
Software Engineer Starts Unlikely Business: A Weekly Newspaper - cpete
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/27/nyregion/new-newspaper-prompts-war-of-weeklies-in-new-jersey-suburb.html
======
Dangeranger
Within social media I've found the greatest impedance to conversation with
people of different opinions is that we stand in alternate landscapes of
"facts". I cannot see the information that they see, which shapes their
opinions. Each of our "timelines" are unique, and so each of our landscapes
are unique.

Print media provides a common landscape. And that landscape forms the basis
from which meaningful conversation between different opinions can grow.

~~~
freehunter
My small city is going through a minor scandal right now with the city council
accused of giving preferential treatment to a developer while the neighbors
around the proposed development are strongly against the work being done.
Pretty common small city stuff, NIMBY, yadda yadda. We do have a local
newspaper, and at every city council meeting the pro and con factions go to
war either for or against the paper. The paper prints basic facts, which
either side interprets as they will, and one side claiming the paper is biased
towards the other side. Now half the city doesn't trust our newspaper.

Even one common source of facts can be skewed by personal opinion. The only
thing the newspaper changes about the discussion is whose side of the argument
the editor is on.

~~~
MichaelGG
Just printing facts isn't unbiased -- starting with the selection of which
facts to print. Facts alone also lack context. You might factually state
"radiation from Fukushima has been detected in the US". That sounds quite
alarming! So you need to add some context like "This is because detection tech
is very advanced. The levels are very low and pose no cause for concern." But
then someone will criticise you for downplaying things.

So the newspaper could very well be biased and skewed, just in how they
present or don't present certain facts, which context they provide, etc.

~~~
charles-salvia
I agree. A lot of the complaints about "fake news" and everything aren't so
much directed at actual _false_ information being reported - but rather the
selection or emphasis of certain facts over others.

An obvious example was Fox News vs. CNN during the weeks leading up to the
election. Neither company outright _lied_ about anything (for the most part),
but both published headlines emphasizing an entirely different set of facts.
Fox News was constantly blasting headlines about the FBI investigating
Hillary's email, while CNN was constantly blasting headlines about Trump's
sexual misconduct allegations, etc. Neither were really _lying_ in any sense -
but they both painted completely different pictures designed to elicit
differing opinions/reactions from their readers.

Of course, if you want _real_ fake news - that exists as well and always has
before it became a buzz word. The National Enquirer has been publishing fake
news for decades, and nobody cares.

------
bluetwo
Hope they find much success and build a model that can be replicated.

It is a sin how little effort is put into local news. It is far easier for
large corporations to re-package the same national news into different
markets, than it is to do good journalism at the local level.

Your local news affiliate on ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX mostly just repackages stories
from other affiliates, or run something easy to cover stories like a house
fire or inclement weather. This local coverage is MANDATED by the FCC to
benefit local communities.

Want to know what you city council voted on this week? What bills your state
senate has passed? What non-profits have done to benifit your community? Good
luck. It is unlikely that they will cover it.

~~~
steego
> Hope they find much success and build a model that can be replicated.

I'm not sure Montclair is the best place to build a replicable model. It's a
nice town, but it's also a pretty unique bubble (even compared to the rest of
New Jersey). It might be a good place to incubate an idea, but any lessons
learned there probably won't apply to most places across the country.

~~~
mholmes680
I don't know about that. As a fellow NJer, I agree on your assessment of
Montclair, but this story is about a couple who got in touch with the
community and wants to share knowledge in that community to help it grow. I
don't see how that doesn't apply elsewhere, or how they're wrong in approach.
Actually, I even believe the part about not in it for the money.

------
webwanderings
Local news is the most relevant news there is, in anyone's life, anywhere!

Our focus on national and international news takes up too much of an
unnecessary time and energy. On top of that, we spend ridiculously more time
reading about what far away politicians have to say, or do.

Glad to see people from technology sector investing time and money in
strengthening the local communities.

~~~
minikites
It sounds like you are privileged with the ability to ignore the policies that
far-away politicians enact because they don't affect you. Not everyone is as
lucky as you are.

~~~
abhisharm
I understand were you are coming from with a comment like that, but I would
argue that the large majority of people read about and get emotionally
invested in news stories that have no impact on their lives. Take, for
example, the stories of refugees being taken in by European countries, and
those of Donald Trump's view of healthcare. It's nearly physically impossible
to be affected by those two things. We can think of plenty of such 'pairs' of
stories that people get interested in which it's impossible to be affected by
both. And beyond what marginal information you get to inform your voting
preferences via those stories, it is pretty pointless to get invested in them.

~~~
Mithaldu
I live in Hannover, Germany. I am physically impacted by both stories:

For obvious reasons by the refugee one;

And also by Trump's bullshitting with healthcare due to having multiple
friends in the USA whose lives are directly and acutely endangered by him and
his murderous troupe, which in turn impacts my ability to meet them again.

~~~
sremani
Its not the impact itself, but with activism people can influence local
outcomes much better than national and much much better than international
outcomes. Almost any one can go to City council meeting and let their presence
know, and with enough patience can get audience of the council both in public
and private forum. To do that at National and International level the costs
involved are high and there is no denying you have fund your trips to
DC/NY/London/Geneva/The Hauge etc.

That is the point, big fish in small pond vs small fish in an ocean metaphor.

~~~
Mithaldu
Sure, i can do little to impact back, however the post i was replying to was
claiming it would be impossible for me to be impacted by both. Yet i
undeniably am. Also, being informed means i can at least provide my friends
with appropiate emotional support.

------
morsch
Local journalism should be able to do better than they are in the changing
publication landscape. It's niche by definition: while I can get national news
from a wide number of sources, and global news from an almost uncountable
number, there are only a handful of providers of local news. It tends to
require "boots on the ground". It can also be practically relevant in day-to-
day life, more so than the more abstract issues of wider relevance.

What I don't need from my local and regional news provider is coverage of
national and global issues; yet they keep reporting on them, probably because
newspapers of yore were often the only provider of news for many people. That
hasn't been true for a while.

------
cjCamel
Their subscriber income will be tiny according to their target of 6000 subs at
$12 PA.

Their outgoings include 7 journalists and printing and distribution costs
(currently they are giving away 15000 copies free every week, which they plan
to reduce to 5000 per week).

I really want endeavours like this to be successful and would love to
understand how they plan to make this a sustainable (non loss making)
business. The traditional model is classifieds & local ads, but that's not
been working for a while now.

~~~
mholmes680
I was toying around with a similar idea, but figured a local newspaper should
provide local services -- hyper data-gathering at the local level. Like I'd
love to see a dollar-by-dollar breakdown of where my [specific] property taxes
are going, so I can be more informed when voting locally. Make it a special
feature, and charge $5 per sub. Gets their $72k to $84k (say half your subs
can't refuse @ $5) easy. (assuming i can trade one of those journalists for a
data scientist)

I also think "local ads" needs a whole new approach, for a variety of reasons.
You have local business associations shooting themselves in the foot every
time a fellow business is not somehow advertised in any other member store.

Also, syndicate [free-ish] articles from bloggers who can help your community
better itself. Also, extend into the schools - get a HS writer to report the
sports there to pick up more subs.

OK, I'm not covering all the expenses yet, but that's just a few ideas...

~~~
tempaccount1
I'm a journalist turned developer and I had a similar idea a while back. I
feel local news orgs are missing a trick because aggregation is something
journalists can do very well due to the nature of their job (pulling info from
disparate sources, fact-checking etc). With so many sources of general data
and info you can easily provide value by giving it local and regional context.

Btw - this a throwaway account. Having trouble logging in with my username
carlmungz.

------
eb0la
And that's how a big corporation (USA Today) dropped a niche and someone had
the vision and the guts to take the gauntlet.

Local news are (probably) the last niche for journalism. People care about
what's happening nearby - and unless you have a local newspaper, you'll miss
that news or they can pass as fake ones.

The only problem I see is printing is cash-flow intensive compared to full
digital. I mean, for paper you have a daily/weekly expense with a proper
credit line/funded account with the printer. In digital "printing" cost is not
zero, but scales better with higher audiences - which is not the case for
_local_ news unless you have "local" news from a big population cluster (which
is probably served by bigCo's like Hearst, Knight Ridder, Berkshire Hathaway,
etc..)

~~~
dilemma
>The only problem I see is printing is cash-flow intensive compared to full
digital. I mean, for paper you have a daily/weekly expense with a proper
credit line/funded account with the printer.

On the other hand, with digital you have to spend money to advertise and
market to your audience, otherwise it disappears. With print, you own the
"platform" because you pay for the paper, ink, and shipping.

~~~
eb0la
I agree distribution costs both for print/digital are non negligible (let's
face advertising and SEO are forms of distribution in the online world).

But I am not sure digital should be the default way to go for journalism.
Local or not.

In digital there are also personnel cost for setting up and maintaining
infrastructure costs, and refreshing the front page every X minutes (no, it's
not made automatically).

Even if you publish on a third party site (like Facebook) you still have to
pay lump sum people to publish, promote, SEO, and A/B test landing pages...

... Is it worth for a 30-50K people audience? probably not unless you are
thinking on the long run or you're making "evergreen" content...

... But this audience might be enough for a small newspaper printed in
paper... even if the content is not "revived" every year/4 years by search
engines.

------
hypertexthero
If you are interested in printing your own newspaper check out
[http://www.newspaperclub.com/](http://www.newspaperclub.com/)

I received their samples in preparation for sending out graphic design and
photography promos and the quality is great.

~~~
petercooper
Can second. Received samples last week. Pricing is OK but gets particularly
attractive above 1000 copies.

------
naftaliharris
One thing this article and the comments haven't discussed yet is how much the
viability of local newspapers depends on the local real estate market. Take a
look at your local newspaper if you have one, and I bet it's chock full of
real estate ads. (Where I live, the Palo Alto Daily Post certainly is, as is
the competing Weekly; example here: [1]). And it makes sense: the most
relevant ads for a local population are matters of local interest, and for
expensive houses, the ROI for ad-spend can easily make sense.

So I expect that a big factor in whether quality local newspapers can survive
is the strength of the local housing market, (measured through e.g. median
house price and yearly volume). As a practical matter, this means that only in
relatively affluent places is local news financially feasible, (although the
housing market isn't the only reason why that's the case). It also means that
more people searching for property online may present a challenge for local
news.

[1]
[http://www.paloaltoonline.com/morguepdf/2017/2017_03_24.paw....](http://www.paloaltoonline.com/morguepdf/2017/2017_03_24.paw.section1.pdf)

------
Ericson2314
I'm very happy this exists, but I feel like it's time for the underdog media
to give up on money-making, and just register the paper as non-profit.

It seems like this developer isn't looking to make a profit anyways, and that
move helps ensure he or a future owner has more barriers to changing their
minds.

Not all valuable endeavors yield a profit-making opportunity.

------
markwaldron
As a resident of a neighboring town to Montclair, I couldn't be more excited
to see a new local newspaper trying to keep the residents more informed.
Needless to say, I spent the $12 to subscribe. If this goes well, I hope to
see more papers of this nature popping up in my town and others in the area!

~~~
ct0
As a resident, Im so happy to see something so local and exciting on HN!

------
barking
I think local newspapers are better placed to survive than national ones.
Round here they send photographers to every community event and people love
seeing themselves/relatives/friends/enemies in print. Also district court
proceedings esp involving drunks can make for great unintended comedy.

Presumably this paper is aiming to be mostly funded by advertising because
their subscription target is only €72K p.a. and they have a staff of 7.

~~~
Ericson2314
I wish you were right, but for the past 20 or so years, national media has
been less decimated.

~~~
barking
That surprises me, I'd thought the drop in circulations was less severe at the
local level.

~~~
Ericson2314
I wish，but the news is just a another example of increasing monopolization in
America. Economies of scale are a powerful tool against a shrinking market.

------
tcarn
With so much noise online, there's definately a strong argument to be made for
local newspapers like this, great job guys!

------
dr_
Interesting. I work in Montclair a couple of days a week. It probably is the
type of town that could support this, but it's still kind of peculiar. The
Montclair Times HQ was shut down - it's now a dialysis center. There is a blog
of sorts as the article mentions, Baristanet, that covers local news in
Montclair, although I have no clue how many people read it.

I would imagine that most people in Montclair read the NYTimes - perhaps it
would make sense for the NYTimes to 'up' it's local coverage game in the tri
state area.

------
gist
> A subscription costs $12 a year, and he is aiming to sign up 6,000
> subscribers.

That's nothing. Barely pays for basic business expenses. The potential in a
market that size isn't even that great and there is also the cost to acquire
those subscribers. And 6000 readers doesn't allow you to make any money from
advertising at least not w/o taking advantage of the type of advertisers who
don't understand media buying and aren't overpaying.

------
itsmee
This looks like an amazing initiative - and shows an entrepreneurial spirit!
As a side note, it's interesting, how many software engineers consider
alternative careers for themselves?

~~~
stanleydrew
Lots. I am considering starting a small-scale residential real estate
development company and am actively in the process of starting a brewery, for
instance.

There are other software developers that I know doing both.

~~~
enjo
I'm currently enrolled at Washington State studying wine making as a possible
second career.

------
mtreis86
Is there a currently updated database of local papers by region? I honestly
have no idea how many local news papers are available to my area. I know of at
least four from having seen them at the market, but no place online to check
for more. I am finding dozens of historical dbs but none current.

Edit: [http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/](http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/)

------
11thEarlOfMar
I miss the morning paper, and I miss the pre-dawn sky.

------
weberc2
> the animosity the Trump administration has directed at the news media has
> injected new vigor into a beleaguered industry.

I'm no fan of Trump, but leave it to the NYT to frame its industry as a
victim. As though decades of increasingly partisan coverage had nothing to do
with the industry's problems.

~~~
wry_discontent
Trump's interactions with the media, and NYT in particular, is far worse than
previous administrations.

Newspapers have been having (some self inflicted) trouble for a long time, but
what Trump is doing is something new and very dangerous.

~~~
justAFan
How would you recommend Trump respond to the media when they publish things
like this "dossier" back in January before the inauguration that alleged
things like Trump traveling to Russia to rent an old hotel room Obama stayed
in so he could hire Russian prostitutes to perform a "golden showers" show in
front of him -- a "dossier" (makes it sound more legitimate right) which has
since been debunked as a 4chan prank on the intelligence community:

[1] CNN [http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/donald-trump-
intellig...](http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/donald-trump-intelligence-
report-russia/index.html)

[2] BuzzFeed with source of "dossier"
[https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-
allege-t...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-trump-
has-deep-ties-to-russia?utm_term=.uvn9vAjp1#.wpDMAn3l9)

[3] 4chan talking about Rick Wilson + dossier back in november
[https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/95568919/#95571329](https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/95568919/#95571329)

Now, NYT themselves did not run this story. But the vast majority of "main
stream media" runs stories with a narrative - or as Trump himself put it - a
"tone". They insist that Trump must be wrapped in controversy, and every
article I come across from NYT, CNN, MSNBC, WaPo all insist on including a
negative tone; or at the very least, emphasizing facts that make Trump seem
negligent, stupid, arrogant or malevolent. In my opinion, it's them who have
forfeited ethics. Tell me, how exactly is Trump doing something "new and very
dangerous"? How should he respond to constant negativity? Even he himself is
not asking for positive propaganda - he just wants neutral, honest media
reporting. He has told CNN in a press conference that he'd be their greatest
fan if they would report honestly.

~~~
KZeillmann
First of all, the dossier was put together by former MI6 agent Christopher
Steele and wasn't just some 4chan prank.

How do you suggest the NYT, CNN, WaPo react to actions that seem to come from
a place of incompetence or malevolence? When Trump rolls out an
unconstitutional EO that seemed barely vetted by the Attorney General's
office, how should the NYT paint that in such a way that Trump is depicted as
competent?

When Trump and Spicer repeat falsehoods that anyone with a pair of eyes can
refute (inauguration crowd size) or that has zero evidence behind it
whatsoever (3-5 million illegal votes, Obama wiretapping Trump), how should
the WaPo react to these lies?

When the president's campaign is under investigation by the FBI for potential
collusion with a foreign government, and Rep. Schiff says there is 'more than
circumstantial evidence', how should CNN report this?

It's laughable and a little bit sad that people think that Trump is more
honest than the MSM.

~~~
goldenkey
US Code 1182 (f)

Suspension of entry or imposition of restrictions by President

Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of
aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the
United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem
necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as
immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions
he may deem to be appropriate. Whenever the Attorney General finds that a
commercial airline has failed to comply with regulations of the Attorney
General relating to requirements of airlines for the detection of fraudulent
documents used by passengers traveling to the United States (including the
training of personnel in such detection), the Attorney General may suspend the
entry of some or all aliens transported to the United States by such airline.

[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1182](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1182)

~~~
KZeillmann
Sure, the president has the authority to impose restrictions on immigration,
but not by imposing a religious test, which would violate the establishment
clause.

~~~
goldenkey
I agree but there is no religious test. The countries on the list are from
Obama's State Dept recommendations due to terror threats.

------
snikeris
Does every NY Times article mention President Trump?

~~~
Pfhreak
Nope. (A casual glance through their front page finds several articles that do
not.)

~~~
gotchange
I think that was rhetorical.

~~~
Pfhreak
Indeed. But it was also ridiculous. So I went with the equally ridiculous,
overly wan, and dry response.

~~~
gotchange
Kill 'em with kindness.

On a more serious note, I don't see Trump's mentions in the article to be
unwarranted at all. On the contrary, they're very appropriate given his
divisive rhetoric about the news media, and I believe that the author was very
measured and reserved with his reporting.

It is not like he went out of his way to take a jab at him. The references
were all on topic and informative.

Nothing really to complain about here.

