Funding for New Mexico in Focus is provided by viewers like you.

>> Nash: This week on New Mexico in Focus, the Santa Fe, New Mexican steps up.

The paper's executive editor tells us how he's growing the operation despite Print█s continued decline.

Plus, we'll hear about a hyper local media company that spreading its wings around Albuquerque.

New Mexico in Focus starts now.

>> Nash: Thanks for joining us I'm Nash Jones.

So for the last several years, it's been an annual tradition here on In Focus to mark the 4th of July by examining the Fourth Estate, the news media and its impact here in New Mexico.

Well, tonight you will hear from publishers, editors and reporters from across the state about how they're informing the public and the landscape that they're working with in.

But before we get on with the special, we could not very well have a local news program this week without addressing the growing outrage over allegations that the Drug Enforcement Administration permitted hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills into Albuquerque in pursuit of bigger cases.

The tactic, known as walking drugs, exploded into public view last week in published reports from the Associated Press and Albuquerque Journal.

Based in part on a 2023 whistleblower complaint by DEA Special Agent David Howell.

According to those stories, the DEA monitored the delivery of more than a million pills of the extremely lethal drug between 2023 and 2025 without intervening.

Then US attorney for New Mexico Alex Uballez defended drug walking telling the AP it's about building bigger cases against major drug traffickers, adding, quote, the bigger fish are worth catching and that will save more lives.

Well, this week, top city, county and state officials, including Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, called for accountability.

>> Lujan Grisham: Somebody must pay for the damage to this state.

The public safety risks that will be shared by everyone here for a decade more -- and pay to try to right the wrongs and put people's lives back together in the state of New Mexico.

>> Nash: Calling New Mexico's overdose death rate staggeringly high, Lujan Grisham said the federal government's actions were derelict and despicable.

The governor outlined numerous means for accountability.

She said the legislature will work on policies that include preventing the feds from using this tactic in the future.

She also said to expect congressional hearings and called on the federal government to pay damages that she estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars, vowing to go to the white House to advocate for justice.

>> Lujan Grisham: The federal government themselves -- “One pill kills.” that's their campaign.

If you believe that, and they do, then you tell me, if this is what you allowed to happen in this state, in our state.

You tell me why there aren't a whole lot of folks accountable for exactly those reasons.

>> Nash: Meanwhile, Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller called fentanyl by far the city's number one challenge, citing it as a driver of crime, homelessness, poverty and budget increases.

He admonished the federal government for its few statements on the allegations so far, calling them callous and smug.

>> Keller: The little that has come out from DEA or former officials in that environment is that, you know, “oh, this was a specific operation,” something to that effect, right?

But that's actually not what the whistleblower is saying.

There is no reason to believe that this has changed at all.

>> Nash: Keller said there's a 50/50 chance that the DEA targeted Albuquerque.

Attorney General Raul Torres announced an investigation into the DEA█s fentanyl operations last Friday.

We'll be sure to keep an eye on this story, bring you more as we have it in the coming weeks.

>> Nash: Now on to our annual look at how things stand with the media business in our state.

As the nation turns 250 years old, it seems like an especially poignant time to spotlight journalism, given how the founders felt about the free press and all.

In previous versions of this news landscape x ray, you have heard from top editors at the Albuquerque Journal.

New Mexico's largest newspaper.

Well, this year there isn't one.

And that's because, according to the paper's publisher, J. Newton Small resigned on June 1st.

It was an abrupt departure, marking another chapter in some recent rocky times for the Journal.

We'll be watching how things settle over there.

But this week we begin with a rare print success story.

The Santa Fe New Mexican.

That newspaper is growing, expanding its coverage across the state and adding reporters.

Executive editor Bill Church, coming up on his second anniversary at the New Mexican, dropped by the studio this week to tell executive producer Jeff Proctor how he's doing it in an age when print is supposed to be dead.

>>Jeff: Bill Church, thanks for making the time and welcome to New Mexico in Focus.

>>Bill: Thank you Jeff.

Congratulations on the 20th anniversary, a year from now, we can have a beer, right?

>>Jeff: Let's absolutely do that You are here, Bill, because the Santa Fe New Mexican is on a bit of a heater at the moment.

You guys are very much on a roll.

It's been a delight to watch.

We will get to some of how you've done that in due course.

But I'd like to begin with you if we can.

I think that I, and probably some of your other readers have gotten to know you through your weekend columns, but I'd like for you to take just a moment to introduce yourself to my viewers.

And how did you end up becoming executive editor at The New Mexican?

>>Bill: Well, thanks.

This is the hardest part of any interview talking about yourself.

I'm way past the resume building stage in my life, but all started with a phone call.

I was in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Pat Dorsey, who I've known and work for, worked with since 2013, was looking for an editor.

I was unhappy.

He was wanting to recruit, and I said, I can end your recruiting battle in a hurry.

And-- I was actually recruiting for the company in Austin at the time and said, I'll fly out to Santa Fe.

We worked out the deal the next day.

I have, I'd like to say, Jeff, I used to be sort of at the Yoda stage in my career, kind of grumpy, a little green, much old.

But then, you know, Baby Yoda came along and I'd feel a little bit rejuvenated.

And it has been a pleasure being here.

I've worked in great markets Sarasota, Austin, Raleigh, Santa Fe: easily at the top of the list.

>>Jeff: I like the Yoda analogy and you being unhappy and that leading to this job resonates.

What did you see as the paper's major strengths and weaknesses when you arrived?

>>Billy: Such a good question.

The paper when you're 176 years old, you've got to do a few things right through the years.

I saw an experienced senior leadership team.

I saw good DNA.

The writing was there, but I also saw a very print centric operation and more than anything else, being a bit of a data nerd.

Having a background in investigative reporting through the years we went took a look at the numbers, did a deep dive and saw our ambitions were still a little too dated and we wanted to think big.

We wanted to act big.

We had the team in place.

We had good writing.

It was just making the tweaks here and there.

You know the difference between a lawnmower engine and an F1 is really just changing the tuning here and there, and that's what it all was about.

>>Jeff: Having been in that position before, where a new guy comes in and wants to make some changes.

I've been on both ends of that particular deal where the new guy doesn't seek to get buy in.

I'm curious how you did that part.

How did you get the staff to agree with the tweaks that you wanted to make?

>>Bill: The biggest thing was just staying out of their way.

It was focusing really on the future of the New Mexican and focusing on where the New Mexican was and where it should be.

I think the DNA was there.

The New Mexican was tackling well, they were blocking.

It was, are we really willing to go beyond our comfort zone?

And the staff has been wonderful about it.

They've hired smart.

We've got talented young reporters.

We've got a mix of veterans.

And then, you know, it's the community itself.

You've been in Santa Fe.

It is a curious community that gets involved.

They're civically engaged.

They're astute, they're smarter than most of us.

And that relationship was so important in sort of building a relationship, but also saying, are we touching the right topics in a way that makes the most sense.

>>Jeff: Gotcha.

So the focus of this 4th of July episode, as it has been for the last several years, it's kind of an environmental scan of the media landscape.

Yours is one of the two largest newspapers in the state, the Albuquerque Journal being the other.

As a journal expat myself, I am incredibly comfortable and saying that yours is now the better newspaper.

I am interested though.

And when you got here, where did you see the New Mexican kind of fitting into the, I hate this word, but the ecosystem.

>>Bill: So true confession I don't read the journal.

I rarely read other media.

I have plenty to do to take care of what we were doing.

In fact, before we decided to get involved in becoming the operational manager of Searchlight, I rarely looked at Searchlight.

It's no difference.

I mean, our focus should be on our audience.

Where is it?

Where do we need to go?

But when you're 176 years old.

You're the first newspaper in New Mexico you█re family owned.

You're also the newspaper that beat Gannett to return to its family roots.

There's an obligation there to make sure that not only are we profitable, but we're also reaching new audiences in that one thing we saw more than anything else, Jeff.

We were more than just a Santa Fe newspaper.

And I think that's the one adjustment that we have seen.

Our content resonates across the board.

And when I first started looking at the audience analytics for The New Mexican, what caught my attention was we actually have more audience in other New Mexico communities, including Albuquerque, than Santa Fe.

Some of that is size.

Some of it is the fact that we're all too lazy to get new phone numbers when we move, which explains why we do well in Phoenix, according to our audience.

But when we do stories out of Las Cruces, Gallup, any corner of this state, we see a bump in traffic that tells me that the public good is such an important part of who we are.

>>Jeff: That's one of the changes that I've really noticed in the last couple of years since you came along.

I'm starting to see some date lines in the paper, which makes me really happy.

A lot of that kind of expanded statewide coverage.

You've added reporters, Bill, the New Mexican is growing.

I thought newspapers were supposed to be dead.

>>Bill: It's like that Willie Nelson song still not dead again We have to have this conversation it seems.

Every day our our subscriptions are up.

Digital is definitely growing.

But if Gwyneth Dolan were to roll out her, her analysis of the New Mexico ecosystem, she'd still consider somewhat of a print product.

And she would be right, because we have that audience that still wants that tactile feel every day of reading the newspaper.

>>Jeff: That includes me, sir.

>>Bill: I appreciate that in my-- and when I hear from readers, I usually hear from them on Sunday morning because they're in that same creed as myself of getting up early and looking at the print version of the newspaper.

But we saw 21% digital subscriber growth last year.

At a time when zero is-- zero is typically the growth in most legacy media.

I have seen across the board.

When I tell people about our numbers, they're going.

How are you doing that?

It's just paying attention to our audience.

>>Jeff: You mentioned a moment ago family ownership.

I want to ask just a question or two about that.

I'm curious about your relationship with the publisher and how working at a family owned newspaper in 2026 impacts what you can and can't do in terms of coverage.

>>Bill: I have run into several of my friends in the industry in recent weeks at conferences, and the first thing they say is you look happy and as-- as a former recovering corporate news executive, I can tell you it is so exhilarating to be in a place where I'm not on a town hall zoom call, or obsessing over a spreadsheet, we█re focused on content, audience and what our future is all about.

Robin Martin is a great journalist.

Our conversations are not about expenses or what are we doing here or there.

It is about the journalism that we produce, >>Jeff: What█s in the paper.

>>Bill: What's in the paper, or what is it that we should be working on?

And Pat Dorsey, he is well known nationally as a publisher and as a news executive.

He also has an implicit trust that I'm going to go do the right thing.

And that relationship was a huge reason that I said, yeah, we're coming to Santa Fe because we needed that ability to create, to grow, and we're not thinking about just what we're going to do next year of the year after-- This is a long term commitment >>Jeff: You've mentioned audience a couple of times as we sat here speaking as well.

I want to ask about that a little bit.

I know that when we're mulling coverage decisions here, one of the questions that comes up all the time is who is this for?

When I grew up in daily newspapers, the answer was really simple every story was for every person.

Digital publishing changed that, at least from my perspective.

What do you make of the possibility that some stories are for some folks, some stories are for everybody, some stories, or for some people?

How do you think about audience and who your journalism is for?

>>Bill: Well, I don't think this is like a Lego set where you put all the green blocks here, the red blocks here.

At some point there's a mesh of it and not everyone consumes the news the same way.

We have a lot of print readers.

The thing I am most proud of, of our team.

Last year, our top digital audience was 25 to 39 year olds.

The year before they were 55 plus.

So we have made a significant shift from your classic legacy newspaper readership to an audience that much more is attuned to getting their news streamed or through a social media platform.

And we have built our content with that way.

A lot of our stories, you'll notice.

Takeaways.

They work wonders both for print readers who are scanners, but they also work really well in terms of being able to build search terms and also get those readers who may not be invested in the story, but find a way to do it.

We have a copy desk.

My gosh, Jeff, who has a copy desk these days?

>>Jeff: It's been a long time since I saw one of those.

>>Bill: Such an investment in one of the major changes that have happened under Brian Barker's leadership is we write headlines for print, headlines for digital, trying to feed into that SEO and helping make sure that we got the right terms.

You can serve all your audiences and they can all still be separate too.

>>Jeff: People have a lot of choices these days Bill.

Despite declines in traditional media, the news cycle is like a fire hose of broken glass.

You're still charging for the New Mexican.

Why should people buy it?

>>Bill: For the same reason that you go to Starbucks in the morning and go, did I just pay $7 for this?

It's going to be gone.

You pay for the experience, you pay for the value for it.

And the reality is, we also still have a lot of content that doesn't fall under the paywall, for instance, anything that is philanthropically supported.

And we have seven positions that are philanthropically supported.

None of that content is paywall.

So we make decisions in terms of is this of the public good?

Is this content that should be paid for?

But ultimately, our readers are telling us in droves they value the fact that we have a national report, a world report, but we focus on local and New Mexico and the issues that arise.

We had 1300 letters to the editor every year in the same number of my views, and when I first came here, people would come up to me and go, I write for the New Mexican, and I'd sit there and go, oh my gosh, I have no clue who you are.

And as it turned out, what they were telling me was they write for the editorial page.

They have submitted a letter to the editor or a guest column, and if they do that, they're invested.

This is their product.

And I also think because we have a lot of our readers who are not from New Mexico and who have traveled extensively, they've seen the demise of local news in a lot of markets.

What they see here in Santa Fe is a seven day print paper, but also a newspaper that is just grown digitally.

13 newsletters, three podcasts.

We'll be doubling our podcasts before the end of the year.

We'll be adding a couple more newsletters here in the next couple of weeks.

We're trying to reach audiences where they're at right now.

>>Jeff: I'm going to ask you to stick around for a minute and talk about some of that non paywall stuff, but thanks for telling me about the great work, the New Mexicans doing.

>>Bill: A beer a year from now.

That's right Jeff?

>>Jeff: Sold.

>>Bill: Okay.

>> Nash: Thanks to Bill Church for that update on the Santa Fe New Mexican.

And stick around as he's joined by editor Ed Williams to discuss the paper's recent acquisition of Searchlight New Mexico in about 15 minutes.

As a statewide news program based in Albuquerque, our team is regularly working to make sure we're covering stories beyond the metro and prioritizing happenings that affect the entire state.

Well, that intention to be relevant to as many viewers as possible is common across state and citywide outlets, but it also means that stories that impact only a few people, or just one corner of the community, may not make the cut.

By contrast, those are exactly the stories Lindsey Wood and her team are looking for.

What is the publisher of three neighborhood based news outlets in Albuquerque the Nob Hill News, the North Valley News, and the International District News.

I spoke with her about the unique approach, how and why it works, and the role that her outlets play in the local news ecosystem.

>>Nash: Lindsay, welcome to New Mexico in Focus.

Thanks so much for being here.

>>Wood: Thank you Nash, for having me.

Nash: So you're the publisher of three different news outlets.

I want to start by focusing on the one that's a little bit more established, Nob Hill News.

Can you talk about, for those unfamiliar, what this neighborhood outlet is what it's what it's all about.

>>Wood: Sure, We believe that if a community can support a coffee shop, a restaurant, a dry cleaners, that they can also support a few scrappy journalists.

And that's the thing we're trying to prove.

So just over a year ago, we tried-- we're starting this experiment, and we-- were doing that with Nob Hill.

And essentially we're asking the community, hey, do you want journalists in your neighborhood?

And so far the answer has been yes.

>>Nash: All right.

And Nob Hill, for folks who are outside of Albuquerque, this is a neighborhood in the UNM area.

What's the coverage zone for the outlet?

>>Wood: Nob Hill is a geographic center.

It also picks up some of the neighborhoods in the area like UNM, Ridgecrest, Highland, all the neighboring areas too.

>>Nash: Okay.

And how do people get your news?

What's the delivery mechanism?

>>Wood: Comes into the inbox three times a week.

>>Nash: Okay, so a newsletter?

>>Wood: a newsletter.

Exactly.

>>Nash: And it's through email.

Are folks engaging with you on social media?

How else do they find you?

>>Wood: They can go to our website, but really we just the newsletter is the crux of the issue because for us, the social media is the crux of the issue because for us, the social media and all that stuff gets a little too much.

We want to keep it simple and easy for the readers.

>>Nash: Well, so full disclosure and you know this, but for our audience, I live in Knob Hill.

I'm a subscriber.

I think as an example of some of the stories you all tell, I think about there's a property in the neighborhood that has been vacant for a long while.

I was passing by it one day and was just thinking to myself, like, I wonder what's going to happen with that?

And literally the next day, Nob Hill News came out with a story about who bought the property, what they were planning on doing with it, the timeline.

I mean, it was kind of incredible in that way.

I think in some ways that's the kind of information I might expect to hear more word of mouth just through my neighbors and not the news.

And so it's pretty unique that you all are covering these neighborhood level stories.

And the reason why I might not think that would be in the news is because of the impact is kind of just on the folks in the area, or at least the interest in that story is.

So how do you all make your coverage decisions?

How do you find these neighborhood specific stories?

>>Wood: I love that you said that because we hear that all the time that “oh I was just passing this place and then wondering what it was, and then I read about it.

The next day.” One of our journalists coined the term observational journalism.

So our readers get to see something, and then, lo and behold, there's the article about it.

How do we choose what we're going to tell?

I mean, it's really that it's kind of that water cooler vibe where we're going to neighborhood association meetings, seeing what people are interested in, seeing what people are talking about.

We just get out there ourselves and walk around the neighborhood and ask ourselves those questions to >>Nash: and our most of your reporters in the neighborhood, like you're going to the neighborhood associations, but are you also getting that word of mouth?

Are you also... the neighbors of the folks who are reading your news?

>>Wood: Most of our people live in the coverage zone, are very near the coverage zone, and definitely spend a lot of time there.

Yeah.

>>Nash: And now you personally, you don't have a background in journalism.

How did you find yourself becoming a news publisher?

And and maybe more specifically of such a unique outlet?

>> Wood: So I was married to a journalist, and he's the one who started downtown Albuquerque News, which is still going strong.

We started it together in 2019, and I edited for him for about four and a half, five years, and that's where I really saw the impact that that publication was having on the neighborhood, just uncovering these stories that were important to the neighbors and allowing the neighbors, giving them this power to then act on the stories that we were uncovered.

>>Nash: and so Downtown Albuquerque News is still a news outlet flourishing down there.

Why choose Nob Hill as kind of your next step?

>>Wood: I always told Peter, I feel bad for neighborhoods that don't have this, and now I live in this neighborhood, and I felt bad that we didn't have the stories here too.

So I wanted to kind of share the love.

>>Nash: And maybe this is about Nob Hill news, but even just what you observed as you launched downtown is how is the neighborhood level news outlet responsive to today's news ecosystem, in your opinion?

>>Wood: So I like to tell this analogy.

You know, if I told you, “Nash did you know there's a house on fire in Albuquerque,” you would probably wonder why I was telling you that.

But notice the difference in impact when I tell you, “Nash, did you know your neighbor's house is on fire?” >>Nash: a little more urgent.

>>Wood: So when it's your street, your park, the school, your kids go to the business down the block, the development that's moving in, suddenly these stories become really important.

>>Nash: And how were you able to respond to, you know, if the-- if that's how the stories are responsive to the news ecosystem right now, what about the model, the business model that you already see?

>>Wood: Well, you know, we believe that people are willing to pay for news.

You know, in the last 20-- 20 years, you know, we've lost like 80% of our local journalists.

And so we're at this inflection point in how we're going to deal with this.

And I think that there is a possible model of readers paying for news.

And that's what we're trying to prove.

>>Nash: So you are subscriber based?

>>Wood: We're subscriber based.

>>Nash: In a recent last year's New Mexico Local News Ecosystem report, they showed that subscriptions are actually a very minor part of most papers revenue, only 11% on average.

So how are you all able to make that work?

I think it goes back to the when it's on your block, you're willing to pay for that because it affects your day to day life.

You know, we talk about if you live in the city, you live in Albuquerque.

Well, not really.

You really live in High Desert or Burrell's or Los Ranchos.

And so this day to day life that you're leading when when you break it down to the neighborhood level becomes so important that people are willing to pay for that information.

>>Nash: And when you compare that to something like the Albuquerque Journal or a citywide paper, what do you feel like Nob Hill News is offering folks that they're willing to pay for, that a paper with a broader base is missing, what is the more traditional outlet not doing?

Or what are you all doing differently that's creating that impetus to pay for it?

>>Wood: We think of a newsroom as a citywide entity, and that's certainly important to.

But we're showing that you can take that same idea and bring it down to a neighborhood level, and then we become a service like anything else.

You know, all these neighborhoods have plumbers and electricians and landscapers.

And so we're just another service if people want to know what's going on around them, hey, we're here.

>>Nash: How do they find out about you?

>> Wood: A lot of word of mouth, a lot of us being tabling out in the community... fliers, things like that.

>> Nash: I've even noticed some of my neighbors have your yard sign out front, which I thought was a pretty unique way of getting the word out.

>> Wood: We get a lot of subscribers from the yard signs.

>> Nash: Yeah.

How did you come up with that?

>> Wood: I've just saw it online and I thought, we need a yard sign.

>> Nash: Yeah, it felt like.

It's like the kind of yard sign you might see for a politician, but instead it's one that says, I support local news.

>> Wood: And I think that speaks to our readers because we have a lot of raving fans for readers that they're willing to put a yard sign in front of their house.

>> Nash: Awesome.

Well, and it's not the only way that you're creating community by getting the news out to people, having yard signs and tabling at events, but you actually are hosting your own events.

You want to talk about those a little bit, what are those about?

>> Wood: you know, when you're-- when you have a newsroom that's based in the neighborhood, it█s so important to know the neighbors.

And so we like to host happy hours.

We go-- we're going to be at Tasty Tuesday, and we do just little events that people can come out and meet us, tell us what they're seeing.

Get to know each other.

We've had a lot of people connect with their-- with their neighbors through our events, and just it's a fun way to hear what's going on.

>> Nash: Are they ever kind of based in the news or information sharing, or is it more social?

>> Wood: Information sharing happens, of course, because these are people who are news lovers, but it's more social.

>> Nash: Alright.

Let's talk a little bit about your audience, because with our team, we're kind of constantly asking ourselves, who is this for?

Who are we serving?

How do you ask those questions, and how do you find out what what Nob Hill residents are looking for?

For me?

>> Wood: You know, we get a lot of-- when we're so close to the community, people feel comfortable reaching out to us and and emailing us with questions, just talking.

And, you know, if it's also where we live.

So it's what interests us to.

>> Nash: Okay, now you've recently expanded and so we've been talking about Nob Hill news this whole time.

But you also now have the North Valley News and the International District News.

Those are in slightly different developmental phases, if I understand correctly.

How so?

>> Wood: So North Valley News, we launched kind of full bore just like Nob Hill.

It's multiple times a week and it's a paid subscription right now.

International district is just in its very infancy.

And we're just doing a couple of articles a month and it's free right now.

>> Nash: Okay and so do you imagine both will get to the place where Nob Hill News is?

Is that the vision?

>> Wood: Yes, it's a matter of resources, but that's the dream.

>> Nash: And now if I'm thinking about Nob Hill News and then the North Valley and the International District, those are distinctly different neighborhoods from Knob Hill.

The International District neighbors Nob Hill.

It is more diverse.

It's more low income than Nob Hill is.

The North Valley has a super rich agricultural history, a little more rural in stretches compared to a lot of parts of the city.

How is the news that you all are covering?

How is it responsive to the unique flavor of these neighborhoods?

>> Wood: Well, again, when it's coming-- when it's bubbling up from the water cooler, you know, it just we we take the stories that we're hearing and we run with it.

And I grew up in the North Valley, so I'm very familiar with that area.

And but the international district.

This is a this is a new thing.

You know... we're really relying on people to point us to the things that are important in that neighborhood.

>> Nash: And are they doing that?

>> Wood: Yes, yes.

>> Nash: Okay, and what are you folks in these neighborhoods?

Are they feeling that the paper's responsive to what they're looking for from you?

>> Nash: We get responses all the time to the stories we're writing, saying, kind of like what you said.

“Hey, I was just passing that.

Thank you for the story.

Now I know what's going on there.” And so, yeah, >> Nash: the International district has over the years been over policed.

And I think in some ways the neighborhood has had a tough relationship with reporters, you know, parachuting in there, telling reductionist stories about their community around, say, addiction or poverty, the police presence, crime.

How do you get around that or how do you go through that?

By creating relationships.

What has that looked like?

How are you building up trust?

I guess, is the question in the international district.

>> Wood: Well, that's exactly why we wanted to start the International District news, because our team felt like if there's any area of the city that really needs quality journalism, it's the international district.

And that's also why we're taking it very slowly, because we're trying to really understand what's happening there and make the relationships and make the connections before we dive in.

>> Nash: And you feel like that█s starting to happen, alright... Right.

Well, what's on the horizon for I mean, your publishing company overall?

So any of these outlets or all of them, and what do you see as as the next steps for you guys?

>> Wood: You know, I want to say that we didn't just start this to cover the Knob Hill area of the North Valley area of the International District.

We want to prove a model that other cities could potentially take and run.

We want Albuquerque to be a proving ground for how we can bring journalists back into our communities.

>> Nash: Do you see you're talking about a proven model.

Do you see the model that you're using for Nob Hill News and these others as competition for the traditional media model, the traditional newspaper or more additive or supplementary even?

>> Wood: I think it's an additive thing.

We still need citywide news.

We still need to know what's going on citywide, statewide.

And so this really is just a part of that whole mix.

>> Nash: Okay.

Just a little more zoomed in.

>> Wood: Yes, exactly.

>> Nash: Thanks so much for your time.

>> Wood: Thank you.

Nash.

>> Nash: Thanks so much to Lindsay Wood for that conversation about neighborhood focused journalism.

We're going to look forward to seeing how things go in the North Valley and International District.

Earlier in the show, you heard from Bill Church, executive editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican.

He talked to fair bit about how he's managed to expand the paper's operations, but we wanted to zero in on one particular piece of that puzzle for this next discussion.

Searchlight New Mexico.

Founded in 2017, many of you will be familiar with Searchlight as the spot where much of the state's best take no prisoners investigative reporting has been published in recent years.

Well, as has so often been the case in the fraught media business.

Searchlight fell on hard times and nearly folded.

But to all of our benefit, the Santa Fe New Mexican stepped in.

Since late last year, Searchlight has operated as an initiative of the New Mexican Public Service Journalism Fund.

Church is back at the table with executive producer Jeff Proctor to talk about what that means and how the two organizations are meant to function, both together and apart.

Joining them is Ed Williams, one of searchlights original reporters who's now been promoted to investigations editor.

Here's that conversation.

>>Jeff: Bill, thanks for staying and Ed, Welcome back to New Mexico in Focus.

>>Ed: Thanks, it's good to be here.

>>Jeff: I will confess to being a little bit confused when I go to the Searchlight New Mexico home page.

I feel like sometimes what I see there are really good stories that I've already read in the New Mexican, whether those be from Lily Alexander or Maggie O'Hara or Esteban Candelaria But fewer of those big heaves that searchlight sort of became famous for, Bill, how are folks to understand the who's who and the what's what's and what is your plan for making sure, especially in this age of a massive dearth of that real investigative reporting, making sure that that doesn't go away?

>>Bill: Well, Jeff, you're an anomaly.

You're a news nerd.

You read everything.

And that does make a big difference, because when we took over operational oversight of Searchlight, it was really to save an organization that had ties to the New Mexican and still had a lot of value.

And part of the model that's developed in recent years through philanthropically supported journalism is are we filling content gaps?

But more importantly, and it doesn't matter.

In any news, nonprofit executive director who tells you otherwise is not telling you the truth.

It's all about audience and where, who picked you up and how much distribution you have.

So what we've created is really to distribution model.

You get the best of Ed Williams not only on Searchlight, but it's pretty much a guarantee it's going to show up in the New Mexican too.

But it's Searchlight centric.

Maggie's work reaches a statewide audience now.

Esteban's work now reaches a statewide audience because the Searchlight folks who come back on a day to day basis, they're not necessarily New Mexican subscribers.

So we have between Esteban, Lily and Maggie have also taken Searchlight back to one of its original mission was to make sure that we were looking after the interests of of children, of families and health issues across the board.

So I'll give you the quick headlines, because it's important to know we took over in December.

We have seen traffic increase significantly, 140% increase in views.

We saw a line of traffic that matched the legislative session, which, by the way, correlated really well with Maggie's coverage and Esteban's coverage.

And then we have Ed more than anything else, doing what Ed does best, going and doing the stories that no one else is going to do that take time.

Because, Jeff, you know this editor, you know this and I know this.

You can't churn out that long form investigative narrative on a daily basis.

It is not it's not coffee.

It's not a slice of pizza.

This is a full meal that takes a lot of time.

But I like where we're going right now.

>>Jeff: Gotcha.

Let's get to that original mission.

I just want to ask you briefly under the old setup, what worked about Searchlight?

What didn't what made it awesome?

What made it less awesome?

>>Ed: Well, you know, the stories that we did from our beginning of publication in 2018, you know, all the way forward, were pretty much exclusively these long, hard hitting stories that would just take, you know, an inordinate amount of effort and resources.

Investigative reporting.

Like Bill just said, it takes time.

It takes money.

We'd have stories that would cost tens of thousands of dollars, take many months.

I mean, I remember working on a story for ten months before the first in the series was published.

It was great because we were able to just drill down, focus on these really big lifts that, you know, other newsrooms didn't have the ability to do, and the stories would land hard.

You know, we'd have major impacts on the regular.

And when they would reverberate throughout the, throughout the state.

The problem is, you know it.

You just can't publish frequently.

We were at our best, I think, running about one story a week, which is really, I think, kind of ambitious for a small staff investigative newsroom.

If you look at a group like ProPublica or something that has, you know, just hundreds of employees, they're able to publish regularly, but just because of the volume of their staff and their resources.

So, you know, that meant that the we weren't publishing frequently enough to really keep eyes on our page with the frequency that I think we needed.

And so that kind of comes back to the question that Bill is addressing, too.

Right?

Like, which is, you know, how do we maintain our content?

How do we keep current with the news and continue to provide the same kind of investigative reporting that that we became known for?

So I think, you know, we're on our way to, to a solution to that problem of, of of frequency versus impact.

And our content now is, is fresher than it than it was before.

And, you know, we're still going to be delivering those hard hitting packages that we that we have in the past.

>>Jeff: As you mentioned, investigative reporting is not cost effective.

Bill, I'm curious, are there plans to hire Searchlight specific reporters to ensure that that the hard stuff that take no prisoners stuff that Ed does-- or are you leaning more into that cross-pollination model or a little bit of both?

>>Bill: Well, it's more of a hybrid.

I've worked with some Pulitzer winning journalists.

You don't want any of them to be your next door neighbor, because they'll call you at 3:00 in the morning and want to talk through a story.

It is a special breed.

It█s why Ed and I get along.

One of my early asset is my door is open.

Come on in.

It knows the minute my door opens.

But it's that relationship that's such an important part of what we do.

We, you know, we talked off camera about a hire that we are very eager to make.

That is all about data.

Because to me, the differentiator right now in terms of what type of journalism does best is if you can show impact the documentation, but also be able to drill down to it locally.

So the answer is yes, but it's also going to be a mix of thinking differently about how we move forward, how we take data and how we process it, and how do we build out stories from it.

Is going to be the key to success for Searchlight, doing the big picture journalism that we need?

But we hired Lily Alexander to focus on equity and transparency.

Jeff, can you tell me two topics that are not being covered in New Mexico very well right now?

Equity and transparency.

>>Jeff: And I am delighted that you have hired Lily, who I am a big fan of, to do exactly that.

We spoke in our previous conversation about audience.

Do you think about the difference between what's a Searchlight story versus what is a new Mexican story, or does that not matter to you?

>>Bill: It matters particularly Ed is on a different clock than the majority than the majority of our reporters.

He's been working on a story now for, what, six weeks or so?

>>Jeff: That sounds like Ed.

>>Bill: Yeah, but we-- I don't know when it's going to when it's even going to be close to publishing.

That's the type of journalism that I can get excited about, because we'll go back and start talking now about, okay, where are we at?

What's next?

What is the package look like?

Will that story likely run in the New Mexican?

Yes, but this is a searchlight effort.

>>Jeff: Gotcha.

I got a couple minutes left.

Ed, I asked you earlier what you thought worked about Searchlight so well, for me as a reader and as someone who knew all of you guys, there were very specific, easy to identify beats and reporters on those beats who were also very easy to identify.

in a perfect world, looking forward, what are some of the coverage areas that deserve the real hard stuff most in the state?

Where would you like to see Searchlight go in terms of coverage areas?

>>Ed: I mean, you know the state of New Mexico just has so many areas that are under covered generally in the media and especially when it comes to investigative reporting.

I mean, not just thinking about specific beats like criminal justice or nuclear reporting, education, the things that we've had previously, but also like where are we delivering those stories?

I mean, who is the investigative presence along the border in the oil and gas areas and the tribal communities?

That's somewhere that, you know, that we want to get to.

We want to be able to to do the kind of really serious, hard hitting reporting, but not just in Santa Fe.

I mean, I think the areas that we need to look at are not just topical, but geographical.

Every community has its own needs, has its own scandals, has its own corruption, has its own abuses of power.

There's not always an overarching story that goes along with those.

Sometimes it's something that's happening, you know, in Lee County or in Roswell or in Farmington.

And we, you know, our goal is to be able to attack those stories when they come up.

I think in a few years, we're going to be in a position to where, you know, we'll be on the cusp of another important election, the consequences of a lot of the policies that we're seeing enacted right now are going to be coming clear as they gel, and we're going to be in a position to really dig into to some accountability reporting in terms of what is going on across the state.

>>Jeff: I know I'm not alone in saying, good luck to both of you with the future of Searchlight.

Long live Searchlight and thanks Ed, thanks, Bill, for stopping by for a chat.

>>Bill: Thank you.

>>Ed: Thanks, Jeff.

>> Nash: Thanks to Bill Church and to Ed Williams for coming on to tell us about Searchlight█s second life.

Let's turn our attention now from northern to southern New Mexico, where a one man news organization is working to sprinkle a little moisture around that region's news desert.

Damian Willis is the founder, editor and lone staff writer for the Oregon Mountain News.

I sat down with Damien to learn about the Dona Ana County news site and the work he's done to both listen to and inform his readers.

>> Nash: Damien, thanks so much for being here.

>> Willis: Absolutely.

It's a pleasure.

>> Nash: So, for those who are unfamiliar with your outlet, the Oregon Mountain News.

Tell us about it.

>> Willis: So, we are an independent, locally owned, digital news outlet, a website serving Dona Ana County and Las Cruces.

Basically the residents of southern New Mexico that maybe otherwise get overlooked a little bit when it comes to -- the current media landscape in southern New Mexico.

>> Nash: And, you say, “independent” what does that mean?

>> Willis: We're not corporate-owned.

It's literally a small business.

It's just one person making all the decisions, and -- >> Nash: And that one person is you.

>> Willis: And that's -- [Nash laughs] This guy, yaeh, me.

>>Nash: And, so, if it's not -- corporate funding, where do you get your funding from?

>> Willis: So far, we've been really lucky, really fortunate to be grant-funded for the most part.

We've gotten several grants through the New Mexico local news fund.

Listening Post Collective -- gave us a really sizable grant to do some community listening, which I think is critical work when you're running a news outlet like mine.

You know, it's so important to know not only what issues are important to readers, but what they feel is being overlooked.

>> Nash: And you mentioned that your structure is that one guy, yourself are -- is making all the decisions.

A lot of the bylines that I█m seeing on the outlet are your own or staff reports.

So how big exactly is the operation and who's right in those staff reports?

> Willis: Staff reports are basically -- are largely press releases that are turned around and then rewritten to meet our editorial standards.

>> Nash: And are you rewriting them?

>> Willis: Yes.

And then we also pick up partner stories through Source New Mexico and Searchlight and -- some of those outlets that do fantastic work with resources that we just don't have right now.

>> Nash: You previously worked at the Las Cruces Sun News, which is owned by the USA Today Company, previously Gannett.

How did you how was your experience there?

How did it inform your desire to start something independent like you have?

>> Willis: It played a big role.

I will say that I kind of thought about doing this since 2013 or so.

It's always been in the back of my mind that Las Cruces just needed more.

And Dona Ana County, especially the south county, needed more attention.

But I started -- the first time I worked for the Sun News, I started in 2014, and there were 17 reporters and editors on staff just in the newsroom, plus an entire advertising department with probably 10 or 15 salespeople.

>> Nash: Huge.

>> Willis: Yeah, it was a big operation.

And by the time I left the second time, at the end of May 2023, there were 2 or 3 reporters left in the newsroom and no salespeople in the building.

>> Nash: Wow.

Gutted.

>> Willis: Yeah, it was gutted, and it was incredibly hard to operate under those conditions.

>> Nash: Tell me more about that, what were some of the struggles of doing that?

Because now you're a newsroom of one in many respects.

So how how is that less challenging than trying to do what The Sun News is trying to do with 2 or 3 people?

>>Willis: I think it it comes down to personal accountability for me because I am making the editorial decisions of what we cover, what I feel is important to readers based on what I hear, what what I've been told.

We've we've had I've personally conducted over 50 one on one listening sessions with readers throughout the county.

We've done online listening surveys and gotten well over 300 responses so far.

>>Nash: So what you're covering, you feel confident in response to what the community is looking for, right?

>>WillisAnd we're able to do it in a way that is free to our readers and accessible to them, regardless of of how, how much money they might have.

>>Nash: You talked a little bit about Organ Mountain News being responsive to the news landscape in southern New Mexico, and I want to explore that a bit more.

Gannett, the USA today company, used to have a far larger footprint in New Mexico than it does now.

It is the the largest newspaper publisher in the country, but no longer in New Mexico.

They let go of papers in Alamogordo, Carlsbad, Deming, Farmington, Ruidoso and Silver City over the last few years.

What has that left the news ecosystem in southern New Mexico looking like?

>>Willis: They in many ways, they let go of a lot of properties, a lot of papers that they weren't really that they owned, but they weren't really invested in to begin with.

They weren't invested in those communities, essentially.

The Las Cruces Sun News was doing all of the reporting for Silver City, and nearly all of it for Deming.

So they were just picking up the stories that The Sun News staff were were reporting, >>Nash: Which had been withered down, >>Willis: Which was being whittled down gradually over, over that period.

>>Nash: Well, you, as part of the Oregon Mountain News, participate in something called the Southern New Mexico Journalism Collaborative.

So I want to explore more kind of how your outlet is plugged into a network of journalism that is happening in southern New Mexico, even if it remains quite small.

>>Willis: It's a really fantastic kind of branch of the New Mexico Local News fund, and I've been fortunate enough to benefit from both sides of it, both as a reporter and as a newspaper owner, you know, or-- >>Nash: What does it provide?

>>Willis: As a reporter, it provides me freelance opportunities, which really come in handy when you're trying to operate a newsroom of your own on a shoestring budget.

But it also as a as a someone who operates a news organization.

It also provides in-depth reporting that I don't have the budget to provide to hire freelancers to do.

>>Nash: What do you think the, you know, Gannett's reducing its footprint and so many newspapers struggling to stay afloat, even as these small independent outfits like your own have come online?

What has it meant for the residents of southern New Mexico?

>>Willis: More than the amount of reporting, necessarily, it's the depth of reporting, because those stories tend to be a lot more deeply reported than you could do if you're trying to turn five or 6 or 7 stories a day.

So I think that's been the greatest benefit of the collaborative.

>>Nash: You mentioned the values that you bring as the editor of your paper.

I found looking at the Oregon Mountain News site that your commitment to transparency is quite laudable.

You not only have a page dedicated to transparency, but to your fundraising, your ethics, your style guide, your diversity, equity and inclusion, and AI policies.

These are commitments that that a lot of newsrooms have, but a lot keep internally.

You have put them out on the web page as something that your readers can explore.

Can you talk about the decision to do that, but also any response from the readers that you've gotten to that?

>>Willis: I think especially as a as a news startup, I think that, you know, I'm, I'm asking for reader's trust and you can't just say, oh, yeah, we've already thought about all those things.

Just take our word for it.

There's nothing to hide, you know, when it comes to our AI policy.

Yeah, we use AI, but I feel like we use it in responsible ways.

You know, for instance.

Well, even something as simple as taking those press releases and turning them around, framing them in a way that is important, that that puts the reader first and not necessarily the agency first.

>>Nash: Overall, do you believe the model that you're using for Organ Mountain News is replicable across New Mexico for some of these news deserts, or even places that just, you know, either it's a large corporation that doesn't care, in your words, to care about the community as much for folks to come in and do something like you're doing.

Can that happen across the state?

>>Willis: Absolutely.

I think it's I think that for someone who has an editorial sense, you know, a really strong editorial sense, I think it's very easily replicable.

>>Nash: And what's the future hold for your outlet?

And if you're dreaming big?

>>Willis: We just launched the ability to accept reader donations, and those have started coming in over the last six weeks or so.

And that is going to be really important when it comes to sustainability for Organ Mountain News.

So depending on how fast that can grow and what kind of future grants we can get, I think the future is is largely going to be financially built around those things.

And reporting capacity will scale to to meet that, I think.

I will say that we will never, ever, ever be go to a subscription or paywall model because that's the reason I built it, is because readers need an alternative to that.

There's information that they need that they don't, that they need to be able to access without a subscription.

>>Nash: Well, thanks for the work that you're doing, and I look forward to seeing what you continue to do with it.

Damien Willis, appreciate your time.

>>Willis: Absolutely.

It's a pleasure.

>> Nash: Thanks to Damien Willis for sitting with us in our Albuquerque studio before heading back to Las Cruces to keep on it.

And thanks to everyone else who contributed to the show for New Mexico PBS, I'm Nash Jones.

Until next week, stay focused.

Funding for New Mexico in Focus is provided by viewers like you.