How two business journalists bought the company they work for and what it says about the future of news
By Adam Drapcho and Julie Hart, Laconia Daily Sun
Listen to the full interview on The Granite Beat podcast and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts
On this episode of The Granite Beat hosts Adam Drapcho and Julie Hart speak with Matt Mowry, Executive Editor, and Christine Carignan, Chief Creative Officer, of Business New Hampshire Magazine. After many years with the magazine Matt and Christine became its owners last September. They joined us to talk about the transition and about investing in New Hampshire media in the modern day.
This transcript has been edited lightly for length and clarity.
Adam Drapcho:
How do you think about Granite Media Group? Do you see yourself as being in the print media business, the journalism industry, or something else?
Christine Carignan:
We certainly intend to keep the print publication, Business New Hampshire Magazine, because we think that's really valuable to our readership, though our vision with Granite Media Group is as a multimedia company. We want to be able to bring information to our readers in whatever form they consume it, whether that's a print publication, our digital newsletter that we send out weekly, or our weekly podcast where Matt and our other partner Nathan interview different business leaders from around the state to learn about their entrepreneurial journey. We feel that our Events Division plays into that – we have a number of business events throughout the year that celebrate different businesses we featured in the magazine – and then we have two consumer events that we do, which are shopping expos basically. Sometimes people don't quite understand how that fits in with the mission of a business publication, but our goal is to elevate and celebrate businesses. By having the expos we're really trying to give exposure to those small micro- and nano-businesses that are in the state to help them grow their companies to the level that they're looking for.
Matt Mowry:
We can't just identify ourselves as print media anymore. We are all becoming multimedia companies, we’re meeting our readers where they are. And that means, whether that's online or podcasts, you just aren't strictly a print media product. But I will say our magazine, the print media product, is at the heart of everything we do. That is what we are known for. And we are very much part of the journalism community of the ethos that drives our magazine. We are here to be a reliable source of information for our community of readers, which is the statewide business community. And we take that very seriously.
Adam Drapcho:
You mentioned meeting readers where they are, however they want to consume. Do you have a breakdown as to what your print circulation is like versus your web traffic versus that weekly newsletter?
Matt Mowry:
We're at about 10,000-11,000 print readers currently. In the last few years we saw an amazing switch where our print audience was larger than our online audience. That has now flipped flopped, and so now online we're at about 30,000 unique visitors a month I believe.
Christine Carignan:
And we have about 16,000 individuals that the e-newsletter goes out to weekly, so it's another way for us to reach people that maybe don't want the print publication, but do still want some of the information. We've noticed that list is growing quite extensively, which is great because it gives us a way to target readers and send them the information that they need.
Adam Drapcho:
Do you see a day where you no longer print?
Christine Carignan:
I don't right now, no.
Matt Mowry:
Not right now, no. We are looking into what other publications have done to bring a print product into an electronic format. But we're doing that carefully, because as I said that's our premier product. And so we want to make sure that we're doing it in such a way that serves our readers and our advertisers.
Adam Drapcho:
What do you see as the greatest risks and opportunities for this newly formed business Granite Media Group?
Matt Mowry:
There's a lot on both. What we like to say is that we are a startup with a legacy product. There's longevity – of staff, a long history of the magazine, we have a very active readership. But we are a startup, we bought the company, we are starting at ground zero. So we've been instituting new technology to make us more efficient. We're doing outreach to our advertisers, old and new and potential, to make sure we're meeting their needs. And most importantly, we're making sure that there is no disruption in the quality of the magazine and its operations so the transition was seamless for our readers. There are a lot of opportunities under the new leadership, mainly because our previous publisher did a phenomenal job of leading us, growing us, getting us through the pandemic – which everyone knows was not an easy task, particularly for print.
Christine Carignan:
We frequently find ourselves saying, I can't believe that one person did this. Because with the three of us taking over the helm, we're like, How in the world did she sustain this company on her own basically? My respect and admiration have gone up tenfold for what she did, especially getting us to the pandemic. I mean, that was just a tough, tough time. And as I'm sure Matt's gonna talk about soon, for a long while we were sort of in sustaining mode, just trying to make sure that we can get through and keep it going. And something we're really looking forward to with Granite Media Group is to see where we can now take the company into the future and really get back into that growth-mode mindset.
Adam Drapcho:
How's it feel now to go from being employees to owners?
Matt Mowry:
Mind-blowing, overwhelming, so many adjectives that could go with that. We have a love of this magazine, we've had ownership of it for a while. You don't do our jobs and lead the creative side and the editorial side for that many years without having investment in it. So it's exciting to know that, okay, we're going to take it to the next steps. And all these ideas that you have, if only I were in charge, well, now you are. So you know, it's time to put up or shut up. There was a lot that went into it, even just before buying it, we had to sit down as a group and talk about not just the nuts and bolts of putting the deal together, but “here's my philosophy on journalism, what I believe needs to be done, these are the lines in the sand that we shall never cross” – you know, we're never going to sell our editorial; advertising and edit, the wall will remain there; what kind of workplace we wanted this to be. Heidi did create a great work environment for us, and so it was making sure we were on the same page as to what was gonna continue, what we're going to improve on, what kind of employer we wanted to be on top of what kind of publication we wanted to be. So there were all those discussions. And once you take over, you're seeing no matter how much due diligence you do and how long you've worked in the business, there's always something you didn't know. And so we had a lot of systems we had to put in place to make us more efficient that just hadn't been in place for a while, and that consumed us. In the meantime as you're taking all this on, you're still juggling, Oh I'm still the editor, I still gotta get a publication out each month, Christine's gonna design it. It's like our jobs didn't go away, they just got compounded. And then you feel the weight a bit more. “Okay, this publication that's been around for decades, it's my responsibility now; all these people that were colleagues of mine, they're my responsibility now.” And you feel the weight of that, and you have the 3am panic attack about. “What did I do? Am I the right person for this?” And then you calm down. I've got two great partners to rely on and a terrific staff.
Adam Drapcho:
Anything coming up on your production plan that you'd like to preview?
Matt Mowry:
In March and April, we have really dedicated ourselves to getting back into putting together packages of stories that really dive deep into topics. And so in our March issue, we're taking a look at diversity inclusion training that is going on in New Hampshire and taking a look at why it is important – in this very politicized atmosphere, how do you go about doing a training that is effective, why businesses need to be doing this, why they are doing it, and the fact that this is a market that's billions of dollars and will be growing at an exponential rate over the years. So we're taking a deep dive look into that, who's doing it in the state, and what is effective. In our April issue, our new staff writer is taking a deep dive into homelessness from an economic standpoint, so we have a whole suite of stories that's going to take a look at all the economics that affect this issue from the debate over, are we funding enough or not enough for this issue. Taking a look at when someone homeless seeks a job, what are the barriers to that? What is it like to have to go job searching when you don't have a home to go to at the end of the day, your own bathroom to get ready for a job interview? And those are just some of the stories we're looking at in that package.
This article is part of The Granite Beat, a project by The Laconia Daily Sun and The Granite State News Collaborative, of which Laconia is a partner. Each week Adam Drapcho and Julie Hart, will explore with local reporters how they got some of the most impactful stories in our state and why they matter. This project is being shared with partners in The Granite State News Collaborative.