{"id":1621,"date":"2013-12-12T18:00:41","date_gmt":"2013-12-13T00:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=1621"},"modified":"2013-12-12T20:57:54","modified_gmt":"2013-12-13T02:57:54","slug":"its-all-good-news-for-media-mogul-ryan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2013\/12\/12\/its-all-good-news-for-media-mogul-ryan\/","title":{"rendered":"All good news for media mogul Ryan"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a> Jack Ryan<\/p><\/div>\n
You may not be familiar with 22nd Century Media,<\/a> but you probably remember Jack Ryan, the former investment banker who once ran as the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate from Illinois.<\/p>\n From the bitter disappointment of his aborted bid<\/a> for public office in 2004, Ryan turned his media ordeal into a business opportunity. The following year he founded a hyperlocal publishing company on the premise that there\u2019s more \u201cpositive news\u201d out there than people were getting from traditional sources.<\/p>\n Today Ryan\u2019s 22nd Century Media publishes 12 weekly newspapers and websites mainly in the southwest suburbs and on the North Shore. With the launch in February of a Highland Park edition up in Lake County, the company will reach an estimated 170,000 Chicago area households. That would put it on track to overtake Sun-Times Media as having the second-largest circulation statewide (behind only the Chicago Tribune).<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d never really thought about the media business until I ran for office,\u201d Ryan, 54, said in an interview. \u201cBut there was a disturbing trend that in an effort to make splashy headlines, too many people were trying to tear people down. I saw this huge opportunity from both a business point of view and a community point of view to get good content out to people.\u201d<\/p>\n The emphasis on \u201cpositive news\u201d may offend some journalists\u2019 sensibilities, but Ryan is unapologetic: \u201cIt can\u2019t always be positive because the world doesn\u2019t work that way. But most of the people in [a given community] are trying to do the right things for the right reasons. So we report on that. Now if the mayor is stealing from the till or something like that, of course we will report it. . . . But overall, I see this as a way to correct something that seemed to be going wrong from a media point of view, which is too many people trying to tear people down rather than trying to improve things.\u201d<\/p>\n All of 22nd Century Media\u2019s weeklies are advertiser supported and delivered free by mail to every household in their respective communities. Subscribers can pay a nominal fee for personalized email notifications and access to additional material online.<\/p>\n Managing editor Heather Warthen heads the southwest suburban staff, overseeing the Frankfort Station, Homer Horizon, Mokena Messenger, New Lenox Patriot, Orland Park Prairie, Tinley Junction and Lockport Legend. Managing editor Joe Coughlin heads the North Shore staff, overseeing the Glenview Lantern, Northbrook Tower, Wilmette Beacon, Winnetka Current and soon-to-be Highland Park Landmark. Warthen recently was promoted to the additional position of chief events officer for 22nd Century Media.<\/p>\n Last August, Ryan also acquired the Malibu Surfside News, a California weekly that\u2019s been in business for 37 years. \u201cIt\u2019s a new venture for us to take someone else\u2019s property and morph it over to ours,\u201d he said. \u201cThe idea is to see if we can have the same success on the West Coast as we have in the Chicago area.\u201d<\/p>\n By continuing to expand his company\u2019s presence on the affluent North Shore, Ryan clearly is taking aim at Pioneer Press, the once powerful chain of suburban weeklies that suffered substantial cutbacks under Sun-Times Media ownership. \u201cWe saw a huge void as the level of content in some of our competitors dropped so dramatically,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cSo we come into a town, and we\u2019ll deliver 40 to 50 news stories about that community every single week. Eventually, the local residents say: \u2018I don\u2019t have time to check two or three websites, two or three papers. I\u2019m just going to go to the one that I know has all of the information I want.\u2019 That\u2019s how we get all the eyeballs \u2014 and sell them to advertisers.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s no limit to the number of suburbs Ryan can move into as long as they have high percentages of residents who own their homes and therefore have an inherent interest in local news. So far it\u2019s proved a successful strategy, he said. \u201cWe\u2019re a private company so we don\u2019t release our information, but we\u2019re funding ourselves out of our internal cash flow and initial investment from me. So we\u2019re doing pretty well.\u201d<\/p>\n Now eight years into the venture, Ryan appears to be as enthusiastic as ever: \u201cIt\u2019s fun. I think we\u2019re serving a community need by providing information about the towns we cover. People care a lot more about what happens within a few miles of their home than what may be happening on the other side of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You may not be familiar with 22nd Century Media, but you probably remember Jack Ryan, the former investment banker who once ran as the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate from Illinois. From the bitter disappointment of his aborted bid for public office in 2004, Ryan turned his media ordeal into a business opportunity. The following... Continue reading