The Charlotte Post: Challenges and new opportunities during the pandemic
The following article appeared in the Aug. 28, 2020, edition of The Charlotte Ledger. Sign up for free to have original business-y news about Charlotte delivered to your inbox:
The Charlotte Post, which operates out of offices in northwest Charlotte, has been a longtime voice for the region’s African-American community. It began as a publication called “The Messenger” in 1878 and took the name the “The Charlotte Post” in 1906.
Beloved Business is an occasional Ledger series checking in with some of the Charlotte area’s best-known local companies.
by David Griffith
The last five months have been a dizzying time for any news outlet, and the veteran newspaper The Charlotte Post has seen its share of challenges, both to its business model and its coverage.
The newspaper — founded in 1878 and run by brothers Gerald and Robert Johnson and Tania Johnson, Gerald Johnson’s daughter — is Charlotte’s longest-serving newspaper. Its focus is covering the Charlotte region’s African-American community.
Print advertising makes up 90% of the newspaper’s revenue, and the start of the pandemic caused ad revenue to drop about 40%. Many of the stores where the Post distributes free copies closed when the stay-at-home order went into place.
“We thought this year was going to be a great year,” said Gerald Johnson, “and it turned out the pandemic hit, and we’ve been digging our way out of it ever since.”
The Post retained all of its staff and a strong January and February helped it weather some of the financial blow, and as businesses have slowly reopened, some advertising revenue has returned. Still, the publication realized it needed to make diversifying its sources of income a priority, Gerald Johnson said.
New initiatives: It rolled out some new initiatives: creating and hosting live events, establishing a series of newsletters, asking readers for donations and implementing a stronger subscription program.
Elements of reporting also shifted. Meetings and interviews had to be conducted virtually rather than face-to-face.
Online push: The Charlotte Post had already been working to craft a stronger digital publication, but the pandemic sped up those efforts.
Maintaining a regular digital publication and establishing the newsletter helped increase online and print subscriptions.
“We don’t make a whole lot of money off of subscriptions, but at the end of the day it’s helping because it’s really taken off,” Gerald Johnson said. The Charlotte Post’s online subscriber base grew by 37% since the pandemic, he said.
Protests following the death of George Floyd helped drive an interest locally in black-owned businesses, which Johnson said has helped increase circulation for the Charlotte Post, especially in areas outside of west Charlotte, which had been a focal area for the newspaper.
Many of the new subscribers are not African-American, he said, and the broader audience has brought new rewards.
“One, it brings in more revenue, but two, it shows an interest in the community we serve,” Johnson said.
“Everybody should be interested in what’s going on in the African-American community, African-American or not,” he said.
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