Every new year is an opportunity to set personal and professional goals for the next 12 months, to reaffirm and reinforce the values that are the foundation of your happiness and livelihood, launch new initiatives and contribute to the health and prosperity of your community. Editor & Publisher has invited leaders and influencers in the media and news industries to share their New Year’s resolutions for 2025. Their aspirations and positive attitudes will inspire anyone who wants to make 2025 the best year ever.
Danielle Coffey
President and CEO, News/Media Alliance
Our industry is at the center of a critical moment, where changes to the business landscape will allow for a thriving future. The ability to monetize our content is necessary to reinvest in quality journalism and ensure stability and growth. Embracing opportunity, enforcing our rights and reducing compliance costs remain our goals for a functional ecosystem. As the industry’s leading advocacy organization, the News/Media Alliance will work diligently and earnestly with the incoming Administration and Republican majority of Congress. The business interests of Alliance members are closely aligned with Republican views around economic and job growth. It also remains important that quality information, entertainment, current events and community developments reach underserved areas of our country. The vast majority of Americans have also expressed concerns with tech running away with itself, and we must rein it in. Incentives to invest in any tax reform package should be explored, and our industry is best positioned to adjust, innovate and find new ways to communicate with our readers. It is also important to protect our right to freedom of speech that feeds a healthy democracy. We see areas of opportunity with the incoming Administration and Congress and look forward to working with them toward our common goals.
Steve Strickbine
President, Times Media Group
As we look ahead to the new year, I’m more inspired than ever by our work at Times Media Group. Our mission to be a trusted source for meaningful, local news to the communities we serve remains at the heart of everything we do. In the coming year, one of my primary goals is to explore new ways to enhance efficiency across our operations. Leveraging emerging technologies and refining our workflows will allow us to dedicate even more time and resources to uncovering stories that matter most to our readers. Local news is a cornerstone of strong communities, and we are committed to strengthening that foundation. Together, with our talented team and community partnerships, we’ll continue to grow and make an even greater impact in the year ahead.
Frances Toni Draper
Chairman of the Board and Publisher, AFRO Newspapers
As the oldest Black-owned business in the DMV, AFRO News stands firm where truth is free. The longest-running family-owned Black news in the land, A legacy built strong by a visionary hand.
With quality journalism, we tell stories untold, Of Black life, our history, both young and old. In 2025, we’ll rise, a year to be great, Expanding our reach, we won’t hesitate.
AI drives our future, improving our way, Innovating daily, leading the way. Our archives, rich with untold tales, Create new content where truth prevails.
Documentaries, events and voices that soar, Revenue grows as we open new doors. Growth is our focus, with profit in mind, Print and digital, both intertwined.
Each month, a theme, our stories will speak, While Afro.com grows, unique and sleek. We'll amplify voices, from youth to the wise, Engaging the future as we rise.
Advocacy strong, our mission remains, Lifting the Black community through joys and pains. 2025 will be a year of success and pride, AFRO News stands tall, with legacy as our guide.
We honor the past, but our eyes are ahead, Ready for the future, where our stories are spread.
Jennifer Bertetto
Chairwoman, President and CEO, Trib Total Media
We will seek truth above all else, prioritizing fact-checking and accuracy by implementing rigorous fact-checking processes to ensure the highest standards of journalistic integrity. We will cultivate a culture of curiosity and critical thinking by encouraging journalists to question assumptions, seek multiple perspectives and delve deeper into complex issues.
The truth will be revealed by embracing transparency and accountability and being open about the newspaper’s reporting process.
2025 will be the year we foster empathy and understanding. By covering diverse perspectives and marginalized voices, we will give underrepresented communities a platform to highlight their stories. We will promote empathy through storytelling, using powerful narratives to connect readers with the experiences of others and foster understanding. Our focus is on encouraging respectful dialogue and debate by creating spaces for constructive discussion and disagreement, even on sensitive topics.
We will continue to contribute to the public good. Investigative journalism will hold power to account, exposing wrongdoing and advocating for social justice. We plan to promote civic engagement, encouraging readers to participate in their communities and hold elected officials accountable. Upholding democratic values; defending freedom of speech, press and assembly; and promoting informed citizenship will be essential for a successful 2025.
Kenny Katzgrau
CEO, Broadstreet
Always resolved to continue spreading the truth — the kind we already know. That our future, including that for local news, is what we believe we can make of it. That most things don’t actually matter, and the things that do matter are obvious to us. That we don't have anything to fear, and we have the opportunity to learn, adventure and craft a hell of a story. That our success is in direct proportion to our true service to our readers and advertisers. Long live local news.
Layne Bruce
Executive Director, Mississippi Press Association
We are heading into 2025 with our eyes set on evolving the Mississippi Press Foundation's mission, expanding its scope and making it more relevant for our members as they continue the vital work of keeping their communities informed — a job that is solely theirs in many small communities of our state. This includes growing our fundraising efforts and identifying ways to expand our program of work to help bolster community journalism in Mississippi.
The association itself will remain laser-focused on promoting and defending the interests of our members at the state capitol, including the preservation and modernization of public notice advertising.
I approached 2024 with trepidation, and it was a challenging year. However, I have renewed optimism that our association’s board leadership's experience and members’ tenacity will make the coming year a strong one.
Rich Homberg
President and CEO, Detroit PBS
For more than 15 years, Detroit PBS has been building a new model of service for Detroit. Today, we are moving through the best year in our history, but the work is just beginning.
In 2025, we are committed to further scaling our growing position in Detroit as a journalism hub and partner to organizations nationwide. In a Press Forward world, PBS stations are uniquely positioned to play a leading role as a journalism hub and community builder in every city in our country.
We are all locally owned, operated and nonprofit partners in our cities. We have built trusted positions in our communities, gathering massive audiences and meaningful media partnerships across the country. Our stations can become — and must become — the journalism hubs that are so needed in cities across the country.
In 2025, we are resolved to take further ownership of that position for Detroit — The Most Important City in America — and to work nationally with our sister stations, PBS and content partners to serve like never before.
Scott Gatz
Founder and CEO, Q.Digital
As an LGBTQ+ publisher, our work seems more important than ever. The political climate has ushered in a vocal minority intent on eliminating support for Pride and LGBTQ+ rights. This is all set in the context of 20% of Gen Z identifying as LGBTQ+ — the largest percentage of any generation. In the year ahead, we'll need to have a laser focus on our mission to entertain and enlighten LGBTQ+ people, amplify their voices and inspire action. Like all media publishers, we’ll also look at ways to work more efficiently by experimenting with new technologies and finding novel ways to work across our brands. Partnerships will also continue to grow as we work to provide true scale in the LGBTQ+ community by extending our sales expertise to other publishers’ brands. We're emboldened by the current state of affairs and proud of our small team as they continue to deliver outsized results.
Sam Hoisington
Founder and Publisher, The Bentonville Bulletin
The Bentonville Bulletin launched in April 2024 with a mission to inform and connect our town of 60,000. Since then, community engagement has been incredible, and our email distribution list is on track to reach 9,000 subscribers by year’s end.
Our reader revenue program is off to a strong start, and we’ve been testing creative advertising options during the past few months. In 2025, our focus will shift to increasing these advertising revenue streams.
Readers love our email-based news updates, but now we need to inspire businesses and organizations of all sizes to support local journalism.
As the publisher, I’m responsible for highlighting the growing risk of news deserts and ensuring our community never becomes one. News deserts aren’t inevitable; they result from choices. To succeed in our critical mission, we’ll need the support of local readers, businesses and philanthropies.
Elodie Mailliet-Storm
CEO, CatchLight
In this age of globalized digital communication, visual content has become the single most important vehicle for information to travel. However, the rise of AI-generated images creates new challenges for journalists and newsrooms to maintain readers' trust and attention on the information that matters to them. In this context, we believe the only way to combat misinformation is through inarguably authentic visual storytelling and journalism. That is what will guide our work at CatchLight in 2025 and beyond.
Expanding on our successful partnership with Report for America, the CatchLight Local Visual Desk will soon be active in as many as 30 local newsrooms across the U.S., reaching millions more readers with thoughtful community-based visual reporting. We are also expanding our public programs to create more opportunities for local audiences to explore the issues of our time through the powerful work of some of the world’s leading visual storytellers in live events. Next year, we will launch a touring edition of the Night of Photojournalism. This event has proven extraordinarily effective in bringing diverse people together to discover new perspectives on vital issues.
Martha Diaz Aszkenazy
Co-Owner, San Fernando (California) Valley Sun/el Sol Newspaper
It’s that time of year when we look back at what went right and what could have been done better to ensure the sustainability of our newspapers. As the publisher, I constantly look for new and innovative ways to raise revenues in print and online from untapped markets, grants and fellowships, and, of course, readership. Based on these topics, I have a few ideas that I would like to implement in the coming year, but I will share here how we plan to increase digital ad sales.
Cracking the local market has eluded me for quite some time. Most of my newspaper’s revenue still comes from display ads bought primarily by ad agencies representing larger companies or government entities. Unfortunately, in our market, few local small businesses buy ads because they don’t think they can afford them or have the expertise to create them. To change that dynamic, we believe digital ads, which typically cost less than a display ad, may be a way to capture these ad dollars. In 2025, we are launching an ad manager program, which will facilitate creating digital ads and posting them on our site. Digital ads are now larger and more animated, offering an advertiser more options than a static banner ad. Most importantly, digital ads also capture a reader’s eye. These new formats will give us something to present to these businesses and increase sales.
No matter what comes our way in 2025, we will rise to the occasion because a free press is essential to our democracy.
Burke Olsen
Publisher, Deseret News
In 2025, we celebrate 175 years of publishing the Deseret News. Since 1850, we have stood for journalism centered on the issues most core to the human heart, including faith, family and decency, among other time-honored values.
This year, we’re launching new initiatives to help us grow our business. First, we’re advancing our data maturity by leveraging first-party data to deliver better experiences online and in our apps. Second, we’re fully embracing a user-needs model in our newsroom, ensuring we deliver content that aligns with what matters most to our readers. Third, we’re asking our staff to complete our in-house AI certification program to help them be proficient and responsible with emerging technologies.
Our vision remains clear: to empower our growing audience with meaningful news and information that helps them lead, act and contribute to their families and communities.
Join these media and news industry leaders and create 2025 New Year’s resolutions for your media company. Publish it and share it so your staff, supporters, audience, and community and business leaders know how you plan to improve and enhance your value to your community.
Bob Sillick has held many senior positions and served a myriad of clients during his 47 years in marketing and advertising. He has been a freelance/contract content researcher, writer, editor and manager since 2010. He can be reached at bobsillick@gmail.com.
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