By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//November 12, 2014//
By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//November 12, 2014//
Jim Williams took over the position of president and publisher of the Wisconsin Law Journal on Nov. 3.
But that is just one of several roles for the longtime newspaperman, who lives in New Boston, Mich. He also is the president and publisher of The Daily Reporter, which is also published out of the Milwaukee office, and Michigan Lawyers Weekly, a West Bloomfield, Mich.-based newspaper, which, like the other two, is owned by The Dolan Co., Minneapolis.
Williams said he plans to divide his time between the Michigan and Milwaukee offices while keeping his schedule as flexible as possible.
“The biggest challenge of taking a job that has me splitting time in two states is time away from my family,” he said. “We are very close and spend most of our time together. The iPad and FaceTime make it possible to reach out to my children and feel as if we are in the same room.”
Williams, who has been married for nearly 22 years and has three daughters and two sons, got his start in newspapers with the Alliance Review in Alliance, Ohio, in 1981 while he was in high school. At the time, he said, his father was the circulation director there.
“I worked over the summer running down routes, pulling papers off of the press, making postal runs and running insert machines,” Williams said. “After high school I got married and started to work full time for the paper in the advertising department as a tear-sheet and ad proofer. After a few months, I was promoted to an outside sales position.”
Since his time at the Alliance Review, Williams has worked for at least nine newspapers, mostly in New York, Ohio and Michigan. He has held positions as classified manager, advertising manager, advertising director, district manager for a national newspaper rep firm, and publisher of daily and weekly newspapers.
His position with The Dolan Co., though, is Williams’ first step away from general-interest newspapers and into niche publications. The Wisconsin Law Journal and Michigan Lawyers Weekly are newspapers for their respective states’ legal communities, and The Daily Reporter is a publication primarily for Wisconsin’s construction industry.
“One advantage a niche publication has over a general-interest publication is the fact that we have a very targeted audience,” he said. “We know the audience and what is most important to them and their colleagues.”
Getting to know those audiences, Williams said, is among his top priorities.
“Not being familiar with a market and its nuances is always a challenge, but it can also be a benefit,” he said. “Being new to a market gives one the opportunity to see things from an outsider’s point of view. Developing new relationships and bringing a new, fresh approach to the way we do business can be a great benefit.”