Ex-Maine editor breaks silence: ‘Baffled by Press Herald’s business model’

By Ted Cohen/Patch.com

A top Maine editor who quit shortly after the state's largest paper went “non-profit” is now questioning the financial strategy of the new owners.

Executive Editor Steve Greenlee, who resigned not long after the National Trust for Local News bought the Portland Press Herald, says he doesn't understand the trust’s business logic.

It's not only Greenlee scratching his head.

In fact, the trust now finds itself defending why it doesn't use philanthropic dollars to help pay the bills at the dozens of papers it runs, according to journalists at Harvard University’s Nieman Journalism Lab.

Among the most-notable critics?

None other than Steve Greenlee, who suddenly resigned a year ago after a long run in the corner office.

“The two main reasons for a newspaper to go nonprofit are to remove the profit motive and to be able to draw on a third tier of revenue — donations,” Greenlee told Nieman in an interview.

He added, “If philanthropic fundraising cannot be used to support the journalism, then newsrooms will be forced to continue to manage the decline.”

Then, the coup de grâce from him: “What’s the point of being a nonprofit if you can’t use fundraising to support your core mission?”

Logician or disgruntled former employee? After Greenlee left his successor was given broader editorial authority and a bigger title.

Greenlee quit in the wake of the trust’s 2023 purchase for $15 million of the Press Herald from Reade Brower.

If Greenlee is confused by the trust’s ham-handed management skills, so are some anonymous trust officers, according to Nieman’s report.

According to Nieman journalists, following a recent tour of the Portland newsroom by some newspaper benefactors, one unnamed trust official confided that some of those donors had no idea what their money is being used for.

Quoting from Nieman:

“In Maine, potential donors were invited to tour the newsroom and sit in on news meetings. Some left the building excited and energized by what they’d seen and heard, according to a Maine Trust executive who was present. The executive wondered if the donors knew their gifts would not directly support journalism in the state.”

Will Nelligan, the trust's chief growth officer, told Nieman the organization is “learning more all the time about what philanthropic investments have the largest impact” and “evolving our strategies accordingly.”

Not sure what in God's name that even means but one thing is for sure - the trust laid off nearly 50 people in Maine earlier this year.

If the paper was so hard up for cash then, the trust is now having to explain why it didn't make a financial infusion with its philanthropic slush fund to save those jobs.

Besides Nieman, another media watchdog, Poynter, has also weighed in previously on the problems the trust has faced since buying the Maine newspaper chain.

Greenlee, who left the newsroom to teach at Boston University, told Poynter’s Rick Edmonds earlier this year he decided to leave Maine in the rear-view mirror “at a time of great stress.”

He declined at the time to elaborate on the “great stress.”

Greenlee's now apparently feeling “less burdened by what was” (to quote Kamala Harris) to speak his mind.