Newspapers in the Digital Age

The Everett Herald was first published on February 11, 1901. It was purchased by the Washington Post Company in 1978. It was previously owned by the Best family. For decades, the Herald was an afternoon paper. It became a morning paper 14 years ago this month. On February 6, 2013, the Washington Post Company announced it was selling the paper to the Sound Publishing division, based in Poulsbo, Washington of the Black Press Company based in Victoria, British Columbia.

Josh is the Vice President of East Sound Newspaper Operations. He is responsible for five other publications for Sound Publishing as well as the printing press operation located near Paine Field. Josh joined Sound's parent company, Black Press Limited in 1998. Prior to the newspaper business, Josh received his marketing communications degree from Kwantlen Polytechnic University in the lower British Columbia mainland. He has an undergraduate degree in Executive Management from Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, BC. He is married to his high school sweetheart and they have two daughters ages 5 and 3. Important to Rotary is the fact that Josh is a RYLA alum as well as a RYLA counselor.

The Everett Herald is vital to the community so that they can share news about the community. The Herald just sold their downtown headquarters after 55 years in downtown Everett. The downtown building was built in 1958-59. The staff now occupies a portion of the old GTE/Verizon building at 41st St and Colby Avenue. Today's newspapers are unable to have the printing operations in the same building as the newspaper staff and personnel. Sound Publications is commited to share the news in the community. They pride themselves on the content in the newspaper. The digital era is the new media of today. So the challgenge is to compete with the digital phase of journalism. They have a commitment to five key areas of investment for success now and in the future. Oso will be highlighted in a special edition to be published this coming week. The Herald had seven full time reporters t teh landslide site during the whole process. Because of that event on March 22nd, they had one million readers to their website with over 6 million impressions. The Herald currently has over 45,000 subscribers, but in its hayday, had over 60,000 subscribers.

Last November brought major changes to the business. The digital business is free to newspaper subscribers. Staffing issues have been a problem and they have hired four new local news reporters. They believe that they can be successful using both platforms. They have the skilled talent to be a digital competitor with several reps being Google and Word certified. And, they are working closely with local non-profits on a variety of issues.

Josh stayed around after the meeting to answer questions about the Everett Herald. If you missed the program, you really missed a good one.