As Leonard Woolsey steps into the leadership of America's Newspapers as its newly elected president, he is focused on the value that the association brings to newspapers across the country — including those that may not yet be members. In an interview with America's Newspapers, he said the organization is the “thread that stitches newspapers together” — much like local newspapers are the thread that stitch their communities together.
“At the end of the day,” Woolsey said, “When America's Newspapers puts its thumbprint on something and says, ‘This is the direction we're going,’ it has so much more power and impact than if three or four newspapers came together, or five or six groups all marched up to Washington, D.C., to do something.”
He said the leadership America's Newspapers provides is critical because the progress it makes will benefit all newspapers across the country.
Woolsey, who was elected president Tuesday morning, Oct. 22, is president of Southern Newspapers, Inc., and president and publisher of The Galveston County Daily News.
He cited four major concerns that he believes will be important for the association to address in the coming year: a continued focus on advocacy; rebuilding trust with communities, subscribers and advertisers; drawing new talent into the newspaper industry; and successfully getting to the other side of the transition to a new business model.
He said the continued need to focus on advocacy is a reflection of the times. While newspapers have traditionally preferred to keep the government at arm's length, he said “the world is changing greatly and the landscape of competition is changing greatly, particularly with digital media firms.” He said the landscape is not just “out of balance,” but is “untenably out of balance” when it comes to smaller news organizations’ ability to compete against what are financially the “wealthiest companies on the planet.”
“We have no problem competing on a level playing field, but just give us that playing field,” he said. “And the only way, unfortunately now, to do that is working through legislation with the government.”
Woolsey's early interest in a career in the newspaper business has its roots at the kitchen table, with his mom reading the newspaper to him and his brother. If the newspaper wrote it, Woolsey said, that carried the “ironclad word of truth.”
Today, he said the public often doesn't understand the great lengths that community newspapers go to to confirm information before it is published. And, the public often doesn't distinguish between community newspapers and digital media. “They think of media as media. And, each time something's posted online and it's false, the public goes: ‘Ah, that's false; I'll just learn not to trust that.’”
Despite the fact that newspapers are a completely different product with different editorial standards, some readers put all media in the same bucket.
“We have got to rebuild our trust with readers and with our communities because — at the end of the day — we trade on trust, whether it be the news we produce, whether it's the advertising we sell or our subscriptions. People do business with us in all of these areas based on trust, and until we can regain trust, we're going to be on the wrong end of the stick.”
He sugested that a role America's Newspapers might potentially play in this could be a marketing campaign with a targeted structure.
He said the industry also faces a large challenge in drawing new talent to newspapers, especially among the younger generation. “If we can't bring people into our industry, then we can't grow,” he said.
With regard to a new business model, he noted that “we’ve known the digital revolution was coming for a long time, and we’ve all been moving along that pathway.” But he said the COVID pandemic greatly accelerated everything. He said the rapid rate at which Big Tech is evolving is putting added pressure on community newspapers, which are seeking to convert to digital, while still maintaining a solid business model that generates an operating profit.
But Woolsey is optimistic about the newspaper industry and shared a story that he was told by his publisher in the years before he became a publisher himself. He said the publisher asked him: “You know what the most untold secret is, Leonard? Being a publisher of the local community newspaper is the greatest job in the world.”
Woolsey said, as he’s moved into that role himself, “I found that to be so true because I’ve been able to participate in or make just small or modest differences in all these different communities I’ve lived in.” He talked about how much his family means to him and how his role in the community has allowed him to be present for the important moments in their lives and how he values the opportunity to make a difference in their lives in the local community.
“At the end of the day,” he added, “God’s got us on a path, and we’re just passing through, okay? We just doing what God has in His plan for us. And, it’s never about us; it’s about leaving what we find better than we found it. And, I think being a publisher and being in the newspaper business allows people to do that, because working for a newspaper is a multiplier. Instead of helping just one other person, you might be helping 1,000 people or 10,000 people through your actions. And, so I do think being a newspaper publisher is the coolest dang job in the world!”
When communities lose their local community newspaper, becoming “what we unfortunately call a news desert,” he said those communities start to drift apart. He said they often lose their sense of identity, as newspapers are the ones that record, capture and document the history of the community.
He called newspapers a “point of pride in a community,” saying that — when he goes to Washington, D.C., or the State Capitol in Austin, Texas — one of the first things he talks about with local officials and their staffers is their hometown newspaper. “And their voice just warms up.”
He also talked about how much it means to him when he gets handwritten letters like one he received recently from a 94-year-old woman — "in just beautiful penmanship” — about how much one of his columns meant to her. In that column, he had written about traveling to Scotland, to his mother’s childhood home and burying a time capsule there.
Woolsey has been writing “In Plain View” columns for 26 years, and he's published three books with a collection of those columns. As a publisher, he believes these columns are an important way to connect with his community. Columns, he said, can be written with two goals in mind: to make people think or to make people feel. While one is not better than the other, Woolsey likes to write about experiences that readers can connect with ... columns that make them feel. He often writes about about children and family or the loss of a parent, or someone he meets on the street.
Woolsey has been married to his college sweetheart, Maryrine, who he met in the first class in the first semester of the first year of college, 43 years ago.
He has two adult children: Alec Woolsey (of Denver, Colorado), who works in digital media, and Ally Woolsey (of Galveston), who works in healthcare administration.
His first job in newspapers was copywriting for a department store, then doing layout for an advertising agency’s weekly newspaper coupons published across the United States.
His first job after graduation from the University of Central Missouri, where he wrote for the college newspaper, was as a sales rep with the Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis. He worked for the company for five years, with increasing responsibilities along the way.
He later spent two years working in the newspaper business in Pittsburgh, before joining Paxton Media Group where he worked for 20 years, finally serving as the group publisher for the Georgia newspaper group.
He joined Southern Newspapers in 2014 as publisher of The Galveston County Daily News (the oldest newspaper in the state of Texas). He became president of Southern Newspapers in 2020 when Dolph Tillotson, company president since 2014, became chairman of the board.
Woolsey is a former president of the Texas Press Association and former president of the Rotary Club. He has been named twice to E&P Magazine's “10 Newspapers That do It Right” and was named E&P’s Publisher of the Year in 2023.
Some fun facts that our new president shared about himself:
