NEW YORK – Oct. 13, 2021 – The Local Media Consortium (LMC), a strategic alliance of local media companies, today announced that it has re-elected Chris Loretto, Media News Group, and James Green, Lee Enterprises, and newly elected Karen Godin,StarTribune, to join its 12-member executive board. The LMC executive board is comprised of 10 elected and two board-appointed members, all with digital expertise from a diverse mix of local media companies. All terms take effect on Jan. 1, 2022 with each elected board member serving a three-year term.
“As the LMC continues to grow its member and partner base during a crucial time in our industry, it’s more important than ever for us to seek input from board members with varied experience and backgrounds,” said Fran Wills, CEO of the LMC. “We are delighted to have Chris and James join us for another three-year term and welcome Karen as a new board member. Each is passionate about making a difference in the local media industry, and I look forward to working with the board to establish priorities and navigate new ways to deliver results for our members post-pandemic.”
Chris Loretto has served on the LMC board since 2014, including as Chairman of the Board since 2017, guiding the organization in its mission to deliver economic value to its members through strategic partnerships and initiatives. Loretto currently leads several LMC committees, including Strategic Initiatives and NewsNext. As executive vice president revenue and chief digital officer of Media News Group, he provides strategic leadership for all key functional areas including product development, technology, revenue, operations, audience, marketing and training.
With over 25 years of experience in the development and success of digital and data-driven businesses, James Green is currently vice president digital for Lee Enterprises, a leading local media company in 77 markets across the United States. He is responsible for overseeing all digital operations as well as the vetting and scaling of new digital businesses. Green was first elected to the LMC board in 2016 and leads the Governance, NewsNext and DEI committees.
First-time board member Karen Godin is director of digital advertising strategy at the StarTribune in Minneapolis where she focuses on local sales and revenue growth of the fifth-largest Sunday and sixth-largest daily circulation newspaper in the U.S. She has more than 13 years of experience growing digital media operations teams to support sales and increase revenue through third-party partnerships.
Loretto, Green and Godin join the remainder of the elected LMC board members who each have varying time left on their three-year commitments: Bala Sundaramoorthy, Atlanta Journal-Constitution vice president and general manager; Gary Smith, The Seattle Times vice president of advertising; Lori Tavoularis, Nextstar Media Group senior vice president of digital revenue and operations; Tom Sly, E.W. Scripps Company vp revenue national media; Sarp Uzkan, McClatchy vice president of transformation; Jay Horton, WEHCO president; and Rafael Cores, Impremedia vice president of digital content.
As part of its commitment to diversity, the LMC has created two additional board-appointed seats to ensure representation of a diverse mix of local media organizations. The LMC will announce its board-appointed seats for the 2022-2024 term in January.
Board members help the LMC determine strategic priorities that will have the most significant economic impact for the organization’s 100 members representing 5,000 news outlets, including opportunities to increase revenue, reduce costs and create a more sustainable business for local media. Over the past year, the board has guided the LMC in several successful initiatives including the launch of NewsNext and NewsPassID, the $3 million milestone of its Branded Content Project, and the release of the LMC’s first annual member economic impact report demonstrating its strength-in-numbers business model, which delivered $44 million in cumulative revenue and cost savings to members in 2020.
About The Local Media Consortium
The Local Media Consortium delivers economic value through strategic partnerships on behalf of more than 100 local media companies in top markets across the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico, and includes more than 5,000 news outlets. By harnessing the combined volume and scale of its members, the LMC reduces costs and increases revenue with technology and service providers like Google, Facebook, Monster, and others. The aggregated LMC audience footprint spans 200 million unique monthly visitors and its member companies serve more than 6 billion pageviews to consumers. More information is available at http://www.localmediaconsortium.com/. # # #