Steve Ainsley, now retired, was the Publisher of the Santa Barbara News-Press and the co-founder of the Economic Community Project twenty years ago. He now serves as the Chair of Cottage Health's Board. He and Mark covered a wide range of topics including his thoughts about publishing, the Spotlight backstory, investigative journalism and others.
"Root out what's not right."
Topics included;
-His history working for the New York Times. Santa Barbara, Tampa and as Publisher of the Boston Globe (7 papers in total)
-The backstory of Spotlight, Steve came to the paper 2 years after the story broke.
-His thoughts on the role of Publisher v the Editor
-The watershed moment for Media
-How the business model changed, which changed the industry
-A deep dive into investigative journalism
-What's the highest award a paper can get? Is it worth it?
-The Misson of your local, community paper
-Where do millennials fit into this new publishing world?
-People do read the local paper (still)
-What if you want a career in journalism, what traits should you have?
--Innate curiosity
--A real desire to share what you've observed
--Get a charge by how much impact you make in the community
-The Economic Community Project - started in 1993
-Background and history of the project
-Slow-no growth citizenry and politics
-How you achieve success in community efforts - invite the contrarians
-His tenure at Cottage Health
-His take on Healthcare and the Mission of Cottage
-How you build partneships to manifest these large community agendas
