[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - We're joined once again by Ronnie Agnew, General Manager of NJ Advance Media.

Ronnie, good to see you again.

- Hey, I am great, it's great to see you, Steve.

Thanks for having me on your show.

- Ronnie, do us a favor, tell everyone the empire, the media empire that NJ Advance Media is.

- Well, it's an empire.

I am thrilled to be the general manager for the largest media source, well, we believe, the largest media source in New Jersey, journalists all over the state.

We cover every county, everything that happens here, and I'm really, really proud to be the head of it.

It's been an honor.

- Including NJ.com, Star-Ledger, and a whole range of other-- - NJ.com, Star-Ledger, the whole, everything.

It's, you know, they got little old me from Mississippi to come here to do this and that's quite an honor.

- We got you in Jersey.

So let's talk about this.

I've been talking to some folks about local media, local journalism and economics, translation.

I don't have to tell you, you run a business every day.

The economics of running a media organization are becoming more and more challenging.

To what degree do you believe the economics of running local media, state media, however you wanna describe it, really has to change because the, quote unquote, advertising model doesn't work anymore, or to the degree it needs to.

- Advertising model is shot, Steve.

It's gone.

We’ve had... That's why the innovation of NJ Advance Media is so special.

We've had to pivot, and we have pivoted into a whole different model, unlike anyone else's, you know, we-- - Describe it.

- Well, yeah, we have basically events, we do events, we do sports betting, we do subscriptions that are really important to us.

We do things that people probably, and some other places probably don't do, but they work for us.

We do affiliate revenue.

Affiliate revenue is that revenue, when you see that there's the Amazon sales and the other sales, those people report to me in news, actually, and they bring in a lot of revenue for us.

And you say, "Okay, wow, that is sacrilege in media."

Well-- - What about church and state?

What about, there's got the church, you got the business side is, you know, like, let's take care of the business, but then you got the news side.

And is there a wall in between, Ronnie, or?

- There's definitely a wall, and I gotta tell you that the wall is firm, and I've gotta say that, you know, just, gosh, I am so proud of the news side of it.

The news side of it is robust.

I mean, we have like 30 to 40 people on our breaking news team.

They're all over the state of New Jersey, we have investigative teams, we have everything that anyone would need to get information about New Jersey.

But we also have the fun teams.

We have food and entertainment.

That is huge for us.

You know, when I first got to Jersey, I'm, keep my answer short, I understand that, but when I first got to Jersey, I was like, "Bagels and pizza, really?"

- Hold on, that's what Genovese does, is it Pete Genovese?

- Yeah, Pete.

(laughs) - Come on.

We got the best bagels, - Yeah, I was like, what?

- the best pizza.

Seriously?

Ronnie, you didn't know that?

- No, I had no idea.

So I get to Jersey and I go to the office, which I love to do, by the way, we're completely remote, by the way.

- Same here.

- And I'm sitting in my living room right now, at the house, trying to make sure that you have a good background.

(Ronnie laughs) - I love it, I love it.

- But Pete Genovese, man, when I go to the office, there's pizza there.

And I was like, I've eaten more pizza in the last 18 months since I've been here than I have in my freaking life.

But-- - But that's just the food piece.

What you're saying is there's gotta be fun stuff that also makes money in order to support the news side.

And by the way, - Yes, yes, guess what?

So I wanna be clear.

If there's the money-making side, and for us, look, if we're not bringing in underwriters, sponsors, we can't do this.

So, but how, - No.

- to what degree do you believe the news folks understand, there's gotta be a business side, or you can't do the other thing?

- Oh, gosh.

You know, our model works.

It works, because we do significant investigative reporting.

If you saw yesterday with George Norcross-- - We're taping the day after there was a major indictment.

- All over it.

The day that Tammy Murphy, on a Sunday afternoon at four o'clock, a Sunday afternoon at four o'clock, let me tell you, one of my reporters wrote a story with his family at a park on his cell phone.

And it was up in, the story was up in like five minutes.

That's what local news is.

It is fast and-- - So this technology allows for reporting.

- Yes.

No matter where you are.

- Journalism to be done, totally different fashion.

No matter where you are and what you're doing.

And you know, yesterday I was having a meeting with two of my key people.

I had my investigative editor and I had my breaking news editor on a call.

And then they told me about the Norcross story, and I said, "Meeting over.

"Do your job."

And that's exactly what we do.

We do-- - Hold on a second.

As a general, this is interesting.

For our organization, we're a not-for-profit, which (chuckles) trust me, we're very entrepreneurial, I have to be involved in the business side, the raising of the money, the keeping the finances together with my colleague, Mary Gamba.

But also there's the, but we don't ask of our producers to be involved in that.

They're involved on the journalistic side.

Are you involved in both sides?

- No, so this is Ronnie Agnew.

This is Ronnie Agnew's world, right?

I make sure that our VP of news is free and clear of all the business conversations.

- Really?

- And then I am here, I am kinda straddling both worlds, which I enjoy.

I've always done it.

I mean, I used to work at PBS, by the way.

You have to do that at PBS.

But what I enjoy the most is the fact that I get a chance to read significant enterprise stories, but I also get a chance to step out of that world and use my business acumen from that PBS world to help our business.

But never the twain shall meet.

They don't even know, the staff has no clue that I'm working on some things with our corporation to make our corporation better.

They don't know I have any, they have no idea that I do that.

And that's fine, because the thing is, I want them to be free to do what they wanna do, free to cover stories without me and without my interference.

And that happens all the, that happens.

- Got about minute left.

So the graphic, Democracy in Danger is gonna come up because democracy is in danger.

To what degree, Ronnie, do you, even not from a, just from a business, but from a journalistic point of view, are quite aware of the responsibility you and your colleagues have as an important media organization in this state, to provide critically important information to protect our very fragile democracy.

- You know, I gotta tell you that that's one of the things that really concerns me most, not so much just for the state but for this country.

I am on many, many boards of directors, and one of the boards I'm on is one that actually talks about democracy and trust in media.

I am very concerned about trusted media.

I am very protective of our prerogative, and making sure that people trust us.

You know, I am the one that they call when they feel there was an absence of trust.

And I try to explain to them exactly how decisions are made, what we do, how we do it.

But I gotta tell you, as a country, a state, we have an issue with trust, with trusted media.

And we have to do everything that we can, Steve.

We have to do everything we can.

You, me, everybody on this team, everybody on my team.

- That's right.

That's right.

- We have to everything we can to make sure that accuracy, trust, and integrity, that's what we stand for.

- And along those lines, as you listen to Ronnie Agnew, general manager of NJ Advance Media, let me disclose transparency, again, that New Jersey Advance Media, media partner of ours.

Ronnie, I promise you, we will continue the conversation because the work never ends.

Thank you, my friend.

I wish you all the best.

- Thank you so much for having me here, and I would love to come back again.

- You got it.

I'm Steve Adubato, thank you so much for watching.

That's Ronnie Agnew, NJ Advance Media.

See you next time.

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