SaportaReport celebrates its 15th anniversary by looking to the future

When a girl turns 15 in Latin America, it is called her quinceañera. The celebration marks her transition from childhood to adulthood.

SaportaReport celebrated its quinceañera on May 8 during an emotional and purpose-driven event that marked a milestone that few independent news outlets are able to celebrate.

Our purpose? To do all we can to help make local civic journalism sustainable for generations to come.

The venue for our celebration was the Tara Theatre, reopened a year ago by Chris Escobar as an investment in culture, film and the arts in Atlanta. 

It was the perfect place to honor Eleanor Ringel Cater, Atlanta’s legendary movie critic. Eleanor started reviewing movies for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1978 where she was until 2007. During her tenure, she also reviewed movies for TV Guide for six years and appeared on WXIA-11 Alive for 16 years. After leaving the AJC, she joined the Atlanta Business Chronicle, where she wrote a weekly entertainment feature until 2021.

Over the years, Eleanor has had a front-row seat when it comes to movies. Check out the slideshow — put together by our own Lance Russell and his daughter Jennifer Russell — to see Eleanor’s encounters with the top actors, movie directors and personalities our country has known.

It is with personal sadness to share that Eleanor has decided to retire. Eleanor, who has been a colleague for decades, joined me at SaportaReport in 2011 — early in the life of our website — giving readers her wise perspectives on the latest movies. 

But Eleanor told me to look to the future by running the movie reviews of Sammie Purcell, associate editor of Rough Draft, in SaportaReport. “She’s really, really good,” Eleanor said of Sammie. 

I’m pleased to announce that as part of our growing collaboration with Keith Pepper and Rough Draft, you now will be able to link to Sammie’s movie reviews in SaportaReport.

Sammie and Chris helped me honor Eleanor at our 15th anniversary, where we had an official passing of the baton — in the form of a miniature Oscar — from the older generation to the younger generation.

As you may have gathered, investing in the future of journalism was the central theme of our celebration. 

Our visionary leader behind the event was Liz Blake, a philanthropist with deep civic ties. Liz suggested we invite top civic and business leaders to be part of our host committee, and we were able to have one of the most influential host committees ever assembled in Atlanta.

Liz also encouraged us to make the event as meaningful as we could by honoring people who are helping strengthen local journalism.

We first approached Russ Hardin, president of the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation. He recommended we salute the National Trust for Local News and the Georgia Trust for Local News at our event. Russ graciously agreed to introduce Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, Lisa Borders and DuBose Porter for a fireside chat at the event. They shared with attendees information about the unique model they have developed to help save local newspapers and journalism.

In Georgia, the nonprofit now owns 20 newspapers “below the gnat line,” and DuBose serves as the executive editor. They are finding economies of scale to improve the financial and operational prospects for local newspapers, and a $1 million grant from the Woodruff Foundation is helping those papers develop an online presence. 

Lisa, formerly Atlanta’s city council president and a past president of the Coca-Cola Foundation and the WNBA, serves as board chair of GTLN. All of us at SaportaReport applaud the work NTLN and GTLN are doing, and we hope to find areas where we can collaborate for the good of our community.

During the program, I confessed I was as surprised as anyone that SaportaReport survived long enough to celebrate 15 years in business. Despite having been a business journalist for decades, I humbly have come to realize there’s a huge difference in writing about business versus running one. 

But we have made it work, thanks to all of you who make up our community. The original publisher of SaportaReport, Chris Schroder, designed our incredibly valuable Thought Leaders initiative. We now have 15 Thought Leader columns with a total of 32 partners who buy space on SaportaReport, where they share insights on a wide variety of topics. The columns they publish are definitely worth reading, and you will find information in them that you won’t be able to find anywhere else.

Judith Service Montier (judith@saportareport.com) manages our Thought Leader Relationships, and Megan Anderson (megan@saportareport.com) helps make sure their content is posted and sent to our subscribers in our two weekly emails. If have not yet subscribed to SaportaReport, we hope you will sign up. The subscription is free.

Our other major source of revenue is our corporate sponsors. Paula Hovater (paula@saportareport.com) joined us in 2018, and she quickly secured our first sponsor, AT&T. We now are delighted to have 25 annual corporate sponsors, large and small, who help make sure we have the money to pay our people and cover the costs of publishing an online news publication.

“We view corporate sponsors as business partners and an integral component of metro Atlanta,” Paula said. “If you would like to add your brand to SaportaReport, check out the possibilities on our website.”

As we celebrate our 15 years in business, I want to give my sincere thanks so many — our host committee, our thought leaders and our corporate sponsors — for their contributions to SaportaReport and civic journalism.

In the past several years, it has become increasingly obvious to me how much communities need civic journalists who are writing about local issues, organizations and people. Without a vibrant journalism sector, our communities suffer from a lack of information and awareness. The more informed people are, the more engaged they will become in our communities.

We have had dozens of writers come and go at SaportaReport; that’s the nature of the business. When we started, we had a team of seasoned journalists, many of whom had taken buyouts from the AJC or had worked for other publications. These journalists wanted to continue writing, and I was able to offer them a platform and pay them — not what they deserved but what we could afford — for their contributions.

I’m delighted to say we have an incredible team working with SaportaReport. In addition to Judith, Paula and Megan, we have our editor, Derek Prall, who also coordinates our guest columnists; our writers — Tom Baxter, Delaney Tarr, Allison Joyner and Mark Lannaman; and our featured contributors — Kelly Jordan (photos and videos) and Lance Russell (Stories of Atlanta.) Jennifer Russell does our social media and tabulates our metrics.

I have told my colleagues that with the passage of time, I’ve become increasingly focused on our legacy — how can I make sure our journalistic contributions continue long after I’m gone.

For me and the team, the answer is to nurture the next generation of civic journalists. That’s the greatest contribution we can make — give our younger journalists a place where they can practice their craft. We have already brought on several emerging journalists, and we have enjoyed seeing them blossom as writers and reporters.

During our 15th anniversary celebration, we were able to announce our initiative to help train the next generation of civic journalists. We are partnering with Atlanta Way 2.0, a nonprofit that seeks to strengthen the civic fabric of greater Atlanta.

Helping us with this initiative is Atlanta Way 2.0 board member Lauri Strauss, a past president of the Atlanta Press Club who has long worked with local news organizations. Lauri is spearheading this initiative along with Britton Edwards (britton@atlantaway.org), chief operating officer of Atlanta Way 2.0.

“SaportaReport and Atlanta Way 2.0 are working together to create an initiative to support the future of journalism,” Lauri said. “We hope this program will help people who want to become journalists in the greater Atlanta area, whether they are just starting their professional careers or have been working in another field for many years.”

Lauri added that we are still in the early stages of designing this initiative. We are taking time to research and talk to organizations with similar missions to determine where we think we can have the greatest impact.

The grand finale of our event was when Tad Hutcheson, vice president for community engagement with Delta Air Lines, announced a donation of $50,000 to support our new initiative. Tad also challenged other entities to support journalism and to contribute to our initiative of nurturing the next generation of civic journalists.

We look forward to keeping you informed on this process and how you can be engaged in supporting the future of journalism. If you have questions or would like to learn more, please contact Lauri at lauri@atlantaway.org.

Yes, dear readers, we are celebrating our quinceañera — by looking forward to being part of Atlanta’s journalism community for years to come. 

Thank you for joining us on this great adventure.