In Focus’ Annual State of the Local Media Special

As has become an annual tradition, New Mexico in Focus kicks off our new (20th!) season with a July 4 special celebrating the freedom of the press and examining the state of the local news media across New Mexico.  

While the U.S. celebrates its 250th anniversary this year, the Santa Fe New Mexican isn’t too far behind, turning 176 this year. And, unlike many other legacy newspapers across the country, which are folding at a rate of more than two per week, according to a 2025 study out of Northwestern University, the capital city paper is flourishing.  

New Mexican Executive Editor Bill Church is on the show this week to share how the paper is doing the unthinkable: expanding — from digital subscriptions to podcasts, all while maintaining a daily print edition. The paper has also recently acquired the investigative journalism outlet Searchlight New Mexico. Longtime Searchlight reporter-turned-editor Ed Williams joins Church for part of the interview to talk about the New Mexican bringing the outlet full of heavy-lift, longform, consequential stories back from the brink of closure — and what the future holds for the partnership.  

Meanwhile, in southern New Mexico, papers have mostly been falling in line with the dreary national trend. The USA Today Company (formerly Gannett) has let go of five papers in the region in as many years, holding onto just one: the Las Cruces Sun-News. A former lead reporter for that paper, Damien Willis, tells us how it withered to just a couple of journalists by the time he left to start his own thing. Willis gives us an update on how his one-man independent news org serving Doña Ana County, The Organ Mountain News, is faring, and the values that are driving it.  

Each year, we like to find a little something different happening in the local news ecosystem to feature in the special. Last year, for instance, we learned about the social media collaborative 505omatic. And this year, I was thrilled to chat with Lindsay Wood, publisher of the Nob Hill News (and now two more neighborhood-based outlets) about her company’s hyper-local approach to telling the stories of Albuquerque.  

I mentioned during our interview that, as a Nob Hill resident, I found myself wondering about a large vacant property I passed on my dog walks. The kind of thing you may be curious about in your own neighborhood, but would expect to learn about from your nosy neighbor rather than the news. But sure enough, the next issue of Nob Hill News had an article about that very property — who had purchased it and how they planned to develop it. This is the kind of story (what Wood called “observational journalism”) that subscribers find on a site dedicated to uncovering the newsworthy in a single neighborhood. Wood said she hopes to prove the model for other communities. 

Whether you had today off work or are just getting home in preparation for barbequing and light pyrotechnics tomorrow, I hope you’ll spend tonight with us celebrating the free press and how it shows up in New Mexico.  

– Nash Jones, Host