How to start and publish an independent Newspaper

First off, let me be blunt: The last time I was involved in anything like this, was during the 1980s when I helped create and distribute a ‘newsletter’ – a cheap little ‘paper’ printed by a friend at a local print shop in the middle of the night, and distributed by hand in school during the day.

As such, I am posting this article from a perspective having a distinct lack of experience, in order to spark discussions, to learn from others more experienced than I, and to hopefully spark some creative ideas, solutions, and information from other FReepers.

So, without further ado, allow me to lay out some ideas, concepts, and such in order to begin the discussion.

An Alternative Newspaper is a newspaper that provides news, opinions, or information that one would usually not find in the many mainstream daily newspapers which are published in cities and towns across the country. The term ‘Alternative’, is a word in modern parlance that is now devoid of any true meaning. What was once considered ‘alternative’ is now part of the mainstream culture. For our purposes, the word ‘alternative’ means something that is different than the mainstream liberal publications, as it pertains to print media.

Have you ever been at a bus top, subway station, or a music store, and seen free, independent ‘alternative’ newspapers sitting in racks? Have you ever noticed how often they are left-wing publications? Other than being more extreme, they are often not all that different from the mainstream newspapers. Wouldn’t you like to see one that espouses a conservative viewpoint for a change? Well, that’s not going to happen by itself. Someone needs to step up to the plate and get involved.

You may love to write, or perhaps you want an outlet for other creative ideas, such as cartooning. Perhaps you are tired of the local mainstream daily newspaper ignoring stories of local importance, or covering it with an obvious bias?

Plan, plan, and plan some more. Creating, publishing, and distributing a newspaper is not any easy job. You must create a plan that will help you determine your goals, what you hope to accomplish, and how you are going to achieve what you set out to do. Much like a Business Plan – not only will this plan help to keep you on track, it may also help to secure funding.

Find a group of like-minded people in your area to help you. As you begin to plan, determine what skills they have, in order to determine what their responsibilities and duties will be. Each person will bring unique abilities to the table, and you must find a way to tap into those strengths.

What will your paper be called? What will its focus be? How often will you publish? How will you fund the publishing and distribution? How will you distribute it?

Without a secure reliable source of revenue, you will never get your paper off the ground. The best plan in the world will not help you, if you are unable to implement it. So, how would you go about securing the funding necessary to launch your newspaper? There are many ways, and how you go about it may be different than how others do. You may choose to raise money through bake sales, or by approaching small businesses in your area to run ads. You may secure grants through sympathetic foundations or organizations, through donations from private individuals, or by paid subscriptions from readers.

How you choose to print and publish your newspaper is important. Anyone can run to Kinko’s and run off 100 copies of a piece of paper. Actually publishing a newspaper, on the other hand, requires a little more work and planning.

One option is to approach a small local newspaper, and pay for a printing job. Many small newspapers perform third-party printing work in order to make extra money. You will be required, usually, to provide a camera-ready work for them to print. There are some software packages that can assist you in preparing a camera-ready work. An example would be Quark XPress, which can provide camera-ready artwork in PDF format.

How you prepare your newspaper copy will be determined by your printer. Many will have specific requirements, and when choosing a printer it is important to determine what their requirements are and whether you are able to meet those requirements.

The manner in which you distribute your newspaper will again vary, depending on your needs, circumstances, and locality. You may be able to negotiate a deal by becoming an insert within another published paper. Another option would be to pay for placement through a company in your area that provides this type of service. The next time you are in a supermarket, or at a bus stop and you see the newspaper racks, check it out and find the information about the company that provides the racks and the space. Contact them and find out about placement for your paper.

Another option would be mail-order, home delivery, or you and some friends could hand them out to passers-by at a local shopping center.

When distributing, be creative. The more you distribute, the more people you will reach with your message.

A word of warning: Liberals, being intolerant as they are, have been know to steal and destroy as many copies of conservative papers as they can get their hands on. Depending on your area, you may need to take this type of activity into account. Secondly, they have also been known to slip inserts into other newspapers. Again, this may be something you need to watch for.

This is a good question – one that I have relatively few answers for. The obvious one, which revolve around Libel, is something that I hope any lawyers here can answer. Other issues may include incorporating, LLCs, etc. which vary from locale to locale.

Great overview on newspaper publishing. Of interest to those who are looking for more information on starting a commuinity newspaper please visit www.thebugle.net. As the editor/publisher of a community newspaper for ten years with “conservative” contributors who are activists in the community, I can confirm that readers look forward to articles that they cannot find in the tradiitonal press. Liberals and conservatives alike are welcome to contribute to our newspaper and we have covered the point and counterpoint perspectives of issues ranging from civic unions vs marriage to illegal immigration and whistleblowing. Corruption in our elections was a hot topic in 2007. It continues in 2008 but this year the connections of a major developer in the area to the elected officials who have become millionaires in a few short years while serving their master is getting broad exposure both in the tradiional press, which few have time to read, to the masses that our newspaper reaches. You see we chose to distribute our monthly newspapers by direct mail reaching 56,000 homes and business in the saturation mailed route. Thank you, Brad, for working to inspire more independent newspapers across the nation. We are working to make the dream a reality.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.