Inside the Wave, Rockaway Queens' Source for Local News Since 1893

FMC Fast Chat takes you inside the news so you can be in the know in 30 minutes. Hosted by Fair Media Council CEO and Executive Director Jaci Clement, Fast Chat features notables in news, media, and business.

Thank you for joining us. I'm Jaci Clement, and joining me today is the editor-in-chief of The Wave newspaper, Mark Healy. Now, The Wave is celebrating 130 years. of publishing. So first of all, congratulations, Mark, and thank you for joining us.

Well, thank you, Jaci. It's really amazing to be working for a publication that's been around for 130 years.

So tell me, how did, how did you get to The Wave? What brought you there to begin with?

Well, it's really interesting. This is my 9th year. In May of next year, I'll be here 10 years. It was actually quite a journey. I began my career in radio, and I was working at a radio station up in Stamford, Connecticut. And along the way, I found myself at the Associated Press. I was there for 8 years. And then after a period of running my own business, which included a magazine, I started at The Wave in 2014 because I needed a job and The Wave was hiring. You know, it was one of those fortuitous things. The editor that had been here tried to buy the paper and wasn't successful, so he left and started his own newspaper, and it was a job waiting for me.

Well, there you go. Well, congratulations, 9 years later. Tell me about The Wave itself.

Well, The Wave, The Wave is Rockaway's newspaper since 1893. That's our tagline because it's true. The waves started because there was this major fire in the seaside section of Rockaway, which basically what happened was is that there was this terrible fire and the people of Rockaway weren't able to know about it or read about it because they were all waiting for the trains to come in to bring the Brooklyn papers to, to tell the story. So, uh, Mr. Keenan, uh, who lived in the, uh, in, in Rockaway Beach, felt that it was time for Rockaway to have its own newspaper. So it was because of that, you know, wave of fire that created the need for local news, and that, that started in 1893.

Okay. All right. And tell me about the paper today. You're, you're a weekly.

Yeah, we're weekly. And, you know, we've been going strong. The newspaper, basically what we do is we're— we cover the entire peninsula, right? All the way from Far Rockaway all the way to Breezy Point. And it also includes, you know, it also includes Broad Channel, which is part of the Rockaways. We cover the entire peninsula, as I said. And so our coverage, while local and hyperlocal at times, also includes a lot of political stuff that's going on, New York City issues that are going on, because it's, it's important to understand that when decisions are made, you know, on the state level, on the city level, they affect Rockaway directly. And because of Rockaway's uniqueness as a peninsula, people here basically feel apart from the city.

Yeah.

And so they want a unique style of coverage to fit their uniqueness as a community. So that's what we strive to do each and every week, a comprehensive look at You know, what's going on in the community, what's going on outside the community that affects the community directly. So that's really our focus, you know, on what we do here at The Wave.

Okay. And for our audience that isn't familiar with The Wave's area of coverage, can you give a little geography lesson there?

Well, we are on the southern tip, obviously, of New York City, of Queens. We are adjacent to Long Beach, which is below the island. You know, we are, I guess, on the, on the, the, the western end underneath, underneath the peninsula of Long Island. And originally the wave was known as the Wave of Long Island because at that time Rockaway was part of, was part of Long Island, Nassau County, not part of You know, Queens or New York City proper. So, you know, if it's, you know, a coastal community, and like I said, we're right below Queens.

Okay. And the population?

The population has always hovered in the— about, I would probably say, if I had to, if I had to, you know, you didn't say this was going to be in the interview. I'm kidding.

Sorry, I don't mean to be quizzing you.

No, that was going to be on the test, Jaci. Um, I would say our population probably hovers around, uh, 170,000, between that 170,000, 160,000, something like that. I don't recall off the top of my head the, um, the count from the last census. But that's basically right around there.

Okay, fair enough, Mark. And tell me, what are the major concerns? What, what kind of stories do you find yourself doing over and over again? Because That's really what the public wants to know.

Well, you know, it's, it's interesting because, because of our— when I talk about the uniqueness of our community, we are a coastal community, so a beach community. So a lot of our stories have to do with climate change. A lot of our stories have to do with, you know, resiliency and protection from hurricanes. You know, Sandy obviously happened 11 years ago. And it was devastating to this community. And so a lot of what we do is based around the beach, based around surfing and the arts. And we have a very, very vibrant art community, a lot of art, a lot of painters, a lot of musicians. We do a lot of live music coverage, but we also do a lot of the local community events, the parades, you know, the schools that have different events. There's a lot of nonprofits that are around, you know, that they do all these different kinds of community-based, family-based events, cultural events. We also do a lot of political coverage, you know. We think it's important for people to know what's going on in their community. We want people to know that we're keeping an eye on the elected officials and making sure that They are responsive to their constituents and accountable to the community. We do a lot of everything, you know, it's, it's, you know, we have some sports that we do. This is a big, you know, vibrant sports community. But we do pretty much everything that you would do with any other local. It just, it's Rockaway, so it's, you know, a little bit cooler maybe than some other places.

Okay, that's not a biased opinion by chance, but is it?

Maybe a little. I imagine it's okay to be biased as long as you admit it.

Oh, okay. I imagine a lot of your readers are commuters into the city.

Yes.

Okay. All right. So what do you consider, and or even is there any competition for the news that you're putting out?

There's only one newspaper. that is in the community. As I mentioned before, the editor that was here at The Wave opened up his newspaper. So that newspaper started basically about a month after I took over The Wave. It's called the Rockaway Times. And, you know, they're very, very different from what we do. They're not very hard news. You know, they do topical stuff. Not really hard-hitting, not really, you know, it's competition really for, you know, the economic dollar, you know, more than anything else. They're a free paper, they get, you know, given out, you know, their distribution is much smaller, much more concentrated on the western end of the peninsula. And, you know, we just do different things, you know, I mean, but they are our competition in the sense that You know, they they distribute in some of the areas that we do.

Okay, and what about any local radio coverage?

We don't we don't the the only the only there's no radio stations here or anything like that. There's no there's nothing Rockaway-centric. You know, there are radio stations like WABC 77. Sid Rosenberg, who hosts Sid and Friends in the morning. That's a politically, you know, that's a political show, big show. It's, I think that it's the number one show, news talk in New York. And he's from Rockaway. He lives in Rockaway now, and he'll have me on, or he'll talk about Rockaway issues a lot, but it's not competition in any way.

Okay, got it. And since you had mentioned, tell me about your business model, as I am talking to news outlets across the country and everyone is kind of playing with their business model so that there really is no model right now. It's kind of what works for one doesn't necessarily work somewhere else. So we're seeing a mix of, you know, digital subscription-based events to help pay the bills. Maybe newsletters that they're charging for. So what is it you're doing?

Well, we, we have a daily newsletter that goes out every day. We have a— we have some other newsletters that we do that are focused, you know, targeted towards day trippers, people who are coming in to Rockaway weekend. We have a newsletter that goes out every Friday to our subscribers. We are a pay— we have a paywall. So we have, you know, our papers, $0.50 a week, and we have digital subscriptions. We have a leaky paywall. So, you know, people can see a few stories, you know, a month. But we are a sub— you know, we are a subscription-based company. We do have a very healthy digital presence. We have a great team that works on our Instagram. You know, we're on Twitter, we're on Facebook. I should say X. We're on all the platforms. Our our folk, we're very lucky. You know, the Wave is a print newspaper that people read and people pick up every Friday on the newsstand. And we have you know obviously thousands of subscribers that get mailed their newspaper, and it's all across the country. I mean, we have subscribers in San Diego, California. We have subscribers in Canada. So, you know, there's a lot of people that come from Rockaway that want to read about the Wave, and they want to read about their neighborhood and what, what they're missing. So we have a very, very, very loyal readership that always, you know, gives back, you know, by investing in what it is we do. And that is, you know, comprehensive coverage And they're not getting it anywhere else. And so that's why we're so driven every week to put together a great paper. Our front page still matters. What's on the front page? Is it going to sell? Those are the types of things that I'm very lucky that we have a crew and we have a team here That understands that the print product is the flagship, and the digital stuff is gravy for us. And not to say we don't treat the the digital stuff with respect because we do, but the print product for us is is you know is the thing that we pride ourselves in, and everything else feeds off of that. So the the quality of the work really extends itself, and it's really an organic relationship in that way.

I see. Tell me about the staff that you have. Are, are they a core group that have been there forever, or how does that work?

Well, you know, when I first came to The Wave, there used to be an editor and there used to be an assistant, and there were mostly design people because we used to work on a different, you know, system. We used to use Quark. You know, like, so, so, you know, so 2007.

But does that even still exist anymore?

I'm sure it does. Sure, there's some that might use it, but obviously InDesign is what everybody uses now.

Yeah.

We have a, we have a solid core of people that have been here for a long time. You know, I've been here the longest. Uh, but, you know, we have, we have a— the thing about The Wave, you know, is that we have a core team that's been here for a long time, but we also have a lot of especially editorial people that come and go because The Wave is like— The Wave is one of those places, like, when I'm like, when I'm trying to hire freelancers Uh, you know, because we, we like to have freelancers. We want to be able to cover everything that's going on. So what I tell them is like, there was— there's no better place for a journalist to begin their career, you know.

Okay.

Uh, because you have so many different kinds of stories here. Rockaway is such a unique place. I mean, there's so many different things that you can write about. There's politics, as I've said. There's arts. There's entertainment. There's drama, local drama, that when there's things going on. There's so many traditions here culturally that people celebrate every year. So you get to experience, you know, not only the different, you know, the different, you know, you obviously you have Far Rockaway, which is, you know, you know, economically, you know, a little, you know, they're They're growing, but it's always been a community that has struggled economically. And then you have the other tip of the iceberg is Breezy Point, which is much more affluent. So you really get a sense of— it's almost like a microcosm of New York City in and of itself. So as a journalist, you get to tell all those stories, you get to meet all these people, you get exposed to so many things. That when someone leaves from here, they get jobs at the New York Times. You know, they get jobs at bigger outlets. They get jobs, you know, that really, really enhance their career. So, you know, the freelancers that do hang on or they do stay for a while, you know, and I'm very lucky that I have two or three that are really, really fantastic. I mean, they really care about the paper. They really care about the community, and it shows in their work. It shows in how when you pick up that paper on a Friday, that you sit there and you're like, wow, they covered that story. Oh, they covered that story. Oh, they were in this neighborhood. Oh, they were in that neighborhood. Oh, they went to that civic meeting. It's incredibly important for whoever works here that they buy into the mission. And the mission is, you know, to, you know, no story's too small, you know, and our team has really bought into that.

Okay, so tell me about your editorial process then. Do the story ideas, do they bubble up from the staff? Or is it assignment editor?

There is, there is a very nice, healthy mix of that.

Okay.

You know, I have one freelancer in particular that is always pitching, you know, probably 4 or 5 stories a week. I have others that always say yes to whatever assignments or whatever things that need to be covered. As the editor-in-chief, obviously I have to make sure that we're not missing out on anything. But I'm lucky in the sense that The people that I've been working with for so long know what I want code, or they they know to keep their ears to the ground, literally and figuratively. You know, to find out if there's any story that needs to be in the paper or needs to be on the website or needs to be you know sent out in a newsletter. So let's put it this way: We're never like we're never like bottom feeding to try to get a story. You know, we always have. More than enough space. Excuse me, we always have to find space every week for all the stories that we're doing. So it's never a question of, oh man, I have all this open space this week. No, it doesn't happen that way.

Okay.

You know, usually I have to, you know, sit there and figure out, well, what's going to fit where, and do I do the longer version of the story and put a QR code in so that people can read it on the website? So, so But it's a combination really of the writers pitching things. Sometimes the publisher or the marketing people will say, hey, you know, we got this new restaurant opening up, maybe we can assist them with a story or, you know, those kinds of things. But it's, it's really a balance of assignments and people pitching things.

Okay. All right. And how big of a staff is there in-house total for the, for the whole paper?

Well, we have, um, we have, we have, uh, 3, uh, office people that work with, um, you know, our— they assist all the, all the— they, they basically work as, um, uh, some people work on advertising, some people work on, uh, you know, um, you know, accounting. And, and we have like a 3-person staff. That all work on a lot of our office administration stuff that needs to be done. We have a marketing staff of 3 people. We have an editorial staff of— I'm in the process now of looking for a new community editor. But usually we have 3 full-time people and a large staff. I'm talking editorially now.

We have a lot.

Staff, um, uh, freelancers. So that, that, you know, that, you know, we have probably have around 5 or 6 at the same time, but that, you know, that number can change, you know, over the course of, you know, the summers are busy time as far as outdoor events and things like that. But as the, you know, tourists go back to where they came from, you know, there's still people that live here year-round, and that's when a lot of the meetings take place. A lot of the community board stuff happens then. We have precinct, the NYPD. We have 2 precincts here. They have community council meetings that we always cover. So, you know, I mean, we need that kind of staff to keep up with, you know, to keep up with all the things that are going on.

Okay. One of the things I'm hearing from papers around the country is they're finding it really hard to hire people. Because they can't seem to find journalists these days. Are you running into that issue?

I'm not running into the issue of being able to find journalists. I'm running into the problem of people who understand, uh, what it means to be a journalist. You know, like, there's plenty of people that apply For the job. It's not a question of, you know, applicants. It's a question of finding the people that understand that, you know, you can't do an interview, you know, you know, that you can't do an interview, interview of a local event, live event from, you know, your phone. You know, you can't, you know.

Okay.

Pick stuff up off of Facebook. You know, all of the challenges that we went through during COVID with Zoom and everything else. I mean, sometimes it's appropriate, sometimes it's not. And now, you know, it's look, and I think the problem is it's not so much the the it's not so much the young journalists themselves. I think a lot of it is. Where they're coming from, who— where they're learning this industry from. And I think the expectation level is unrealistic. I think that they're not teaching them the industry. I think they're teaching them theoretical things and, you know, the inverted pyramid, and, you know, that they're teaching them all of these. And I taught journalism, so I know what's being taught, and I fought against a lot of it. So, you know, I know a lot of the curriculum that a lot of them are learning, and it's great to have all this technical know-how, and it's great to be able to, you know, be a 360 journalist where you're, you know, you're tweeting and you're, you know, doing live video, and— but you still have to write the stories, you still have to take the pictures, and you still have to talk to people, and you still have to make phone calls. And you can't sit around the office and wait, uh, for the phone to ring to find a story. So it's, it's looking, it's an exhaustive process. But, um, for me, the problem isn't finding applicants, it's finding people that I trust, uh, to do the job. Because that's, you know, it's, it's a responsibility.

Right. Fair enough. Okay. And tell me about, um, do you, do you write editorials?

Do I write editorials? Yes, I do.

Okay, so that's your responsibility, or you share that with folks? How does that work?

Really share that? I will be, I believe I will be once I find, you know, I've had, I have in the past. But I also think that it's important for the journalists that are writing the stories I don't think it's always so great for them to do editorials because, um, I think that we're trying to get away from biased reporting. We're trying to get away from, uh, you know, uh, activism journalism. We don't do that. You know, I, like I said, I, I, I learned how to be a journalist at the Associated Press, so I am not a we and us journalist. And I believe that you have to be really focused on the story and the issues, and you have to look at— I know a lot of people don't think that objective journalism is the way to go. I'm not one of those people. Sometimes you have to tell a story. You have to give other people a chance to respond. You have to have 3 sources to a story. And, you know, as, as being, you know, and I don't cover as many stories because of that reason, because I'm writing the editorial every week and I want to make sure what we're writing about, uh, that it doesn't look like I'm writing an objective story about something and then I'm writing an editorial where I take a side or I take, uh, you know, offense to an issue or something along those lines. So I like to keep those lines.

Mm-hmm.

clear of each other as much as I can.

Okay. This is an issue that I know is being talked about in a lot of news outlets because they do feel that, you know, if they do come down on an issue in one way, then they find their audience views their news coverage in some way is biased or leaning toward that opinion.

So there's that— excuse me— I get letters every week saying, oh, you know, your paper's too liberal. And then I'll get another letter from somebody, oh, your paper's too conservative. So that just tells me I we're doing a good job. You know, there you go. And honestly, I you know, I that's why I think that what we do as journalists, as editors, as newspaper people, it's so important to be truthful. It's so important to not have an agenda. It's so important to be honest. With your readership. If there's an issue that we need to take a stand on, we'll take a stand on it. I always invite people to say, look, if you think our paper's too liberal, here's 15 stories that tell a different tale. If you think our paper's too conservative, here's 15 stories that you can read and say, oh yeah, maybe I guess not. Maybe I'm wrong. It's not that we're trying to be centrist, It's just that there's that side of the story, there's the other side of the story, and somewhere in the middle lies the truth.

Okay. Okay. So what is it that keeps you going every day?

I just love my job.

Yeah.

I mean, I, you know, things, you know, things, things can get busy. Things can get chaotic. You know, but I just, I love what I do. So I get up every day and I'm ready to go. Okay.

How would you describe The Wave 130 years ago versus where it is now?

Well, I think, I mean, we've gone through some changes as far as, you know, we used to be a broadsheet. You know, we used to come out on a Thursday. We used to come out on a Saturday. But I think the focus is still the same. You know, tell the story of the neighborhood. Let people know what's going on. I think the biggest difference obviously is the digital reach, which enhances what we do, uh, because Wave is one of those newspapers that, uh, the industry likes. And we have a lot of people that I run into at a press conference or whatever, and they're like, oh, the Wave. Oh, I know the Wave. Rockaway is great. And there's nothing better than hearing that, you know, when you know that your paper is making an impact. And, you know, we do our share of breaking news. You know, we do our share— again, we do our share of, you know, breaking stories and, and, uh, you know, making sure that we are on the cutting edge of everything that happens. But as far as the job, as far as doing what we do, really hasn't changed that much.

Okay. And do you live locally?

I don't, actually, uh, which is always, uh, Very curious to people. I believe I am the first editor in 130 years when they hired me in 2014. Believe I was the first editor, editor-in-chief to not live in Rockaway. And it was you know one of those things that said, how could you you know cover Rockaway if you you know never been in Rockaway? I said, well, I you know I once I covered tennis when I was when I was at the Associated Press and. You know, I don't know anything about tennis. So I was like, it's journalism. I said, give me 2 weeks, and if I don't know what I'm doing, then you can get rid of me. And my dad grew up, uh, my dad, uh, grew up in Rockaway, and I have a lot of family and friends here. Uh, in fact, a lot of the people where I grew up in Flatbush, uh, Brooklyn, uh, live now out on the island. But I grew up in Flatbush, so it just seems that I run into people all the time that came from my neighborhood. that moved to Rockaway because there was a whole flux of them that did so in the '80s. So I'm always running into people that I know. So, and then I think, uh, had people— because I remember, uh, one of my friend's dads said, you know, you're gonna have a tough time here because they don't trust outsiders. And I was like, you know, I'm not really an outsider. I mean, I spent all my summers here. It's not like I don't know Rockaway. I said, my dad grew up here. It's like, yeah, but you know, you're not from here, so they're going to give you some pushback. And I got to be honest, outside of maybe a couple of people writing letters to the editor in the very beginning, which I printed, being concerned that the new editor wasn't from Rockaway, it actually gained their respect. One guy said, I can't believe you printed that letter. And I'm like, well, you wrote it and that's how you feel. So You know, I wanted you to be— I wanted you to feel like you had a voice. And, you know, I think over the years I've heard less and less about that, you know. Oh, well, you're not from Rockaway, so you don't really understand. I feel like one of the first calls I got when I joined the Wave was from Donovan Richards, who is now the Queensborough president. And at that time, he was the city councilman for the 21st District, and he called— the 31st District, excuse me. He called me up and he said, congratulations on getting the job. I think it's great that you're not from Rockaway because you don't have any, you know, predisposition to the issues, and you can look at things with a fresh eye. And I always remind him of that whenever he gets mad at me when I, you know, criticize him on something. But You know, and that's the thing, you know, and I think that that's what I would— that's what I've been able to bring to the wave, you know, was a little bit more of an objective look at what, what Rockaway needs, what ails Rockaway, and what Rockaway can do to move forward.

Okay. All right. We're, we're actually at time already. I've got one more question for you.

Sure.

And that is, you know, if you were talking to local news outlets around the country, What advice would you give them at this moment in time where so much news coverage is devoted to talking about how local news is dying?

Well, look, there's a— I talk to people all the time that are in this business, and I say the same thing. Do you want to be part of the crowd that's worried about— look, media is always in flux. Every media outlet is struggling, and some are doing very well. The thing is that you have to be true to what you do. You've just got to push forward. You can't be deluded when some of the organizations you may belong to talk about, oh, well, I read this story about how print is this and print is that. Remember when everybody said nobody was going to buy books anymore? And then, and then all of a sudden people wanted bookshelves on Instagram so that ebooks— it used to, you know, how that whole ebook trend— it's not that people don't buy ebooks anymore, but people are buying regular books again. You know, the, the industry changes. Things are cyclical. As long as you don't buy into either the, the, the, the dread or the delusion And you, and you just continue to do what you do and make good choices about, you know, stay away from clickbait. If you think clickbait is going to be the way that you, um, it's going to be, you know, that, that, that low-hanging fruit clickbait kind of news that you think is going to generate clicks, it's just, you know what, if that's the— that's a slow death, you know. And I, I see it. People just will lose trust when you're a community paper, when you're you're a local paper, you have to prove it every week that you're on top of things, that you're going to the meetings, that you're interviewing the right people, that you're making— know what's going on. Because if you do that, people will continue to buy into your product. And if they don't because you've made some decisions for the quick money or the quick fix, It's, it's just never going to help you in the long run.

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