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Author: JoeyYoung

Ain’t No Joke – E&P features me in 25 Under 35 Section

Ain’t No Joke – E&P features me in 25 Under 35 Section

To borrow from my “cuz” Chris Young, “This Ain’t No Joke.” As with his and Melody Spurney’s first “Ain’t No Joke Food Truck Rally” in Newton on April 1, yet another life moment has happened for me on this date. Six years ago, April 1, 2014, it was publically announced that I had secured majority ownership of Kansas Publishing Ventures from Joel Klaassen and merged our tiny weekly paper with his publishing company in Hillsboro. Today, April 1, 2020, I…

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Shutting down isn’t easy for most small businesses

Shutting down isn’t easy for most small businesses

When you are living through a global pandemic that requires people to socially distance themselves from others, you have a lot of time to scroll on social media. It’s an amazing time suck. A lot of folks are suddenly infectious disease experts and doctors all of the sudden, too. I had no idea how many successful people I was friends with. Regardless, the overwhelming refrain on social media is to just shut down the world for two weeks or longer…

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Small market zilch gets attention of E&P

Small market zilch gets attention of E&P

I write this blog primarily to scream into nothingness about the newspaper industry with the assumption that only a few folks I am friends with might take a look and care. It’s therapeutic and something that has kept me from pulling my hair out. Throughout the years, I have become friends with lots of people in the industry, many of whom surely think I am full of hot air and are probably right. Occasionally, you find some like-minded folks, get…

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Why Buffett selling his papers doesn’t bother me

Why Buffett selling his papers doesn’t bother me

I like to think I am well read. When Lindsey and I started this journey of newspaper ownership over seven years ago, we didn’t do it blind. We read “The E-Myth” by Michael E. Gerber and “Brewing Up a Business: Adventures in Beer from the Founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery” by Sam Calagione before we ever signed the dotted line for our first paper, The Clarion. Since then, I have read anything I can get my hands on about…

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I hate social media more and more

I hate social media more and more

I have grown to hate social media more and more every day. My general distaste for the product, no matter the format, isn’t how they function or how much of my time it takes up at work, but rather what it has turned people into. One of my favorite quotes is, “The Internet is the single best and worst thing that has ever happened to humanity,” and I honestly couldn’t tell you who said it. The Internet and social media…

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Internet is best friend, worst enemy of news

Internet is best friend, worst enemy of news

This is a new era in our shared history. Simply put, the Internet is the best and worst thing that has ever been invented in human history. Feel like that is hyperbole? It’s not. The most powerful thing in the world is sitting in the palm of your hand, and it can be manipulated to overthrow governments, kill someone’s character, and track the movements of everything and everyone. Not all of that is bad, either. There has been no era…

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Two years of Newton Now

Two years of Newton Now

There wasn’t one person, outside of Joel Klaassen (founding publisher of The Hillsboro Free Press) that thought we would succeed long-term with Newton Now. We got a lot of support early. I love these people more than you can know. They wanted us to succeed, but I could see it in many eyes as we told them our plan to launch a competitive weekly newspaper in a market that had a 5-day corporate newspaper. They were going to support us….

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You can’t “Own Local” from 1,000 miles away

You can’t “Own Local” from 1,000 miles away

I often wonder why I torture myself. It’s almost like I want to get angry when I see the link in my inbox, see it is another story about how Gannett or Gatehouse is screwing up journalism for the rest of us, and instead of hitting the trash button, I dive right in and get pissed off all over again. This week it was an interview with Alain Begun, VP of Marketing at Gatehouse Media, on a podcast hosted by…

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Mandy Thomas and the grieving band of idiots

Mandy Thomas and the grieving band of idiots

First of all, read this link: http://m.ljworld.com/news/2017/may/03/lawrence-man-killed-motorcycle-crash-was-not-prope/?templates=mobile   What did you think? My guess is one of the following: Sympathy for the family of the dead That was an informative breaking news story.   Anything beyond that would probably come because you either knew the person involved or are a moron. Now let me show you the social media outrage at this story—a story that a newspaper 100 percent should have covered and something most people in the community would…

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South Dakota is pretty great. Yeah, I said it.

South Dakota is pretty great. Yeah, I said it.

South Dakota is pretty great. Now, I am not sure how many people have written those words who weren’t from the Dakotas, but I am here to tell you, South Dakota is great. That comes from a native Texan and an adopted Kansan. I love my homeland, but South Dakota was somewhere I could see myself living if we ever left the great State of Kansas. Why? I love newspapers, and South Dakota does, too. Both Dakotas are mostly comprised…

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