July 14-20, 2005

naked city

Legal Challenge

Philly's new law man: John Mason, publisher for American Lawyer Media's Pennsylvania newspaper group. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

ALM's first African-American publisher has no problem playing against type.

by Sara K. Satullo

When John Mason was named publisher of the American Lawyer Media's Pennsylvania newspaper group on March 28, he saw it as just another step up the ladder. But the significance hit him when City Council passed a resolution on June 9, honoring him as the African-American publisher of the group whose titles include The Legal Intelligencer, the oldest daily legal paper in the country and the official publication for Philadelphia legal notices.

"A lot of things I have done in business are the first," figures

Mason, 46, who just ended a 21-year run with Gannett, "but it never really enters my conscience."

When Councilwoman Marion Tasco first contacted Mason about the resolution, he figured the ceremony would be little more than a five-minute photo op. It turned into a full-blown celebration for him and his family, with a reading of the framed resolution and photographs with all of City Council.

"Now it's my job not to screw it up," laughs Mason, lounging in a chair in his 17th-floor Suburban Station corner office overlooking JFK Boulevard. He's charged with overseeing and increasing product recognition for ALM Pennsylvania's daily papers, magazines, online newsletters, Web portals, and constantly updated legal rule books and directories. "It's more [titles] than I've counted," he says of his purview.

Mason, who's made a career of playing against type, is up for the challenge. His father was an IBM employee who worked on the early patents research team for the manufacture of silicon chips; he encouraged his son to pursue the computer field. Mason graduated in three and a half years from the State University of New York at Potsdam with a degree in mathematics, two credits short of a double major in physics. He hoped to beat out the job seekers and opted out of a final semester.

After college he spent four years as a systems analyst for Kodak, where he worked at moving the company's payroll from a manual time-clock system to computer. From there he moved to Gannett, where he worked on the launch of USA Today's home delivery system before leaping into the corporate office. Mason eventually found himself in the blue-collar town of Chambersburg, Pa., where he accepted the job of president and publisher of Gannett paper Public Opinion. It was this "first" — Mason was the first systems person at Gannett to become a publisher — that's been the defining move of his career. His close work with newspaper staffs setting up subscription services convinced Gannett he was up to the task.

Mason and his wife, Lori, a black professional couple, were aware of the challenges that lay in moving to a small rural farming community; the Public Opinion's total circulation was 18,000.

The couple thrived in Chambersburg as Lori rapidly rose to director with Mary Kay cosmetics while raising their daughter, Rayna. But as Rayna came of school age the Masons decided they needed to move on.

"We have a 5-year-old daughter ready for the first grade, and we want her to benefit from the school experience by having many friends, role models and heroes," Mason explains. "By heroes, I mean successful community members to look up to who look like Rayna."

Mason speaks fondly of his years in Chambersburg, but the family felt it needed to be near a metropolitan center. "We definitely left for cultural reasons, but it was our choice to go there in the first place," he says. "It is a nice, quaint town and it has a lot to offer. To be happy there you just have to see that, embrace it and respect that. My family did and we were treated great."

While the reception in Philly has been exceptional, Mason's not about to relax. While legal publishing is a fairly small niche and ALM's Pennsylvania newspaper group isn't particularly flush with competitors, Mason sees the information sources that his publications rely on, such as the Philadelphia courts and the Montgomery courts, as his local competition. (Nationally, outfits like Lexis and West Law are the dominant players.) "With the digital distribution of information, everybody can start putting their information on their Web sites," says Mason. "We bring consolidation" of that information.

"[Readers] need more than just the Philadelphia court rules. They need to read what's going on in the business of law, what the court listings are," says Mason. "What I hope for is that I can give people more choices to get more of that information than any one source can provide."

Sao while the early plaudits have been nice, Mason's not about to rest on them.

"Honestly, I'm still not where I eventually want to be," he says. In time, Mason hopes people will be more aware of the depth and breadth of what ALM has to offer. "I am honored, but I will take more pride in recognition for my sweat equity down the road."