Jana Collier, 57
Publisher, Cox First Media (Dayton Daily News, Springfield News-sun, Journal-news), Dayton, Ohio
First job in news: Reporter at The Brazosport Facts, Clute, Texas. What are some of the most important lessons you have learned while working in news?
I am so grateful for the people who’ve invested in me over the years, who’ve taken the time to give me feedback and share their insights, who’ve provided me with opportunity — to try, to fail, and, thankfully, sometimes to succeed. When I think about the lessons these experiences and people have taught me, I think of three things:
• We can accomplish so much more by building on our strengths than by focusing on our weaknesses.
This is true for us as individuals, and it’s also true for our industry. No other industry spends so much time critiquing and second-guessing itself. Knowing what our customers really want from us and doing that well is the key.
• What we do is timeless; what we make is fleeting. From the beginning, people have relied on the news. They’ve told each other stories about what happened, what might happen, and they’ve created community and identified from these stories.
The format — oral, print, digital — is irrelevant. Journalists and journalism are forever if we can just see ourselves in that light.
• Community is the most important connection for any local brand. I worry about the regionalization of journalism even more than the loss of individual print mastheads. It is, of course, sad to see newspapers fail, but newspaper journalism will fail if it does not connect with its local community. We need journalists in communities, not just mastheads. When you reflect on your career to date, what brings you the greatest sense of accomplishment?
It’s such an honor to have witnessed so many important events in the communities I’ve lived in and to have played a role in helping those communities make sense of what occurred and find a path forward.
But by far, my biggest sense of accomplishment is the people themselves. The people I’ve worked with — journalists, salespeople and operations experts — have helped me find meaning in everyday work and have given me strength and courage through difficult times. The people
I’ve worked for, our customers, have helped me realize the impact of what we do and to see the difference we make in their lives. And the people
I’ve met in the community along the way — sources, leaders and everyday citizens — have opened my eyes to new ideas and ways of looking at the world. What are your predictions for where news publishing/news media is heading?
Despite all the gloom and doom I’ve heard over the years about newspapers, I actually believe newspapers have the strongest potential of all news media. That’s because we have an established subscription business model and credibility as news worth paying for. But if newspapers are to leverage this advantage, we will have to free ourselves from the idea that we are our format. We will have to let go of print and embrace the evolving ways of gathering and creating news and of reaching customers in the future.