Opposing forces are playing out in the OC media industry as a print-based operation merges mastheads while expanding geographic coverage, and a localized, online-only venture starts spreading out along the coast.
Fountain Valley-based Los Angeles Times Community News, on one side, recently announced a consolidation-expansion effort. Its Daily Pilot newspaper will merge with sister paper: Huntington Beach Independent and Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot, while expanding coverage across a wider swath of the coastal OC area by adding the cities of Sunset Beach, Seal Beach and Fountain Valley. It will keep the Daily Pilot name.
Meanwhile, plans are in place for a new hyper-local online site to start early next month: StuNewsNewport.com, a sister effort of StuNewsLaguna.com. Both are strictly online publications.
Stu Saffer launched StuNewsLaguna.com eight years ago. Co-owner Shaena Stabler came on board a few years later.
The model is designed to emulate the format of a print newspaper, with a central column of full stories on the main page instead of a series of headlined links to articles on separate pages. When breaking news, such as a fire occurs, StuNews goes live with updates on social media, Stabler said.
Tom Johnson, former publisher of the Daily Pilot, will publish the Newport site, and Lana Johnson, his ex-wife and the former editor of the Daily Pilot’s special sections, will edit it.
Saffer, Stabler and both Johnsons each have a 25% ownership stake in the Newport Beach effort.
Tom Johnson said conversations among all four stakeholders of the Newport Beach venture have been transpiring for the past few years. The recent consensus was that the time is right now, he said.
“It seems like everyone is moving away from local news,” he said. “The Daily Pilot is expanding, which will result in less local news for their primary news area (Newport Beach and Costa Mesa). And I just think the Newport Beach market has enough going on that it deserves its own news product.”
The Daily Pilot is still committed to local news, said John Canalis, executive editor of Times Community News.
“We are expanding, but we will continue to cover Newport Beach as closely as we ever have,” he said. “We have the same number of reporters devoted to Newport Beach. I have an enormous amount of respect for Tom and Lana. They did wonders for the Daily Pilot in the years they were here and remain deeply entrenched in the community. I wish Stu News luck and believe that the marketplace is big enough for all of us.”
Canalis added that its Newport Beach coverage includes one City Hall reporter and a sports staff.
Stabler said she’s wanted the StuNews model to expand into other locations ever since she joined.
“I believe it’s so visionary and out of the box, but it makes sense, and no one is doing it quite like this,” she said.
StuNews is a good way to keep a community connected through technology, she said.
“Tech is here, let’s make the most of it. Let’s make it a tool to bring people together.”
Future Expansion
The venture’s original partners hope to introduce additional sites in other cities in the future. Each will have its own unique partnership and timing, Stabler said.
“It’s a matter of pacing our growth and not growing too fast too soon,” she said, explaining that growth will be more organically driven by readers and the news they want.
She agreed with Tom Johnson that the time is right for the first expansion.
“The media landscape is changing with the Daily Pilot regionalizing their coastal news product,” she said. “Communities want to know about their neighbors and what their neighbors’ kids are doing, and they’re not going to be able to do that with a regional product.”
The model is similar to Patch, an AOL-funded collection of local news sites that the company mostly sold off in 2014. Industry observers say Patch grew too fast.
Costs of publishing a print newspaper continue to rise as advertising sales decline, so it’s almost impossible to do print and be profitable, Stabler said.
The StuNews model offers an alternative, and she’s open to talking to anyone who’s interested in joining in the venture, she said.
“If there is a newspaper that’s struggling and wants to go digital and this is a solution that could be viable, I have ideas on how to make that transition, even though we haven’t done it that way,” she said.
The Daily Pilot has gone through several incarnations since it started in 1907 as a weekly newspaper named the Newport News.
The publication, which now covers Newport Beach, Cost Mesa, and on the weekends, Irvine, will drop Irvine as part of the changes. The Huntington Beach Independent traditionally has covered Fountain Valley and Sunset Beach. Weekend, which is a separate section published by Times Community News and goes to all L.A. Times subscribers in OC on Sundays, won’t be affected, Canalis said.
Frank Pine, executive editor of the Southern California News Group, which includes The Orange County Register, said he’s “excited” to see new websites committed to local journalism.
“The web and social media provide more opportunities than ever for people to come together and share news and information,” he said. “Where there’s more local coverage, the community is well served.”
He said that the Register is committed to local news.
“Our commitment to local news has never been stronger. There are so many choices when it comes to national and international news and commentary, but when it comes to local news, there really aren’t that many choices at all.”
