Those that suppose newspapers are a dying enterprise ought to spend somewhat time with Jeff Johnson.
Whereas the trade is hunkering down and dealing by digital disruption, Johnson is shopping for and rising newspapers, together with main dailies in Texas.
A former writer of the Los Angeles Instances and San Francisco Chronicle, Johnson is now senior vice chairman of Hearst and president of its newspaper group.
Hearst began in 1887 with a San Francisco newspaper and grew right into a New York-based conglomerate with gross sales of $13.5 billion final yr. It owns TV stations, cable networks, magazines, and knowledge providers for the medical and monetary industries.
In recent times, Hearst purchased extra newspapers, constructing a set of round 30 dailies and 50 weeklies. Notably, it created clusters in Connecticut and Texas.
That’s led to job losses as manufacturing operations consolidated. However not like different massive chains, Hearst is investing in comparatively massive newsrooms and new digital merchandise to increase their journalism and attain new audiences.
That distinction was highlighted final yr when Alden International Capital, a newspaper operator recognized for deeply slicing prices, launched a bidding struggle after Hearst moved to purchase The Dallas Morning Information. Hearst gained, paying round $80 million, after the family-owned paper declined Alden’s greater provide.
Hearst already owned the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Categorical-Information, and purchased the Austin American-Statesman from Gannett earlier in 2025.
That’s paying off, with Hearst Newspapers posting beneficial properties in 2025 after a more durable 2024. Hearst expects the acquisitions and “continued sturdy progress in digital subscriptions” to drive extra progress in 2026, in keeping with an annual update final month by Hearst CEO Steve Swartz.
There’s historical past between Hearst and The Seattle Instances. They had been bitter rivals till Hearst selected to chop its losses on the Seattle Put up-Intelligencer in 2009. It laid off a lot of the workers and ended print manufacturing.
However that’s water beneath the bridge, and I wished to know why Hearst sees (different) newspapers as a superb funding and the way it expects them to reach a hypercompetitive digital period.
Johnson had loads to say about this so I’ll simply share edited excerpts of our dialog:
Dudley: Why is Hearst buying extra newspapers?
Johnson: Nicely, as you realize, it’s a singular mission and I believe Hearst very a lot believes in that mission — it’s the place it began for Hearst. It has been and can stay an essential a part of the corporate.
Q: Hearst can also be attempting to do extra with newspapers, particularly on-line.
A: All client media companies proceed to undergo a metamorphosis, proper? I imply the exterior forces, the modifications in how shoppers get data. All client media has to face that difficulty of change — tv, magazines, newspapers, cable. This isn’t distinctive to us. I believe we’ve simply been doing it the longest. So I believe that one factor that newspapers have a power in is the power to evolve. Whereas we haven’t gotten it excellent, we do a number of issues to proceed to fulfill folks and provides them content material that issues to them.
Q: Comparable to?
A: We like to have a look at it in a number of buckets. You’ve acquired breaking information and what’s taking place as we speak that you could learn about. We’ve acquired essential issues to cowl, investigative reporting, issues that the world must learn about — what occurred, what’s occurring with the election, issues which might be essential. The third bucket is, how will we assist folks reside their lives higher? You may traditionally name that service journalism however it’s utility journalism. If we assist folks perceive what’s occurring with BART delays in San Francisco and provides them a warmth map that exhibits how completely different instances of day issues are impacted, that’s not going to win a Pulitzer however that helps folks navigate their lives. It’s serving to them perceive how nicely their highschool did by way of software to the College of California system.
Q: That was a sensible mission by your San Francisco Chronicle.
A: That additionally opens up the quantity of people that will pattern us, as a result of I believe we’ve hit lots of people who care about exhausting information, care about breaking information, care about what’s essential in society and occurring in authorities. However we would like and have to have extra folks worth us sufficient to pay for our content material.
Q: Your CEO talked about a product serving to folks in Texas attraction tax assessments.
A: Any person cannot care something about exhausting information however care rather a lot about getting that. So I believe we now have to proceed to ship on all these (buckets). And clearly, from a journalist standpoint, the primary two are very, crucial that we ship on for society however it’s additionally an essential a part of our enterprise. That third one offers us a possibility to play in some lanes that we’ve all the time been in somewhat bit, however perhaps go somewhat greater.
Q: That’s nice.
A: This enterprise is all about, do folks worth what we give them sufficient to take out a subscription, after which clearly we now have the promoting part. However hear, all client media goes by this, and we simply should hold doubling down on what’s working. One other a part of that is having as many direct relationships with readers, whether or not they’re occasional readers who subscribe to a free publication or folks paying us, and never counting on Google search or Google Uncover to drive viewers.
Q: Inform me concerning the clustering.
A: In Connecticut, we had a number of newspapers that had been actually struggling to exist on their very own. We knew, due to assist we already had in Connecticut, that we might deliver these people in, add a number of statewide and regional protection that they didn’t have, and make them contribute positively to the Connecticut newspaper group. In Texas, there have been some advantages of getting different newspapers in Texas, however we purchased the papers as a result of we felt they had been nicely run newspapers in good markets. That Texas connection was a plus however was not the motive force of it.
Q: You’re nonetheless dedicated to print?
A: We work very exhausting to deal with our print subscribers. Now we have a really sturdy dedication to the very best service degree to these people. Now we have a maniacal concentrate on that service and it exhibits: We had been up in print client income final yr over 2024 and there aren’t many newspapers that had a rise in that.
Q: Wow.
A: However we’re not naive about print. We all know the quantity goes to proceed to go down. Individuals desire the digital format however we plan to proceed to present them that print expertise so long as they need it.
Q: What are you going to do with the P-I?
A: I’m speaking to the primary competitor in Seattle proper now so I believe I ought to be good about what I say on this, aside from the model has an ideal historical past. We’re taking a look at different methods we will serve the neighborhood in a approach that’s distinct. And being sort of a smaller operation, it offers us somewhat extra flexibility in fascinated about what may we do, particularly in a world the place a few of these instruments could make you very productive with a smaller presence.
