Published by the New York Press Association on behalf of New York’s Community Newspapers NewsBeat May/June 2017 NYPA N EW Y ORK P RESS A SSOCIATION 2 0 1 6 B ETTER N EWSPAPER C ONTEST AAnd the Winners Are … NEWSPAPER OF THE YEAR Sharon R. Fulmer Award The Sag Harbor Express for Community Leadership, 2016 STUART C. DORMAN AWARD Editorial Excellence FIRST PLACE — LAKE PLACID NEWS The Sag Harbor Express JOHN J. EVANS AWARD Advertising Excellence The Sag Harbor Express 2 NewsBeat May/June 2017 BNC hat trick for Sag Harbor Express Sag Harbor Express wins Newspaper of the Year, Stuart C. Dorman Award for Editorial Excellence, and John J. Evans Award for Advertising Excellence. An Opportunity for The Express About Gavin and Kathryn Menu By BRYAN BOYHAN — Publisher Emeritus Gavin became a sports writer shortly after Pat Cowles once said he hired a bartender to be the editor He taught me the business side — although I don’t blame graduating from Wesleyan University in of his newspaper. And that was true. Pat had just bought the him for me not getting that quite right —and he left me pretty Connecticut, where he played four years of varsity Sag Harbor Express in 1988, and hired me without a lot of real much on my own to run The Express as I saw fit, while he football. His first job was at The Independent journalism experience. I was a writing major at Dowling tended to his two other papers. newspaper (side note, The Independent, based in College and had written a handful of restaurant reviews for a East Hampton, was purchased this week by Pat brought in computers, and we were the first, I believe, billionaire Ron Pearlman), where he met his future friend’s paper on Fire Island — where I also did a quick on Long Island to design a weekly using Apple Macs and wife, Kathryn. Gavin, 41, moved to The interview with Andy Warhol after running into him at a bar pagination programs. We hired additional staff and Pat rebuilt Southampton Press in 2004 and began writing for when he was signing copies of his new tabloid, Interview — the Main Street office The Express had occupied since 1915. the news section as well as the sports section, but had little else to recommend me to the job. My real education came from learning by doing, and much winning his first NYPA award for Best Feature Story I had just moved to Sag Harbor two years before and, of the first four years of my tenure at The Express was spent in for a piece he did on the 60th anniversary of The finding myself in between positions, took a job as a bartender a newspaper war with a new startup, both of us competing for D-Day invasion (the piece was heavily edited by his in a local pub. I was working one afternoon when Pat,who I had news and advertising dollars in the tiny two square mile village now-News Editor and NYPA’s 2016 Writer of the met years before, and my old friend Warren McDowell, who with one Main Street. We outlasted them, and as the economy Year, Stephen J. Kotz). owned the paper on Fire Island, walked in and sat down at the in Sag Harbor began to improve, and the gentrification of an Kathryn was introduced to journalism at the bar. I learned that Pat was buying the local paper and was old factory town took hold, The Express was buoyed and age of five, when she began exploring the offices looking for an editor. I applied and, against all logic — and gained a stronger financial foundation. of The East Hampton Star, where her stepfather, probably due to the dearth of editorial talent in Sag Harbor at In 2000, Pat said he wanted to step back a bit from his role Jack Graves, has served as a reporter, sports editor the time — was hired. at the paper, and I became publisher and part owner of The and columnist during his close to 50 years at that I’ve done a lot of other things in my life to make a living, Express. In 2012, Pat got out entirely, and I became full owner. newspaper. A graduate of Long Island University, from washing dishes to selling shoes. After finishing at Kathryn completed visiting semesters at Oxford Over the years I was lucky to work with quite a few University and Loyola University in New Orleans Dowling, and after a particularly bleak three years selling extraordinarily talented reporters, editors, advertising staff and telephone systems, I decided to go back to college and get my prior to graduation. She also interned under production people, who helped make The Express the polished Sally and Anthony Amato at New York City’s teaching certification from Stony Brook University. I taught jewel Pat imagined back in 1988. We’ve done a lot of good Amato Opera. high school English in Brentwood, Long Island, and remember work, I believe, and much of it I’m very proud of, from teaching students what little I had learned about journalism. I Kathryn, 37, was hired by The Independent reporting on the skirmishes in village hall and on the school newspaper in 2004 as a reporter, where she met triedworking as an actor and ran a cabaret and a summer stock board, to the changing dynamics of a village in transition, to theater. And, of course, tended bar off and on whenever I was Gavin. The couple was married in 2005. Kathryn sensitive story telling of the human tragedies and successes — was hired by The Sag Harbor Express in 2007. in between positions. But journalism is the one job that I truly both large and small — in the community we serve. ever thought of as a career. And I’ve been doing it for about By 2007, Gavin and Kathryn realized their thirty years. In 2012, thanks to Pat’s great generosity, I was able to step reporter salaries combined would not sustain a life back a bit at work and began to think about who should take on the East End of Long Island, so Gavin moved The Express was started in 1859, a Republican paper when over The Express,and who could ensure its success. One thing over to sales, where he helped successfully launch newspapers were not shy about broadcasting their affiliations I had learned about the financial side of the business is that The East Hampton Press. He also continued to write and political preferences. It survived a number of challenges the person who is in charge of the revenue needs to have a as much as possible, since the editorial side of the from competitors, occasionally consuming its rivals. By the stake. Kathryn Menu, one of the finest reporters I’ve ever met, business remained his true passion. time Pat Cowles came along in 1988, the paper had been and who knows Sag Harbor better than anyone, had been The couple welcomed their first child, owned by just two families. It had fallen on hard times; its then- working for me about five years when I decided to change my owner, Vicky Gardner, had been bed-ridden for four years and Ella Marie, in 2009. role. Her husband, Gavin, was working as the advertising rep In 2012, Bryan Boyhan, the then-publisher was putting the paper together on a lap board, literally cutting at a competing newspaper, and had very successfully started and pasting, with rubber cement, galleys of copy onto flats. and editor of The Sag Harbor Express, asked and grown business there. Together they would make a Gavin to run his sales department at The Express It was a rough looking broadsheet, with just a little bit of great team. and promoted Kathryn to editor. In 2014 — the straight news, rewritten press releases, and a handful of We met and I suggested Gavin come to work at The same year the couple welcomed their second child, community columns written by members of the Chamber of Express as director of advertising, and if, after a year’s time, Charlie Dean — Gavin and Kathryn became Commerce, American Legion and Community Band. The they felt they could make a go of it, we would make an co-publishers. Today, they work-side-by-side with columns of copy were frequently tilted on the page, and if there ownership deal. Which is what we’ve done and the future of Boyhan. Over the last five years, their Express were no cut lines already type set, well, then Vicky would just The Express looks brighter than ever. Magazine series has nearly doubled in circulation write them in by hand with a ball point pen directly onto the and advertising sales. The newspaper has seen sales flat. Advertising was lean and relied on whatever came in over Today my workload is lighter, and I get to do the part increases year-over-year for four consecutive years. of the job I enjoy the most, designing and packaging the news. the transom, or the kindness of a business community that Kathryn remains editor of The Sag Harbor remained loyal to its hometown paper, regardless of its failings. I play more golf, poorly, with occasional glimmers of Express, Express Magazine and There was a cranky old reporter who had cut her teeth at the mediocrity, and my wife Ellen and I enjoy a little more sagharborexpress.com and Gavin continues to write Brooklyn Eagle, and her husband, a retired Chicago police traveling and taking hikes — when she’s not riding her sports in addition to leading advertising sales, but is detective, who doubled as photographer and newspaper motorcycle.