Community Impact, which launched 18 years ago with three full-time employees covering Round Rock and Pflugerville, Texas, has a very simple business model, Founder and CEO John Garrett told attendees last week at the Mega-Conference. "We believe that everything about our business model starts with high-quality journalism and high-quality design. That's been our premise from the very beginning."

During a Mega-Conference session last Monday morning, Garrett talked about his company's thriving newspaper product, what the company is doing in terms of digital transformation and shared some tools that attendees could implement at their own newspapers.

During an Idea Exchange roundtable about best print ideas and magazine publishing at the Mega-Conference, the publisher of The Daily News in Galveston, Texas, shared tips and advice for producing a lifestyle magazine — and talked about why these magazines are so important to local markets.

Leonard Woolsey, who also is president of Southern Newspapers, said lifestyle magazines offer so much potential that it needs to be a conscious decision if your paper chooses not to publish one. "If you don't get in the game," he said, "somebody else most likely will come in and take away six figures of revenue in a blink of an eye. And, once they take it away from you, you're in second place ... and it gets really hard to catch up."

A warm America's Newspapers welcome to our newest member:

The Tracy Press is a weekly newspaper in Tracy, California, and is published every Friday. It has been the prime source of news and information about Tracy and southern San Joaquin County for more than 100 years.

Through the years, the Press has changed from an afternoon weekly to a twice-a-week morning paper to a three-, five-, six-day daily to a weekly newspaper.

Instead of one contest in which editorials and columns are judged together, two separate contests are being held this year — one for excellence in editorial writing (representing the view of the newspaper) and one for excellence in column writing (columns written by one or more individuals).

In each of those contests, entries will be judged in two circulation brackets: over 35,000 circulation and under 35,000 circulation. And, three cash prizes will be included in each bracket — giving 12 individuals the opportunity to win cash prizes in 2023 (up from four cash prizes in 2022).

Cash prizes will be awarded in the following brackets:

Cash awards will be as follows in each of the four contest brackets: first-place, $2,250; second-place, $1,000; and third-place, $500. This puts total cash prizes at $15,000 — thanks to the generous support of Lissa Walls Cribb and Southern Newspapers, Inc.

In addition to the top three in each bracket, America's Newspapers also will be recognizing additional finalists.

This contest has always sought to recognize strong, courageous and positive editorial page leadership. Judges will be taking the courage it took to write the editorials or columns into highest consideration.

Kansas Newspapers has sold the daily Parsons (Kansas) Sun and daily Chanute (Kansas) Tribune to Scott Wesner and Scott Wood. Wood and Wesner, high school classmates who both have extensive newspaper experience, have been steadily acquiring community newspapers in recent years.

The Family and Independent Owners Meeting is designed for the senior executives, owners and family members who are directly involved in their company’s operations.  The meeting provides these executives the opportunity to network and share successful strategies to move their business forward.  From issues related to basic operations, business structures or familial transitions, the Family and Independent Owners Meeting fosters a spirit of partnership and innovation.

The 2023 Summer Meeting will be held at the PNC Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania — home of the Pittsburgh Pirates! Sessions will begin Tuesday, July 18, at 2 p.m. EDT, followed by a reception and Pirates baseball game that evening. On Wednesday, July 19, sessions will run from 9 a.m to 12:30 p.m., followed by an optional Pirates game that afternoon.