Within social media I've found the greatest impedance to conversation with people of different opinions is that we stand in alternate landscapes of "facts". I cannot see the information that they see, which shapes their opinions. Each of our "timelines" are unique, and so each of our landscapes are unique.<p>Print media provides a common landscape. And that landscape forms the basis from which meaningful conversation between different opinions can grow.
Hope they find much success and build a model that can be replicated.<p>It is a sin how little effort is put into local news. It is far easier for large corporations to re-package the same national news into different markets, than it is to do good journalism at the local level.<p>Your local news affiliate on ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX mostly just repackages stories from other affiliates, or run something easy to cover stories like a house fire or inclement weather. This local coverage is MANDATED by the FCC to benefit local communities.<p>Want to know what you city council voted on this week? What bills your state senate has passed? What non-profits have done to benifit your community? Good luck. It is unlikely that they will cover it.
Local news is the most relevant news there is, in anyone's life, anywhere!<p>Our focus on national and international news takes up too much of an unnecessary time and energy. On top of that, we spend ridiculously more time reading about what far away politicians have to say, or do.<p>Glad to see people from technology sector investing time and money in strengthening the local communities.
Local journalism should be able to do better than they are in the changing publication landscape. It's niche by definition: while I can get national news from a wide number of sources, and global news from an almost uncountable number, there are only a handful of providers of local news. It tends to require "boots on the ground". It can also be practically relevant in day-to-day life, more so than the more abstract issues of wider relevance.<p>What I don't need from my local and regional news provider is coverage of national and global issues; yet they keep reporting on them, probably because newspapers of yore were often the only provider of news for many people. That hasn't been true for a while.
Their subscriber income will be tiny according to their target of 6000 subs at $12 PA.<p>Their outgoings include 7 journalists and printing and distribution costs (currently they are giving away 15000 copies free every week, which they plan to reduce to 5000 per week).<p>I really want endeavours like this to be successful and would love to understand how they plan to make this a sustainable (non loss making) business. The traditional model is classifieds & local ads, but that's not been working for a while now.
And that's how a big corporation (USA Today) dropped a niche and someone had the vision and the guts to take the gauntlet.<p>Local news are (probably) the last niche for journalism.
People care about what's happening nearby - and unless you have a local newspaper, you'll miss that news or they can pass as fake ones.<p>The only problem I see is printing is cash-flow intensive compared to full digital. I mean, for paper you have a daily/weekly expense with a proper credit line/funded account with the printer. In digital "printing" cost is not zero, but scales better with higher audiences - which is not the case for <i>local</i> news unless you have "local" news from a big population cluster (which is probably served by bigCo's like Hearst, Knight Ridder, Berkshire Hathaway, etc..)
If you are interested in printing your own newspaper check out <a href="http://www.newspaperclub.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.newspaperclub.com/</a><p>I received their samples in preparation for sending out graphic design and photography promos and the quality is great.
One thing this article and the comments haven't discussed yet is how much the viability of local newspapers depends on the local real estate market. Take a look at your local newspaper if you have one, and I bet it's chock full of real estate ads. (Where I live, the Palo Alto Daily Post certainly is, as is the competing Weekly; example here: [1]). And it makes sense: the most relevant ads for a local population are matters of local interest, and for expensive houses, the ROI for ad-spend can easily make sense.<p>So I expect that a big factor in whether quality local newspapers can survive is the strength of the local housing market, (measured through e.g. median house price and yearly volume). As a practical matter, this means that only in relatively affluent places is local news financially feasible, (although the housing market isn't the only reason why that's the case). It also means that more people searching for property online may present a challenge for local news.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.paloaltoonline.com/morguepdf/2017/2017_03_24.paw.section1.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.paloaltoonline.com/morguepdf/2017/2017_03_24.paw....</a>
I'm very happy this exists, but I feel like it's time for the underdog media to give up on money-making, and just register the paper as non-profit.<p>It seems like this developer isn't looking to make a profit anyways, and that move helps ensure he or a future owner has more barriers to changing their minds.<p>Not all valuable endeavors yield a profit-making opportunity.
As a resident of a neighboring town to Montclair, I couldn't be more excited to see a new local newspaper trying to keep the residents more informed. Needless to say, I spent the $12 to subscribe. If this goes well, I hope to see more papers of this nature popping up in my town and others in the area!
I think local newspapers are better placed to survive than national ones. Round here they send photographers to every community event and people love seeing themselves/relatives/friends/enemies in print.
Also district court proceedings esp involving drunks can make for great unintended comedy.<p>Presumably this paper is aiming to be mostly funded by advertising because their subscription target is only €72K p.a. and they have a staff of 7.
Interesting. I work in Montclair a couple of days a week. It probably is the type of town that could support this, but it's still kind of peculiar. The Montclair Times HQ was shut down - it's now a dialysis center. There is a blog of sorts as the article mentions, Baristanet, that covers local news in Montclair, although I have no clue how many people read it.<p>I would imagine that most people in Montclair read the NYTimes - perhaps it would make sense for the NYTimes to 'up' it's local coverage game in the tri state area.
> A subscription costs $12 a year, and he is aiming to sign up 6,000 subscribers.<p>That's nothing. Barely pays for basic business expenses. The potential in a market that size isn't even that great and there is also the cost to acquire those subscribers. And 6000 readers doesn't allow you to make any money from advertising at least not w/o taking advantage of the type of advertisers who don't understand media buying and aren't overpaying.
This looks like an amazing initiative - and shows an entrepreneurial spirit! As a side note, it's interesting, how many software engineers consider alternative careers for themselves?
Is there a currently updated database of local papers by region? I honestly have no idea how many local news papers are available to my area. I know of at least four from having seen them at the market, but no place online to check for more. I am finding dozens of historical dbs but none current.<p>Edit: <a href="http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/</a>
> the animosity the Trump administration has directed at the news media has injected new vigor into a beleaguered industry.<p>I'm no fan of Trump, but leave it to the NYT to frame its industry as a victim. As though decades of increasingly partisan coverage had nothing to do with the industry's problems.