Community newspapers require communities to buy in | Matters Of Opinion | hmbreview.com – Half Moon Bay Review

“You bought what?” asks a friend. “A small-town weekly newspaper,” comes my reply, followed by “it’s obviously not about making money.” “Why then?” comes the follow-up. “Because democracy is important, and community is important, and a local paper is an important part of all that.” “So, how’s that going?” is the final question. 

Ever since we got together to “save” the local paper a few years ago, every member of Coastside News Group has experienced this same back-and-forth. Most questioners’ eyes glaze over at the response to the final question, something like, “It’s moving in the right direction, but it’s a challenging project.”

The good news is that we continue to win statewide awards, including first place for “General Excellence” and a passel of awards for news, editorials, cartoons and humor. We’ve stopped the pattern of cutbacks followed by downsizing followed by more cutbacks, a pattern that is all too familiar across the country as other local papers shut down left and right. We’ve developed an independent local organization that does all the work necessary to thrive, including reporting, editorializing, advertising, and bookkeeping.

Our Coastside neighbors were so impressed with it all that they joined us to take over the Pacifica Tribune, which we have restored to a respected publication focused exclusively on local news. Every month we also produce a wonderful magazine that highlights the people and places of the entire Coastside, from Pacifica to Pescadero and beyond. We make it all available both in print and online. We survived a pandemic that wiped out similar organizations across the country.

The bad news is that we have not yet achieved our primary goal — to create a sustainable profitable company that can continue for another 125 years. That will require more creativity and elbow grease on our part, and greater engagement from our community. Only if people buy more papers and support our advertisers can this all work out. Meanwhile, CNGI continues to do what it takes to keep improving the papers, and we are optimistic about local journalism on the Coastside.

My friend’s next question is usually something like, “Why not just do it all online? Only old people read the news from dead trees.”

Most of us at CNGI have an entrepreneurial background, and this type of thinking is very attractive, so we focused many of our efforts in the first two years on beefing up our online sites. As we did so, we were also learning the local media business. What we found is that there is no revenue in small-town online sites. Without revenue, there is no pay for reporters and there is no professional journalism. There are lots of volunteer online “local news” sites that are mostly free editorializing. Unfortunately, nobody but the largest media companies can garner significant revenue online. With a total population of about 65,000 people, the Coastside just does not have enough “eyeballs” to make money online, certainly not enough money to pay for a professional editorial staff. Social media outfits like Nextdoor serve a vital function but are not a substitute for journalism.

“Why not just raise your subscription rates and eliminate free online access?” comes the next question. It turns out subscription revenue is a very small chunk of what is needed, and every time you raise rates you lose subscribers. Advertisers like lots of subscribers.

Old-fashioned print advertising, which lets local businesses showcase their products and services, continues to be the mainstay of local media revenue. This is supplemented by those odd legal notices that are required by law, and which are all that remains of the once-lucrative classified advertising business that was wiped out by Craigslist.

So please, readers, support our efforts. If you are reading the paper for free, consider subscribing. It’s a bargain! If you are a subscriber, talk a friend or two into subscribing as well, either online or in print. And by all means, support our local advertisers. 

Keep giving us your feedback as well. Every good thing you share makes us all very proud, and every criticism is taken to heart. We generally try to avoid talking about ourselves too much, but I know a lot of people are interested in a little of the background on the how, what, why and who of the local papers. In the future, if there is interest, I’ll share some of what I’ve learned about the day-to-day reality of professional journalism, both on the editorial side and the business side. 

Rich Klein lives in El Granada and is CEO of Coastside News Group Inc., a California benefit corporation.

Techyrack Website stock market day trading and youtube monetization and adsense Approval

Adsense Arbitrage website traffic Get Adsense Approval Google Adsense Earnings Traffic Arbitrage YouTube Monetization YouTube Monetization, Watchtime and Subscribers Ready Monetized Autoblog

from Make Money Online – My Blog https://ift.tt/APzvxwa
via IFTTT