Meet the new general manager at NJ Advance Media

Ronnie Agnew discusses his experience since starting in the fall, and the importance of representation in news media

Before Ronnie Agnew stepped into this new role as general manager at NJ Advance Media, he was working at WOSU Public Media at Ohio State University.

“I only moved to Columbus, at the beginning of 2022. But about eight or nine months in, I started getting these calls from Jersey,” said Agnew. Apparently, the Garden State gave him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

“It’s not something I’ve ever done before. I usually have long tenures at my jobs with the exception of the early ones. So it took a lot to get me away from WOSU here in Columbus to come to New Jersey, but it was the right thing to do for me,” he said.

“What I give the NJ Advance Media Company credit for is just being innovative and experimental and trying things. So, after only being in Columbus for 10 months — and I feel bad about leaving that soon — I’m walking in my destiny. I feel that very strongly.”

When he sat down for this interview, Agnew had not yet relocated to NJ, and he talked about splitting his time between his house in Columbus and a new place in South Amboy, just a few minutes from his new office.

“I’m just getting this house ready to sell, and then I won’t be going back and forth,” he said. “Because I’m tearing that road up right now! It’s an eight-hour drive from here!”

In this interview, we dig into his focus on content and audience strategy, and internal DEI initiatives as the new general manager at NJ Advance Media. Agnew also discusses his goals to expand NJ.com’s investigative reporting and community outreach in serving more diverse audiences. Plus, we look back on Agnew’s career milestones, including leadership roles at Mississippi Public Broadcasting and The Clarion-Ledger.

📄 Below is the full transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for clarity.

Cassandra Etienne: How’s your experience been since starting on as general manager at NJ Advance Media this past fall?

Ronnie Agnew: It’s been going great. I think it’s a very innovative company and they’re definitely trying new things that have been engaging for me. So far I love what I’m doing. It’s in the very early stages. I just completed my fourth month. So I still consider myself very new. I have a lot to learn, but at the same time, I have a lot to give.

I think that’s one of the best things they get from me is this inquisitive thing inside of me that makes me wonder how things work, or don’t work. There’s not been much of a honeymoon. I’ve had to dive right in. And that’s probably the way I would prefer it. So, in the early days of this, I’m having a really good time. It’s a good team. I do believe, though, that I’m here for a reason, and that’s to make it a better team. So those are my goals.

CE: What are some of the lasting impacts or changes you hope to make at the organization?

RA: Well, I’m someone who comes from a culture of investigative reporting. When I go back to my last newspaper job at The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi, we were very big in the investigative world. We put several of those old guys with Civil Rights cold cases from the 1960s in prison. We got them prosecuted through investigative reporting. That was important. And that’s what I hope to do here, is to expose things that are wrong. And not just expose things that are wrong, but offer solutions for how to make them better, and to really hold people accountable for their actions, so the people of New Jersey are getting what their tax dollars are paying for.

I’m from Mississippi and in my early days — until I was four years old — my parents were sharecroppers. What it did for me was it gave me a sense of compassion for underserved people in underserved markets. And then as you go along in journalism, if you’re successful, you’re going to see the other side of it. You’re going to see the people who are very wealthy, but what you never lose in the process, is that compassion for all. And especially for people who are underserved.

So, it’s going to be imperative that we represent all of our communities. Mississippi is about 61% white and about 39% African American. But in New Jersey, you have all of these diverse audiences. It’s one of the most diverse states that I could ever have moved to. And I want to make sure that those voices are all heard. I don’t want it to be all crime, and all bad stuff. What I found is that people are amazing. And you can find some really good stuff in the human spirit of what people are doing to make their communities better.

I also look forward, in the long term, to having an investigative part of our arsenal always in play. We have to. Because while I hope that the folks in power would want to represent themselves in an honorable way and act with integrity. If you are in this business, you often find that they don’t, in some capacities. And I want to make sure that the people get fair treatment from those who are chosen to lead.

CE: Can you talk more about your previous experience both in public broadcasting and at The Clarion-Ledger? What kinds of stories and experiences have helped to prepare you for this role?

RA: My experience is that I worked and went to the University of Mississippi. Growing up as a poor kid, my parents never made more than $25,000 a year collectively — even after my dad left the cotton fields and got a job in the factory, that’s about as much as they ever made together. And so, I went to Ole Miss, this prosperous school, this school with people coming in from really wealthy families. And here I was this kid from very meager beginnings. But being around people who had come from the other side, I got a chance to interact with them and I saw that I was really just as good as they were. There was nothing missing in my life.

So fast forward to graduation, and I got a job in the Mississippi Delta, easily one of the poorest regions in our country. And the one thing about us growing up in poverty was that my mom and my dad never treated us that way. They made sure that we were excelling in school, and on a path to prosperity, whatever that meant for us. And going to the Delta, and reporting from there at the very beginning of my career, was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me, in terms of being a journalist, because I truly did have to speak for the voiceless, and for the powerless. I did have to hold public officials accountable in the short time that I was there. I was not there long, only because I couldn’t afford to stay there long making $9,000 a year, so I had to move.

But the defining moment in my career was when I moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, and I was there [at the Cincinnati Enquirer] for seven years or so. And that’s when I got promoted to be an editor. And I found out I was a better editor than a reporter, frankly. All of my career, it’s been speaking for the underdog, but also trying to cover the entire community in a very fair way, including covering entrepreneurs and businesses.

Cincinnati was home to like 50 corporate headquarters. And it would not be unusual for me to interview the CEO of Kroger, the grocery store headquartered in Cincinnati, or being in the CEO’s office at Procter & Gamble. That really broadened my horizon. Then I was at Gannett, for a long time. And in 2008, when the bottom started falling out at newspapers, it was like living quarter to quarter with Gannett. And every single quarter, I felt like we were cutting people. When I got to Jackson, Mississippi, we probably had about 130 people in our newsroom at [The Clarion-Ledger]. And when I left, we had about 85. And now, I understand, they have maybe 20.

I left Jackson to join public media, because I wanted to be a part of something that was growing. Also, it was an executive director, but it was a CEO’s role. So you were responsible for the entire building, and you’re responsible for not only the content, but also for the business side, and that proved to be just an incredible experience.

But I’ll also say, at the Clarion-Ledger, too, we had something called the operating committee, where I would be in meetings every week with all of our counterparts in marketing and advertising and circulation, and all those things. So I was learning the business side without even really knowing it. Then I joined public media, and there I really spent more time on the business side than I did the content side. So now I have this full appreciation of how everything works together. And so in New Jersey, that’s the experience that I bring: the newsperson’s view, but also the business person’s view about the future and how we can be successful.

It’s a bit more challenging in Jersey.

Now, at Mississippi Public Broadcasting, we covered the entire state, but that was a state that I grew up in, and I knew really well. So now, coming to Jersey, where we cover the entire state, I’m going to have to learn about its various parts. But that’s also very exciting to me, it’s a great challenge to be able to do this.

I was general manager for a very brief time. I moved to Columbus, Ohio to be general manager of the public broadcasting station, and stayed only 10 months, only because Jersey called me and gave me an opportunity that I could not say no to. Because one, I do love journalism. And I do love the difference it can make. And they got me at a time when I thought, ‘Okay, this is like going home again. This is like what I used to do.’

And whereas I loved running stations like Mississippi Public Broadcasting and WOSU, I don’t get that same rush, though, as I do in the role that I’m in now. Because I can make a daily difference. I can put my mark on what we’re producing every day. Whereas in public media, it’s project-driven. And some of the projects don’t come together for two or three years. I like the adrenaline rush of the everyday.

And trust me, it’s every day.

CE: You talked about the goal of placing more emphasis on investigative reporting at NJ Advance Media. Another focus you mentioned is to reach a broader audience base and serve more diverse audiences in New Jersey. Can you talk about these goals?

RA: I’m very excited about that. Robin Wilson-Glover [Director of Digital Opinion] has had this project in the works. But basically, I had a vision to help elevate it. And it’s going to be content focusing exclusively on people of color, from all of our different communities.

You know, I don’t want people to be marginalized. And so I want it to be a place where people are celebrated, where communities are celebrated, where entrepreneurs are celebrated, and where cultural events are celebrated. All of those things. We’re getting really close. I’m having weekly meetings with a team of people to make this happen. And I can’t be more excited about getting this launched.

But I don’t want that to be all that we do.

I want to make sure that people of color are finding themselves and seeing themselves in all of our content. And I want to see them as professionals and in their regular walks of life. I don’t want this thing that we’re doing to be an excuse for staff or anyone to say, ‘Well, we got that covered.’

NJ.com is huge. It’s the largest website in the state by far. And so we reach a lot of people every single day. And I want to make sure that we keep that content right there in front of them all the time. So that the people in Jersey see the diversity of the state.

CE: What do you see when you think more broadly about changes in the New Jersey local news ecosystem?

RA: I really applaud what’s happening in New Jersey, and at NJ Advance Media. I really applaud some of the innovative things on the digital side that we’re trying to make for sustainability and to keep us going. We hired 23 people last year all throughout the newsroom. I wasn’t there for this, but you don’t hear of a lot of companies hiring people. And so, our goal is to try to find a way to increase our revenues so that we can increase our news. Most people are cutting every single month.

It’s the reason I left my company, Gannett — a company that I still love to this day, and that gave me so much opportunity. But we’re not having to reduce our staff. We’re making adjustments to staff. But we’re not having to do those kinds of cuts. Because we’re looking at trying to really keep our revenue at a level where we can sustain our journalism.

Because the journalism is what matters. It’s why we’re here.

Stories get lost when you don’t have journalists in the room. That’s why we’ve got to make sure that our newsrooms aren’t shrinking but somehow stabilized. If we can’t grow them, let’s stabilize them so that we hold people accountable.

I’m really bothered by the fact that there are some communities with no one covering any of the city councils, or the school boards. There are so many news deserts out there now and it just bothers me greatly. And I’m determined not to make Jersey one of those.

CE: With the recent news of NJ.com’s D.C. bureau shutting down, and also the loss of the photography team, can you comment about what went into making those decisions?

RA: These are great people. These people did a great job. And here’s the thing. When I was back at Gannett, and when I had to do layoffs, it was never anybody who was not competent. These were people doing a great job. But in our case, you’ve got to look at priorities. And for us, it was just kind of a realignment of priorities and where we see our coverage going. So, my answer to that question is it’s where I see our coverage going. We’re not going to stop covering our members of Congress, we’re just going to do it in a different way. Probably with even more people, but just in a different way.

It’s just figuring out what priorities are. Photography is a priority. But it’s just making those tough decisions, which you have to make sometimes, as a leader. But it does not mean that anyone did anything wrong. In fact, these are people who I admire.

You know, I look back at my past and the people who I had to lay off back then. I can’t tell you how many — there were a lot more than this. They remain really near and dear to my heart because they really contributed, and so did these people. But you always have to evaluate your business model. You always have to evaluate where you see yourself growing. And that’s really it. I mean, that’s the answer. It’s just putting emphasis on places where we think that we can grow the most.

CE: Can you talk more about the public-facing and internal programs that further DEI goals at NJ Advance Media?

RA: Well, it’s interesting that you say that because the company just hired a person to be the Director of DEI. And so I’m really happy with that. And I’m also happy to be able to engage her, which I’ve done many times since she’s been here. She started in January, I started in November, and together we are going to work with diversity committees throughout our company, to develop programs so that we keep this in front of everybody.

One thing that I’ve said to our team is, I want to make sure that our diversity goals aren’t just goals shared by a committee, but that the goals are shared by our entire team in New Jersey. And that includes departments outside of news.

So, the Diversity Committee has done a great job with programs, and the content plan that I mentioned earlier about coverage of people of color, frankly, came out of some of the discussions with the Diversity Committee, long before I got here. So I’m not taking credit for it. They put the work in.

But if I can make a difference in New Jersey. And definitely if I can make a mark on journalism, while I’m in Jersey, that would be successful for me. The mark I want to make is not a personal mark. It’s just making sure that we’re reaching diverse audiences, and that we’re covering our state in a fair way, so that everybody has an opportunity to see themselves in our coverage.

I’m really passionate about journalism. I’ve seen the change. I’ve seen crimes of the past in the 60s get solved by a single reporter in Mississippi working with editors, and putting those people in prison, where they took their last breaths in prison. I’ve been a part of really high-level journalism.

Hurricane Katrina was very taxing on our staff. I moved two people to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, after Hurricane Katrina, because people don’t realize the eye of the storm did not hit New Orleans. New Orleans was the population center where the media was focused. But 75 percent of the homes were either destroyed or damaged in Mississippi. And when I drive to the coast of Mississippi right now, having worked there when I was 22, it doesn’t look like it used to look. I know they have casinos now. But it’s forever changed by Hurricane Katrina. But I know that in assigning two people to live on the coast for two years that we were giving people coverage that they needed.

And that’s really when I saw what digital can do.

We went from being a good website that had good traffic to a really sizable website that really kind of punched above its weight, because people were accessing us from all over the country and all over the world. And so now that I see NJ.com embracing digital in the way that we do, it truly validates what I saw back in 2005 with Hurricane Katrina — which was an awful time.

But everything in my career is built upon itself, from working in the Delta, to going to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, to going to Cincinnati, to going to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, to going to Alabama, going to the Clarion-Ledger, to running Mississippi Public Broadcasting, to coming to Columbus, and now being here with you!

And in the process, thirty-nine years have passed, and it feels like yesterday that I started. So I still have this youthful enthusiasm for journalism and what it can be. And I plan to do my part in Jersey, to really elevate our level of journalism.

I’m too new to be telling people everything about it right now, because I’m still learning a lot every day, but I know that I want us to be the best that we could be, and I want us to tell stories that no one else is telling.

CE: Can you speak to how representative the newsroom is of the communities that are served by NJ.com? What can the company do to improve?

RA: Well, I think, we’re always assessing ourselves. That’s one thing that I am going to have to find out is just how diverse are we. And depending on what I find out in terms of just numbers, I want to approach it from a numerical standpoint, but also look at it from a fairness and equity standpoint, and work through those channels, to make sure that our staff is diverse. Because I do believe that our staff should reflect our community’s diversity.

I wholeheartedly believe that — and if we’re not there, then we need to strive to get there.

Cassandra Etienne is the assistant director for membership and programming at the Center for Cooperative Media. Contact her at etiennec@montclair.edu.

About the Center for Cooperative Media: The Center is a primarily grant-funded program of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. Its mission is to grow and strengthen local journalism, and in doing so serve New Jersey residents. The Center is supported with operational and project funding from Montclair State University, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Democracy Fund, NJ Civic Information Consortium, Rita Allen Foundation, Inasmuch Foundation and the Independence Public Media Foundation. For more information, visit centerforcooperativemedia.org.