Funding for New Mexico in focus is provided by viewers like you.

This week on New Mexico in focus inside our state's news ecosystem.

From print to public radio we check in with editors and managers from some of the state's most influential outlets.

It's important to New Mexico.

It's important to the community to have a strong paper and to have that strong fourth estate.

And how public radio stations around the state are preparing for the possibility of federal funding cuts.

New Mexico in Focus starts now.

>> Nash: Thanks for joining us.

I'm Nash Jones.

So for the last few years around Independence Day we've tried to give you a picture of the wider journalism ecosystem in our state.

Each year that picture has changed.

Looming federal funding cuts are threatening the way that journalists at MPR and PBS stations around the state operate and deliver the news.

We're gonna talk to the new general manager of the state's largest public radio newsroom KUNM and leadership from smaller stations that are in more immediate jeopardy.

I also sit down with the local media mogul we've heard from in years past on this show former Albuquerque City Council Pat Davis the head of Control P publishing.

He explains some of the roadblocks his company has run into over the last year and what he's doing to navigate them as he tries to The first to keep his many news outlets afloat.

We'll also hear from in Focus reporter Cailley Chella, who caught up with members of a Santa Fe based news collective working on an innovative way to tell stories through social media and interactive events.

But we start this week with our programs first sit down with the executive editor of what's still recognized as New Mexico's paper of record, the Albuquerque Journal.

Jay Newton-Small has been a journalist for more than two decades, writing for Time Magazine and Bloomberg News.

She's led the journal for the last Last ten months following the ouster of former editor Patrick Etherich, who was charged with shoplifting last year.

Senior producer Lou Davizio spoke with Newton Small about her vision for the state's largest newspaper in the years ahead.

>> Lou: Jay Newton-Small thanks so much being here on New Mexico in Focus.

I'll get to where you want to take the paper in a little while, but I want to start with you and your journalism career.

I know you were at Bloomberg News for years then spent more than a decade with for years then spent more than a decade with Time Magazine in Washington D.C. Time Magazine in Washington D.C. How did those experiences shape you as a shape you as a journalist?

Bloomberg was all about being fast because it's a wire service and particularly a lot of traders trade off of the speed of the news.

I think I lived with my blackberry implanted into my hand and I was covering the Bush White House and politics.

I was really like minute seconds made a difference in terms of scoops when we were competing against the APN Reuters and we were traveling with the president.

That was a lot about speed and accuracy, and then Time it was the exact opposite.

They didn't care about sort of minute by minute scoops.

They cared a lot more about the intellectual scoop.

They cared a lot more about the writing.

And that was I think really for me a great time to kind of explore the world of sort of getting inside a room, getting inside someone's head, trying to describe and make people feel like what it was like to be there.

How much did you know about the Albuquerque Journal in New How much did you know about the Albuquerque Journal in New Mexico before you started down this path to take this job?

Mexico before you started down this path to take this job?

I came here in 2020 and I knew absolutely nothing about the Albuquerque Journal in 2020.

I started a startup company in 2017 when I left Time and that took the skills of storytelling and applied it to healthcare.

Particularly seniors entering care, telling their stories to help better connect them with their caregivers, but then also pulling a lot of data out of those stories and we built a early generative AI model that analyzed that data.

I could work for anywhere in DC was kind of a mob scene in 2020 so I kind of roadtriped out here with a couple of girlfriends we were debating like maybe New Mexico, maybe Oregon and ended up here in Santa Fe.

I just really loved it.

It spoke to me in ways that not a lot of places do and I've been to over 100 countries, lived in more than a dozen.

I just thought this place was magical.

So ended up staying.

I met my now husband and I moved down to Albuquerque in 2022 and we got married and at that point I was still working on my startup company but I you know I think everybody you're always a journalist right and so I was still seeing I was seeing all these fun stories around me and so I got connected to the editor of the journal at the time and sort of said hey look I'm a writer but I you know working on this company full time but I'd like to see you know I'm not going to do that.

I love to occasionally contribute a column and he was like sure so I wrote the occasional column for about a year and a half for the journal before I actually applied for and became the editor of the journal.

What was it that pushed you to pursue that editor position?

So I sold or I sold my company in the end of 2023 and really wanted to be more involved in the community here and so when the opportunity came to lead the journal I'd actually tried to buy the journal with some of my investors from my previous company but the Langs weren't interested in selling.

But I felt like it was a great opportunity in talking to the Langs when I was interviewing with them to create what I would call a sustainable model for local journalism.

I love Time magazine.

It's my alma mater.

But it's an increasingly, you know, dying.

It's an increasingly in a space that is dying, I would say.

But local news, I think, really has the opportunity to create a model of sustainability for journalism because people need local news.

People inherently need what we're doing and they inherently have to go to us whether it's for the lobo's or for the weather or for what's going on in the roundhouse or even how Washington affects them like today's front pages all about how the one big beautiful bill is going to affect New Mexico.

So it's important to New Mexico.

It's important to the community to have a strong paper and to have that strong fourth estate.

have that strong fourth estate.

A lot of the focus of this show that we're airing this week A lot of the focus of this show that we're airing this week is on the New Mexico news ecosystem and in that news ecosystem for decades The Albuquerque Journal was known as the paper of record.

Do you still believe that it is the paper of record for our state?

>> Newton Small: Absolutely.

We are, I believe, the largest newsroom in the state.

We have the resources still to go out and report.

We have a Southern New Mexico correspondent now that I've hired in Las Cruces, Algernon D'Ammassa, who's amazing.

And we're actually just bringing on board John Miller from Taos News in the coming weeks to be our Northern New Mexico correspondent.

One of the things I really wanted to do this branch out and build out into the state and cover the state properly.

But beyond that, one of the initiatives I'm doing is also trying to start in exchange of copy amongst local papers.

For example, we're very rarely in Cuesta, but I'd love to partner with the Cuesta news because they cover Cuesta really well.

And I know they would be interested in taking some of our copy and we would be interested in occasionally taking some of their copy so being able to create that exchange across the state as a network of papers is something that I think is a big priority for me moving forward inthe next year.

Obviously the news paper industry as a whole has been struggling mightily for almost two decades now financially.

How is the health of the Journal financially at this moment and what kind of assurances have the Lang family given you in terms of their commitment to the paper?

>>Newton-Small: So the paper has been struggling but this isn't just about sort of the classic model of journalism and circulation and advertising it's also about diversifying your product base and so we've you know got almost a dozen podcasts now we're expanding that podcast network.

It's been a big investment for us and I think it's exciting.

You know honestly we're going to start to do open events and so in the next month I think we're taking our editorial boards and turning them into open town halls anyone can come and it's one of those things where we you know want the public involved.

What does that mean for the future of your print product?

What should people expect as far as that goes?

The Langs are super committed to print.

Bill Lang was a printer his entire life.

He is very committed to it.

I think we will continue to print for the foreseeable future.

I don't see that changing.

And this is something that we believe is important to the community.

It's important to our subscribers.

And we still have a fairly large subscriber base relative to other large cities.

For example, I believe we have a larger subscriber base right now than Dallas, the Dallas Morning News, or even the Denver post And so that's something that we believe is important to service and continue this service that we do to our subscribers.

Are the lengths still committed to owning the newspaper long term?

Have they given you any assurances when you took the job or since?

No, absolutely when I tried to buy it they were like no it's not for sale.

We're about to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Langs owning the journal and they want to be owning it for another 100 years after that.

Okay.

Now you mentioned advertising.

We've noticed some changes in how How that looks in your paper we've seen some Advertorials the term stories that kind of are also advertisements.

Does that create any conflict of interest?

Are you concerned at all about how those work?

No so what you're probably seeing is branded content and branded honestly has been the way of the world at least in Madison Avenue for more than a decade and it really is you know basically just building a story around a brand or around like an issue that a brand is sort of approaching.

around like an issue that a brand is sort of approaching.

For example, we did a branded piece called Leaco, which is a For example, we did a branded piece called Leaco, which is a landscaping company and they are very into zero-scaping.

So it was really about the trend of zero-scaping and then it mentions Leaco and it kind of at the bottom.

This is only done by volunteer.

So if the writers don't want to do this, they don't have to.

They can be totally divorced from it.

They can keep their sort of, you know, sanctity.

I'm kind of like a living Chinese wall in this place where I can see both sides of it.

I'm working on both sides of the advertising and on the editorial side.

And I can say, yes, this is within journalism bounds or no I'm protecting my newsroom you cannot directly approach them, you cannot talk to our journalists.

journalists.

Do these brands offer the paper incentives Do these brands offer the paper incentives Do these brands offer the paper incentives for including them in these stories?

for including them in these stories?

So it's a version of advertising and so we're still working on the pricing, I'm so used to the Time prices that I'm like I don't really know how to price in Albuquerque that I'm like I don't really know how to price in Albuquerque but it's something that I think we have like 15 pieces in the but it's something that I think we have like 15 pieces in the pipeline right now it's still pretty nascent but from the early testing cases of it it's been very successful and people it's been very successful and people are very interested in it.

are very interested in it.

>>Lou: Are the journalists specifically the individual journalists the individual journalists incentive us to write those pieces too?

incentive us to write those pieces too?

>>Newton-Small: They're paid separately by the advertising side so this is like a separate they like kind of freelance it for themselves.

I also have a network of over a thousand writers across the country from my previous you know company so we can pull from that that network as well.

>>Lou: Now over the last several years at the journal of you all have lost some of your most experienced reporters.

I know you have some young journalists that are up and coming we've highlighted some of their work here on New Mexico in Focus.

What's the ultimate goal for your newsroom in terms of experience mix do you have enough experience in your newsroom right now?

So I've brought back in some with a lot more experience so for example like I said Algernon D'Ammassa who was the editor of the Las Cruces weekly paper John Miller who's the long time editor of the Taos paper.

I also hired a guy, Logan Beitmen who was on yesterday's cover I don't know if you saw him on yesterday's front page he did an opera review that was also about a first date Logan's incredibly experienced has decades of experience writing in New York and so these are some of the folks that have brought in and I know I don't have to worry about them because they're phenomenal writers and they have a ton of experience and they're helping me train some of the younger writers who I inherited.

And those younger writers like we did lunch and learns for a long time for the first six months when I was there just doing really basic stuff like what's a lead like what's a nut graph how do we do it through line things like that.

So it's a process for sure.

The ones that we've capped because we've lost a few of them.

I'm definitely a tough taskmaster in that sense.

I expect that you're going to produce and expect that you're going to write cleanly and we've built a series of metrics that I'm hoping to build towards what I would call dynamic pay model similar to Silicon Valley.

But I think they're too raw for it right now and I can't do it right away.

But down the road, I want to be able to say, hey, if you're going to have a ton of grammar errors, then I'm going to start dinging you for that It's like you should know better as a writer like you can't file something to me that hasn't been put through spell check right and then like and then every week we do scores for all the reporters they can see where they stand.

Do those scores affect what those journalists are paid?

Right now no in my in my ideal world yes but I tried to do it this year but there was like the editors were like we will people will freak out like you can't do it.

So you know it's a lot of change really quickly and I think just getting people to see every week like what their score is has already been really illustrative of like here's where the problems are and here's where it's not because it also is an opportunity for them to get bonuses right so the really good ones you know can get like an extra you know a couple thousand dollars a year if you're really killing it one specific area.

>>Lou: One specific area interested is hard hitting investigative reporting.

Other outlets like Searchlight New Mexico have taken the baton where that's concerned will readers see more of that kind of journalism in the months years to come?

Yes, that is an investment we're looking to make so we have obviously one great investigative reporter Colleen Heild She's been there forever and she's great but I'd love to have more.

One of the other aspects of this business model that we're looking at is doing a hybrid model for both for profit and non-profit.

And a lot of other papers like the Philly and Choir for example at the Utah Tribune, Salt Lake City Tribune, have gone to this hybrid model where they've allowed for external funding to fund things like investigative reporting because it's typically a money loser.

So that's one of the things we're working on is building a nonprofit side of the journal where people can donate money not just for papers for schools, papers for seniors, but also for things like investigative reporting.

And that's something that I hope will enable us to grow our investigative reporting stable back out to at least three or four reporters.

There have been some serious changes to the opinion page also if you were house editorial you mentioned the community council where people can meet with your editorial board what are you trying to accomplish with that section of the paper now?

So one of the biggest complaints I heard coming into the paper as an editor was that the editorial section was very broken.

So for me it's this very weird thing that I think often poisons the sort of pure reporting of the newsroom where people look at the opinion page and think "oh there's a bent there therefore the whole paper is like skewed that way" and that's obviously not true.

We're not going to do endorsements anymore.

We're just going to show both sides and sort of say like "hey here's what people are saying.

positive/negative about each of the candidates you choose.

Now you talk about perceptions of slant or bias for years the paper has struggled with it's relationship with the communities that it covers.

Some people have felt like the paper's biased towards conservative for business interests more than just the editorial section.

Are you aware of those perceptions?

I'm definitely aware of those perceptions in terms of like the business coverage in terms of other coverage I've tried really to bring balance to the paper.

I would actually argue that a lot of our coverage in the main sort of news section of paper was skewed the other way.

And so the number of stories I've had to sort of send back especially covering on the federal level where they only quote Democrats and they're only talking about how terrible and awful these policies are.

I was like look you may not agree with it but a huge portion of this country thinks these tariffs are really important to reset our trade for America and you have to at least present the other side about why they're trying to do this.

You know hearing from the The public about how much of a role we they think we play in the community how biased we are who we are I think will really inform us moving forward on how we do our reporting how we interact with the community.

I want to end just by giving you the opportunity to let readers know anybody else in the community know what else to expect from you as you continue to lead the journal.

Oh gosh.

So I think you know we're trying to really beef up the Sunday edition.

But the idea is to like really make it something that's like you sit down on a Sunday with your breakfast and your coffee and you dig in and it can be like hours of reading and you just get to read all about sort of longer form stuff and what's going on New Mexico moving forward we're gonna in the fall hopefully do a big push I'm also revamping our website and our app as we build out that digital side as we have that new website we the new app we have this huge new suite of podcasts and newsletters I think in the fall we're going to do a big push for what we would call journal plus and that's going to be like a Sunday subscription with like a digital subscription and really trying push this to younger readers to say hey there's so much you can get out of your paper we really want you to give us a chance.

>>Lou: Great, thank you so much.

Jay Newton-Small thanks for being here.

>>Newton-Small: Thank you.

Thanks to Lou and Jay Newton-Small.

You can watch their entire conversation online on the New Mexico in Focus YouTube page.

Last month, the Republican lead House of Representatives voted along party lines to cut more than one billion dollars for the corporation for public broadcasting Congress had already approved that money.

The Senate passes the bill every dollar of federal funding for public media for the next two years will disappear.

New Mexico PBS is one of the long list of stations that would be impacted.

In May, Gwyneth Dolan spoke to our general manager, Franz Joachim, about what those cuts could mean for our station and the larger PBS network.

This week, NMIF reporter Cailley Chella sought out smaller public media stations across New Mexico to find out what losing those federal dollars would mean for them.

>> The great Bill Evans from his album >> Cailley: K.S.FR is a public radio station that operates out of Santa Fe Community College.

Though their team of full-time staff is just five strong, their impact is immeasurable.

>> Tazbeh: We're kind of typical of small rural stations of people who are really are passionate about what they do in order to service their communities.

And as we all know that there's many many news deserts in rural America.

And we keep that in mind as well.

So no matter what, we get that news out every hour on the hour.

>> Cailley: McCullah says that about 30% of their funding or about $150,000 comes from the CPB and if they lose that they'll lose a number of beloved programs.

>> Tazbeh: I would hate to say that we would lose democracy now.

It would be the subscription that we have.

We play BBC News every hour on the hour.

There is also other programs that we access through we access through American public media where we fill in spaces.

American public media where we fill in spaces.

>> Cailley: According to data from the CPB their community service grants make up just 6% of the average public radio stations budget but rural stations are much more reliant on that funding.

Over at KGLP and Gallup CPB dollars make up a whopping two thirds of their funding and their only full-time employee says it would be harder for them to recover.

>> Rachel: We don't have a large number of donors in the area.

I think we average around $20,000 a year in donations.

That probably can't change.

A large percentage of the Gallup area community including McKinley County is low income, a larger percentage of indigenous and minority populations.

>> Cailley: KGLP is the only locally owned and operated public radio station in Gallup.

So if you guys are no longer able to broadcast local news, There's no more Gallop news.

>> Rachel: Not locally.

You know there are KANW has a repeater station here in town so they'd be feeding information Albuquerque centric and from Bernalillo County area there are social media outlets where people can share goings on happenings, but again there is the question of disinformation and how that can impact the ability to get critical information to the people who need it.

>> Cailley: Kaub says they have some money saved and they might be able to coast for a few years.

>> Rachel: We might be faced with a situation where we would need to look back at how we started which is essentially to become a repeater for a larger radio station which means fewer local public service announcements.

Everything from announcing events and services to ongoing issues in the area people need to know about.

>> Cailley: This isn't the first time CPB funding has been at risk but McCullah says this time feels different.

>> Tazbeh: This time things are looking very very real.

And formidable.

>> Cailley: The house has already voted to rescind the federal funding.

Now the decision moves to the Senate who's expected to vote as soon as next week.

The cutting of corporation for public broadcasting funding will have massive effects.

The CPB supports more than 1500 local stations nationwide.

For New Mexico in focus I'm Cailley Chella reporting.

>> Nash: For the first time in 30 years, New Mexico public radio station KUNM has a new general manager.

Jeff Pope arrived in the building last month to take the reins from longtime station leader Richard Towne who officially retired this week.

With public media in such a turbulent moment in its history, I wanted to return to the station that I left just a few months ago after years on staff to get to know the new boss.

And hear his ideas for how KUNM can meet the moment while potentially weathering significant funding cuts.

Jeff Pope, thanks so much for joining me.

And thanks for having me at my old Stomping grounds here at KUNM.

>> Jeff: Great to be here Nash, Thanks.

>> Nash: So you're new to the station You're also new to New Mexico.

Can you talk a little bit about your path to get in here?

>> Jeff: Yeah, great.

I started in public media almost 20 let's see 2003, as a community volunteer trying to save a station in southwest Colorado.

So very close to New Mexico.

And we succeeded in keeping the station on the air, keeping it from being sold.

And then when a position came open I applied and I got the job right because I'd had the experience working with volunteers and trying to get things off the ground and so I ended up staying at KSJD for almost 15 years.

Yeah and it was a fantastic run.

Built the station up with a team of people and board of directors we became independent and had a theater, had a news department that we launched and just a dream role to have in the community and we were just talking about you know when you start a station you have to do everything so I was a morning edition host.

I put I climbed towers all the things that people at KUNM and even KNME you know getting those things off the ground 50 60 years ago.

Everybody took a role and did something weird.

And now we're a little more siloed in different ways but that's how I got my start is putting my fingers on everything whether that was a donor letter, meeting with an underwriting client, climbing a tower, or being on the air.

>> Nash: And most recently you were at Blue Ridge Public Radio.

>> Jeff: yeah that's right.

So I was at Blue Ridge Public Radio for a little over two years.

And then when this thing came open, my family and I, we love the west.

It's where I raised my kids by a large.

And we have family back in southwest Colorado so I jumped at the opportunity at KUNM.

And I've known KUNM for years.

I know exactly where you are at San Isidro, just south of Cuba.

Where you can hit the dial there it comes in.

And find out what's going on.

>> Nash: Well, I know you're super new, but I'm wondering so far and with the research you've clearly done and the familiarity you have at the station.

What's working at KUNM and what's not?

>> Jeff: Oh my gosh.

What's working?

Wow so, largest news room in the state.

Just won three awards at PMJA.

Public Media Journalism Association.

They just brought three home and presented on how to use vertical video which is all the rage and it should be so we have a news team that's thinking that way and doing that work.

80 volunteers who produce programming from public affairs to music that'll get you dancing or just meet your mood wherever you are.

Very few public and community radio stations have both of those things.

A lot of times on the community side they'll have the music down and on the public side they'll have the news down.

K.U.N.M.

has both and it's a real gift at a time when influencers, when legacy media is desperate to find different ways to get deeper into the community.

K.U.N.M.

is so well positioned because so many volunteers are here, the long history and the people who just love this station.

>> Nash: And what's not working?

>> Jeff: For K.U.N.M.

to move from being a legacy, Media Organization that is a shrinking audience that's aging to an organization that is meeting a more diverse audience that's growing a growing audience with content that that audience values on whatever platform they are.

We have to be more multi-dimensional.

Now let me say one thing that's working there.

Studio 505 sessions.

Wow.

I mean you almost don't even know it's here right.

>> Nash: That's the live music show.

>> Jeff: Live music show.

Yeah!

It's got a YouTube presence and I was here last night.

I got to see it.

Most stations don't have that.

>> Nash: You mentioned just the array of programming that KUNM features music, public affairs news.

News is significant but you know that that airs during the NPR magazine shows in the evenings and in the morning as well as Thursday mornings with the college show Let's Talk New Mexico.

Most of the rest of the time when someone tunes into 89.9 what they're hearing is that public affairs programming or volunteer produced music.

What's the right balance?

>> Jeff: It's a balance that's a place where we can grow more audience.

Our audience numbers have been, our loyalties are through the roof.

Our audience numbers are fairly flat.

And so that's a great thing to have loyalty.

But as I said in most legacy media, the audience is falling.

And so we've got to find a way to be where that audience is.

And you're talking about broadcasts.

Yeah, we can shift some things around on the air and meet an audience and the listener demands.

But we need to be in digital podcast form.

We need to be everything that gets written newscasts that get aired by morning edition hosts.

They're beautiful.

They're long.

They could be on four different little posts every morning and they're not yet.

Nash: With volunteers working for free, working their tails off.

Reporters working for very humble salaries, working their tails off.

How do you expand at that capacity?

>> Jeff: The idea of having people who want to have a path and stay in this organization and make enough to make a living, that's critically important and that's one of the things I've done in every organization I've worked in is to make sure that people, the last organization I worked in we went through two salary studies and were able to up and balance salaries.

That's the first place.

The second is focus, right?

So people are spread too thin because we're trying to cover everything.

We can cover nothing.

So these are the places where we get an opportunity to be very good at a few things.

>> Nash: Some of this capacity that we're talking about is potentially going to dwindle even more.

The Trump administration has been threatening public media funding.

The administration along with the Republicans on the legislative DOGE house DOGE subcommittee have accused public radio at NPR as well as PBS for that matter of having a progressive bias saying basically why should conservative taxpayers have to help fund this kind of news coverage.

I'd like to start by just getting your response to that accusation.

>> Jeff: Corporations for Public Broadcasting which funds stations which choose to buy NPR or not or choose to invest in local programming.

We're a local network across the station of over 400 channels and so when congress comes after or the administration comes after this network, the coming after universal emergency service, they're coming after tribal stations that are preserving language and story, they're coming after stories, stations like us that are broadcasting in at least two languages.

Each week.

They're coming after an asset that's been built over 50 years to tell America's story responsibly to uplift communities and voices and to solve community problems.

Go back to the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act.

That's what they said is get in there, fix local problems and be a voice for the voiceless.

That's what we've been.

So what I would say to them.

If you're going to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Look at what can replace it.

Is there universal service in Rio Arriba County?

No.

There's not.

Except for public media.

KCIE is a small station way up north, right?

Which is providing lifesaving information when they need it during fire season.

Okay.

You've got an asset in your hands, Congress, and I would shutter to think of throwing it away.

And if it's been politicized, I just don't believe that.

It's one of the most respected.

news organizations in the world, NPR.

American Public Media and others that we carry here at KUNM.

>> Nash: In addition to trying to end future funding for NPR and PBS, the House has passed a bill to take back $535 million annually for fiscal years 2026 and 2027.

So a total of over a billion dollars.

As this is being taped, the Senate is debating this.

Bill if passed what would it mean for KUNM to lose that amount of funding?

>> Jeff: It's a huge loss so for us it would be about 10% of our budget and that 10% would hit us on October 1st of this year not all of it but we would have to begin to absorb it in that budget year and it would be two years in a row so it's over $550,000 that would hit us and right now I just got out of a meeting the Senate is probably going to vote on this at the end of next week at the earliest if they really can get their ducks in a row and they just may.

So the time is now to be aware of what the options are to protect your public media.

>> Nash: Your predecessor Richard Count told former KUNM reporter Alice Fordham earlier this year that if that rescission package that climb back of the money went through in his opinion the station would not be able to afford NPR programming or would at least need to downsize or scale back.

Do you share that opinion?

>> Jeff: We're going to look at all options and this is a person in a time, in a moment that said that.

Things have shifted, we had an incredible spring of people reaching out and supporting the organization.

Just like they have accross the country to say I'm not only going to call my legislative representative, and sort of get active locally, but I'm going to make an extra donation.

What I'm going to be looking at with my leadership team, is what are all the options.

Where are we right now and how do we preserve the service that's valued by listeners and by readers and make sure that we keep that going at all costs.

>> Nash: I'm wondering with I mean I imagine some of our viewers are looking at the landscape of public media and wondering why did you decide to take this job right now with unprecedented attacks on public media on precedent threats to the funding for KUNM and other stations across the country.

Why do you want to do this work?

>> Jeff: This is the most important work outside of day-to-day organizing in preserving our democracy.

This is the fourth estate.

This is about the voices of the voiceless being heard.

And the work that we do in public media, in non-profit journalism, in for-profit journalism is a bulwark against what the proclivities of any administration could be and that is power grabs and taking away something that's been well-earned in our nation and that is the humanity supported by democracy.

I can't think of a higher calling.

>> Nash: Need be, if this funding is lost, and you're trying to be more places than you've ever been.

What would it look like, what would new revenue streams what could they look like for KUNM?

>> Jeff: Well we know that there are business supporters out there who value our audience so there's expansion of our current streams business people with resources who want to, who believe what I just said that this is incredibly important for our society and want to pass this on to the next generation so those are two streams that at KUNM have been fertilized and are ready to grow even more.

When it comes to other revenue streams we're gonna look where other states have gone.

Look at the state legislature, look at local support when it comes to local government.

And also I think there's a way to say this really effectively is to the community.

Can we do this without federal support?

Meaning could we put this in the bank each year?

And have that as a rainy day fund when things shift and make it happen and see where the cards fall.

I think that would probably work in stations of this size.

Maybe I'm not sure.

You know, I'm new.

Bigger stations.

Maybe it works a lot better.

What I worry about is the small stations.

The rural places, the places where people are in urban settings that aren't getting the information and news that they need and native places, native stations, it's going to create an incredible gap and they won't survive.

>>Nash: Would KUNM in that case look to fill those gaps?

Meet those community needs where a station maybe had to shut down?

I think KUNM is in a position to start with KUNME, a New Mexico public media, with the other stations around the state as we did in Colorado, as we did in North Carolina.

To make sure we've got a life raft and a collaborative landscape to prepare together for all eventualities because we're stronger together.

What should long-time KUNM listeners expect?

Not only from you but from the station as you move forward?

They should expect excitement.

They should expect a lot of change in the organization, they should expect change all the time in what they're listening to and what they're reading.

They should expect to be met with content they value on platforms they use.

And they should expect connection with us in their communities.

One of my former colleagues used to say we need to be live local and proximate.

Proximate being with you where you are in your communities.

That's what I think you're going to expect from KUNM under my leadership.

And I'm very excited to be leading a team doing that.

>>Nash: Jeff Pope thanks so much for your time.

>>Pope: Yeah, thank you Nash.

>> Nash: Thank you to KUNM General Manager Jeff Pope.

An extended interview is up right now on the New Mexico in Focus YouTube page.

The Santa Fe based news collective 505omatic might've posted their first story only about seven months ago, but in that time they've made a name for themselves in our state's media landscape.

their videos covering local news stories have drawn 5,000 followers to their Instagram account, and more than twice that number of likes on Tik Tok.

They've also stepped out of the digital world in recent months hosting in-person community conversations on topics from AI to immigrant rights.

Now, Cailley takes us to the city different for a look at how 505omatic is participating in the ever-changing media landscape differently.

>> Cailley: In a cluttered warehouse off a side street in Santa Fe a group of volunteers is re-imagining what local news can look like and who gets to do it.

>> Dezbaa: I think our objectives are truly grounded >> Dezbaa: I think our objectives are truly grounded again in community responsiveness again in community responsiveness to what's going on.

There's a deep love and care for those of around us 505omatic is a self-described DIY hyper-local journalism collective with a team of seven unpaid contributors give or take when life gets in the way.

Only two have formal journalism experience.

The rest come from all walks of life actors technologists artists all unified by a shared frustration.

They say tradition is a part of the world's world.

The traditional media isn't telling the full story.

One of the questions that we were asked as a collective news group was, you know, like, why is this important for your community?

And as a Native American person, you know, where are our stories?

And that's primarily where I come from in the documentation, documentary and journalism.

You're providing your community with the news and the self-reflections to see themselves as they are, as they want to be seen.

As opposed to constantly seeing from being othered.

Their approach to local news is unique.

For example, once a month they hold panels with live audiences at Santa Fe's Jean-Cocteaux cinema to discuss important community events with the major players.

And without a formal station to work out of, their operations look different too.

Sometimes holding interviews at their own homes.

And 505omatic doesn't aim for neutrality the way traditional outlets do.

They're up front about where they stand.

>> Warren: We don't want to have the pretense that we're objective.

We're a very left-leaning group.

The traditions, the tenets of journalism are not getting the job done.

And so there needs to be more openness to other ways of thinking about it.

And also so many of us are artists.

And we think of these things as little creative endeavors.

And we don't really draw a line between art and journalism.

And the stories they choose are part of that.

Their coverage spans from union organizing to a seven-part series on the soldier's monument.

The controversial Santa Fe obelisk protestors toppled in 2020.

Issues that they say are deeply local and political and they're gaining traction.

It feels like it's working right now.

It's like building momentum like everywhere we go.

It's like, "Hey, you saw you on Reddit".

"Hey, I saw you on TikTok."

Critics argue that abandoning objectivity risks credibility.

But for outlets like 505Omatic, the goal isn't to be neutral observers, but engaged members of the community.

The more you You know about your immediate community the more you're able to act and you know it inspires civic engagement.

>> Cailley: Five-O-Five-Omatic faces real challenges of maintaining consistency and accountability.

Still in a fractured media landscape where trust and journalism is low their experiment raises a larger question.

If people are tuning out of traditional news what kinds of voices will they tune into?

505omatic got me thinking about what journalism means in 2025 what constitutes a journalist and who gets to call themselves one.

To find out I spoke with Gwyneth Doland, a professor of journalism at UNM.

>> Gwyneth: What is journalism?

Is a very difficult question to answer especially on social media.

The most important question is why are they doing it?

The purpose of journalism is to give people important trustworthy information so that they can make decisions about their lives, their communities and their government.

So you're looking for a person who is working toward that purpose.

Not for a client, not for someone who's paying them to a The world's most advanced someone else's interests of a political party, of a company, of a movement, whatever.

They are working for the public.

They are chasing facts and they're verifying those facts.

So you see an effort to challenge assumptions.

We all have bias.

We all are not objective as humans.

So journalists challenge our own biases and those of our sources too.

It's not important that you work for a news organization or that you have a degree in journalism anyone can learn to be a journalist.

if you learn these methods of seeking the truth, checking facts, minimizing bias working in an objective way in the interest of the public.

Anyone can learn to do that.

So, its not about where they work, or what their title is, or who they work for, its about the work they do.

>> Nash: This is our third year marking Independence Day with a look at the state of the media.

In New Mexico, in each year there's been one returning voice Pat Davis of Control P Publishing.

Since the former Democratic politician in Albuquerque City Council President last stop by our studio, his quickly growing publishing company has hit a snag.

Tightening the purse strings has meant downsizing, consolidating resources, and trying out new ways of getting New Mexicans the news.

This week I sit down with Davis to find out if his local media empire of sorts grew too fast, and whether these changes will get it back on track.

Pat Davis welcome to New Mexico in Focus, thanks for being here.

>> Pat: Thanks for having us back and doing this every year.

Yeah, your company control P publishing you own a lot of different news outlets for those unfamiliar.

What outlets do you own currently?

Well, so we started with the paper back during COVID as alibi sort of went under here in Albuquerque.

We added the Corralis comment the Sandoval signposts up in Sandoval county the independent in the East Mountains and Edgewood the Santa Fe reporter up in Santa Fe are our newest number of the team.

From last summer and then we launched City Desk and took over New Mexico political report last year in partnership with the citizen media group and nonprofit here in town.

So we have nine under our umbrella.

Yeah, close to a couple of digits.

Yeah.

>> Nash: And we, as you mentioned, have had you on this annual State of the Local Media Show before.

There's been a number of changes at your outlets since we had you on just last year.

I'm an avid reader of a number of your outlets and I must say that like some of these changes for me have been confusing, like where do I find stories, who's stories are these?

So, I'm hoping you can shed some light on what's going on at these various outlets.

You launched City Desk ABQ last year.

And for a while there you all had several stories about the Bernalillo County area a day.

I mean it was really cooking.

And lately when I go to the website it redirects to nmreports.org.

And there aren't any stories on there.

It's sending me elsewhere.

What happened to city desk ABQ?

Is it no more?

Does it still exist?

>> P: It still exists and we're excited that it's coming back here in July again.

It got launched with some local funding, local sponsors, local donors and kind of gave us a one year runway to prove it worked.

And here comes the big federal budget cuts.

And you think about when you look at city desk, when you look at political report, most of their advertisers are governments advertising their program, public programs, nonprofits, advertising services, healthcare services, like nonprofit hospitals.

All of that froze.

suddenly in February, and so we lost about forty percent of the Non-Profit advertising in about two weeks as the federal funding cuts hit.

>> Nash: The city desk ABQ I'm no longer finding the stories at their website, same with political report their website now has archive stories directing readers to NM.News for the for the fresh ones what is NM.News?

>> Davis: NM.News is our version of a statewide news outlet that anybody in any community can use to access local news.

If you have the Sandoval signpost or the or city desk Albuquerque all of those stories are sort of aggregated into this back in publishing system It's a platform and it's our way of sharing the the cost of digital publishing so all the websites get shared we have a newsletter manager that works for nine different papers instead of just a piece of one of them and our reporters get to share their salary so one day they might be covering the Albuquerque city council on Monday but there's nothing to covering on on that beat on Tuesday so they might pitch it in Edgewood for example.

>> Nash: Is it and you say it's a platform is it also an outlet because I've noticed when I go to NM.News sometimes in the byline you have the reporter's name and their reporting for NM.News not city desk ABQ etc.

>> Davis: That's totally right.

So you're gonna see New Mexico News grow overtime to fill the gap in communities that don't have a local newspaper.

That's back live city city desk dot org New Mexico political report is relaunched this time with voices from around the state so freelancers.

So instead of having a bunch of full time reporters We're asking for different voices to give us analysis from partnerships like Oregon Mountain News down south for example can tell us more about what's happening down there than somebody from Santa Fe can.

And so you're gonna see those outlets continue to be news services for other news outlets so that we're not competing and we're working on this ecosystem.

>> Nash: And one other thing I've noticed when I get onto NM.News is sometimes there isn't a byline its attributed to NM.News, who writes those stories.

>> Davis: Mostly our editors, Kevin, We have some interns so we partner with UNM for the fellowships and internship programs over the summer so student reporters will do that.

It's mostly taking press releases from public agencies, fact checking those, rewriting them, taking wire service reports, adding some new Mexico context.

It's stuff that we don't write natively, some reporter didn't generate on their own but that we think is important but a person's doing all that work.

>> Nash: Do you write any of them?

>> Davis: I don't write any of those stories.

>> Nash: You don't write any stories for your outlets anymore >> Davis: I have a column that i occasionally write, an opinion collumn for an editorial page but thats it >> Nash: Sometimes you're publishing press releases outright with a disclaimer saying it the entity that produced this press release this is their content tell me more about that because you know my my boss Jeff Proctor will say we're reporters not repeaters right and that maybe we are using a press release as one source but we're going out we're doing that late work to find out if if that perspective perspective is accurate, are there people with other interests that have other perspectives on that?

Check in the facts, checking the numbers.

What service does it give your readers to publish press releases outright?

>> Davis: In an ecosystem where there are not enough reporters and not enough money to pay for everything, we at least want people to have news and information.

So when it's reliable, we will republish it and we'll tell people about it.

When it's when a press release is a tip and it's sort of The start of a story sometimes will give a student reporter that work edited by an editor and if readers start to read it if it really catches on we'll assign it to a full-time reporter to follow up.

>> Nash: You talked about the new platform that's coming for a political report.

You've also rolled out some new models for your print papers.

The Corrales Comment for instance.

You started free home delivery for everyone who lives in the Corrales area, tell me about this model >> Davis: And not just in Corrales we took the Sandoval Signpost is now free to everybody monthly In Bernalillo and Placitas The independent in the East Mountains is free to everybody in the East Mountains and Edgewood in a town of 3600 village of 3600 households less than 600 people were paying for a subscription.

And so as a publisher that revenue is important but it's not the but but we have to look at our impact and getting to 600 households may not be enough to get enough people to go to the village council meeting to weigh in.

And so we challenged our advertisers and said we want to send this to every household in Corrales.

That's 3600.

So we'll we'll Quadruple or five time the impact of your insert your advertising your message if you're willing to pay a little higher advertising rate small businesses and local businesses if you live in in Corrales your rate stayed the same this year but if you're from out of state out of town if you're a big advertiser in Albuquerque trying to get into a desirable neighborhood like Corrales you're going to have to pay a little more but it means that our news reaches everybody now and nobody's left out >> Nash: Careful readers of your papers might notice changes in the bylines you've had considerable staff turn over at several of your outlets.

How many reporters have left in the last year or say?

At our high point at the end of last year we had eighteen reporters, as many as the journal had except for their sports section so kind of tale of two cities.

We both lost reporters in the last year or so So we have 12 full time reporters today some of the folks that left have gone to work in other outlets some of them are back with us as freelancers part-time contributing to certain columns, but 10 or 12 is certainly the place that we can support right now with what New Mexico can support.

>> Nash: Some of the churn around staff came after furloughs in spring.

Can you talk about what that looked like and why you had to take that step?

We were able to launch City Desk to fill a gap and we're getting get support from governments for example we talked about it nonprofits and I thought we had another year of pretty stable support revenue sponsorships and nonprofit and government advertising that would subsidize, get us to sustainability where we could model that out.

It turns out when the great doge happened and all of those people who count on federal funding everybody froze their dollars because they didn't know what happened and we know across New Mexico that trickled down to all kinds of nonprofits and most of which in news is us because we're the largest nonprofit publisher.

And so we let we furloughed a few folks we helped them find some folks we help find new jobs in other publications some people decided not to come back to news.

But we've also had some folks from other outlets.

who've said hey I want to see what happens when you're rebuilding this, what does it feel like to work for political report as a news wire for other news outlets instead of having to feed a daily newsletter.

>> Nash: So as you said you didn't know what was going to happen was going to happen with the federal funding cuts but did you grow too fast?

with the federal funding cuts but did you grow too fast?

>> Davis: We probably did I think there was a need for us to >> Davis: We probably did I think there was a need for us to for us to fill this gap and everybody wanted somebody for us to fill this gap and everybody wanted somebody to work on this problem remember that two years ago the journal was laying off people in two rounds of layoffs the state's two rounds of layoffs the state's largest newspaper that scared a lot of folks about largest newspaper that scared a lot of folks about what the future of news was going to be.

what the future of news was going to be.

It's part of the reason we changed our print It's part of the reason we changed our print model and you know we can talk about like how much that needs reader support how much it needs sponsorships because New Mexico population is not big enough to support all of these news outlets.

>>Nash: The Santa Fe reporter was kind of your last pickup.

At the moment you are down to no reporters and three editors if I understand correctly you've got your arts and culture editor you have a calendar editor and you have a news editor.

Last year or rather in 2023 when you were on this show you said you were watching large corporations like Gannett come in and get rid of newsrooms and you said you quote "wanted to undo that by putting local people you quote "wanted to undo that by putting local people back in these communities and get away from syndication".

back in these communities and get away from syndication".

Is that still your goal at SFR at the Reporter?

>> Davis: It is.

I think most people in Santa Fe didn't realize how close Santa Fe reporter was to being gone.

It was very print heavy and had been and it needed to be.

It is a great paper.

It has been for 50 years.

Our analysis was that the Santa Fe reporter needed to do a digital transition a lot earlier than it did and it was struggling to keep up.

And so we had to make some really tough decisions.

There were a lot of bills that needed to be paid that hadn't been taken care of yet.

And needed to be caught up and we need to find some savings by sharing the cost of websites and the cost of email services.

So we gave ourselves a year.

It's going to take that.

What that means is that the Santa Fe reporter cost about, and we talk about this out loud, it cost about $20,000 a week to produce.

We have to be able to sell that much advertising every week in a town of Santa Fe that hasn't grown in 10 years substantially by population.

>> Nash: a paper that has far less original content than what readers maybe have gotten used to over the last fifty years.

Yeah, So we said this is going to be a building year for the Santa Fe reporter.

We're going to get back to what it absolutely cost to be sustainable.

The good news is the Santa Fe reporter has been profitable by that much since March.

>> Nash: You've spoken already about your funding model a little bit.

When it comes to your individual donors, do you disclose who those people are?

>> Davis: We do.

We follow the same model, even though we're on the four-profit side, we follow the same model as I&N Institute for Nonprofit News.

Anybody that donates more than $5,000 to any of our publications?

Is disclosed online at NMReports.Org >> Nash: One prominent donor I do want to ask about, former Bernalillo County Sheriff, Darren White former Bernalillo County Sheriff, Darren White The Albuquerque Journal referred to him as a co-founder The Albuquerque Journal referred to him as a co-founder of City Desk when you first announced the outlet.

Political report referred to him as a founding donor when he launched his mayoral campaign.

What is Darren White's role at City Desk ABQ >> Davis: Darren and I talked about this publicly when we did this, says the two recovering politicians former sheriff candidate and a congressional candidate on the republican side.

I was the city council guy on the democratic side we both just got tired of having the same 20 or 30 people show up at the city council meetings and not having the community involved and people say I wish I would have known about that or I wish there was more insight into how complicated the city's gotten.

So Darren and I both donated a decent amount of money to get city desk its first sort of dollars and then we challenge some of our local sponsors to match us.

We're able to put together about $400,000 in the first year.

We want to talk about the money because we want people to know that this is hard.

So Darren hasn't involved in the editorial at all but we both were the, hey we think this is matters and we were the chief fundraisers to make that initial piece happen.

>> Nash: Yeah I think there's questions about his role in operations of the outlets because he's running for mayor.

And I imagine that City Desk and your other outlets will be covering the mayoral race.

Is there a conflict of interest there or how do you avoid one?

>> Davis: No we disclose it As you know everybody knows Darren was a part of it.

I was a part of it so I you know again I don't write stories I write I have a column every once in a while where I sort of break down alongside Diane Danish and Mary Lee Danemann and provide analysis on what we see Darren.

>> Nash: There was a period of time when you did write stories.

>> Davis: I did.

>> Nash: What changed?

>> Davis: When we were starting we were filling gaps and trying to find reporters and so somebody's got to cover that so I didn't cover city council but I would cover something that didn't have that because we're all trying to make this work and so we were able to fill those gaps so I don't have to do that.

anymore and I can focus on raising money >> Nash: With the challenges that you've seen, the fundraising you are doing.

Would you consider your outlets and your publishing company solve it?

>> Davis: June was the first month that all the things from the non-profit to the fore-profit have been profitable in two years.

>> Nash: And do you think that will be sustainable >> Davis: It is sustainable because we started to focus not on the one time future grants but the long term sustainable model.

What we went back to is that I wish I could still have 18 or 20 reporters because I think there is that much news and then some.

We'll go back and we're going to use student reporters to help us turn those press releases into one time hits that are important for people who need to know that in Edgewood but it doesn't need investigative reporting.

And we're going to continue to do that.

But there's an ecosystem here that city desk and the journal are going to have to figure out how to cover the city together and stop competing.

Political reports can be the roundhouse coverage for lots of news outlets in the state who don't send somebody to the session.

And the sand of all signpost is going to really is doing really well at the Bernalio The downtown council and the Placitas community action and that's what that reporter can do so it's building an ecosystem and that's probably what's gonna happen next.

>> Nash: Pat Davis, Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this week's show and thank you for watching.

For New Mexico PBS, I'm Nash Jones.

Until next week stay focused.

Funding for New Mexico and Focus is provided by viewers like you.