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.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Well perhaps, based on the input of so many knowledgable FReepers, we should now move on to the actual planning phase, and see where we end up with as far as a plan goes.

I can, based on the input of you and others, write up a bare-bones plan that we can all flesh out as we go.

And, if a plan comes together, we can then think about providing it as a template for FReepers in other areas to use as a starting point? What say ya?

[Hilltop]

Revenue is the mantra. Advertisers expect eyes on pages, and floor trafic which translates into "I saw you in the paper, or "I have a coupon.".

If you've seen the movie City Slickers, I know the "meaning of this."

Regards,

Hilltop

[Chad Fairbanks]

LOL... nice police call LOL... but anyway... People do this all the time, it seems, so whay can't we? :0)

[Libertina]

I say aye!

[Chad Fairbanks]

Your wish is my command... ;0)

[Libertina]

BTW Chad, I love your current tagline. :)

[StriperSniper]

People do this all the time, it seems, so whay can't we? :0)

No reason to "can't" the idea. ;-)

I have thought about approaching the guy to see if he might consider letting me write a local fishing scene column for him. If he took me up on the idea, it would be a valuable credit to have if I ever wanted to take writing any further. I doubt there would be any money to be made, in fact, I'd probably have to sell a couple ads to get it going. That would be easy enough though, since none of my friends local shops have been using that valuable resource yet.
;-)

[Chad Fairbanks]

Of course, it only applies to some people. I'm still working on the whole 'how to act in public' thingy...

[Chad Fairbanks]

Well, good luck with it!

[holyscroller]

The first decision to be made is, is this going to be a news-paper, an opinion-paper, or an "interpretation of the Constitutional side of things"-paper? If it's news, are we covering Washington State stuff (such as the unconstitutionality of what most of the politicians do), and if so, who is going to be the investigative reporting to ferret out the facts? If it's just opinion pieces, you've got to have dynamite headlines that jump off the pages and grab readers or they don't give a hoot what your opinion is. If it's issue based (like "should teachers strike?" we've got tons of grist for the mill.

When I did my state-wide Conservative paper back in the 60's, I used "citizen-experts" who were more knowledgeable about specific issues than the bureaucrats who were trying to ruin their lives. I was amazed at how knowledgeable many ordinary citizens are. This is particularly true "when their ox gets gored," and they either have to become experts in the law pertaining to their issue, or they get buldozed by the bureaucrats.

Also, is this going to be statewide, Western Washington or Puget Sound oriented?

[Chad Fairbanks]

Hmmm... Maybe it's too soon to consider this as an option, but what about the possibility of regional editions? Washington State Focus, with inserts for smaller localities added by the locales themselves, featuring local issues?

For example, we print/publish the actual paper and distribute it to the various locations around the state. A few people in Steilacoom, for example, have a few pages printed up that acts as the community section focusing on issues in the Steilacoom area, and some in Mukilteo do the same for their community, and they are inserted into the ones they receive...

Another thing - Libertina mentioned some ideas about some 'teaching about the constitution' etc... Now, while I'm thinking about hard news and opinion/op-ed pieces etc... one thing we could also consider is an idea similar to the "Coffee Break" section in the PI - But, rather than simply teaching, it could be accomplished via trivia, This Day in History type things etc... just a thought on that.

[holyscroller]

Take a look at www.louguzzo.com I know Lou would let us use his stuff (or he'd write something specific if we asked him to. He's a friend of mine. He's the former publisher of the P.I. and actually VERY Conservative. He co-authored a couple great books with Dixy Lee Ray. He's a frequent reader of FreeRepublic.

[Doctor Stochastic]

None of the alternative papers in this area copy articles from other sources. They all seem to have independent writers. A few have syndicated things like crosswords.

Their big attraction are arts schedules and reviews. Movies, concerts, night clubs, etc., are all big features. They do things like Santa Fé's best restaurant, bar, chili dog, bookstore, laundry, gallery, etc.

[smith5460]

I have a few ideas for a regional/national newspaper.

If you want to cover several states or perhaps the entire country, you could have local bureaus throughout the region you wish to publish and sell the newspaper. For example, there could be a Seattle Bureau, a Walla Walla bureau, a Boise bureau, etc.

The paper could consist of four sections: National News, Local News/Lifestyle, Sports/Business, and Classifieds.

The National News would be the same for all the bureaus.

The local news/lifestyle section would be written and put together by each bureau. This way each edition of the paper will be different in each bureau as it will focus on its own local news.

The sports/business section would encompass both national and local sports and business news.

For the classifieds, each bureau could sell local advertising while the national HQs could sell ads for the entire nation.

Feel free to reply with any comments or questions.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Hmmm... Maybe it's too soon to consider this as an option, but what about the possibility of regional editions? Washington State Focus, with inserts for smaller localities added by the locales themselves, featuring local issues?

For example, we print/publish the actual paper and distribute it to the various locations around the state. A few people in Steilacoom, for example, have a few pages printed up that acts as the community section focusing on issues in the Steilacoom area, and some in Mukilteo do the same for their community, and they are inserted into the ones they receive...

Another thing - Libertina mentioned some ideas about some 'teaching about the constitution' etc... Now, while I'm thinking about hard news and opinion/op-ed pieces etc... one thing we could also consider is an idea similar to the "Coffee Break" section in the PI - But, rather than simply teaching, it could be accomplished via trivia, This Day in History type things etc... just a thought on that.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Hmmm... Maybe it's too soon to consider this as an option, but what about the possibility of regional editions? Washington State Focus, with inserts for smaller localities added by the locales themselves, featuring local issues?

For example, we print/publish the actual paper and distribute it to the various locations around the state. A few people in Steilacoom, for example, have a few pages printed up that acts as the community section focusing on issues in the Steilacoom area, and some in Mukilteo do the same for their community, and they are inserted into the ones they receive...

Another thing - Libertina mentioned some ideas about some 'teaching about the constitution' etc... Now, while I'm thinking about hard news and opinion/op-ed pieces etc... one thing we could also consider is an idea similar to the "Coffee Break" section in the PI - But, rather than simply teaching, it could be accomplished via trivia, This Day in History type things etc... just a thought on that.

[Consort]

How about a Blog in printer friendly format?

[hosepipe]

Now this is a very good idea,,,,
Going Hmmmmmm to myself.....keep me posted.. on your progress... have a large conservative audience here.. No conservative right wing extremeist mean spirited papers that I see here.... could be time for one... or two..

[Kay Soze]

"Have you ever noticed how often they are left-wing publications? "

Very true!

Great thread!

Thanks for the inspiration!

[Chad Fairbanks]

Well, I'm more concerned with Washington State, but nothing says that others couldnt' step up to the plate in other areas and pick up the ball and run with it. Eventually, it could lead to a national project that shares resources...

It's an idea :)