From: El Rito Media

Olympic years and presidential-election years can have a lasting impact on people’s memory. Whether such years also have a lasting impact on history depends on, well, history.

When people look back on 2024, they’ll remember a fascinatingly unique U.S. presidential campaign, which included an assassination attempt, the incumbent president bowing out, and the first woman of color to run for the office.

The vote produced the election of Donald Trump (again) and the first bearded vice-president since Charles W. Fairbanks served under Teddy Roosevelt from 1905-09.

The year 2024 saw wars continuing to rage in the Middle East and in Ukraine, and international troubles and tensions occurring on a regular basis.

Celebrity deaths of ’24 included a quintet of baseball players who each changed the game: Orlando Cepeda, Fernando Valenzuela, Pete Rose, Rickey Henderson, and the greatest 24, Willie Mays.

Closer to home, a fledgling newspaper group that owns the one you’re reading right now – El Rito Media – added three more companies in June. With five different publications, El Rito now owns more newspapers than anyone in New Mexico.

Why would a company in 2024 purchase newspapers, which some perceive as a dying industry?

We believe there are many answers, but two primary ones.

One: Newspapers are not just newspapers anymore. They are multimedia companies distributing news, information, opinion and entertainment across several platforms.

Two: Too many communities in New Mexico, including this one, have found themselves in “news deserts,” where the availability of plentiful, objective news has been in diminishing supply.

The media the past 15 years or more has been maligned from many directions, much of the criticism deserved. We at El Rito believe that’s part of the reason America needs, now more than ever, the free press our Founding Fathers recognized as vital to our nation.

In Artesia, 2024 saw the centennial of Illinois #3.

Illinois #3 was not a football team, a train route or a paint color.

It was the oil well that signaled the future of Artesia, New Mexico.

The Daily Press worked hard to recognize the occasion and produced a commemorative coffee table publication chronicling the origin of the well, and the subsequent impact the oil industry had, not only on Artesia, but on the entire state of New Mexico and the West Texas region.

We worked hard on the many other stories that painted the picture of Artesia in 2024.

This may sound strange, but we hope the work we did at El Rito in 2024 was the worst we’ll ever do.

That’s because our concerted goal is to continue to improve and better serve our communities each year.

We have seen modest circulation growth and advertising growth in each of our five markets. With continued growth, we’ll be able to invest in and improve and grow our news coverage. Everyone involved with El Rito, from our lead investors to the drivers who bring your newspapers to this community, believes wholeheartedly a better-informed community means a better community overall.

Whether it’s being a watchdog on municipal government or bringing recognition to important accomplishments by our youth, a newspaper can be a reliable provider of vital information to our communities.

We’ve received hundreds of positive comments from readers, businesspeople and community leaders on the work we’ve done in 2024. The support has been encouraging, and we are incredibly grateful for the wide and varied support we’ve received.

But we know we still have a lot more work and improvement to do.

And we’ll need your continued support to succeed.

We’ll need more reader subscriptions and more paid advertising from local businesses.

We’ll need more submissions of content from readers and community organizations.

We don’t see this as our newspaper. We see this is as your newspaper, and ourselves as the facilitator.

With everyone working together, we can continue our progress through 2025.