By Stephen Magagnini |OBSERVER Editor-In-Chief
When COVID exploded in 2020, it claimed not only 1,127,000 American lives, it buried thousands of businesses. COVID served as a knockout blow to a newspaper industry that for years had been teetering on extinction for the better part of two decades; more than 300 newspapers went under and 6,000 journalists lost their jobs.
The Sacramento OBSERVER was no exception. Coming off one of its most difficult years — one that included the September 2019 passing of its legendary founding publisher Dr. William H. Lee — The OBSERVER had dramatically declining advertising revenue and only three people on payroll.
But Larry Lee wouldn’t allow The OBSERVER to be counted out. In fact, the second-generation publisher looked at the challenging time as an opportunity to put his years of training, insights and mettle into action.
He pulled a Muhammad Ali, orchestrating one of the greatest comebacks in American journalism history.
Within three years, The OBSERVER had more than doubled its revenue, tripled its staff, grew its digital presence exponentially, increased its print subscriber base and ascended to the top of the journalism world in 2023 by being named the nation’s best Black newspaper.
How did he do it?
If you ask Lee, he will tell you this was years in the making.
“I always say God has given us vision and provision,” said Lee, 50. “While times have often been tough for us as a small business, a Black business and a small, Black business in an industry that is constantly changing, God has always covered us and our team and I feel He has given me a vision of what could be for our organization and our community.”
COVID in fact helped accelerate a transformation that began years earlier, when Larry reimagined The OBSERVER “as a digital-first newsroom with world-class print products,” a total shift from the days when print journalism was king.
Lee nurtured this vision since he was a college student at San Jose State University in Silicon Valley, but the intersection of COVID and the uprising following the murder of George Floyd provided “the right time to put the vision into action.”
“We always knew that we were going to have to move our audience to more digital products, but the question was how would we do that with a print-focused readership? So COVID actually accelerated our transformation and how our audience would access us. When George Floyd’s murder transformed the political climate in America, the awareness about the importance of the Black Press was heightened and we were well positioned for a resurgence.”
He enrolled in a class on how community newspapers could partner with philanthropies, non-profits, and foundations with a strong interest in keeping The OBSERVER and other Black publications alive.
The class was launched by the Local Media Association and Foundation, a creation of Mark Zuckerberg’s wife Priscilla Chan, who with her husband administers the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which has given out billions of dollars to support everything from hospitals to community newspapers.
Nancy Lane, CEO of the Local Media Association and Foundation, cited The OBSERVER’s transformation in the organization’s annual report, and often calls the newsroom “the best story in journalism.”
Growing Up At The OBSERVER
Lee always reflects on the herculean efforts of his parents, Bill and Kathryn Lee, who launched The OBSERVER during the Civil Rights Movement in 1962 with radio man Geno Gladden and businessman John W. Cole.
While Black-owned national magazines such as Ebony and Jet were commonly found in Black homes, “what separated the OBSERVER from these publications was its laser-like focus and dedication in covering Sacramento’s growing Black community,” said Sacramento’s preeminent Black historian Clarence Caesar.
In 1973 The OBSERVER was named the nation’s leading Black paper, the first of its seven John B. Russwurm trophies awarded by the National Newspaper Publishers Association, an industry group that now includes more than 300 Black newspapers.
Lee jokingly says it is no coincidence he was born the month before that historic first national recognition for The OBSERVER.
“As soon as I got here, we started winning awards,” Lee laughs. “But seriously, I was able to see this meteoric rise of The OBSERVER and the way our community responded to the work that we did; it was intoxicating.”
Grandma and auntie answered phones, a cousin served as lead graphic artist, and mom kept The OBSERVER afloat.
In elementary school, young Larry was already a fixture at The OBSERVER’s 4th Avenue office, hiding in big, green trash barrels and gleefully popping out to startle anyone who unknowingly lifted the lid.
“If my parents weren’t there, my grandma, aunts, uncles, scores of cousins and my older brothers were there to keep an eye on me.”
Larry’s older brother, William Hanford Lee Jr., 57, also grew up in the business. “From the time I was 11 until I was 26 and left for L.A. after being bitten by the showbiz bug, I was there all day, every day,” said Bill Lee Jr.
“I was production manager at 15, entertainment editor, wherever I was needed — at a community newspaper you have to be able to sell, design, communicate, write, take pictures…”
Bill Jr., now a premiere comedy entertainment manager, serves clients such as Luenell, an Oakland product who has her own Netflix special produced by Dave Chappelle, and veteran comic Katt Williams.
“Larry is a rock star,” Bill said. “He was always a good worker and a quick study, very determined to make his mark and have his voice heard in the community. Larry was making deals with freelance cartoonists when he was in junior high.”
“Kathryn Lee was the backbone of The OBSERVER, she just made sure the doors stayed open, really, she was a shrewd businesswoman, she was respected, had. a great reputation,” Bill recalled. “She was a great negotiator, she was brilliant and it wasn’t easy.” Whatever the challenges, “She was something else — she was graceful and elegant the whole time.”
Bill and Kathryn Lee didn’t just raise their three sons, they trained them to serve, Larry said. “The type of people they were and the selfless work they did — separately and as a couple — is unprecedented in Sacramento history.”
His dad, who got an honorary doctorate from Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida in 1970, was known as “Dr. Bill Lee,” and Larry always addressed him as Dr. Lee “because he was way more than a dad.”
Purpose At A Young Age
Larry played basketball and ran track at Christian Brothers High School in Oak Park when he wasn’t working at The OBSERVER. In 1991, he went to San Jose State University, intending to study film, following in the footsteps of filmmakers Spike Lee and Robert Townsend.
But Larry had too much OBSERVER ink in his blood.
He became the first Black Executive Editor in the storied history of the San Jose Spartan Daily.
Larry remembers coming home from school, sitting at the same kitchen table where he’d heard his folks discuss staffing, payroll and upcoming stories.
His folks asked him if he planned to return home to the family business. The OBSERVER was struggling financially, and the 4th Avenue office was in disrepair.
But it didn’t take Larry more than a minute to say “I’m in.”
When asked if that added pressure to him as a teen, Larry once again gives credit to his parents.
“Actually, instead of pressure, the gift my parents gave me was purpose,” he said. “From that point on, I knew that all that I would learn I would do so with the purpose of bringing it home.”
The 1980s was a tough time for the Black community, especially Oak Park with the growth of crack cocaine and the gang wars that followed.
“I’ve felt the hard times first-hand … I’ve seen lots of (negative) stuff that happened around The OBSERVER. But always, no matter what, the community was going to protect The OBSERVER because we were working on their behalf.”
“There’s a sense of obligation I’ve felt based on what I saw during those adolescent years that still fuels me today and allows me to say I’m completely committed to serving this community because it has protected me and the work my parents and I have done.”
Bill Jr. added, “The OBSERVER was a pillar of this community — when something adverse would happen, there weren’t a lot of places to go for help or information. Crack devastated our community in the 1980s, it was a war zone. But nobody was going to let anything happen to the paper.
“Part of the reason I left in the early 1990s was for my own mental health — Larry benefited by getting away,” he added.
Thanks to the excellent training and experience he got at San Jose State, he landed an internship at the Portland Oregonian, a strong regional paper that honed his skills.
Upon his return to San Jose State, Larry was selected by his peers to serve an unprecedented second term as Executive Editor. One of those peers was Genoa Barrow, now an OBSERVER Senior Staff Writer who has become one of the nation’s top Black reporters.
After graduation he came home in 1997 to find his mom crippled by rheumatoid arthritis. “I will never forget I heard a scream from the women’s bathroom at The OBSERVER and it’s my mom laying on the floor – both her knees had gone out…it’s hard hearing your mother scream, but I’m just thankful I was here to support her… being here was even less about the business and more about the family.”
A ‘21st Century Newsroom’
Larry’s dad was “a proud man, it never really mattered what others thought, he had his own bar of excellence and that was something he instilled in me.”
Dr. Lee was still the captain, but he increasingly relied on first mate Larry to bring fresh energy and chart new directions. “He would always say, ‘What do you think?’” Larry said.
“I am thankful for every minute I got to work beside him,” Larry recalled. “He was a genius in so many ways. My cousin Scott said, ‘Every week Bill Lee made his own love letter to the Black community through the pages of The OBSERVER’.”
However, Bill Lee was shaped by the rise, and profitability, of print journalism, but that era began to erode in the 1990s with the arrival of the Internet and free news content.
So Bill Jr. and Larry brought in computers using full color digital pagination, design software and other technology that quickly moved The OBSERVER into the era of digital journalism. The OBSERVER went to full color and launched its website in 2000.
In 1994, The OBSERVER had moved into a stylish, 10,000-square foot newsroom on Alhambra and X Street which served as a community hub and beacon of hope, “a very comfortable place where people could come, meet, talk and discuss,” Larry said. “It felt more like a museum, it felt like you were in something very important in Black Sacramento.”
By 2005, hundreds of American print newspapers began to go under. “The market had changed, advertising had gone away, we were just getting slaughtered, and to do things digitally was expensive — it was kicking our butts,” Larry said, citing the darkest times from 2008-2019.
Meanwhile, Larry was caring for his aging parents. His mom passed away in March 2013 at 77, and his dad was never quite the same. Dr. Lee injured himself in a car accident and was bedridden for the last few years of his life.
“That changed everything – his last two years were definitely the hardest time of my life because I was taking the reins of the business, trying to get us on the right side,” Larry said. “Caring for my folks gave me the understanding that I can do anything set in front of me.”
Over the years, Larry served numerous boards and offered his talents to a variety of efforts supporting the Black community. He has been chair of the boards of the Sacramento Black Chamber of Commerce and Nehemiah Corporation of America — where the launching of the Nehemiah Emerging Leaders Program came under his leadership.
But it has been his unwavering commitment to transforming The OBSERVER into a “21st century newsroom” that keeps him up late at night and working so hard. In 2021, The OBSERVER underwent a major redesign of its weekly newspaper with a focus on more high-impact journalism. That was complemented with a rebuilt website and focus on digital and video content.
He has been laser focused on finding resources to pour into his growing organization and the people who power it.
“Our team has gotten extremely smart, understanding digital analytics and all the different things required for understanding audience development and growth – and our community has shown support,” he said.
Lee isn’t stopping with just digital content for the transformation of The OBSERVER. He says the next two important projects for the business include a new facility and the preservation of The OBSERVER archives.
Lee believes the next evolution for newsrooms like The OBSERVER lies in its ability to connect with its audience in authentic ways that reinforce the trust that the community has in the 60-year-old publication. He plans to open up the newsroom to create a community gathering location for its audience.
“There is such distrust of news by consumers today, but where we have an advantage is we are a trusted messenger for Sacramento’s Black community,” Lee said. “Our future relies on our community having a connection with us that transcends just us reporting on the news of the day. All news organizations have to be able to listen to their audiences in ways that we haven’t before. I believe we can help lead that effort.”
The other, more daunting challenge Lee is working on is the digitization of The OBSERVER archives. He says he has had meetings with regional and national stakeholders who align with his vision.
“This is the most important project I have in front of me,” he said. “Every week someone asks me, ‘Is there any way’ to get archived photos or stories? Our community is always in a search of self since our history has been erased by the American power structure. We have millions of images, stories and artifacts that are so crucial to telling the story about Sacramento’s Black community. This is the time to get the resources and the partners to make this happen. This isn’t just important for Blacks, it’s important to the region.”