Donna Bischoff returns as MPA Director

Each year, Missouri Press members volunteer their time and expertise in service to the Association’s leadership, helping to guide the trade group in representing the interests of more than 200 member publications.

Directors to the MPA Board are elected each year during the business meeting held as part of the Association’s annual convention and trade show. Nominations to serve on the board are accepted until July 1 and are then reviewed by a nominating committee for consideration by MPA’s voting members.

MPA’s newly elected directors this year are Secretary Donna Bischoff, senior director of sales for several publications in the BridgeTower Media network and based in St. Louis; and Treasurer Jaime Mowers, editor-in-chief and part owner of the Webster-Kirkwood Times.

Donna Bischoff is a familiar face for the Association, having served on the board of directors for several years prior to a one-year hiatus in 2024. Still, during that time she remained involved, assisting with the search committee for Missouri Press’ next executive director.

Holding a psychology degree from the University of Central Missouri, Bischoff never imagined her career’s journey this way. In fact, she was working in social services when she visited a friend who worked for the Rocky Mountain News in Colorado.

“She worked in advertising and seemed to be having a blast,” Bischoff recalled. “Inspired, I returned home and applied for a position as a classified sales representative at the St. Louis Suburban Journal. That led me to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for the next 30 years.

“Now, 37 years later, I am still in the newspaper business and loving it more than ever,” Bischoff said. “The business is ever evolving, and it definitely keeps you on your toes.”

Sticking with the newspaper business means finding the bright spots to keep yourself going and for Bischoff the bright spots are the people she gets to work with every day. “I have made lifelong friendships with my colleagues in this business. You really can’t find better people to work alongside.

“There is such passion in the people who produce the content. From an advertising perspective, I have been a part of growing and sustaining peoples’ businesses,” Bischoff said. “What we do is important, and it is evident every day.”

With so much experience on the sales side, Bischoff knows all too well how declining print circulation and advertising revenue has hobbled publications of all shapes and sizes. In the face of readers’ increasing digital media consumption, newspapers are adapting their business models in whatever ways they can, which often leads to layoffs, reduced coverage and sometimes closures.

The industry’s problems are made worse by widespread misinformation and the need to maintain ethical journalistic standards in a rapidly changing media landscape that increasingly puts a greater emphasis on being first more than right.

Still, Bischoff wants to be a bright spot for others in the newspaper business. “I am passionate about this industry. I believe in what we do, and I want to be a part of the solution to the problems we face.”

When you meet Bischoff at an MPA event this year, don’t feel you just have to talk shop with her. She’s passionate about her work, sure, but her family is her number one priority, including being a mom to three kids and a dog-mom to two Dalmatians.

And when it’s time to get away, Bischoff really gets away. “I love to travel and have been to more than 20 countries.” She added that traveling to Africa is on her bucket list.