Free State Wyoming (FSW) Promotional > Marketing and Media Coverage of Free State Wyoming (FSW)
Start yer own newspaper!
Paul Bonneau:
I noticed there is a Keene Free Press. I contacted the editor, Kat Dillon, and she pointed me to a discussion about starting your own pro-freedom newspaper. She also promises to be a good source of information for startups.
I have been interested in this lately because the Cody Enterprise is so statist, and because I've heard so many people in the area complain about it. I've had an idea there is a market opportunity there, so I'm thinking about starting up a weekly newsletter, both print and website.
If there are any Cody area folks on board here who might be interested in this, let me know. And let's talk about getting some newsletters and newspapers going elsewhere, too.
Does anyone know of any open source software that can put together a newletter pdf file and files that printers can use to print a newsletter? I have to ask Kat what she's using...
Richard:
Hey Paul,
glad you brought this up. I am interested in the same type of thing. She mentioned on that forum post that she uses MS word even though there is probably something better. She says they print 5,000 copies which only costs about $375. That seems amazingly low compared to what I would think. I guess printing on newsprint is a lot cheaper than normal printing. I've been using abiword for windows as opposed to openoffice or microsoft word. It's open source. You should be able to find a PDF distiller that lets you print from any program to a PDF file.
archy:
--- Quote --- She mentioned on that forum post that she uses MS word even though there is probably something better.?
--- End quote ---
Every newspaper I've worked for or around since 1988 used Adobe Pagemaker, which is pretty painless and simple enough that even sports writers can use it. Last I noticed, they're up to around Version 7.0 now:
http://www.adobe.com/products/tips/pagemaker.html
--- Quote --- She says they print 5,000 copies which only costs about $375.? That seems amazingly low compared to what I would think.? I guess printing on newsprint is a lot cheaper than normal printing.?
--- End quote ---
It is if you've got a web-fed press or printer. They're getting large-format digital printers developed for graphic and cartographic work that offer very interesting possibilities for a local newspaper; particularly one in a tabloid format. HP offers their web/roll fed HP Indigo Press W3200 http://www.printingtalk.com/news/hew/hew100.html and I think Kodak has something similar. I'm certainly no expert or RKI on the printing end of the newspaper biz, but I did take a look at some of the equipment available to get a storefront newspaper [usually a giveaway *shopper* tab] or localized magazine off the ground; real estate and auto dealerships are all over the things. A couple of us had the bright idea of setting up a small-town daily paper in a town of but 700 folks, then selling it off to a chain in a couple of years after the inevitable Editor & Publisher and WSJ stories about the smallest town in the USA with a daily rag.
The REAL trick would be to have one coincidental with an online version newspaper, with more frequent updates and editions. And if the customer wants 10 extra copies of the edition with the pic of little Johnny winning the spelling bee on Page One, it's as easy to crank out even that short a press run.
Newsprint costs have more than doubled over the last decade or so, but a northern Wyoming-based outfit might get a reasonably localized deal from Alberta Newsprint http://www.albertanewsprint.com/ And my old boss is now running a weekly rag in Texas; I bet he knows where the best deal on newsprint can be found.
FYI, Bismarck, ND and Casper are Lee chain newspapers. Take a good look at what they're doing *the old way* too...both right, and wrong.
PaulWy:
I have been working on this idea for a few years now, with the thought of starting a small local newspaper of the opinions and ads variety. I have limited journalism experience in college newspaper writing and mid-market broadcast news, but that was a long time ago.
In spite of the dire state of traditional newspapers, small local niche papers have taken off. I often find new and very targeted papers popping up everywhere I go. Of course, I always get a copy for my archives. I don't know how financially profitable these papers are, but people must have some reason to keep starting and publishing them.
I see several decisions to be made about how to build such a newspaper:
internet only, printed only, or a combination
published daily, weekly, monthly, ad hoc
editorial only versus news and editorial
local only versus local and state/national
direct competition with existing paper or exploiting a niche
advertiser supported versus paid subscription
distributed by mail, paper carrier, local public places
I found a couple of newspaper trade groups. The American Newspaper Association is 'exclusive', too exclusive for even traditional Wyoming papers. The National Newspaper Association is much more open. They accept as members even occasional and online-only newspapapers. Annual dues could be just a few hundred dollars. Best of all, this association seems like the standard trade group for Wyoming's traditional newspapers. Join the NNA and watch the incumbent players bite their tongue because it is harder to bad-mouth a member of the same association that 'legitimizes' themselves.
I haven't researched the Wyoming Press Association, but understand they are active in press freedom and open government meetings work.
I have thought that entry could be pretty easy. Perhaps just an online paper for a while, then start printing a small run and distributing in local stores. Sell ads, start distributing by mail, print in color.
In terms of working with like-minded Wyoming newspapers, I noticed Wyoming's traditional newspapers have a consortium for reprinting each others' classified ads. Perhaps we could also share editorial and print other areas' local news when it has a broader interest.
The difference between a blog and a newspaper is a matter of how many hands are involved. A newspaper does not just cover one person's interests, polishes the writing more than a blog, and has an organizational consistency to it. Unfortunately, that means the one-person newspaper doesn't seem viable.
If you don't have a mega-budget to hire a dozen people to produce the paper, what can you do? Perhaps you can find someone who wants to edit or fact check or layout the paper. Believe it or not, not everyone wants to write but would still want to contribute. As a bonus, the writer may need to be local, but the rest of the staff can be anywhere. Five different newspaper can share an editor. Stuck in Colofornia for a few more years? Why not accept fact-checking assignments. It is a way to join in and contribute without even being here. As more of a community project than a business venture, the staff can even self-finance.
Here are the job functions I have thought of:
publisher
editor
writer
fact-checker
layout
display ad sales
classified ad sales
computer support
Remember that the newspapermen say "Whose bread I eat his song I sing." Watch out for your integrity. If you just do this for money you will end up another sell-out and then a fail-out. If you have better reasons you may also make a living.
I don't know if all this makes sense or not. I really don't know much about newspapers, and welcome all efforts to educate me on the subject. If we discuss this we can probably figure things out better than any of us could on our own.
If you are going to be at the Jam, I will bring my collection of newspapers and maybe we can talk about how this could work.
Paul
Lady Liberty:
--- Quote from: archy on May 02, 2006, 01:39:33 PM ---
--- Quote --- She mentioned on that forum post that she uses MS word even though there is probably something better.
--- End quote ---
Every newspaper I've worked for or around since 1988 used Adobe Pagemaker, which is pretty painless and simple enough that even sports writers can use it. Last I noticed, they're up to around Version 7.0 now:
http://www.adobe.com/products/tips/pagemaker.html
--- End quote ---
MS Word will do in a pinch, but is strongly not recommended. Its limitations are legion. MS Publisher is even worse. Though it has fewer layout limitations, its compatibility is extremely limited. Publisher is best left to the garage-sale-flyer publishing folks. :-\
Pagemaker is an old standard, but most printers, magazines, and newspapers are using Quark these days (often in combination with Illustrator). For the record, most of the folks I've talked with use Quark because that's what the company has, and they hate it. I've never used it and can't personally say anything either good or bad about it (though the most common complaint I hear concerns its inability to paginate). At my company, we use FreeHand which is something of a combination of Pagemaker/Quark/Illustrator in that it can do multiple pages, page lay-outs, and drawing for those who can draw (I can't).
Virtually any printer from your own desktop to the biggest publishers will take a pdf file. They may (or may not) need you to run your pdf files through Distiller first, but if they do, they'll provide you with the settings. Most softwares will convert their own native files to pdf (either via a "save as" or an "export as" or a "print as" function). Beware the pdf settings ? they do matter! And if you can't control the settings via your software, you need better software (seriously ? the settings are far too important not to be able to manipulate).
If you're just playing around, anything that'll typeset will work. Your home printer, if it's halfway decent, will print out a good enough master for reproduction; a pdf file can be e-mailed to a printer.
If you truly want a professional publication, it's going to cost you the money to get professional quality software. My own recommendations for the serious publisher:
Page layout/typesetting: FreeHand
Graphics/photo work/line drawing: FreeHand or Illustrator; and PhotoShop
Art service (we're very fond of Clipart.com, and at under $200 a year, it's a real bargain)
and
Web publishing: Dreamweaver
These programs aren't cheap, but they're very, very good. Y
ou'll also need a good editor/proofreader and a good designer (anybody with a computer can "publish;" to make it look good takes a designer) irrespective of your reporters, your "theme" (if any), and etc. And the gods know if you're buying this kind of software and paying an editor, you're going to need sales reps! :D
Good luck! I think it would be a helluva thing for some FSW folks to get into the newspaper biz in WY!
And for the record ? if there's a serious effort undertaken, I'd like to submit my r?sum?. 8)
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