Adam Ferguson
Willamette Week Publisher Richard Meeker (left) and Ctrl+P President and Publisher Pat Davis recently finalized the sale of the Santa Fe Reporter.
Upon their purchase of the Santa Fe Reporter in 1997, co-owners Richard Meeker and Mark Zusman, publisher and editor, respectively, of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Willamette Week in Portland, Oregon, faced questions about the prospect of out-of-town owners for the home-grown weekly. Both acknowledged the concerns, but promised SFR would maintain its local autonomy.
“This is a successful paper,” Meeker said in a June 25, 1997 SFR story announcing the sale. “It’s not as if it needs fixing.”
Flash forward 27 years, Meeker and Zusman have become the 50-year-old Reporter’s longest-standing owners by far, under whose tenure the locally run paper has won numerous state and national awards for its reporting, writing and design. While Meeker and Zusman remain stalwart advocates for alternative weekly papers, they say the COVID-19 pandemic underscored the importance of local ownership. Thus, with plans for a new undertaking in Oregon, they announced the Reporter’s sale in March and their intention to only sell to a local buyer with a similar understanding and commitment to the kind of journalism the Reporter produces.
That sale has now occurred, and the Reporter has changed hands.
Ctrl+P Publishing is the Reporter’s new owner, and former Albuquerque City Councilor and political organizer Pat Davis, 45, will serve as its new publisher. Ctrl+P also runs several other New Mexico publications it has either begun or purchased: The Paper in Albuquerque, the Corrales Comment, the Sandoval Signpost, The Independent News in Edgewood and City Desk ABQ.
Both parties declined to disclose the sales price.
Meeker says upon announcing SFR’s sale, he heard from several interested parties, but Davis “was the only one who got the journalism the Reporter does and has the resources to keep it going and expand it. In today’s media landscape, local, independent ownership is more meaningful than ever. So it’s especially encouraging to know that will be the case with the Reporter going forward.”
In discussing his purchase of SFR, Davis echoed Meeker’s sentiments.
“Unlike the other papers that we’ve picked up, the Santa Fe Reporter is a 50-year institution, and it is really important to me that it gets to have another generation serving Santa Fe,” Davis says. “It’s always been a Santa Fe paper. It’s always resisted anybody from outside that tried to tell them what to do, and I think it probably should keep doing that with me and everybody else.” In the long term, Davis says, Ctrl+P doesn’t “want to make any changes, but I think we have the opportunity to bring some new resources to it.” While Davis lives in Albuquerque, he says he and his long-time partner Chris MacQueen “have a special connection” to Santa Fe, and spend significant time here, as MacQueen works at Meow Wolf.
When asked about his potential involvement with the Reporter’s editorial content, Davis says the business side of Ctrl+P Publishing, “which includes me, stays out of the newsroom. The best way to make a newspaper work is to let news people be news people. The nice thing about how we are approaching rebuilding global community control of newspapers again, is by taking care of the business so that the journalists can focus on being journalists and not also have to design the paper and pay the bills and deal with the printer; they can get back to being editors and journalists.”
Julia Goldberg, who in March stepped in to serve as interim editor and publisher following the departure of long-time Editor and Publisher Julie Ann Grimm, leaves both roles this week to return to freelance writing—including for the Reporter—and teaching. She is the paper’s longest-serving staff member, having begun as an intern in the early 1990s. She served previously as its editor from 2000 to 2011, and returned again in 2019 as a senior correspondent.
“I am very happy to have been able to help out during this transitional time for the Reporter,” Goldberg says. “The paper is important to this community and to me, personally, and I remain available to help out if they need me. It’s been an honor to work with the current staff, who are all immensely talented and hard-working.”
Davis says the company will announce an interim editor shortly “to keep the Reporter moving forward,” and will publicly advertise for a long-term hire. “We’re going to include staff and community members in that process,” he says, “and we’ll make an announcement about that.”
In purchasing the Reporter, Ctrl+P becomes its fourth owners. Meeker and Zusman bought the paper in 1997 from Hope Aldrich, who had bought the paper from its original owners, the late Richard McCord and his then-wife Laurie Knowles.
“We’ve put a good deal of time and money and—we hope—journalistic energy into this enterprise,” Meeker says. “Most important are the extraordinary people on staff who have given heart and soul to the Reporter and, thus, to Santa Fe. I’m comfortable saying we’re leaving the Reporter in far better shape than we found it, and I’m thrilled we’ve found the person to take the helm of this civic treasure. For me personally, I’ve come to really appreciate Santa Fe and make good friends here. It is a very special place, and I expect the Reporter will continue to nurture the City Different for decades to come.”
The rest of SFR’s staff remains intact and includes:
- Advertising Director: Robyn Desjardins
- Culture Editor: Alex De Vore
- Art Director: Anson Stevens-Bollen
- City government Staff Writer: Evan Chandler
- Education Staff Writer: Mo Charnot
- Calendar Editor: Adam Ferguson
- Digital Services Manager: Brianna Kirkland
- Circulation Director: Andy Bramble
- Advertising Account Executive: Jayde Swarts
Contact Pat Davis at pat@newmexico.news
