The Spark answers questions about WITF-LNP transaction and future
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Scott LaMar
Airdate: April 28th, 2023
One of the most significant transactions in the history of South Central Pennsylvania media was announced this week. Steinman Communications gifted LNP Media Group, including the newspaper LNP and website Lancaster Online to WITF, central Pennsylvania’s public broadcasting radio and TV stations and media.
WITF will oversee the Lancaster media company, which will be converted to a public benefit corporation and become a subsidiary of WITF.
To support the mission and activities of both LNP and WITF, Steinman Communications and WITF have also announced the creation of the Steinman Institute for Civic Engagement, which will be overseen by WITF and funded by a donation from The Steinman Foundation.
Since the announcement was made Wednesday, there have been many questions about what this will mean for the now one company, especially as it relates to news and journalism.
To answer those questions on The Spark Friday, were WITF’s President and CEO Ron Hetrick, Janice Snyder, Chair of WITF’s Board of Directors and Robert Krasne, chairman and CEO of Steinman Communications.
Krasne was asked why LNP decided to approach WITF about taking over the company,”The Steinman family is on LNP Media Group and its predecessors for 158 years. Over that period there have been many changes. It’s necessarily it had to adapt to the changing times. The current media landscape is for community. News and information is a challenge for two thirds of the counties in the United States of America (who) do not have a a daily newspaper. Lancaster County, mercifully, is an outlier in this time, and the family is committed to local journalism. Looking toward the horizon, the family wanted to figure out how best to ensure the long term vitality of local news and journalism for Lancaster County and was looking to create a new business model that would ensure the vitality of local journalism and at the same time combine education and civic engagement into the process. That’s part of the Steinmann Communication’s DNA, but it’s also part of the DNA of WITF.”
Hetrick said the thought did cross his mind that WITF has never operated a newspaper but then thought about it in a different way,”The paper’s much like just radio or TV. It’s one platform in the way that people consume the important news and information that we provide. And that platform continues to change and evolve. And just like we at WITF are trying to figure out how to evolve on the radio, TV and digital space. The same thing applies to LNP in the digital and the the newspaper space. So, you know, we’ve sort of transcended past that newspaper, the physical component of it, even though that’s a super important part of this entire deal right now to actually be more altruistically, how can we evolve all these different services on the platforms that people are using?”
Hetrick indicated combining WITF and LNP’s content creators will result in a batter product for consumers,”Things are going to improve for both the constituents of WITF as well as those that consume the Lancaster newspaper products. And most immediately, we see that happening through the exchange of content. So LNP, of course, has wonderful local, robust news. They have some statehouse reporting, but there’s also the reporting that WITF does around health, energy, climate, statehouse reporting. And you know, just in the first couple of weeks, starting to bring those assets together so that they can be uplifted on both sides. You know, on the LNP side, they also have a very rich arts and culture beat, of which WITF is getting into with our Mosaic product. So we see some opportunity for that content where it transcends perhaps the Lancaster County region, but would be more applicable to the broader 19 counties that we serve. We see that coming over and being augmented to our content as well. On top of that, we intend to do more community engagement. So, you’ve been to our news and brews events before. You know what they’re like and what we get out there with our reporters and we basically listen, we answer to the community and we intend to bring that that hyper level, that hyper level level of conversation to the Lancaster community by getting those reporters and journalists out there to not only report, but also to extend that a bit further into listening and being part of that that fabric of the community and building around events and activities like that.”
The transaction should be complete by July 1, 2023.
