Helping pay for the News
Last week Torstar corporation and Post Media corporation completed a cynical deal to close down each others papers, eliminating 300 direct jobs in the process. In Kingston, they closed down the Heritage and Frontenac Gazette before the deal was even announced to the public.
But even drastic measures such as these don’t change the fact that corporate newspaper ‘products’ that serve smaller markets with a combination of very limited local content other content that is available elsewhere.
At the Frontenac News we have a different corporate ethic. We are similar to the other independent papers in our region, such as the Lanark Era and Rideau Review Mirror to the east, and the Tweed News to the west, but we are not subscription based as they are.
We are a free weekly paper, delivered to all households in the areas that we serve.
We developed in this way because we were founded as a not-for-profit paper whose stated purpose was to knit diverse communities together to help them to work together in the face of modern pressures, and it was important to the founders of the paper to get important information to the entire community. A free paper, delivered to every household, was and still is the best way to do that.
As The Frontenac News has developed as a for profit independent paper over the last 16 years, with a commitment to serving all of Frontenac County, Addington Highlands and the western edge of Lanark County, some things have changed for us, but one thing that has not, is our commitment to the communities we serve.
Our circulation, which is now up to 12,500, serves our advertisers well, and until now they have been covering all of the costs associated with preparing and distributing this newspaper each week
We are now attempting to alter that somewhat.
We are introducing some crowd funding into our business model as we take the next step towards better and more complete coverage of news and events in our region, using the weekly paper and our web services (frontenacnews.ca and frontenac-live.ca) as well as our social media feeds.
We are asking readers who feel they get value from the Frontenac News and can afford to help out by paying any amount they would like to pay.
The level of support is up to individuals to determine. As a token, we are preparing to provide early access to a .pdf version of the paper as soon as it goes to the printers early on Wednesday mornings to any who donates. For those providing $50 or more, we are also offering a 20 word classified ad as a thank you.
We have not asked for support for a number of years, and we are doing it now in order to invest in more news stories about more communities, and to maintain the only professional coverage of municipal politics that is available for the townships of Addington Highlands, and North, Central and South Frontenac.
We can accept money in many ways, via cash, cheque, credit card, debit payment in our office, Interac payment, etc.
We also have registered online at patreon.com/frontenacnews which accepts monthly payment.
We feel we are heading into a new age for news organisations such as ours. In the coming months and years, small DIY newspapers are bound to spring up in markets that are not being well served by the corporate media companies. Just like local food, local beer and cider, local news, with its share of quirks and oddities, is going to be the next new thing.
We look forward to our readers response to this request.
