Keeping Current for 10 years

Company’s growth, resilience mirror southern Maine economy

WESTBROOK — Deadline day for the first issue of The Current was 10 years ago this week, but you may remember the date for a different reason – Sept. 11, 2001.

Since then, the company has grown from a skeleton crew to 25 employees working on six weekly newspapers serving 26 cities and towns in Cumberland and York counties, as well as four lifestyle magazines and keepmecurrent.com, the company’s website.

In many ways, the story of Current Publishing’s success is the story of Scarborough’s success. In what Victoria Wallack, the paper’s founding editor, calls “a wonderfully political town,” in the best sense of community interest, there was an audience willing and able to support a local newspaper, despite other similar start-ups at that time.

It’s the story of a community willing to answer questions from an unknown reporter for an unknown paper even on a day when everyone knew the world had changed forever.

“I think it’s fair to say we will all remember that first week,” said Wallack. “The first thing about newspapers is this bottom line: The newspaper has to get out ­– even if you’re new and half your staff doesn’t exist yet.”

The front page was quickly torn apart and rebuilt as news of the 9/11 events unfolded, the small staff of the plucky paper racing back and forth from its tiny starter-kit of an office in Scarborough to the business next door, which actually had a television. A part-time reporter, who in the coming weeks would break news of the terrorists’ activities in Scarborough prior to their fatal flight, was quickly dispatched to canvass Oak Hill for citizen comment.

Somehow, that first issue made deadline, but then a new heartbreak – word from the printer that all the typefaces had somehow become corrupted, resulting in so much gibberish. At 6 Wednesday morning, the exhausted staff was hard at work, rebuilding the newspaper from scratch for a second time in as many days.

“It was a nightmare getting that first issue out, and then we had to do it all again,” publisher Lee Hews, now 51, recalled in a recent interview.

“It was the kind of thing where, if just the normal stuff that goes wrong when you start a new paper had happened, in hindsight it would have all gone very simply,” said Wallack.

Still, The Current Vol. 1, No. 1 made the newsstands as planned, Sept. 13, 2001, where readers found it alongside another new paper that launched that same week.

Suddenly, the tide shifted, from a question of whether a neophyte staff could produce, to one of what the market would bear.

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS

Hews had worked in the newspaper trenches for nearly 15 years when the new century rolled around. A straight-talking general manager of two newspapers – The York County Coast Star and The York Weekly – she was known for her high-energy, demanding and matter-of-fact style. Hews knew the newspaper industry was in flux, but knew also from her sales background that change often meant opportunity.

Hews graduated from North Adams State College (now Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts) with a double major in English and sociology. While a sales manager at DeLorme Mapping, she heard about an opening for an assistant classified manager at the Portland Press Herald from her sister, who worked there as a reporter at the time.

Not long after joining the Press Herald, Hews expanded the reach of her classified staff by pushing them to make outbound "telemarketing" calls.  When this proved to be a successful revenue stream, she started a new telemarketing department at the paper, with a staff of six. Before Hews was promoted to group sales manager, her team was producing more than $2 million in annual revenue.

Ten years later, Hews took a job as advertising director for Journal Transcript Newspapers, which owned the York County Coast Star and 13 other weeklies in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Then, in 1999, a Texas company came in and bought the JT papers, as well as those owned by Rockland-based Courier Publications.

“The first sale was good for me,” Hews said. “I was promoted to general manager, we bought another newspaper, I was running both – but then we were quickly sold again. Within the course of two years I was bought and sold twice.”

The turn of the century brought a sea change in the newspaper industry, and the tide moved fast. Although there were fewer than 2,800 sites on the World Wide Web as late as mid-1994, it was only a couple of years before editors, publishers and owners were busy trying to second-guess how to harness the Internet as a tool for news distribution.

That prompted a slate of sales, as various players jumped in and out of the print pool. In addition to the ownership swaps Hews experienced, her former employer also changed hands, when Guy Gannett Communications sold the Portland Press Herald to Blethen Maine Newspapers, a subsidiary of the Seattle Times Company.

Jeff Inglis, now managing editor of the Portland Phoenix, was a 27-year-old reporter in 2001, when hired as one of the first two reporters at The Current. The need for the paper, born in the vacuum created by the Blethen contraction, was evident early on, he said.

“I remember talking to people who said, ‘We haven’t seen a reporter at a planning board meeting since the Blethens bought the Press Herald,” he said. “Guy Gannett always had reporters out to these small town planning boards and school boards and council meetings. In essence, they effectively created this market. I mean, you’re going to get a better story about the planning board if you have a body in the seat at the meeting. But the Blethens came in and contracted and suddenly there was a latent demand from people who had no idea what was going on at their town hall.”

That pent-up demand for community news provided the motive for Hews. Scarborough, which she had called home for more than a decade at that point, provided the means.

“There was not question there was a need,” said Hews. “I had managed to put together a little bit of money, I found an investor, and I thought, I’ll just do it.”

BOOMTOWN

Even as the daily paper was paring back community coverage, the suburbs surrounding Maine’s largest city were growing.

“When I first moved to Scarborough in 1989, I felt like I was in the middle of nowhere,” said Hews. “But it quickly became the fastest-growing community in Maine at the time. If you look back at our early papers, there were new neighborhoods being built all the time.”

In 2000, the Scarborough Economic Development Corp. listed 850 businesses in its business directory, according to Harvey Rosenfield, president of the organization. In 2010, the number was 1,500.

“Even with the ongoing economic situation, the number seems to be growing,” said Rosenfeld.

Scarborough’s population increased 11.5 percent between 2000 and 2010, from 16,970 to 18,919, according to the U.S. Census. Housing units increased 19.1 percent, from 7,233 to 8617, substantially above the growth in the rest of Cumberland County, according to Rosenfeld.

Scarborough’s potential ad base was sufficient that Hews’ employer had designs on launching a new Scarborough-based newspaper. Those plans were scuttled by the second sale, however, at which time Hews decided it might be best to strike out on her own, rather than risk the turmoil of a third turnover in ownership.

“The idea probably was not as scary as it should have been, because it was a dream,” she said. “At the time, it was just me and my strong headedness. It was a vision. It was a passion.”

Hews’ passion was readily picked up by Current employees, including one of the first hires, Ann Duddy, now major account representative, who within a two years of coming on board was named advertising rep of year by the Maine Press Association.

“There was and still is a need for community news,” Duddy said last week. “People want to read about their grandson hitting a home run, whereas the daily paper and the TV stations, they’re are all about the Red Sox and the Patriots.

“Businesses want to advertise with us because people really want to read great stories about that home run, or that touchdown, or what’s going on in town government – even things as little as a change in trash pickup – because they just can’t get that anywhere else but their hometown, community newspaper,” said Duddy.

“Lee was the inspiring person behind it all, because she had this vision that the area was underserved by local news sources,” said Wallack, who was lured from a career in Massachusetts journalism, on a temporary, contract basis to help launch The Current.

She ended up staying on as editor of The Current, as well as two sister publications that were quickly added to the fold.

She also found a husband.

Bob Wallack, publisher of the Farmington Journal at the time, and president of the New England Press Association, had worked with Hews at the York County Coast Star. He eventually became general manager of Current Publishing newspapers for several years, but, at the start, was tapped for key advice. Among his contributions was to suggest Victoria Ogden to Hews, through a mutual friend in the industry.

Given his photography experience, Wallack volunteered to meet Ogden to canvas Scarborough for “stock pictures” to illustrate the first issue of The Current. The rest, said Hews, “is history.”

“That was our first date, although I don’t think either of us knew we were on a date at the time,” said Victoria Wallack, with a laugh.

Both Wallacks are out of the news business now. After leaving Current Publishing to found the Statehouse News Service, Victoria Wallack took a job as communications manager for the Maine School Management Association. Bob Wallack, whom Hews calls “huge in getting the paper started,” helping to recruit staff and allowing use of his designers to create a prototype issue, led the company after his new wife left in mid-2003. He eventually fulfilled a lifelong dream by buying the Olde Post Office Café in Mount Vernon, where today he slaves over stoves instead of news copy.

Still, it was the Wallacks, one after the other, who saw the company through a period of rapid expansion.

GROWTH SPURT

Current Publishing hung its first shingle in a small office on the second floor of the Oak Hill Mall in Scarborough. Today, Steve Berg, of Alpha Management, still sounds a little bemused that the 500-square-foot space would be sufficient for a newspaper office.

“We’re talking small. We were all on top of each other,” joked Duddy. “I used to beg Lee [Hews] to get us into a new office.”

“It was a small space,” said Berg. “But Lee [Hews] had a tremendous amount of energy. I though they had a good opportunity.”

Jonathan Morse, at the time a 21-year-old graphic designer and Hews’ first hire, said the talent and dedication around him pushed him to improve his skills. He would stay with the company for nine years, growing into the role of production manager.

“I would say what stood out the most was constant reminder to 'not get too comfortable,’” said Morse. “The company was in constant growth and adjustment during my entire tenure at Current Publishing, and the production department's ability to adapt to change was really what I concerned myself with the most. 'Never a dull moment' was a perpetual mantra.”

Within six months, the company had moved to larger quarters on the mall’s ground floor. Before 10 months had passed, the company grew to two newspapers, with the purchase of the American Journal from Harry Foote. Foote was an editor at the old Portland Evening Express when in 1969 he bought two newspapers, The Westbrook American (established in 1950) and the South Portland-Cape Elizabeth Journal (established in 1965) and combined them into a single paper to serve the Portland suburbs.

“Things were going really well with The Current,” said Hews, “and so, we continued to identify strategies for areas of growth.”

The American Journal, apart from serving a contiguous, and in some cases, overlapping, market, was “a very well-respected paper with a solid advertising base,” said Hews.

Still, Foote didn’t have the AJ on the market. Hews and Vickie Ogden Wallack approached him and negotiations took several months.

“It was a long, emotional process for everybody,” said Hews. “On the night we were to close, Harry called me up, very concerned, wanting to make sure I’d honor the vacation time earned by his employees. Of course, I did.”

Hews also worked to help find jobs for the few AJ employees who were not absorbed into the combined company.

“Of course, none of us knew if this company was going to be successful,” recalled Kate Irish Collins, the first reporter hired at Current Publishing. “But when we bought the American Journal, I think that’s when a lot of us really began to thing, ‘Hey, this can really happen.’”

Collins had worked at the AJ for a couple of years before landing a job at the office of the Maine Secretary of State and then coming on board to help found The Current. Today, she covers York County for Current Publishing as a reporter for the Sun Chronicle and The Reporter. 

After acquiring the AJ, Current Publishing next approached the owners of the Suburban News, including state Sen. Bill Diamond of Windham, who at one time was Maine’s secretary of state. Initially, Diamond and his partners were not interested in selling, but agreed on a price just as Hews was preparing to launch her own Lakes Region paper instead. John Balentine, now editor of the Lakes Region Weekly, came with the October 2003 purchase, as his old paper was folded into Hews’ new one. For a time the combined paper was known as the Lakes Region Suburban Weekly.

Next, Hews bought a small newspaper serving the Waterboro area, known as The Reporter.

“I literally used to drive around the rural areas, just looking for small, local newspapers to buy,” said Hews.

Only a few years old at the time, The Reporter was run almost as a single-person operation by Kerry DeAngelis, who stayed on as associate publisher for a time after the October 2004 purchase.

The next two newspapers were original to Current Publishing, launched simultaneously in the spring of 2005 – the Sun Chronicle served Biddeford, Saco and Old Orchard Beach, while the Sacopee Valley Citizen covered Cornish and the surrounding communities.

A year later, in April 2006, the Weekly Observer was created to cover York County towns in the Sanford area.

Finally, in 2008, Hews bought the Monument News, another small newspaper, which served Gray and New Gloucester.

Then came the recession.

CHALLENGING TIMES

Even before the recession officially hit in December 2007, there were signs that bumps were bound to happen in the publishing arena. A few months before the official start of the recession, The Citizen ceased publication.

“Readers loved that paper,” said Hews, “but we couldn’t get the businesses to support it and, even though those business owners were the same people who said they loved it as readers, we just could not get the advertising.”

In January 2008, all of the Current Publishing newspapers went from paid circulation (50 cents per issue) to free distribution.

“I just don’t think you can get people to pay for a paper any more, or at least not as many people as you want to,” explained Hews. “The goal is to get the papers in people’s hands, and we’re doing the community a disservice if there’s 10,000 people willing to pick it up, but only 2,000 willing to pay for it.”

Today, Hews said, each of the six weekly newspapers distributes between 7,600-15,000 copies each week, with “very few returns.”

Still, that could not save the Monument News, which after nearly two years was folded into the Lakes Region paper.

At one time, Current Publishing had eight newspapers in six offices. By 2008, the economy had forced it down to six papers in a single office, on Main Street in Westbrook.

At the same time, the staff was consolidated.

“We felt bad when we ended up having to lay people off,” said Hews. “That’s what makes actually running this company way more scary than when I took a leap to start it, because so many people in the community depend on our continued success – our readers, yes, but also our advertisers and so many people here who depend on it for their livelihood. The dream and the vision were nowhere near as scary as the ongoing responsibility.

“But, even with reduced staffing, I think we’re still putting out the best local products in every market we’re in,” said Hews. “We’ve been forced to become more efficient, and we have the best, hardest-working, most productive people.”

The company’s ability to adapt as the market changed stands out to Morse, as does its ability to attract the right kind of employees.

“I found myself looking upon many of the folks I worked with as family members after a while, and I still do,” he said. “They had so much dedication to the product, not relenting until the paper has been sent to the printer.”

It stands to reason that the quality of the newspapers has been recognized, too. In its first 10 years, Current Publishing’s weeklies have taken home dozens of Maine and New England journalism awards.

And the company seems to have turned a small corner. Current Publishing’s ad revenue was up 17 percent last year. Still, it’s a different world from the one that existed when The Current hit the stands in 2001.

“The recession has forced us to manage the company better,” said Hews. “Before, we managed everything from the revenue side – we were constantly focused on growing revenue. After the recession, we had to manage it from the expense perspective, and we still do.”

And, as might be expected, cutting overhead had its ancillary benefits. When there were six offices, there was much less cohesion between art departments, not to mention managerial oversight.

“I literally had a customer call me one day and say my office manager was asleep at the desk,” Hews said.

Needless to say, that person did not survive the cutbacks.

SHIFTING LANDSCAPES

Today, the newspapers are only part of the revenue streams at Current Publishing. Niche publications, free magazines dedicated to particular areas of interest – Maine Women, My Generation, Food Etc. and the destination guide 95 North – also add to the bottom line.

“Like the newspapers, they are hugely popular with readers,” said Hews. “We cannot keep them out there. We constantly run out of them on the stands. With a little more advertising, we could easily put out twice the number of copies that we do, and still not meet demand.”

The umbrella website for all of the Current Publishing publications, www.keepmecurrent.com, also has grown steadily, doubling monthly unique visitors in the last year.

In August, the company launched a new initiative, offering free classified ad online at www.keepmeclassified.com.

As Current Publishing looks toward its second decade, Hews feels that, despite changes wrought by the economy and the still-burgeoning Internet, the concept of “hyper-local” coverage continues to be the company’s primary focus.

“I don’t think community newspapers are dead by any means,” she said. “I think our online presence will continue to grow and morph. I can’t even imagine where that’s going to go, but I think the newer trends in social media, like Twitter and Facebook, will help us achieve our goal, which is to get the community to interact around a particular event or story, to get people talking to each other and thinking about what’s going on in their community. I mean, that was the original purpose of newspapers, and whatever technology comes along, that purpose never changes.”

“I don’t think newspapers are defined by what they’re printed on,” said Victoria Wallack. “Regardless of the medium, you need reporters and editors and managers, all working toward a tremendous role – to keep people connected.

“There has never been a greater need fort good community newspapers,” said Wallack. “That will be a niche can never really be replaced.”

A Closer Look

The following is a timeline of events for Current Publishing, which launched the first issue of The Current 10 years ago this week, and of the newspapers it has since acquired.

• April 5, 1950 – Founding of the Suburban Shopper, a four-page weekly newspaper, by the Rumford Publishing Co., Melvin Stone, publisher.

• Jan. 1, 1951 – Founding of the Westbrook Shopper by the Westbrook Shopper Co., a subsidiary of Rumford Publishing, Melvin Stone, publisher.

• Oct. 24, 1951 – The Suburban Shopper and the Westbrook Shopper consolidated to become the Westbrook American.

• June 11, 1952 – Westbrook American sold to Roger Woodcock, one-time general manager of the Sanford Tribune, who sells the Madison Bulletin to raise funds for the purchase.

• 1953 – Westbrook American sold to the Durgin-Snow Publishing Co., with Roger V. Snow Jr. serving as editor.

• 1965 – Roger V. Snow Jr. launches the South Portland-Cape Elizabeth Journal.

• Nov. 24, 1965 – Former Portland Evening Express editor Harry T. Foote becomes publisher of the Westbrook American. Within the year he buys it and the Journal, combining them into a single newspaper, the American Journal, to serve Portland suburbs including Cape Elizabeth, Gorham, Scarborough, South Portland, Standish, Westbrook and Windham.

• June 1992 – The Suburban News founded by partners Gary Cooper, Bill Diamond and Ray Roux to serve Windham and the Sebago Lakes communities.

•  2000 – Elizabeth Prata founds The Monument News, a bi-weekly newspaper serving Gray and New Gloucester.

•  2001 – The Reporter founded by Kerry DeAngelis to serve Waterboro and surrounding communities.

• Aug. 14, 2001 – Current Publishing LLC, with Lee Hews as publisher, files articles of organization with the state of Maine. The first hire is graphic artist Jonathan Morse.

• Sept. 13, 2001 – First issue of The Current published, covering Scarborough and Cape Elizabeth, under editor Victoria Ogden Wallack and sports editor Rich Obrey, with news reporters Kate Irish Collins and Jeff Inglis.

• June 17, 2002 – Harry Foote announces he has sold the American Journal to Current Publishing.

• July 10, 2002 – Current Publishing officially assumes publication of the American Journal with vol. 53, issue 28. Within a month the paper is converted from tabloid to broadsheet format.

• Sept. 26, 2002 – Inglis promoted to assistant editor of The Current

• Oct. 10, 2002 – The Current begins covering South Portland in addition to Scarborough and Cape Elizabeth.

• Oct. 16, 2003 – Current Publishing buys the Suburban News, rolling it into a new publication, The Lakes Region Suburban Weekly, under Wallack, Obrey, assistant editor Josh Williamson and reporter John Balentine.

• Feb. 26, 2004 – Wallack promoted to executive editor of all Current Publishing newspapers; Inglis becomes editor of The Current.

• April 2004 – Wallack departs to found the Statehouse News Service.

• October 2004 – Current Publishing buys and begins publishing The Reporter, with DeAngelis staying on as co-publisher and later general manager.

• April 29, 2005 – The Sun Chronicle, covering Old Orchard Beach and Saco, launches with Williamson as news editor and Obrey as sports editor.

• March 25, 2005 –– First issue of the Sacopee Valley Citizen launched to serve Cornish and surrounding communities.

• Dec. 8, 2005 – Inglis departs to become managing editor of the Portland Phoenix. Brendan Moran becomes editor of The Current.

• Dec. 29, 2005 ­– Moran elevated to executive editor of all Current Publishing newspapers. Mike Higgins becomes assistant editor of The Current and American Journal.

• Dec. 29, 2005 – The Sun Chronicle begins covering Biddeford.

• April 19, 2006 – The Weekly Observer is launched to serve Acton Lebanon, Sanford and Springvale.

• May 4, 2006 – Current Publishing buys and begins publishing the Monument News.

• June 22, 2006 – Robert Wallack hired as general manager of all Current Publishing newspapers.

• 2006 – Current Publishing launches its first niche magazine, My Generation, focusing on the interests of baby boomers.

• June 21, 2007 – Higgins becomes sports editor for The Current.

• September 2007 – The Citizen ceases publication and Monument News folds into the Lakes Region Suburban Weekly.

• Sept. 21, 2007 – With Gray and New Gloucester added to its beats, the Lakes Region Suburban Weekly drops “Suburban” from its masthead.

• December 2007 – First issue of Current Publishing’s monthly epicurean magazine, Food Etc.

• Jan. 1, 2008 – More Current Publishing newspapers converted from paid circulation to free delivery

• May 9, 2008 – First issue of Current Publishing’s monthly magazine focusing on women’s issues, Maine Woman.

• May 2008 – First issue of Current Publishing’s seasonal destination magazine, 95 North.

• November 2008 – Jane P. Lord named as managing editor of Current Publishing.

• Sept. 3, 2009 – Following Moran’s departure, Lord is elevated to executive editor while Lakes Region Weekly assistant editor Ben Bragdon becomes managing editor of Current Publishing.

• Aug. 4, 2011 – Current Publishing announces a media partnership with WCSH-TV, as well as the launch of free, online classified ads available at www.keepmeclassified.com.