#MediaMonday – Kirk Kern
Fun fact – I got my start in copywriting for magazines from Mr. Kirk Kern back in 2004 or 2005.
I was working around the clock, trying to pitch the story of WalkAmerica and the March for Babies to the masses. Kirk was living in Las Vegas, but publishing 101 North Magazine in the North Phoenix/Scottsdale market. Obviously, he saw the talent dripping from my keyboard and contacted me to write my own story of WalkAmerica for his magazine – he even had my friend – a long-time Walk fundraiser – as part of the story’s accompanying photo.
All these years later, I get to tell his story to you all – and help him announce HIS NEW PUBLICATION IN ARIZONA!!!
So, Kirk, what do you want to tell the blogosphere today?
It was only a little over a year ago that my family packed up two U-Haul trucks and left the Queen Creek home that we’d lived in for almost eight years and moved back to Las Vegas, where (believe it or not) new opportunities awaited.
During my time in Arizona, I helped launch two East Valley lifestyle magazines, another one in North Scottsdale, three more in Tucson and others in Overland Park, Kan., and Honolulu. Not to mention the 17 monthly health magazines I oversaw as part of the long-departed Gannett Pacific Publications.
Back in Las Vegas, I work for Battle Born Media, a company that owns four weekly newspapers in rural Nevada. Two of our papers date back to 1870. We’re also always looking at acquisitions and launches and we think we’ve found a good one in Deer Valley.
Battle Born Media is partnering with an outstanding entrepreneur named Stacy Deprey-Purper to launch Deer Valley Times, a hyper-local news source for the North Phoenix area encompassed within the area of the Deer Valley Unified School District.
I had met Stacy back when she owned and operated a newspaper in Pinal County. She found a great niche in what was then an upcoming area and made a great go of it before selling the newspaper a few months ago.
My company was considering buying her newspaper, but we had just made another acquisition and the timing wasn’t right. Stacy and I kept in contact and she proposed partnering on a project in Deer Valley, an area that she had recently moved into. She saw it was not served by a community newspaper.
There are more than 41,300 homes within the boundaries of the Deer Valley Unified School District. There are five high schools within this boundary. There’s a hospital. There’s an airport. In short, there’s a whole city of people who don’t have a newspaper to call their own.
We will start out with a full-service website and a monthly newspaper that will have a circulation of 30,000 within the eight zip codes that compose the Deer Valley region. Our plan is for it to evolve into a weekly newspaper that the area can be proud of. We want the website to be interactive, a portal where members of the community can let us know what they want published, where they can send in stories and photos.
Before moving into the world of lifestyle magazines, I ran a group of 14 community weekly newspapers. Stacy owned and operated her own community newspaper in Pinal County for four years. Between the two of us, we have a good understanding of the types of things people want to know about.
I’m excited to get the Deer Valley Times launched. The website is up and running, with new content added daily. We’re obviously always looking for good and interesting stories to post so don’t hesitate to call (775-316-2335) or email (news@deervalleytimes.com). Check out our website at www.deervalleytimes.com.
The print product will be out in November.
