Pat Dorsey, publisher of The Santa Fe New Mexican and a member of the America's Newspapers board of directors since 2021, brings a long history of industry leadership to his new role as chair of America’s Newspapers.
In addition to serving on the SNPA Foundation board of trustees at the time of the merger of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association and Inland Press Association, he is a former president of SNPA. He also was part of the group that worked on the merger plans that helped to create America’s Newspapers.
He is a previous board chair with the Florida Press Association and currently is second vice president of the New Mexico Press Association.
Prior to being named publisher in Santa Fe in 2023, following the retirement of Tom Cross, Dorsey served as publisher of the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman; vice president, regional publishing operations, Gannett | USA TODAY Network; publisher of the Sarasota (Florida) Herald-Tribune; president and publisher of the Tallahassee (Florida) Democrat; as well as additional industry positions.
He was publisher in Sarasota when the Herald-Tribune and Tampa Bay Times won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for a stellar example of collaborative reporting that revealed escalating violence and neglect in Florida mental hospitals and laid the blame at the door of state officials. Pulitzer honors were awarded to Michael Braga of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and to Leonora LaPeter Anton and Anthony Cormier of the Tampa Bay Times.
Dorsey has been active on the advocacy front, both with America’s Newspapers and with the New Mexico Press Association. He cited several examples of how America’s Newspapers is using advocacy to help member newspapers and the local newspaper industry, noting that “state level advocacy efforts have taken on increased importance in the last few years.”
Business model for strengthening journalism and newspapers
In Santa Fe, Dorsey said: “We have been successful in getting philanthropic support to add reporting resources for increased focus on critical issues facing our community and state through The New Mexican Public Service Journalism Fund with our local New Mexico Community Foundation.”
He said, “Having a strong locally owned and independent for-profit newspaper company supplemented with additional philanthropic journalism is a great model to bolster local newspapers and ensure sustainable success. It is also a way to apply grant funding and community donations more efficiently toward high quality journalism, with a higher percentage of the giving going straight to the reporting.”
He said this was made much easier to implement through connections with members of America’s Newspapers who readily shared their experiences to create and operate this structure in the best way. He said, “We used information and documentation from Alan Fisco and The Seattle Times, PJ Browning and The Post and Courier, and Judi Terzotis and The Advocate | Times-Picayune — all from relationships forged with America’s Newspapers. We have now expanded these efforts by absorbing the statewide investigative reporting operation of Searchlight New Mexico into our fiscal sponsorship fund, greatly enhancing the impact of our journalism across New Mexico.”
Dorsey says America’s Newspapers has always been about assisting its members in creating and adapting business models and best practices to maintain sustainable newspaper operations and better serve their communities through strong local print and digital journalism.
He said: “We best serve our membership and the industry with many different initiatives and programs. We continue to lead with robust training and education programs to help newspaper publishers keep up with the latest best practices and technology. We have created strong connections with our Solutions Partners to always present the most up-to-date solutions and ideas for creating the best opportunity for sustained success. We continue to roll out the best market research in the industry to help better align our products and services with what our audience, customers and community want and expect from us. We have created many partnerships to better serve and advocate for our members and the industry, including the State Advocacy Coalition that works with state press associations to help support and advocate for our newspapers at the local level.”
He said the recently announced partnership with the News/Media Alliance to jointly hold our Senior Leadership Conference, Family Owners Meeting and the News/Media Alliance's Fly-In, “helps us more aggressively advocate at the federal level and better align our interests and increase positive impact. Our long partnerships with the SNPA Foundation and Inland Press Foundation help keep our Family Owners Conference and regional meetings strong for this critical member group. These are just some of the areas America’s Newspapers leads our members and the industry in working to best protect and sustain quality journalism across the country.”
Dorsey also cited the important market research being conducted by the America’s Newspapers Foundation, including its most recent Roadmap Study, which was presented at the Mega-Conference. This study, which focuses on suburban and rural markets, identifies what readers want from their local newspapers. “This is a key area I would like to develop programs around,” Dorsey said. Watch for additional information coming soon from the America’s Newspapers Foundation.
Dorsey succeeds Matt McMillan, who has joined another organization that is not affiliated with America’s Newspapers. McMillan will serve as an account manager for the , a global trade association serving the textile industry, and is based in Minneapolis.
Dorsey thanked McMillan for his years of service to the newspaper industry and to America’s Newspapers, saying: “Matt has been a long-time advocate for America’s Newspapers and a strong leader for our members and our mission. His leadership saw expansion of our Family Owners regional meetings, growth of the State Advocacy Coalition, the completion of critical research focused on more suburban newspaper markets and many more accomplishments to strengthen our member newspapers.”
