Editor & Publisher sold to digital media veteran Michael Blinder

Editor & Publisher, the self-described “bible of the newspaper industry,” has been acquired by digital media veteran Michael Blinder, who plans to broaden the publication’s mission.

He bought the magazine from Duncan McIntosh Company, the company that publishes Boating World and Sea Magazine, for an undisclosed amount.

Once a go-to source of information about the news business, Editor & Publisher has lost its luster in recent years. Years of contraction in the print news industry has decimated its natural subscriber base of news executives, editors and reporters, reports David Z. Morris in Fortune.

E&P says it has a print circulation of 10,500 and readership of 38,850. It also has over 24,000 digital subscribers.

Rival Columbia Journalism Review is a nonprofit that is reliant on donor support, but has nonetheless been impacted by the same dynamics. In 2015, it reduced the frequency of its print edition from six issues a year to two yearly ‘special issues’. CJR has seen growing digital readership, however, with coverage that often focuses on the big-picture social implications of the changes to the journalism business. One-time rival American Journalism Review shuttered in 2015.

Blinder’s goal is to enlarge Editor & Publisher’s focus to also include television news like CNN and the crop of digital news outlets including Vice that have emerged to take on traditional media.

“Editor & Publisher is not just a magazine for newspapers,” Blinder is quoted as saying in Morris’s article. “It’s now a magazine for news publishers.”

Blinder, who has never served as publisher before, will oversee the business side of Editor & Publisher. He brings a deep well of experience with him.

After helping launch a website for the Portland Press Herald in 1999, he spent two decades as a consultant to media companies, with a focus on training ad sales teams and on the transition to digital. Blinder’s clients have included Gannet, Hearst, McClatchy and the New York Times.

Blinder said Editor & Publisher will continue to put out a monthly print edition. However, he plans to also add more multimedia, particularly podcasts, to appeal to a wider audience.

“I want the digital geek who publishes a blog to come to me to learn how to monetize that blog,” Blinder said. “But I also want the guy with two Pulitzers to come to me.”

Blinder also acknowledged how the news industry has become a target during President Donald Trump’s tenure. He said he wants to use Editor & Publisher to defend both publishers and journalists against politically-motivated attacks.

“We’re not going to sit back and watch an industry get insulted,” said Blinder. “We are not the enemy of the people. We are human beings, reporting on the news.”