Ctrl+P Publishing’s nm.news local news network has been recognized as a 2025 national “Product of the Year” by LION Publishers, a leading organization focused on innovation and sustainability in local news.
Based in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, Ctrl+P Publishing manages seven local newsroom brands. Finding existing integrated solutions for websites, newsletters, and print to be too expensive for their smallest rural newsrooms, and too limiting to allow local newspapers to maintain local identity, the team developed their own simple, affordable toolkit.
“We aimed to limit the tech stack to just four or five off-the-shelf products that anyone could use without coding,” says Pat Davis, founder of Ctrl-P Publishing.
The Winning Playbook
The network, launched under the shared nm.news banner, allows publishers to scale operations, share resources and revenue.
By following the playbook and toolkit, local editors and reporters still report their local content, but they share regional and statewide reporting from the network.
After acquiring 5 local print-forward publications, the team secured grant support from the New Mexico Local News Fund and News Revenue Hub to do a deep dive of subscribers across all publications.
“We found that 42% of overall subscribers had signed up for more than one of our local outlets and the light bulb came on,” says Founder and Publisher Pat Davis. “Readers are rebuilding the missing pieces of their old local papers that once included regional, state and national news.”
The result is a local print or digital newsletter focused on local storytelling but just as full as a big newspaper with a regional or statewide newsroom. Extra page views equal extra digital revenue for local publishers and readers no longer have to manage multiple subscriptions to curate their daily newsletter.
The startup cost for a new digital newsroom on the network is just a few hundred dollars per week, with new sites immediately benefiting from shared network ad revenue.
“There are lots of solutions emerging to help startup and local papers, but most only focus on providing a tech solution or “how-to guide” and not all of those fit together,” says Davis. “We wanted to build a program and product meant to add impact to local reporting and elevate the value of a single-journalist newsroom with readers and advertisers.”
Award Recognition
Ctrl-P’s network won the Product of the Year in the medium revenue category at the 2025 LION Independent News Sustainability Summit in St. Louis in September.
Judges praised the product for “combining editorial production into a package that both meets audience needs and promotes sustainability through revenue.” They noted that this approach helps smaller outlets access ad-focused models that were previously too complex.
From the judges:
“First, the extensive research across publications shows rare and inspiring evidence of a network of news organizations that believe a rising tide lifts all boats. Cooperation here will outperform competition when it comes to keeping the New Mexico news ecosystem healthy.“Second, the thought put into building a master subscription list and a larger, more attractive audience for both readers and advertisers—while maintaining each publication’s identity and direct relationship with its audience—is simply one of the smartest executions I’ve seen in the news product landscape in recent memory.”
The toolkit provides a way for small newsrooms and individual journalists to achieve the economies of scale and ad revenue access previously reserved for larger media companies.
Ctrl+P Publishing owns four local newspapers in New Mexico, The Santa Fe Reporter, Corrales Comment, Sandoval Signpost and Route 66 Independent News. It also publishes The Paper., City Desk ABQ and the New Mexico Political Report.
In 2024, both the Sandoval Signpost and Route 66 Independent were recipients of inaugural Press Forward national grants.
Learn more about nm.news and Ctrl+P Publishing
