The Flyleaf Bookstore meeting room was full of people anxious to hear about ongoing efforts to revive a local newspaper that would serve Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Del Snow began by enumerating the many professional journalists involved in the effort. She emphasized that the lack of a local newspaper is not because of lack of interest in local journalism but, rather, because the out-of-state corporation that bought the Chapel Hill News—and many other local papers—incurred tremendous debt and has been trying to cut costs by laying off staff, reducing coverage, and, in some cases, shutting down papers altogether.
Not surprisingly, the 900 responses of a town-wide survey taken by revealed overwhelming support for a local newspaper. The founding group has met with a number of area publishers and editors to gain insight into costs and challenges and receive advice.
Finally, Del recounted the team’s negotiations with the General Manager of the Daily Tar Heel. We proposed a mutually beneficial partnership, but a sticking point has been the DTH GM’s insistence that any collaboratively produced publication be written exclusively by students.
Jock Lauterer, a professor, author, and nationally recognized advocate for community journalism, then made an impassioned and persuasive case for the importance and viability of local journalism. He described the many flourishing community newspapers across the country and within NC, including several owned by Warren Buffet. Jock expressed confidence that, with a solid business plan, professional staff, and willing volunteers, southern Orange County can also have a paper that covers local news, provides a forum for diverse views, and helps nurture community.
The working group members then laid out the specifics of the vision – a fact-based weekly publication that reports on local governance, includes ample room for letters to the editor and community contributed op-eds, provides coverage of local school issues, local sports, local business, community and arts events, and includes life cycle announcements such as weddings and obituaries. The weekly newspaper would be published by a non-profit 501 (c) (3) entity with a first issue appearing—we hope—in late spring. We will apply for grants as well.
BUT, we need donations! We need to be able to hire the quality staff—an editor, reporters, advertising salesperson, graphic designer, etc.—that will make the paper a success. Subscriptions and advertising revenue, however, will be modest at first and grow incrementally, so we expect costs during the first several months of publication, or even the first year, to exceed revenue. We need donations to close the gap. We estimate that by the time the newspaper builds a readership of 2-3 thousand subscribers, we will be self-sustaining.
We also need volunteers who will help doing the groundwork to get up and running. And, we need advertisers – if you would consider advertising, please let us know.
For more information including receiving a pledge card (note: we are not currently asking for actual donations and if and we do not raise enough money, the pledge cards will be destroyed) please contact:
Friends of Local Journalism at: localnewspaper@outlook.com
The future of our local community journalism is up to you. If you are still committed to local coverage that is unbiased and objective while providing a platform for diverse opinion based op-eds and letters to the editor, please join us in this effort.
Friends of Local Journalism