From the Winter 2022 Edition of California Publisher
Our CNPA Board of Directors adopted a strategic plan in 2019 aimed at elevating the association’s influencer status in Sacramento, stabilizing its financial position, expanding its service portfolio and growing its membership. This month, as CNPA nears the end of its 2021 fiscal year, there is a lot of good news to report as we’ve made considerable progress against each of these goals.
The credit for our advancements belongs to two groups: an engaged and thoughtful group of directors and an assemblage of management and staff that is performing at truly extraordinary levels. Both have stood strong against difficult challenges. The pandemic wreaked havoc with our businesses. The California Legislature considered a potentially ruinous bill involving our distribution model, and there were numerous assaults on the Brown Act, freedom of information and public notice.
Against that backdrop, the association marshaled its resources and mounted successful efforts to work past – and well beyond – these and other near-term issues. It did so despite a 50 percent reduction in staff, a precipitous reduction in revenue and the adverse effects of a national business shut down on its members.
At the end of the 2021 session of the Legislature, we reported the successful initiative to gain an independent contractor exemption for carriers. As we noted at the time, the win came about as a result of a full-throttle effort to educate legislators about the critical role of journalism in communities throughout the state.
There was also a longer-range impact, one that raised our standing in Sacramento. Now, more lawmakers and their staffs know who we are and what we stand for. More executive branch decision-makers have come to know CNPA, too. And more publishers involved themselves in the affairs of state government, acting as advocates not just for our industry, but also for democracy.
What is not fully appreciated about our legislative effort is the extent to which it is engaged with other important issues. Last session, the team tracked 130 pieces of legislation that might have impinged on our journalistic rights.
We defeated a bill that would have restricted access to autopsy results. We helped pass bills that expanded protections for journalists covering riots and other public disturbances. We also helped move a bill to appropriate funds to help jump start the state’s tourism industry, the passage of which made CNPA-Member publishers eligible for millions in statewide ad revenue.
The pandemic virtually eliminated our events activity. The CNPA Capital Conference and the California Journalism Awards Gala – two important revenue sources for the association – had to be postponed because of the pandemic. There was no real substitute for CapCon. Having leaders of the profession come together in the state’s capital city to learn about legislation and share business solutions and innovations could not be replicated.
Nor could the Gala and the celebration of journalism that so many enjoyed.
The California Journalism Awards themselves have continued without interruption. This year, CNPA will be judging more than 2,700 print, digital and campus entries submitted by members, each hoping to become part of a “family” of work hailed by peers for the capacity to inform, enrich and protect their audiences and their free society.
The fiscal year has also been notable because membership is again beginning to rise. The economic impact of the pandemic has begun to ease and, along with concerted efforts to build constituencies among ethnic and student publications as well as California-based freelancers, we are looking ahead to a period of membership growth.
Concurrently, the staff is working on new member services. The association’s statewide public notice website – CaPublicNotice.com – is a case in point. As a way to position adjudicated newspapers as leaders in legal notice distribution, CNPA has developed a facility for posting every notice published on a searchable website. The site preempts what at least 15 other states have been asked to construct by law. We’d rather be ahead of the issue, carving our own competitive way.
Thanks to our directors, staff, advisors, allies and, most especially, to our members for supporting these initiatives. We are all the stronger for it.
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This is my last column. My two-year term as your board chair comes to an end this month. As someone who prefers to avoid the spotlight and work behind the scenes, the role has been a wonderful challenge. I feel privileged to have worked side by side with so many dedicated professionals.
Chuck Champion and his staff are the very definition of mission driven. They have an exhilarating can-do attitude that has helped make the chairman’s job a most gratifying experience. I have the utmost respect for them all, and I am deeply thankful to have served with them.
The CNPA Board of Directors has been incredible, too. They have risen to many challenges and have shown their ability to pivot and adjust course to counter the strong headwinds. Their oversight and guidance have been a force in putting CNPA in a much stronger position today.
We still have many things to do. We must continue to diversify the board and our member base. We need to build on the strong relationships we have developed in Sacramento. I am confident that your incoming chair, Emily Charrier, is the perfect blend of journalistic experience and leadership to keep us moving in the right direction.
Again, it has been an honor to serve, and I am looking forward to what the next year will bring.
CNPA Chairperson Simon Grieve is publisher of Southern California News Group’s weekly Gazette Newspapers in Long Beach, The Beach Reporter in Hermosa Beach and Palos Verdes Peninsula News.
