{"id":29753,"date":"2024-01-13T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-13T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ballantine-communications-welcomes-new-ceo-publisher\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:03:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:03:12","slug":"ballantine-communications-welcomes-new-ceo-publisher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ballantine-communications-welcomes-new-ceo-publisher\/","title":{"rendered":"Ballantine Communications welcomes new CEO\/publisher"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"John
John Blais, is the new CEO and Publisher for Ballantine Communications. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

There\u2019s a new face of Ballantine Communications, as John Blais is the new CEO and publisher.<\/p>\n

Blais, who started his duties on Monday, takes over the helm at a time where Ballantine Communications added a third publication in the Tri-City Record<\/em> last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn John, we are fortunate to find the expertise we need, with leadership history ranging from large established daily newspapers to local weekly publications, plus the initiative of creating a publication for his rural community of Marengo, Illinois,\u201d Board Chairman Richard Ballantine said in an email to Ballantine staff members on Dec. 28.<\/p>\n

Blais previously served as executive director for the St. Jude League\/Claretian Publications and general manager for Capital Newspapers in Madison, Wisconsin. Capital Newspapers publishes the Wisconsin State-Journal<\/em> and several other publications.<\/p>\n

During his time at Claretian, one of its publications U.S. Catholic Magazine<\/em>, was named Magazine of the Year by the Catholic Media Association in 2022 and 2023.<\/p>\n

Over the past four years, Blais says that through a focus on innovation, the St. Jude League\/Claretian Publications generated surplus revenues that went to support the Claretian Missionaries, an international Catholic congregation.<\/p>\n

He also spent about 13 combined years at the Chicago Sun-Times<\/em> in roles such as vice president, director of business development and director of audience development. He was also vice president general manager of Sun-Times<\/em> Media Local.<\/p>\n

Blais said he spent his entire life working in the newspaper industry and even grew up with a father who was an editor for the Chicago Tribune. <\/em><\/p>\n

He is looking forward to helping propel Ballantine and engage a younger generation of readers. In terms of the recently started Tri-City Record<\/em>, he looks forward to engaging with the communities the Record <\/em>serves.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need to understand Farmington and need to talk to the people,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m going there next week to meet the business community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blais has had success helping new publications in the past when he started The Marengo-Union Times <\/em>in Marengo, Illinois.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not coming in with any preconceived notions,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t have a model build for (the Tri-City Record<\/em>). I had a model built for Marengo because I knew exactly what they needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

After many years working in the industry, Blais wanted to find a western town like Durango to move to and believes he\u2019s found the perfect fit.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s looking forward to continuing Ballantine\u2019s legacy in the Four Corners.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am here to continue the great tradition of The Durango Herald<\/em> and our other newspapers, but also use my experience to reach new generations of readers and protect its business and the legacy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

This article was updated Jan. 13 to add information about Claretian Missionaries. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

looks to use strong business background to propel company<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,950,799,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-29753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-durango","tag-farmington","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29753"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80845,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29753\/revisions\/80845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29753"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=29753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}