"Free-thinking consumers believe that a publication that’s not afraid to make powerful enemies is less likely to be bought off by advertisers," says Metro Newspapers CEO Dan Pulcrano.
San Jose-based Metro Newspapers publishes Good Times Santa Cruz, Metro Silicon Valley, and North Bay Bohemian.
News racks from a number of independent media outlets were found in a large recycling container at the San Jose Mercury News headquarters.
Metro Silicon Valley celebrated its 25th anniversary with a new look and a swanky bash last week, the Mercury News reports. Metro publisher and co-founder Dan Pulcrano says that passion for the product has been what's kept the paper alive for this long. "It's a hard business. You have to love it," he says. "You have to be incredibly passionate about it." Meanwhile, the paper's new design, which features a glossy cover and a new logo, is Metro's first major overhaul in its first 25 years.
Pulcrano, the CEO and executive editor of Metro Newspapers Group, has signed an agreement to purchase the Los Gatos Observer. The site will be run by the division of Metro known as Boulevards.
Metro and Boulevards are joining forces with a Bay Area NBC affiliate, two leading local citizen journalism sites, and the news aggregator Topix to create "a wide-ranging community-based news initiative ... that will span print, web, citizen journalism and broadcasting." Stories from Metro will be available for the broadcast partners to use, and stories from the citizen journalism sites and the TV network will be excerpted in a new section called "Mashup!" in Metro's print edition. "We are concerned about the consolidation, layoffs and disinvestment in local publishing and want to make sure that communities here are well covered," Dan Pulcrano, executive editor of Metro and CEO of Boulevards, says in a statement. "We will be expanding our news coverage and adding resources."
The Metro Newspapers CEO is "one of the few publishers that have successfully navigated the treacherous straights between print media and the new world online," the trade magazine Domain Name Journal says in a cover profile. The story concentrates on Pulcrano's creation of Boulevards New Media and his acquisition of a "near priceless portfolio that includes 20 of the 30 largest American city names in the .com extension." But Pulcrano also talks about how he got into journalism and ended up creating Metro Newspapers in the first place. He started publishing underground papers at age 11, later reported for the San Diego Reader, and then was approached by Jay Levin to help launch the L.A. Weekly when he was 19 years old. "Working there was life changing for me too; from that point on I knew what I wanted to do," he says of his stint at the Weekly.
Two old friends and business partners, David Cohen and Dan Pulcrano, complete their amicable divorce, splitting their alternative and community newspaper businesses. Metro Newspapers’ plans no major changes immediately and hopes for $10 million in revenues this year, CEO Pulcrano says.
