Pulse Weekly
By JEANNE LA MARCA | NMPA Shop Talk
December 2004
If you want to know what’s happenin’ in southern New Mexico, get your hands on a copy of Pulse. It’s a weekly entertainment guide that lists movies, places to eat, clubs, concerts, CD releases, things to do, and events. Anything and everything there is to do in the area you’ll find in Pulse, right in the Lordsburg Liberal.
Jason Watkins, the former editor and publisher of The Independent and later the Lordsburg Liberal, is the editor of Pulse.
The Pulse staff seeks to reach a wide readership of all ages, but the main focus is the much sought after younger reader. “When I was at the Lordsburg Liberal, I edited in a style that would attract young people so they would get in the habit of reading a newspaper,” Watkins explained.
“I’m doing the same thing with Pulse, and so we target people ages 18 to 34. That’s the demographic right now that’s being completely under-served. I know because I belong to it,” Watkins said. “We’re the ones right now who have the money and who are spending it. We’re the ones advertisers are desperate to reach. And we’re the ones who will, or already do, make the important decisions.”
Anyone checking out the ads in Pulse will see that many of them are, shall we say, family oriented, but others are not your mother’s advertisements. Some of the ads skate on the edge, right where the younger set hangs out. It’s easy to see why business owners choose Pulse as a place to spend their advertising nickel. The younger readers always want to know what’s going on, so they read Pulse and, Voila!, That’s where the cool ads can be found.
In addition to Pulse’s offerings of flixs (aka flicks), tunes, grub and clubs, included is a reprise of a Lordsburg favorite — ”Daytrippin’ — that’s become a hit. In addition, readers can visually snack on terrific feature stories, usually written by Adrian Gomez, Pulse’s features editor, and Watkins. If these two actually visit all the people and places they write about, it’s a wonder they have time to put the magazine together every week.
But then, good editors probably function best on a wing and a prayer, with a little sleep thrown in on a good day…er, night. These young guys do whatever it takes to keep their readers happy and in the know.
“Our goal is to be fresh, edgy, sometimes humorous and relevant,” Watkins said. It’s not easy to launch a brand-new publication (something
else I have some experience with) and sustain it. But, in the first few months of the magazine, we’re not just sustaining it; we’re growing. Make no mistake: Pulse knows its readership. “Young readers are so much smarter and so much more sophisticated than people think,” Watkins believes.
“There’s nothing worse than when we, the young readers, pick up a publication that’s bland, boring and not relevant to our lives.”
No one would describe Watkins as boring. When he bought the Liberal, it was (and is) New Mexico’s oldest weekly paper. Some might have seen this move as sketchy since he was only 20 years old, a tender age that made him the nation’s youngest publisher.
But from the time Watkins was in high school, he worked at the Liberal and was tutored by the best-for-Liberal editor and publisher, Jack Walz. Jack (he was rarely ever referred to as Mr. Walz) could see the talent and determination his protege had, and so endeavored to give young Jason as extensive an education in the publishing business as he could. This education “took,” and when Jason went to college, he majored in journalism at the University of Arizona, and graduated in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree. He has won several New Mexico Press Awards, Arizona Press Club Awards, and has
been featured in Editor & Publisher Magazine, New Mexico Magazine, and the Arizona Daily Star. In addition to being an accomplished writer, Watkins is an excellent photographer. His work has appeared in the Albuquerque Journal, New Mexico Magazine, The Dallas Morning News, and other publications across the west. He also puts his friends into hysterics with black-line-drawing cartoons.
Watkins is excited to be taking on the duties of a new publication, not that he was displeased with his position at the Las Cruces Sun-News. He’s simply happiest when he can be doing something trendy and vibrant, and Pulse, the latest publication owned by Gannett, the nation’s largest chain of newspapers, is certainly that.
When Watkins was making things sizzle at the Liberal, he tried some things that raised a few eyebrows, mostly in approval. Once he decided to tap into the frustration his readers experience with technology that goes awry or gets out of hand. He and his compadres went out south of town and took his cell phone that had managed to rack up a bill to rival the national debt (not that Watkins had anything to do with the size of the bill).
They blew the phone to bits and photographed the whole event for the paper.
Though a couple of dissenters voiced their opinions of the blowup nearly everyone else loved it, provoking Watkins to toy with the idea of establishing a Website offering to blow up VCRs, computers, and similar items that make their owners nuts, and document the event with his camera. Speaking of his superiors at Pulse’s parent company,Gannett, Watkins said, “They haven’t yet allowed me to blow up a cell phone, but I’m working on it.”
Pulse comes out every Thursday morning and is distributed in Las Cruces, Silver City, Lordsburg, Deming, Alamogordo and other areas in the southern half of the state. It is also distributed free on Fridays on newsstands across southern New Mexico.
Now at the ripe old age of 26, Watkins wants to make sure everyone knows where to go and what to do to have fun in southern New Mexico. “We want to know what’s hot, who’s coming to concert, what movies are opening, what clubs have the best drink specials, “Watkins explained.
“That’s what Pulse is all about. And if we can do it with style and humor, that’s even better”
Jack Walz would be proud.
