is our content. That’s the only thing that makes us unique in our communities,” Kaufer said. “The Daily Inter Lake, for example, has been the voice of the community for 136 years, making sure the community is empowered, enlightened and informed about what's going on around them so they can make decisions.”
Having formerly worked at a corporate media company, Kaufer said he’s seen what happens when publications lose their purpose and connection: “Our goal is to live by our mission, and that’s to serve our communities. And the only way to do that is through journalism.”
That’s writing a feature on the longtime 4-H leader during fair week, or writing about the new martial arts studio, or attending the town hall meetings — and not just the most important one in the largest town in the coverage area.
“It’s our job to tell those stories,” Kaufer said. “Nobody else is telling those stories, and we feel like that’s our connection to the community, to be that water cooler, to give people the information they need to have a conversation with their colleagues or their friends — or make informed decisions at the voting booth.”
All this sounds like typical journalism. And that’s the point. So much typical journalism has been lost across the country, but there is still a need and demand for it. Harvard’s Nieman Foundation reported in April that 10,000 journalists had been laid off across the U.S. in the last three years. Venture capitalists, in many cases, gobbled up struggling media publications, only to sell off their parts, such as printing plants and office buildings, leaving little left for reporting the news.
Hagadone, one of a shrinking number of family-owned local news companies, is taking the opposite approach, finding stability in the fundamentals and investing in the newsrooms.
“The narrative nationally is that newspapers are a dying breed, right? And we just saw over the last couple of days, eight newspapers shuttering in Wyoming,” Kaufer added. “When that’s in the news cycle, it does make it challenging. I think we have to keep telling our story and remind people that what they have is pretty special and unique compared to what’s going on in the overall marketplace.”
As an example, Kaufer was invited to speak at a Rotary Club. He let the Rotarians know about the national trends, reminding them that their operation invests in keeping them informed through both resources for content and by sponsoring events and organizations throughout the community. Some employees volunteer on boards and committees.
Kaufer said, “I think sometimes you just have to remind people not to toot our own horn, but to give them the context that I think is important for them to understand how special it is and how important it is for them to support us.”
Kaufer said his newspaper is launching a new mission impact-tracking initiative to help tell the story, not just with groups of people such as Rotary groups, but also to share the impact with its employees, particularly the journalists. Long a practice of nonprofit organizations that are required to demonstrate how they’re meeting their mission, Kaufer said they are adopting the exercise to show journalism is more than the bottom line on a profit and loss column. The reports will include things like public records requests made behind the scenes and how the publications fight for transparency in government. It is also tracking compliments received from the community about their reporting. The reports will add up and tell the story of stewardship.
Evidence already exists that the process and priorities are working.
The Daily Inter Lake, Kaufer said, was the fifth-largest newspaper in Montana about seven or eight years ago. Now it sits in the top two in the state.
“That’s not because of anything more than the fact that we’re committed to doing the job with the level of journalism that we do in our communities, and people will still buy a paper, despite the national narrative, if they feel it’s a strong newspaper,” Kaufer noted.
Kaufer said, in addition to providing traditional beat and feature coverage one might expect with a small daily or weekly newspaper, he’s proud of his journalists who have also provided meaningful enterprise reporting, such as thorough research into homelessness.
It would be a mistake to assume the organization is locked into print and has not adopted new publication methods. They’ve created podcasts, for example, that are now operating in the black. They developed newsletters that, at some publications, are driving more website traffic than social media.
The podcasts contain fresh content. One of them focuses on the Big Sky Conference. They have also done deeper dive podcasts, such as a case of a missing person in the area. And they do a weekly news recap.
“We’re digging into things and telling stories that aren’t otherwise told,” Kaufer said. “It’s not just a news desk where we’re writing the news.
“We took some risks. And I think that’s what makes our company a little bit different. … People like to read, but they also like to listen and watch. And if we can be all three of those things to people in our community, then we can help them connect the dots and help ourselves with more long-term stability. So, we try some cool new things. If they didn’t work, we would have dumped them by now, as fun and cool as they are.”
The Hagadone Corporation does more than just news journalism. It also has a hospitality division separate from the “communication” division of the company. Hagadone owns and operates resorts and properties associated with tourism, such as the Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course, home to the world’s only floating green. There is some crossover between the two divisions. The communication division publishes visitor publications in Hawaii, for example. The Hawaii magazines have a total circulation of more than 2 million.
Recently, Hagadone announced that it will be printing The Spokesman-Review, once considered a rival publication. The announcement “goes beyond a shift in printing logistics. It marks a pivotal moment for local journalism in the Inland Northwest — a sign that we, as guardians of community trust and chroniclers of civic life, are willing to evolve, adapt and unite to protect what matters most,” the company wrote in a statement to its readers. “This development means more than just a change in printing logistics. It signifies a partnership between two family-owned, locally dedicated media companies that, despite years of competition, have come together to preserve journalism and strengthen their operations.”
The arrangements include investing in new insertion and post-press equipment, which is expected to double production capacity.
That sounds like stewardship.
The combination of experimentation, a foundation built on fundamentals and a commitment to micro-level journalism has created a special environment.
“I think that it’s one of the best places I’ve ever set foot in,” Kaufer said.
Bob Miller has spent more than 25 years in local newsrooms, including 12 years as an executive editor with Rust Communications. Bob also produces an independent true crime investigative podcast called The Lawless Files.
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