SavetheNews.us

Traffic. Crime. Marijuana clubs. Budget coverage in  the City Hall meetings.

These all are topics in a news meeting on a  Wednesday morning in the Public Press office in downtown San Francisco. Is there anything new in  the topics? Anything that the leading daily in the city,  the San Francisco Chronicle, wouldn’t cover?

Not really. Regardless, the Public Press wants to create something new: a daily, local, ad-free newspaper that is run by a non-profit organization based in San Francisco.

“A reader-centric, non-commercial newspaper, not focused on serving advertisers’ needs but serving the community”, says Michael Stoll, the founder of the Public Press.

For example, the prevailing newspapers have a lot of supplements that are serving advertisers, not readers, he says. He gives some examples: “There are sections about high-end luxury goods, that ordinary people can’t afford. There is a real estate section that is almost entirely about home sales in the newspaper in San Francisco, in a city where two thirds of the people rent. Why do they concentrate on home sales, when most of the potential readers are renters?” he asks.

Newspapers do that to attract advertisers, says Stoll. But instead of focusing on advertisers’ needs, the Public Press wants to cover topics that matter to the readers.

“Public policy and social issues. Labor related topics, like prevailing wages. Price of milk. Commuting”, Stoll lists the topics that the Public Press wants to cover.

The Public Press is not interested in emotion-based or sensationalist coverage, stories for the sake of storytelling, or stories based only on individual experience.

The Public Press is one in an array of the local or hyperlocal news initiatives in the US. For example, there’s MinnPost in Minneapolis, GothamGazette in New York, Crosscut in Seattle, The New Haven Independent, and Voice of San Diego.

They are all local non-profit initiatives focused on local news, sustained by donations, grants, some of them also by advertisements, with a mission to do “journalism that matters”. Yet what the Public Press is doing might be something unique, since the goal is to start publishing a print paper. The other initiatives mentioned above are available only online.

Why a printed newspaper? Isn’t everything online these days?

“There is still a digital divide in the US. There are a lot of people who have limited or no access to digital platforms. As a result, if you are limiting journalism just to the digital realm, those people will be left without the information they need to become active and informed citizens”, Stoll says.

He lists more reasons: People want to be unplugged too, since so many things are online these days. He also believes that there is a business opportunity for selling information on paper. He points out, 50 million newspapers are still being sold a day in the US.

“If there is still life left in the newspaper do we want to abandon it to the mega corporations that have taken over almost every newspaper in this country? Or do we want to take it back as journalism community and the local community and return some semblance of an idea of accountability to the public?”

Also, Stoll believes that hyperlocal content doesn’t work online that well, and therefore a printed newspaper can be more attractive locally.

“If your goal is to create a community and provide a forum for ideas and events, the Web is not necessarily the right medium to do that. Newspaper may be a better way because it is more visible in the local level.”

The Public Press, like the other local initiatives, embrace the community as an important part in making the news. Stoll says that is not often the case with the traditional media.

Traditionally, the readers cannot suggest changes to the format or content, talk with the journalists, or have much ability to discuss or debate the news, beyond maybe writing a Web comment or a letter to the editor, he says.

Stoll believes that a mission-driven organization like the Public Press is more likely to take an approach to serve the public than a profit-driven organization.

“This sense of duty toward public accountability tends to affect the coverage and guide it toward stories the mainstream media might miss. This is because we are in communication with a broad and diverse audience”, he says.

The Public Press wants to redesign the structure of newspaper. For example, the front page should have a clear, bird’s eye view, a comprehensive index of the stories available to the reader. That way, the reader doesn’t need to browse through the whole paper in order to find what there is.

Stoll sees financial advantages in redesigning the newspaper. For example, the size of the paper can be diminished, as the ads are not there to take space. Also the printing costs can go down.

“When you can change the business model you are able to change the design, the economics, and the reader experience. Maybe you can win back some of the readers who have abandoned the printed paper because it is too inconvenient and it doesn’t fill their needs.”

The Public Press started publishing content in March this year, and the content is currently available online for free. When the Public Press turns into a daily newspaper, it will be financed by membership payments. From memberships the Public Press wants to create a sustainable business model for a newspaper.

The membership gives the reader, or member, more rights than a traditional subscription model, where the reader remains pretty passive. Members could vote, for example, for candidates for the board of directors, and get benefits such as discounts from partner organizations, for example museums and book stores.

The Public Press website had 3 800 unique visitors in July, and the content is produced mainly by volunteers. The non profit is functioning now on donations and on a grant from the San Francisco Foundation.

The concept of the Public Press sounds great: Journalism that matters to the readers, communities get involved, the city hall has its watchdog, and no annoying ads in the paper. Nevertheless, how is the Public Press going succeed? Where are they going to get the money from?

“We want to be the Howard Dean campaign for journalism, meaning aggregating a lot of small scale donations”, Stoll says.

Howard Dean, a politician, pioneered in raising campaign dollars as small scale donations when he was running for democratic presidential nominee in 2004. Barack Obama followed this practice in his campaign last year.

Yet, the business model of the Public Press has been tested in the US for decades. Its business model can be seen as a combination of National Public Radio’s local broadcasting stations and non-profit magazines’.

“The local broadcasting station gives out its product for free but relies on about 10 percent of its audience to pay a small donation, because they believe it is a unique service. In addition, the Consumer Report magazine has been non profit and advertising free for 70 years”, Stoll says.