How to start and publish an independent Newspaper

Free Republic ^ | 09/21/2003 | Chad Fairbanks

[Chad Fairbanks]

How To Start 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.

What is an Alternative newspaper?

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.

Why would I want to start one?

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?

The simple answer is simply, “Why not?”

What should I do first?

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?

All these question, and many more, will need to be answered in your plan.

How will I pay for 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 intend to fund the venture should be a major part of your plan.

How will I publish my newspaper?

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.

How will I distribute my newspaper?

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.

What are the legal issues involved?

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.

[doxteve]

During the late 60s I worked on a left wing alternative paper (I was a heart bleeding environmentalist back then. But I've recovered.)

We were invovled with trying to stop a nuclear power plant in Skagit County, WA, and succeeded. One of the alumni was Joel Connely of the Seattle PI fame. There were others who used the Northwest Passage as a stepping stone, but they aren't in the area anymore. Success to them was a geographical change.

Anyway, we had people who wanted to spread the word, and were willing to work on doing it. Some wrote, as I did, some hawked ads, and others did what was fun and useful.

A couple or three years ago I was at a Republican Lincoln Day Dinner in Skagit County and our speaker was a conservative radio personality. After he spoke I waited in line to speak to him and I told him about my thoughts on getting a conservative "underground paper" up and running. He liked the idea. Even gave me his home phone number. I was swamped with putting out a lot of fires at the time and couldn't get back to him able to offer reasonable guarantees of time, money, etc. I just ran plum out of steam and have been fighting more or less the same old fires, but I think Chad Fairbanks is right; we do need a small alternative paper to cut throught the main media morass.

I believe we conservatives have to start small, just as the bong puffers did in the 60's. I laughed at their papers, one of which was the Seattle Weekly, which is now a lefitst copraphilic give away in all the coffee shops at least in Western WA.

You're right Chad. Let's get cracking on this. If the hippies could shut down a nuclear power plant, pass the state environmental legislation, and be quoted in our state capitol, then maybe some of us here and now can create a conservative wave. Waves have crests. A conservative wave crest could wash away a lot of the stuff that needs to go in this state.

[Hilltop]

Good. Then you just have two hurdles to clear, content and revenue.

Good luck with your endeavour.

Excuse the (sic)"Free mail me."

Instead, freepmail me if I can be of assistance. After all, typos are our enemy.

Hilltop

[Chad Fairbanks]

Thanks for the words of encouragement and experience.

First and foremost, we need a plan. One thing I do know, is that in Western Washington, something like this would be very very controversial, and that too could be something that gives us a leg up ;0)

[Chad Fairbanks]

Actually three - content, revenue, and distribution ;0)

[Chad Fairbanks]

Also, another thing to keep in mind is that this idea is, of course, not limited to myself, but other FReepers or lurkers out there who may want to consider this idea for their own communities.

While this is research for myself, on behalf of the rest of the Puget Sound Chapter, I hope that others will also consider this idea as something they might want to look into for their own communities...

[Hilltop]

If you read the first post, I addressed distribution.

Regards,

Hilltop

[Chad Fairbanks]

Thank you!

[doxteve]

��5{��������nd revenue.

On the Northwest Passage we had plenty of content. Around 40 years ago the underground press did a take-off on the AP, UP, UPI, and other newswire services in that if you too were and underground paper you could re-print articles from the Berkeley Barb, etc., free and clear.We'd always give credit and were far more honest than the NY TImes and some of the other main stream media.

Revenue was a little harder to come by. We had a couple of bong puffing hippies go out into the straight commuity and actually sell ads. Of course the regulars owned head shops, gave massages, and a few straight craftsmen, etc, gave us a precarious hold on a print shop, which by the way, was a Christian shop in Lynden, WA. He only printed if the cash was there, and somehow it always was.

So, we had something like a never ending well of pretty well written leftist crap to print. But a conservative paper doesn't want to print leftist crap. However, if something comes along on the internet maybe we can request permission to print a particular writer on a one time basis. If we ask well known conservative writers for permission to print their stuff the old saying is we must have more guts than a slaughterhouse: Ask them! Assume nothing! If they say no, then no it is. If they say yes, print it and send copies to them.

I think Chad and the rest of you are on to something. I like that.

[doxteve]

Hilltop, I'd like to add something about distribution.

The old Northwest Passage worked pretty much like FedEx does today. Our distribution center was either Portland, OR, or Seatte. On a certain day the Passage VW Van, which was privately owned, would motor on downt to the "clearing house" loaded with bundles of Northwest Passages. The folks from all over the PNW would go into this funky old building with a lot of floor space and place the bundles on tables. People would go from table to table taking a few papers here and there, or in some cases, a few bundles, and put them into our own vans. We had a couple of coffee shops that sold the Berkely Barb, and other papers from racks inside, so we'd pick these up free of charge and take them to the coffee shops on the way back. Of course the coffee shops were also our advertisers so it was pretty much pro quid pro. Anyway, the CA papers were distributed in our area about a week after they hit the streets in their own home towns. And the distribution costs were minimal. Trust and take this to the next distribution point sort of thing; sort of like how the underground Chinese banking system works.

I'll bet something like this could be done distributing small papers from all over to big conservatives in big places. I'm willing to bet on it.

[holyscroller]

If I can throw in a little input... I'm a past president of both Washington Press Women (writers/reporters) and Pacific Northwest Industrial Editors (editors), so I've got a little experience in newspapering under my belt. If I'm not mistaken, Publius and Poised Woman are old newshawks too.

Some observations on what's been said here so far are:

*Newspapers are on the decline right now. Aside from the fact that many, many people have been turned off by their one-sided reporting, people are bombarded with hundreds/thousands of ideas and images daily, and have no time for papers unless they have a local angle, or contain information that affects them personally. The boob tube has replaced the printed image when it comes to predigested news. It's also up to the minute, unlike old printed news.

*As I tried to point out yesterday, the cost of producing a little tabloid is minimal, just a little over $100 for an 8-pager with one extra color on the masthead. You're not going to have to raise thousands of dollars. Newpapers are dirt cheap to produce.

*The "programs of choice" to produce papers are PageMaker or Quark. No print shop will accept MicroSoft Publisher. They call it a toy program. You have to submit your stuff "camera-ready" and they shoot and print exactly what you send them with absolutely no changes.

*Forget paid writers. Every other Freeper I meet is a writer, and why would we waste time and money printing someone else's opinions. The key to getting read is not who you are, but what you have to say.

*Digital photos are not only perfectly acceptable, but are in fact preferred by every printer I know.

*For starters, one of the best (and safest) ways to distribute is to put the papers in the "free literature" racks in every public library. There's some pretty good stuff to be found there.

*My personal observation is if you want crediblity, use a spell-checker and many proofreaders. People assume if you can't spell, why should they pay any attention to anything you have to say. I cringe when I see some of the spellings that show up on otherwise GREAT Free Republic articles.

*As far as learning the ropes, there are many good "how to" books that will tell you everything you need to know. It's not brain surgery. The secret is not to waste a lot of time and money reinventing the wheel. To get a great design, go find the best looking tabloid you've ever seen and copy the design and layout precisely. (No the design is not copyrighted). Copy great headline styles, writing styles, layout styles, etc.

On a pessimistic note, of all the Conservative tabloids I've seen try to get started in the past few years, only one is still alive and thriving, and it's got one single topic, and is dedicated to a very local community issue. One young fellow is trying to get one going for young Republicans at the UW, and even with the backing of the Republican Party, he's really struggling.

Anyway, I don't have the time to do a paper, but I'm sure available to share any knowledge on the subject I might have.

[doxteve]

That is quid pro quo.

[foreverfree]

bump

[doxteve]

Your pessimism is well founded, my dear.

The Skagit County Republicans tried to interest the conservatives at the UW to send us some of their stuff so we coudl print it in the country Repub paper. Alas, as they say.

The first couple of issues the conservative paper were stolen, outright, openly, by the Black Student Union. Intimidation is a horrible thing. This has been a very strong discouragement to them.

Remember too, that the Left wing, commie UW administration too is afraid of the BSU. This is a serious problem at all politically correct institutions. What to do? What to do and not go to jail is really the question.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Thanks for your insight - we had a pretty good discussion going on this topic at the picnic yesterday. :0)

[Libertina]

They had one at the Evergreen State Fair as well...

[holyscroller]

"We had a good discussion going at the meeting yesterday."

I know. I was there. :0)

[djf]

Hope everyone is ok. The one in Puyallup was a fender bender.

[Chad Fairbanks]

I know - how could I possibly forget? ;0)


I'm starting to lean towards the idea of a small printed edition, with references to an online location where more up-to-the-minute stories, columns, etc... are available.

But I'm still open to other ideas :0)

[Libertina]

I agree with Holy Scroller, that we have plenty of writers within our ranks. In fact, I am a great believer in whatever you need is located nearby with the people you know. Also. I want to stress that we SHOULD print what we believe. I do NOT agree with pulling punches because an unknown someone might disagree. Certainly the leftie papers printed what they wanted to from the beginning. Why should we be any different? After all, OUR ideas have reason, logic, and been proven successful. PS I would like conservative cartoons in our newspaper. :) Also a Constitution section every time teaching quickly about one of the amendements. Also a quick history story of the day - a look at a Founder/patriot and a couple interesting facts. I'd also like to see a quick synopsis of articles on the front like USA Today does.

For a long time I've wanted a national paper like USA today with conservative journalists, but we can start here ;)

[StriperSniper]

A guy in my town who had some axe to grind with the locals started a weekly. It's kind of a mini-broadsheet looking thing with a couple of feature articles, an advice column, a few comics, a small classified section and lots of local ads.

And my favorite, the police blotter written by 'Charlie Chan'. It has a bunch of local stuff told with a little flair. Here's a sample:

OUT THE DOOR: At Blockbuster a gent, personage unknown, enters store,went into the "Movie Section" and proceeded to "stuff an unknown quantity of video's and D.V.D.'s into his jacket." Gent exits store, alarm goes off. Worker yells "stop!", gent doesn't. natch. Gent does opposite, runs. Off. arrives, search of area turns up negative. Gent was on the hefty side, 240 lbs., age about 30, height 5'10" with dark hair. March 12th 2:54 p.m.

It's distributed around town in small stacks on sills and such by the doors of deli's and the like.