Hard-nosed N.M. weekly sold to execs with GOP, energy ties; they suggest it's better sold to in-staters than to a chain

UPDATE, Feb. 6, 2023: El Rito Media bought the Artesia Daily Press in southeast New Mexico from the Green family, which founded it in 1954 and had sold its other newspapers, reports newspaper broker Dirks, Van Essen & April, which handled the sale. Terms were not disclosed.

Robert B. Trapp

Nearly 66 years after his parents founded the Rio Grande Sun, Editor-Publisher Robert B. Trapp has sold the award-winning Española, N.M., weekly to a recently formed group of investors with strong ties to the oil industry and the Republican Party. 

The sale, terms of which were not disclosed, was completed April 1. In a farewell column April 8, Trapp wrote that the new owners at El Rito Media LLC have ideas for how to improve the paper, expand coverage and make it more relevant, and he wished them "good luck and good fortune." Though he recalled his 33 years with the paper fondly, he gave a hint to his reasons for selling: "No one owns a weekly newspaper. It owns you. I’ve got too many things I want to do before I die and I can’t do them and run a weekly newspaper," he wrote. "The newspaper business has become a brutal place to inform people who don’t want to be informed, tell a community’s story, give readers what they want (and don’t want, but need) and hire competent people whom you cannot afford to pay a living wage."

Española, N.M., in Rio Arriba County
(Wikipedia map)

The Sun has long been known for its steadfast fight against local corruption. The story of the hard-hitting, award-winning newspaper was captured in the 2012 documentary, The Sun Never Sets. (You can watch a clip from it here). In 2015 the Trapp family won the Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, integrity and tenacity in rural journalism from the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, publisher of The Rural Blog. 

In his farewell column, Trapp urged readers to safeguard democracy in his absence and delivered a parting shot to those who had tried to thwart the paper: "For 66 years some readers have been reading commentary by a Trapp urging them to get involved, take action. Left to their own devices, politicians will take advantage until there is public push-back. Gather yourselves and be that force. Those who believe my father and I have been wrong about politicians, education, city and county government and the waste of taxpayer money while we’ve stagnated in growth and opportunity, this is your moment. Celebrate this day. You won’t get called out for your incompetency and ineptitude anymore."

The Santa Fe Reporter called the sale a "GOP media gambit" in the Democratic stronghold of Rio Arriba County, and noted that El Rito Media was formed last fall. "Its principals include former state Republican Party chairmen Ryan Cangiolosi and Harvey Yates Jr.," Julie Ann Grimm reports. Yates is an oil executive who served as the state's national party committeeman in 2016-20 and is president of Cibola Energy Corp. and Jalapeño Corp., which is also a named partner in the media firm. Another principal, Joseph Sanchez, is a "registered Democrat with a conservative bent" running for the state legislature this year against incumbent Roger Montoya in Española's district.

In a story published in the Sun, the new owners praised the Trapp family and the paper's "illustrious and storied history as a hard-charging, fearless weekly newspaper of record." They wrote that most papers are sold to large investment companies made of outsiders, but said El Rito is comprised entirely of New Mexicans and companies controlled by New Mexicans. 

The story introduced the new editor, Richard L. Connor, who "has overseen newspaper operations in 10 states across the country, owning and operating a number of dailies and weeklies as well as working as editor and publisher for publicly owned media companies." However, Connor was also sued by media groups in Maine and in Pennsylvania—and settled for undisclosed sums in both cases—for allegedly misusing hundreds of thousands of dollars. MaineToday Media accused him of misappropriating about $530,000 of the newspapers' funds for unauthorized salary increases for himself and personal expenses. And Wilkes-Barre Publishing LLC went after Connor for more than $250,000 in credit card charges and advances that Connor had failed to repay,

Connor said he's been to New Mexico several times and believes living there will be "a wonderful opportunity," the Sun reports. He also praised rural journalism: "The heart of journalism today is where it’s always been . . .  in smaller communities where the weekly newspaper keeps everyone not only informed, but also connected to one another."