Directors of America’s Local Media Association have promoted Julia Campbell to co-chief executive – alongside Jay Small, appointed almost two years before – as part of their “multiyear succession plan”.

Nancy Lane, who the two succeeds and now Emeritus chief executive of LMA/LMF, approves: “We knew shortly after we hired Julia that we hit the jackpot,” said Lane, adding that her contributions over the last six years have been enormous. “I couldn’t be happier for her and LMA.”

Campbell (top) joined the LMA team in 2019, first as project lead and then general manager of The Branded Content Project, a joint programme with the Local Media Consortium and the Facebook Journalism Project. She was named LMA’s chief business transformation officer in 2023, and in addition to leading The Branded Content Project, she has served as an LMA/LMF programme lead for the Family and Independent Media Sustainability Lab and Word In Black, and other initiatives.

Prior to joining LMA, she was media systems vice president at Gray Television, having previously been a TV director, producer and editor at local stations and a national cable news network.

Looking back over her 25 years at LMA last month, Nancy Lane (above) wrote of her move from the Journal Register Company to take the helm of the then Suburban Newspapers of America.

“The focus was on preprint revenue and making sure national media buyers understood the value of smaller dailies and weeklies,” she said, “(but) knew digital was going to disrupt our industry in a big way.”

A decision to be digital first in the conference programming was met with “a lot of resistance” and some companies dropping their memberships.

A host of other initiatives followed: “We always thought bigger and bolder than many others in the industry,” she recalls, noting the also-controversial evolution into an umbrella organisation for all local media, including broadcasters and digital news outlets.

And, post-COVID, the “bold and revolutionary moves that put some local media companies in a position to sustain themselves”. She mentions the Seattle Times, investing in news when others retreated. And the Texas Tribune and later, the Daily Memphian, “showing us what was possible in the digital news startup space” and “nonprofits that understand the need to act like a for-profit when it comes to business sustainability”.

Wondering aloud “what companies will still be here in five years and what new models will replace those that don’t make it”, she offered these tips:

-collaboration is key. Unless you are a large media company with big corporate resources, you must find ways to partner. This means everything from shared services to joint journalism projects to revenue sharing ventures.

-AI must be responsibly integrated across all departments. This means rapid experimentation should be taking place now as the space evolves.

-philanthropy should play a role in all business plans no matter the tax status. Georges Media Group has 24 reporters funded by philanthropy. The Seattle Times is right up there as well. Word In Black has 8 FTEs in the newsroom made possible by foundation grants. There are beats that are never going to get covered without this funding. Word In Black’s religion beat, for example, consistently delivers top 5 stories every month in terms of engagement.

-with only 15% of the population willing to pay for news, you must be indispensable to your audience. That can’t happen without a serious investment in the newsroom. Indispensable means need-to-know information, every day, combined with breaking news, accountability journalism, and journalists who know how to connect with their audience across multiple platforms.

-you must have the right leadership. This is where a lot of companies fail. Today’s local media leaders need to be unicorns. They need to be hands-on, passionate, and positive. Far too many don’t fit this bill. A great example is our lab for journalism funding. The companies with the most success had their CEO participate in all the cohort meetings and coaching sessions. Both Georges Media and Post and Courier, two of the biggest success stories in the country, had CEO-level participation and involved their senior teams. The CEOs who delegate, had mixed results.

“I am concerned about the next 25, but what we do matters and we must fight with everything we have to ensure our sustainability. Local news and information are critical to everything this country stands for.

“I challenge high net worth individuals, foundations, corporations, donor advised funds and the public to invest in local journalism the way you would the arts, health, education and more. We need far more than Press Forward, and the existing journalism funders can provide.”

Lane says she remains “the industry’s biggest fan and can’t imagine a day where I don’t have some role to play.

“It may be from a beach in Portugal or Italy, but you can always count on me to be the biggest cheerleader of local media.”